Reasons for the Low Number of Women in Parliaments - Essay Example

? Reasons for the relatively low number of women in parliaments Introduction “Women constitute half of the world’s population and comprise 50% of theworld labour force; yet decision making and priority setting continue to be in the hands of men”(Fogg, 2006, p.24). “Worldwide women hold just below 16% of all parliamentary seats” (Tremblay & Galligan, 2005, p.1) (See Appendix for some details with respect to country wise and region wise statistics). In some of the largest democratic countries like India, the women representation in parliament is negligible. India is the second most heavily populated country in the world and more over the largest democratic country in the world. However, even after 60 years of independence, Indian parliament failed to give the proper representation to the women community in India. India was ruled by only once by a women prime minister: Mrs. Indira Gandhi. The current Indian president and parliament speaker are females. Even then the representation of women in Indian parliament is negligible at present. The cases are not different even in some of the highly developed democratic countries like UK and USA. In UK, only 18% of the total parliamentary seats hold by the women. There are many social, cultural and political reasons for the underrepresentation of women in the parliament. “The arguments in favour of increasing women’s participation in politics rely on 3 principles: Firstly, on democratic justice, secondly, on resource utilisation and thirdly, on interest representation” (Aggio, 2001, p.3). Neither the God, nor the nature never ever asked the human to treat the women community in a different manner. In fact the dominant male community using their superior muscle power suppressed the weaker female community needs. It is impossible to the current word to develop properly if we neglect the contributions of the half of our population; the women community. Moreover, only the females know their requirements better than the males and hence their representation is necessary in the law making bodies like parliament in order to protect their rights. This paper briefly analyses the reasons for the underrepresentation of women in parliaments and the possible measures to improve the level of presence of women in parliament. Reasons for the underrepresentation of the women in parliament The reasons for the underrepresentation of women in politics can be understood in the case of totalitarian or autocratic countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, North Korea or Cuba. However, it is difficult to believe that even in democratic countries, the representation of women in the political decision making bodies or parliament are negligible. “Democracy cannot afford to be gender blind” (Fogg, 2006, p.24). Democracy ensures equal opportunities to all in principles; however these principles often stay on papers alone. India, one of the largest democracies in world, recently tried to ensure at least 33% of women representation in Parliament. An ordinance was presented in the parliament in order to ensure at least 33% women participation in parliament; however, the stiff resistance from some of the prominent political parties and fundamentalists prevented the Indian parliament form passing such an ordinance. From the above descriptions, it is clear that one of the major reasons for underrepresentation of women in parliament is the male domination in the society. Even though, in principles, most of us agree the ideas of giving equality to the women; however, when it comes to practice, most of the male community object it. By nature, the male community has a dominant attitude towards the female community. For men, the responsibilities of the females are limited to the boundaries within walls of the home. The above belief has changed slightly in recent times and many of the females started to work in offices and other professional organizations just like men. Many feminists’ movements contributed heavily to bring the women out of the walls of the home. Even then, male community still has doubts about the capabilities of women in taking critical decisions and they deliberately do everything possible to block women from entering the decision making bodies like parliament. The Conservative victory at the 1979 General Election brought about another "first" when the Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher became the first British woman Prime Minister having led the Conservative Party since February 1975. However, at the same time, the 1979 election returned the lowest number of women MPs for nearly thirty years. Only one other woman held Cabinet office during the time that Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister (Women in the House of Commons, 2010, p.5) From the above statistics, it is clear that Britain was ruled by only one female prime minister in its history. Moreover, Margaret Thatcher, the only female who succeeded in becoming the prime minister of Britain, appointed only one women minister in her cabinet. In other words, even a female prime minister of Margaret Thatcher’s calibre, had not shown any confidence in the abilities of females in political matters. In short, even among females, the confidence in participating actively in politics is less. Even women did not entrust the capabilities of their female colleagues. Stereotyping is visible in every areas of human life at present and politics is also not an exception. Most of the people, irrespective males or females possess a feeling that women are incapable of taking sound political decisions which prevent the females from showing many interests in politics. The particular inflexibility of Parliament creates barriers to women's equal participation. As politicians, they have all of the usual problems of balancing domestic commitments with employment, but these problems are compound by the structure of Parliament. It is difficult enough as a working mother to find time to give to one's children after work, but almost impossible to do so when the working day does not end until very late in the evening. Parliament is not a flexible institution and makes few concessions to women with children (McRae, 1990, p.344). In most of the other workplaces, women are getting some concessions because of their genetic peculiarities. For example, maternity leave is allowed to women everywhere and moreover working mothers with infants are getting some relaxation in duty times in some of the organizations. Such flexibility is not possible women MP’s in their parliamentary jobs. Since an MP represents and argues for the needs of thousands of people, he/she should be present in the parliament all the time when the parliament assembles for law making or policy making. Women MP’s cannot stay away from parliament or take leave for looking after their children. The public will never forgive to the MP’s who deliberately stay away from the parliament procedures. Thus the complex nature of parliament procedures is one of the major reasons which force the females from contesting in the parliament elections. “Being a Member of Parliament is to hold a very visible