Women in Politics

Canada and the World

Current Events with a Canadian Perspective

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17 June 2011

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Women Seek Political Equality

The United Nations says that women begin to

achieve real equality with men when they

cross the threshold 40 percent of elected positions

In many countries of the developing world women are systematically oppressed and discriminated against. Women may not drive a car in Saudi Arabia; Oxfam says they make up 70 percent of the world’s people who live in extreme poverty are women; and, in some countries they are routinely exchanged into “compensation marriages” to seal agreements among clans.

Slow Progress toward Equality for Western Women

The oppression of females will likely continue until women gain a significant voice in elected bodies. But, the change will be glacially slow without outside help.

It has taken women in advanced democratic societies centuries to close the equality gap with men to its current state.

Until quite recently some extreme inequalities existed. As Sally Armstrong, author of the 2008 book Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan’s Women states, in Canada a man was legally allowed to beat his wife until 1968, and to rape her until 1983.

United States Agency for International Development

Some progress: in 2006 a quarter of the seats in Afghanistan’s Parliament were held by women.

The Canadian Labour Congress points out that as recently as the 1950s, job ads actually listed “men’s rates” and “women’s rates” of pay.

Women in Canada advanced their demands for greater equality through the political process. Women elsewhere are going to have to use the same tactic.

Gender Equality through the Political Process

Here’s how the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) puts it: “Women’s political participation is a fundamental prerequisite for gender equality and genuine democracy. It facilitates women’s direct engagement in public decision-making and is a means of ensuring better accountability to women.”

And, there is progress to report.

The numbers of women in national parliaments is increasing; between 1998 and 2008 the rise was eight percent to a global average of 18.4 percent. In the two decades after 1975, the increase in the number of female parliamentarians was only one percent.

However, that still means that women are outnumbered in legislatures by four to one. By the middle of 2009 only 17 heads of state or government were women; less than one percent of all national leaders.

Equality of Females in Dictatorships

The progress towards gender equality has been made mostly in democratic countries. Of the 193 countries recognized by the United Nations only 60 are listed by Freedom House as democracies.

There are no women in the parliaments of Qatar or Saudi Arabia. Not that their presence would make much difference in those Persian Gulf states because they are ruled by hereditary monarchs who have absolute power.

Nor does the small number of women in Zimbabwe’s House of Assembly have any influence over the country’s dictator, Robert Mugabe. If they did they would not allow Mugabe to use sexual violence as an election tactic.

In August 2008, the advocacy group AIDS-Free World reported that, “Zimbabwean women and girls have been subjected to gang rape, beatings, torture, and the threat of HIV infection in a campaign of violence by the ruling ZANU-PF party.”

Crossing the 40 percent Threshold to Equality

The hope is that democratic ideals will spread. UNIFEM says that really effective change starts to happen when women make up between 40 percent and 60 percent of elected representatives (currently, the figure for Canada is 24.7 percent).

This is what’s known as the “parity zone” that the Inter-Parliamentary Union says has only been reached in eight countries.

UNIFEM states that, “Countries with proportional representation electoral systems and with quotas can expect to reach the 40 percent threshold on average by 2026.” Those with a first-past-the-post system and no quotas, such as Canada, will take a good deal longer.

Sources

Human Rights Watch

Center for Democracy

“New Rights, and Challenges, for Saudi Women.” Andrew Lee Butters, Time Magazine, October 19, 2009

“Women in National Parliaments.” Inter-Parliamentary Union

VOA News: Rights Lawyers to Investigate Rape in Zimbabwe.” VOA News, August 7, 2008.

Women in Parliaments

FEMALE PARLIAMENTARIANS

Countries listing in descending order by the percentage of women in their national parliaments

Rwanda - 56.3%

Andorra - 53.6%

Sweden - 45.0%

South Africa - 44.5%

Cuba - 43.2%

Iceland - 42.9%

Finland - 42.5%

Norway - 39.6%

Belgium - 39 .3%

Netherlands - 39.3%

...

Yemen - 0.3%

Belize - 0%

Micronesia - 0%

Nauru - 0%

Oman - 0%

Palau - 0%

Qatar - 0%

Saudi Arabia - 0%

Solomon Island - 0%

Tuvalu - 0%

Source:

Interparliamentary Union

As of April 2011