Elections
It’s presidential campaign season in Senegal’s capital city and all over town the candidates’ faces beam down at voters from posters tacked to light poles and plastered on billboards. Eighteen people are running, and at times, their images seem to blend together: a sea of older men in dark, dour suits. But one face stands out.
In her pastel blue headwrap and green dress, Anta Babacar Ngom cuts a strikingly different figure. For one thing, at 40 years old she’s a generation younger than many of the other candidates. For another, she’s a she.
Although no one expects Ms. Ngom to become the next president, her presence in the race speaks to the increasingly forceful role of women in the politics of Senegal, which has one of the highest percentages of female legislators in the world.
Read here the full article published by The Christian Science Monitor on 22 March 2024.
Image source: The Christian Science Monitor
NEW DELHI: With more women participating in voting than ever before and even dominating political discourse within their households, they now find themselves at the forefront of various schemes and policies announced by political parties ahead of elections.
Aam Aadmi Party govt announced Mahila Samman Yojana in the budget, promising a monthly stipend of Rs 1,000 to women above 18 years of age, and proudly promotes their free travel in public buses.
Similarly, BJP recently launched the ‘Lakhpati Didi’ programme, aiming to make women financially self-reliant while promoting various other women-centric schemes implemented in recent years. This is perhaps the first time that BJP has fielded two women candidates in the capital.
Political analysts agree that with a higher voter turnout in parliamentary as well as assembly polls in recent elections, women will now drive the narrative ahead of all elections.
Click here to read the full article published by The Times of India on 18 March 2024.
Image source: The Times of India
Introduction
Over the last twenty years, the world has witnessed significant shifts towards greater gender equality in politics, which in turn has had positive implications for democracy and society at large.
Mexico has witnessed a systematic incorporation of gender perspective, equality, and parity in public life, signifying a transformation of women's ability to participate in the country's future. The prime example is the National Electoral Institute (INE) mandate, later ratified by the Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF), for political parties to guarantee gender parity in all upcoming gubernatorial elections of 2024: Chiapas, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos, Puebla, Tabasco, Veracruz, Yucatán, and Mexico City.
Unfortunately, as women's participation in politics rises, an increase in political violence that explicitly targets women has also occurred. The 2020-2021 electoral process was the most violent against Mexican women.
Mexico´s political system is awash with political violence that explicitly targets and affects women, obstructs social justice, and hinders democracy. The advances in female political participation have been met with resistance as men, territorial interest groups, and political elites seemingly feel threatened by increasing female power and respond with violent actions to uphold the traditional system of politics to deter women’s independent participation.
Read here the full article published by the Wilson Center on 13 March 2024.
Image source: Wilson Center
In our pursuit of gender equality, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) is committed to exposing the hurdles faced by women in local and regional politics. Our recently released report, “Women in Politics,” provides a visual snapshot of women’s representation in elected roles across subnational levels.
A detailed breakdown of portfolios at the local level underscores the challenges that persist. The infographics also unveil the outcomes of an anonymous CEMR survey involving 2,424 participants from 31 countries. Focused on elected women in local and regional European roles, the survey delves into their experiences of violence in the political realm. These findings shed light on a disturbing reality: violence against locally elected women is a prevalent issue that demands urgent attention.
“Empowering women at the local level is pivotal in our journey towards gender equality. The ‘Women in Politics’ report, accompanied by insightful infographics and a comprehensive survey, reflects our commitment to understanding and addressing gender inequalities. Together, through the power of grassroots movements, we can build a more inclusive and equitable future for all.” – CEMR President Gunn Marit Helgesen.
Read here the full article published by Euractiv on 8 March 2024.
Image source: Euractiv
Earlier this year, the IPU announced that around 70 elections were slated to take place in 2024, in what has been dubbed a super election year. In total, thousands of parliamentary seats are up for grabs. As of March 2024, women’s representation in parliament stands at just 26.9%. There was some progress in 2023 – 0.4 percentage points year on year, but progress has slowed compared to previous years.
Will that have changed by the end of this high-stakes election year?
The extent to which women's representation will improve in the countries that go to the polls in 2024 will depend on a variety of factors. But there are some steps that countries can take to advance progress.
IPU’s analyses over the years have shown that two factors play an influential role: the existence of well-designed quotas and the type of electoral system. Specifically, proportional representation and/or mixed electoral systems tend to enable a higher representation of women compared to plurality/majority systems.
According to the IPU's latest estimates, of the parliamentary chambers due to hold elections in 2024, 27 use PR/mixed systems, 24 use plurality/majority systems and 47 use some form of quotas.
Read here the full article published by the Inter-Parliamentary Union on 6 March 2024.
Image by IPU
In 1906, Finland became the first country in Europe to grant women the right to vote, with the adoption of universal suffrage, at the same time as it won its autonomy from the Russian Empire. The following year, Finnish women were able to exercise this right in the general elections. Throughout the twentieth century, women in Europe and around the world fought long and hard to gain the right to vote without any additional conditions to those required of men. In some countries, only widows were allowed to vote as a first step towards electoral emancipation (in Belgium, for example, until 1921). In other countries, such as Bulgaria, the right to vote was initially reserved for mothers of legitimate children and exclusively for local elections. In Portugal, only women with a university degree were allowed to vote from 1931 on. In Spain it was not until post-Franco democratisation and the 1976 elections that Spanish women regained the right to vote, initially acquired in 1931 before the civil war. This year France is celebrating the 80th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Cypriot women won the right to vote at the same time as their male counterparts when the Republic was created in 1960. This can be explained quite simply by the fact that, at that time, such discrimination could no longer be justified. So, it took a good part of the twentieth century to get there...