form of power, and power and femininity are often seen as incompatible” (McRae, 1990, p.344). Women are more interested in professions which give them opportunity for making friendship and socializing. Genetically, women are incapable of doing jobs which are physically or mentally tough. They always like to avoid headaches and ready to stay away from difficult jobs. Parliament procedures are not jokes and it is difficult for the women MP’s to take the MP profession lightly. There are a range of cultural and economic factors that have been shown to affect the level of women’s representation internationally, ranging from the level of secularism and the length of time that women have had the vote, to rates of female participation in paid employment and levels of state provision of childcare. Yet political factors, such as party ideology, electoral system and candidate selection rules, are clearly crucial (Gender and Minority Representation in Parliament, 2010) Some cultures do not allow women in actively participating in politics. For example, Islam is generally believed as a male dominated religion. Islamic fundamentalist like the Taliban in Afghanistan or the Saudi administration will never allow Muslim females to enter the politics actively. Muslims constitute a major share of the global population and their reluctance in allowing females to enter politics is another reason for the underrepresentation of females in parliament. In most of the democratic countries like India, Pakistan etc, Muslims constitute a substantial portion of the population. But the religious beliefs or customs prevent Muslim females in these countries from entering the politics. Measures to improve the women presence in parliament The general awareness of the public with respect to the abilities of the females needed to be changed in order to ensure better participation of the females in parliament or politics. The public should realize that the rights of both males and females are equal and it is necessary to protect both. Only the females can fight for the protection of rights and for that purpose their presence in parliament is unavoidable. In order to ensure enough women presence in the parliament more women should come forward for actively participating in politics. Social agencies and feminist movements can play a vital role in encouraging more females to participate in politics. In the United Kingdom, before the elections, all political parties hotly debated the use of “all-women shortlists”. This is a practice whereby a number of local constituency parties must select their candidates from a list of female aspirant candidates. Only the Labour Party endorsed this practice, which was in large part responsible for the highest number of women ever being elected in the United Kingdom - 128, surpassing the previous high of 120 in 1997 (Women in parliament in 2005: the year in perspective, 2005, p.4) Another major measure needed to be taken for ensuring women presence in parliament is the introduction of reservation bill. All the democratic countries should pass an ordinance for reserving 50% or more of the total parliament seats to the women candidates. All the political parties should reserve 50% of their candidature to women. 50% of the parliament constituencies should be reserved for women candidate in order to ensure the 50% women representation in the parliament. In order to avoid continual representation of women by a particular parliament constituency, in each election, the reservation constituencies should be changed. Argentina has taken steps to increase women’s participation in politics. In 1991, established that 30% of the candidate list for the Chamber of Deputies had to be women. As a consequence of the measure, the percentage of women deputies has increased from 5,44% in 1991/93 to 27% in 1995/97 (Aggio, 2001, p.1) Social and economical developments, political will, cultural development etc can also improve the women representation in parliament. Political parties should make conscious efforts to improve the women representation in the parliament. The social or cultural perception about the role of women in the society should be changed drastically in order to encourage women to think more seriously in terms of contesting in the parliament elections. Women should achieve more economic freedom and stability in order to boost their chances in politics. The dominant male community isolates women from politics because of the non-productivity of women in economic matters. Acquiring more economic independence will definitely help women to participate more in politics. Conclusions Even in highly developed and civilized democratic countries, the women representation in parliament is not adequate. On one side, the male community deliberately isolate women community from entering the law making bodies such as parliament; on the other side women show less interest in entering politics because of social, economical, cultural and religious reasons. Adequate women representation in parliament can be ensured only by reserving 50% or more parliament seats for the women community. The social and cultural outlooks about the abilities of women should be changed in order to encourage women more in participating in politics and contesting elections. References 1. Aggio, C. (2001). Lady Leaders’. The Case of Quotas for Women’s Representation in Argentina. [Online] Available at: http://www.onlinewomeninpolitics.org/beijing12/argentinawip.pdf [Accessed on 23 January 2011] 2. Fogg K (2006). Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers. Publisher: International Idea; 2nd edition (May 1, 2006) 3. Gender and Minority Representation in Parliament, (2010). Political Insight. [Online] Available at: http://www.politicalinsightmagazine.com/?p=488 [Accessed on 23 January 2011] 4. McRae, S. (1990). WOMEN AT THE TOP: THE CASE OF BRITISH NATIONAL POLITICS. Oxford journals. [Online] Available at: http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/3/341.full.pdf [Accessed on 23 January 2011] 5. Tremblay M & Galligan Y (2005). Sharing Power: Women, Parliament, Democracy. Publisher: Ashgate Publishing (July 30, 2005) 6. Women in the House of Commons, (2010). House of Commons Information Office Factsheet M4. [Online] Available at: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-information-office/m04.pdf [Accessed on 23 January 2011] 7. Women in parliament in 2005: the year in perspective, (2005). [Online] Available at: http://www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/wmn05-e.pdf [Accessed on 23 January 2011] Appendix Women in Parliament by region of the world in 2005 Region Lower house % Upper house % Combined % Nordic countries 40.1 - 40.1 Europe including Nordic countries 18.9 16.5 18.4 Americas 18.7 18.5 18.6 Europe excluding Nordic countries 16.8 16.5 16.8 Asia 15.1 13.5 15 Africa 14.9 14 14.8 Pacific 11.2 26.5 13.2 Arab states 6.7 5.6 6.5 Global average 15.8 14.7 15.7 (Fogg, 2006, p.25) Women representation in parliament in some of the prominent countries Country Women % representation in parliament Netherlands 36 Indonesia 11 Spain 36 Peru 18 UK 18 Canada 21 Hungary 10 Croatia 22 (Tremblay & Galligan, 2005, p.1) Read More