Women and Politics

This post was submitted by Jean Qiao, WCF Communications Fellow

It is no secret that women today are struggling to achieve equality in all aspects of life, especially in political participation.

What better day than International Women’s Day to highlight the achievements and setbacks in the political arena that women from around the world have faced? But to go through every country and analyze every single issue that women are facing would leave you and I with quite a heavy heart (and would take pretty much all day to read and write!). Instead, I give you three countries and their achievements/setbacks for women:

1. Sweden
Achievements: Sweden ranks 2nd in the world in the amount of women in national parliaments. As elections are held every 4 years, the latest data from the 2006 election show that women make up 47% of the parliament, making Sweden one of the most gender-balanced governments in the world. Today Sweden continues to be a world leader in women’s parliamentary representation. Sweden is expected to have their next election on September 19th, 2010. Let’s hope 2010 is the final push to 50% representation.
Setbacks: Unfortunately, this gender-balance has not been the easiest process for women in Sweden. Before 1972, women were only 14% of the Swedish parliament. In 1972 the Liberal Party in Sweden recognized the importance of involving women in politics and therefore mandated a minimum quota of 40%. In addition, the recent world-wide economic downturn has had negative effects for women as they are less likely to consider running for political office during times of economic pressure.

2. Iraq
Achievements: How convenient that the Iraqi elections were just two days ago, giving myself and all of the other bloggers out there an opportunity to jump at the chance to write about this event. According to the Iraqi constitution, at least one quarter of the Iraqi parliament must be women. This year there was a record amount of women on the ballot: Over 2,000 women were listed out of 6,000 candidates; kudos to Iraq for mandating these requirements. While exact numbers of women who went to the polls on Sunday have not been released yet, it definitely seems that Iraqi women this year are finally realizing that having women in the parliament is the best way to have their interests represented.
Setbacks: A forced quota does not necessarily translate to greater power. Men are more likely to be nominated to higher positions in the parliament therefore given far more power in decision-making. Extreme violence prevented many people from reaching the polls yesterday. In addition, women living in rural areas faced exigent circumstances on Election Day:

“Young women from a village in Diyala province told RFI that many women in rural areas were being told that they were not allowed to leave their house to participate in the elections. They added that the male members of many households had collected the voter registration cards of all the women in their family, and planned to cast ballots on behalf of their female relatives, in addition to their own”

3. The United States
Achievements: Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court saw the confirmation of its first Latina and third woman, Sonia Sotomayor. And thanks to the strong women in the U.S. Congress, the Nelson-Hatch amendment—which if passed would have placed serious restrictions on women’s reproductive freedoms—was struck down in the Senate last December.
Setbacks: The United States ranks 84th in the world in the number of women participating in our national legislature. Yes, we are lagging behind both Afghanistan and Cuba. To make matters worse, our female candidates continue to face sexism and double standards in every way possible. No wonder women must be asked an average of SIX times before they consider running for office. Furthermore, the extreme gender gap is why legislators such as Bart Stupak are able to keep trying to take away women’s reproductive freedoms.

Today we can celebrate how far women have come in many countries and across man fields—but we must also acknowledge the tremendous amount of work we have yet to do for women to truly achieve equality across the board.