Read here the full article published by the Foundation Robert Schuman on 5 March 2024.
Image source: Foundation Robert Schuman
By Roudabeh Kishi
Attacks on women in politics are on the rise around the world. New data and research from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) reveal how physical violence targeting women in politics is creating dangerous – and at times lethal – obstacles to women’s participation in political processes. Even as women are engaging in elections in record numbers around the world – both by seeking office and by voting – they are being met with an increasingly violent backlash.
Over the course of 2020 and 2021, Mexico, Colombia, China, India, Brazil, Burundi, Myanmar, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Cuba top the list of the most violent countries in the world for women in politics. With rapidly evolving political situations as well as upcoming elections in many of these countries, the threat of violence targeting women in politics may only grow in the new year. Examining key trends from the latest political violence data for these countries will provide a glimpse of what to watch for in 2022 when it comes to the risks facing women in politics.
Click here to read the full article published by GIWPS on 28 January 2022.
According to Palestinian Central Elections Commission data, the first phase of the 2021 local council elections showed the extent of women candidates in competing lists. Results indicated that the percentage of women who won through voting in lists was 20.5% and the overall percentage in all local councils (voting and acclamation) was 21.8%, which reflects a slight increase in the percentage of the women’s quota. This points to the importance of the quota, which maintained the presence of women in local councils, especially since there are many councils in Bethlehem for example, which refused to present a list on the premise of their rejection of women’s participation.
As for youth participation, according to CEC data, the percentage of youth between the ages of 25-35 was 21.7%; between 36-45 the percentage was 27.4%, between 46-55 it was 28.6% and those above 55 was 22.3%. It should be noted that the age of youth, according to the UN, is between 18-29 while the candidacy age in Palestine is still at 25 for local councils. The closest percentage to this was 21.7% up to 35 years of age, which drops to 19.4% in councils where elections were held, followed by 24.5% for the 36-45 age bracket.
Click here to read the full report published by Miftah on 5 January 2022.
Abstract
Although female political representation in the Arab world has nearly doubled in the last decade, little is known about how voters in the region view female politicians and their political platforms, particularly in a new democracy like Tunisia. We conduct original conjoint and vignette survey experiments to examine the effects of candidate gender and gender- and leadership-congruent political platforms on voter support. Building on role congruity theory, we find evidence of bias against female candidates among voters, particularly among respondents who hold patriarchal gender norms. Additionally, we find that all respondents are more likely to prefer candidates who emphasize security issues rather than women’s rights. Overall, our study suggests that female candidates who emphasize issues congruent with stereotypes of political leadership, such as security, can increase voter support, though respondents also reward male candidates who appeal to leadership congruent issues.
Click here to access the paper published by Springer.
Abstract
Research on election violence often does not capture its psychological and gendered dimensions. Gender differences on the continuum of violence, as acknowledged in other fields, are applied here to election violence. Specifically, this article explores ways to unveil the forms of election violence that are hidden from the view of an external observer because they are either not carried out in public or not recognized as violence. Survey data and interview material was collected from men and women political candidates participating in the 2014 national elections in the Maldives. The study concludes that the continuum of violence is relevant for adequately assessing the full range of illegitimate acts used against men and women candidates to affect electoral races. Women candidates in the Maldives were more exposed than men candidates to threats and to verbal and figurative sexualized aggression.
Click here to read the full article published by Sage Journals on 12 March 2021.
Abstract
Are women more likely to quit politics after losing their first race than men? Women’s first-time candidacies skyrocketed in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. Yet we have little sense of the long-term impact of this surge in women candidates on women’s representation writ large: Inexperienced candidates are more likely to lose, and women might be especially discouraged by a loss. This might make the benefits of such a surge in candidacies fleeting. Using a regression discontinuity design and data that feature 212,805 candidates across 22,473 jurisdictions between 1950 and 2018, we find that women who narrowly lose these elections are no more likely to quit politics than men who narrowly lose. Drawing on scholarship on women’s lower political ambition, we interpret these findings to mean that women’s decision-making differs from men’s at the point of entry into politics—not at the point of reentry.
Click here to access the paper.
Executive Summary
2020 marked the historic election of Vice President Kamala Harris as the first woman, first Black person, and first South Asian person to be vice president. But women’s political success in 2020 was not limited to the presidential level. After a record year for women in election 2018, the 2020 election marked continued progress for women in waging candidacies and winning elections at the congressional and state legislative levels. Unlike the historic victories for Democratic women in 2018, women’s legislative gains in 2020 were concentrated among Republicans. After a year of decline in representation across levels of office as a result of election 2018, Republican women rebounded in 2020 elections to reach new highs in legislative representation in 2021. Still, they continue to be the minority of women and of Republican legislators.
Measuring women’s electoral success means placing 2020 outcomes into historical and contemporary context. That is the work of this report. In addition to breaking down 2020 congressional and state legislative data by gender, race, and party and providing specific comparisons to the 2018 election, this report evaluates progress for women in electoral politics by looking beyond the numbers. The 2020 election reveals – via candidate paths to office and strategies for success – both maintenance and disruption of the gender and intersectional dynamics that have historically contributed to women’s political underrepresentation.
Click here to access the report published by the Center for American Women and Politics.