Role of women in society

Thirty-six states will hold governor’s elections next year, and Democrats have top female recruits in at least five states who are poised to be their party’s nominee and competitive in the general election. Coupled with the four female governors who are running for reelection – three Republicans and one Democrat – observers say 2014 could see gains for women as states’ top executives.

“This is a year of opportunity at the gubernatorial level,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

The National Council of Women in Fiji is embarking on a project that aims to increase the representation of women in politics in the lead-up to the elections promised for next year.

Its general secretary, Fay Volatabu, says it will work with the United Nations Democracy Fund to raise public awareness and train women as leaders.

Ms Volatabu says the new constitution is silent on the issue of women participating in politics, so it is up to the political parties to decide who they will nominate, and the public to who they are going to vote for.

When war erupts, women are often the first to experience the harsh brutality and the last to be called to the peace table. A resolution adopted today by the UN Security Council moves us one step closer to the full participation of women as leaders for peace and security. 

Due to the government shutdown and debt ceiling debate, Americans have paid particularly close attention to Congress and its members. This new attentiveness to the legislative branch has raised a valid observation: most members of Congress are men. That is why on Wednesday, Oct. 16, Rhode Island College hosted a discussion panel featuring local female politicians as part of its Congress to Campus program. 

No less than 35 percent of the newly elected MPs in Zimbabwe are women, thanks to a special electoral quota system to increase women's representation in Parliament. At age 29, Tionei Melody Dziva is the youngest of them. She has a strong desire to uplift the lives of women and youths.

Courtesy of the proportional representation of women in parliament, brought about by the new Zimbabwean constitution that came into effect in March this year, women's representation in the country's parliament more than doubled after the 31 July elections.

As Ontario's first female and first lesbian premier, Kathleen Wynne was an obvious choice for keynote speaker at the Leadership Summit for Women.

Addressing the (almost entirely) female crowd, she shared her personal experiences in politics — as a woman, as a lesbian, and as a mom.

Ruth Colian was that close to becoming the first ultra-Orthodox woman to run for Petah Tikva city council in Tuesday’s municipal election. But she fell a few dozen signatures short of the number required to register as a new political party when the deadline rolled around last month. So now she’s taking her political activism to another battleground: the courts.

Four decades after the election that shattered the glass ceiling for women in the Minnesota Legislature, gender equality is still elusive at the state Capitol.

Women hold 34 percent of the 201 seats in the Legislature, giving Minnesota the fourth-highest share of female state lawmakers in the nation.

But as the candidate recruiting season intensifies a year before the 2014 election, more men than women step forward to run, and female candidates still face more barriers than their male counterparts.

In a state infamously governed by “three men in a room,” three women want to take the helm of upstate cities.

Rochester and Albany can elect their first female mayors in November, when Lovely Warren and Kathy Sheehan will lead the Democratic ticket in the respective cities. In Syracuse, Stephanie Miner became that city’s first woman mayor four years ago and is seeking re-election without a major-party opponent.

If they’re elected, it would mark a historic first for New York: Three of its six largest cities would have women in the mayor’s office.