représentation

Female politicians are presented more negatively in the press than their male counterparts, and receive less coverage overall, a recent academic study has revealed.

The investigation analysed newspaper reports covering female MPs, using samples from the election years 1992, 2002 and 2012. The researchers dug through archives of papers to both the left and right of the political spectrum, including the Guardian, Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Mirror.

On June 23, a middle-aged male Japanese politician, dressed in the traditional dark suit and '80s-retro haircut, walked in front of a waiting line of news cameras, to where a younger female politician waited. As the cameras flashed, he apologized to the woman, and bowed deeply; she looked on gravely.

Turkey's first women-only party was established on June 26 after a group of women has submitted a petition to the Interior Ministry, allowing it to participate in parliamentary elections held in 2015.

The party demands the construction of democratic political parties, transparency in election laws and a reduction of the electoral threshold to 3 percent.

Benal Yazgan, the head of the Women Party Initiative stated that what they want is to take the initiative a step further and turn it into a political party.

Gender quotas have worked to increase the number of women getting elected in politics and should be looked at along with other measures to encourage women to become candidates, Northern Ireland MLA, Anna Lo of the Alliance Party told a Sinn Féin summer school at the weekend.