Women in politics: For the first time in 20 years, their progress is stagnating

Women in politics: For the first time in 20 years, their progress is stagnating
Women in politics: For the first time in 20 years, their progress is stagnating
Article information
  • Author, Vibeke Venema, Stephanie Hegarty et Leoni Robertson
  • Role, BBC 100 Women
  • 9 minutes ago

Nearly half the world’s population experienced elections this year, but progress in women’s representation has stalled. In 60% of countries where the results are known, the number of women in parliament has decreased.

In India, the United States, , Portugal, Indonesia, South Africa and 21 other countries, new parliaments have fewer women than outgoing parliaments. For the first time in its history, the European Parliament has fewer women.

In one country, women were excluded outright.

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Puakena Boreham was Tuvalu’s third female MP – she spent eight years as the only woman in the 16-member parliament. But this year, she lost her seat.

Towards the end of her term, she participated in a successful campaign to amend the constitution to make sex discrimination a crime.

As part of this campaign, she spoke in community meeting rooms where women are traditionally not allowed to speak, and she noticed men getting up and leaving.

“I think I paid the price for speaking out as a woman,” says Dr. Boreham. “When I realized that women would not be represented in the next four years, it hurt me. »

The Pacific Islands have the lowest proportion of female MPs in the world, at 8%. Globally, women represent 27% of parliaments, and only 13 countries are close to parity.

Women made gains in the United Kingdom, Mongolia, Jordan and the Dominican Republic, while Mexico and Namibia both elected their first female presidents. Currently, Latin America and parts of Africa are at the forefront of progress.

But since the first female parliamentarians were elected in Finland in 1907, progress toward equal representation has been slow. Between 1995 and 2020, the representation of women doubled worldwide, but progress has been slower over the past three years.

Given the diversity of countries, contexts, and political complexities at play, it is difficult to pin down the reasons why women fared poorly this year.

In some countries, such as Portugal, Pakistan and the United States, the number of female politicians has declined as their parliaments have shifted to the right. In these countries, right-wing parties have fewer women.

Where many more women have been elected – such as in the United Kingdom – the same dynamic is at work, but in the other direction.

In France, early elections worked to the disadvantage of candidates.

“When an election is perceived as having very high stakes, parties tend to nominate fewer candidates,” explains Réjane Sénac, specialist in gender and politics at Sciences Po.

This isn’t the case for all elections, but there are well-known obstacles to reaching 50/50.

“Women are less likely to wake up and think they would be good in leadership positions,” Rosie Campbell, professor of politics, said on International Women’s Day at King’s College London. “They often need to be encouraged: Have you thought about becoming an MP? »

This is exactly how Puakena Boreham entered politics. As an anesthesiologist, she saw first-hand that many Tuvaluans were losing their limbs to diabetes. A mentor told him the only way to solve the problem was to enter government.

“At first, there was a lot of resistance from the elders, mainly the men in my family, who thought that politics was not a woman’s role,” she explains.

Photo credit, UNDP

Image caption, Dr Puakena Boreham (centre) – then Tuvalu’s only female MP – with other women interested in increasing female representation.

In most societies, women still have more family responsibilities than men, which prevents them from entering politics, says Rachel George, an expert on gender and politics at Stanford University in the United States.

The fact that few parliaments offer maternity leave does not help matters.

Much research has shown that it is more difficult for women to access political campaign funding or have the financial freedom to take time off work to run.

None of these phenomena are recent. On the other hand, studies in many countries report an increase in attacks against women in public life, online and in person.

Last year, several high-profile women leaders left politics, citing increased harassment.

As a senator in Mexico, Indira Kempis faced extreme harassment and abuse that she says her male colleagues did not experience.

“I was threatened, I was politically persecuted and they attacked the integrity of my family, of my team. They were very violent.

Once, she was followed by armed men while she was driving her car and they threatened her on WhatsApp.

Someone sent anonymous messages about her to her husband, intending, she says, to destabilize her marriage. His family received threatening phone calls.

“They involve your family because they know that as women we are not irresponsible for the safety of others.

She suffered from seeing women participate in these attacks.

Today, when asked if it is difficult to be a woman in politics, she does not know what to answer.

“How do you tell a young woman that she will have to endure all of this? That she will have to enter a war from which I don’t know if she will come out alive? »

Photo credit, Getty Images

Image caption, Then-Senator Indira Kempis held up a sign mentioning transparency and anti-corruption measures.

“Swearing, insults and teasing have become so normalized online,” says Jang Hye-Yeong, who was one of South Korea’s youngest lawmakers until she lost her seat this year.

“Every time I appear on television, the channel gets protest calls, people say things like ‘Why are you featuring a feminist?’

Several times during her campaign, when she addressed women’s issues – equal pay or sexual harassment – she noticed that a couple would stop to listen, then the man would drag the woman away far away, sometimes suddenly.

“I was very aware that I had to prepare myself for a backlash.

Photo credit, Jang Hye-Yeong

Image caption, Jang Hye-Yeong campaigned for anti-discrimination law while in office.

As part of the MeToo movement in South Korea, several famous men have been accused of sexual harassment. Since then, the country has seen a backlash against feminism, with young men feeling like they are the victims of reverse discrimination.

According to Mariana Duarte Mutzenberg, head of the gender program at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), these issues have again been at the heart of this year’s elections, with some South Korean parties continuing to fuel or exploit anti-feminist sentiments among young people. men.

Ms. Jang’s party performed poorly this year, which no doubt contributed to its defeat, but she believes the backlash against feminism played a key role.

The elections were not disastrous for all female candidates in South Korea: the number of women in parliament increased slightly, from 19% to 20%. But the country remains well below the global average of 27%.

Carlien Scheele, who studies gender issues in the European Union at the European Institute for Gender Equality, explains that basic fairness aside, equal parliaments have benefits for everyone . She cites research that shows that gender-diverse groups make better decisions and that gender-diverse boards lead to higher profits – and could even improve a country’s GDP.

One of the most effective ways to achieve parity is to use women’s quotas – on average, countries without quotas elected 21% women compared to 29% with quotas.

Thanks to political will and a quota, Mexico reached parity in 2018 after powerful and popular former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ruled that parliament should be 50% women. This year, Mexico elected its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum.

But gaining power is only half the battle, says Indira Kempis, who was elected to the Senate in 2018. “I am a woman who wants to go into politics to have power. I say it openly because a lot of women feel embarrassed about it,” she explains.

She felt excluded from the meetings where the real decisions were made. “I had to impose myself. It’s like a boys’ club.”

She adds that she had to face discrimination from her male colleagues every day.

“They constantly tell you that you’re not good, that you’re not capable,” she adds. “A man once told me that if I was where I was, it was because of him.

According to Julie Ballington of UN Women, ministerial positions are a game-changer, but the representation of women is the lowest. “It’s dismaying, because these are appointed positions, and if there was political will, it would be easy to achieve parity,” she said.

Their research also found that women are typically confined to certain roles – in human rights, equality and social affairs rather than finance or defence, which are typically assigned to men.

This is a problem, says Rachel George. “When women are present, peace agreements are more likely to materialize and last.

Indira Kempis has the ambition to run for president. She claims her party did not support her because she is a woman – an accusation the party has denied. She resigned in protest.

She resigned in protest.

When I walked in, there were no young women telling me, “I want to be a senator.” When I left, there were a lot of them.”

In South Korea, Jang plans to run again. The same goes for Puakena Boreham in Tuvalu.

“Even if I don’t come back, women’s voices must be present,” she says.

Additional data analysis by Rebecca Wedge-Roberts of BBC Verify

Design by Raees Hussain

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