I disagree.

More women absolutely means more women-friendly policies. It simply cannot be said tht with the current number of elected women today, that the policies you are looking to see achieve can occur. The current numbers still demonstrate an unhealthy gender imbalance in representative government; and we need many more women within the sytstem of electoral politics before you can make your conclusions.

I believe as a feminist and as an activist on behalf of women candidates for elective offices across the United States, my job is to show women how the system of electoral politics works against them, and then how to work through that system.

Within this context, you can easily reinforce the need to work through other systems that are working against the vulnerable in our society....

The assumption that more women means more women-friendly policies has been clearly proven wrong. Women and men are socialized within the same communities and society that values women more inferior to men. One finds that as women rise to the top echelon of leadership, they are pressured to compete with men and adapt to male-oriented leadership characteristics.

The challenge for activists is to target women even as they target men in training and advocacy to enhance their understanding and orientation toward women friendly policies.

Feminists have been rather quiet on this particular issue and as more women make it to leadership positions, it is even more critical to implement strategies that break this cycle of alienation from the true needs of the most vulnerable in our society - poor women.

That assumption by people is flawed in itself and fails to recognize that women are individually different from each other and just like men, come to their leadership positions with diverse- backgrounds, ideological and political orientations , as well as individual styles, skills, interests and knowledge. It is therefore unrealistic for anyone to expect or claim that the mere fact that they have been elected or appointed to an important office will make them automatically informed on or committed to the advancement of women. May be it is those of us who advocate for women’s participation in leadership that use this unsubstantiated claims as justification for our demands, and as a result reluctant to acknowledge that it doesn’t work that way.

Experiences with many women leaders certainly show otherwise. The knowledge, skills and values that it takes to commit a leader to women’s interest does not automatically come to anyone because they are women or otherwise.

I do however agree that the election of more women is critical to development and social change. First, because it allows for equal representation and participation of women in decision making. This in itself is a critical goal to pursue, but also required for the achievement of true development and change. Second, just as men leaders need to be encouraged, educated and equipped (or even pushed) to commit to and help advance women’s rights, so can the women leaders. But even if women’s interest is not going to be anyone’s priority anyway, then men and women should equally decide what the priorities should be.

Dear Maawuli,

You have a point here and you do not have it!

It is absolutely true that elected women will not advocate and strive for women human rights just because they are women. It is even worse: if they come in politics at random, one by one, without the strategic support from a strong women's movement with clear values and priorities, they might opt to change their sex in order to cope with this male world. They might become more macho than the most macho men - Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Condoleesa Rice - are very good examples of this trend.

Even worse, as women's movements all over the globe are getting stronger, there is a rule that male leaders who can not afford any more to openly reject our requests for fair representation, push forward the women they can control, or they instrument the women who are actively opposing to our movements as a tool to make our movements weaker. In many cases the first women who got their places in politics based on our strives for women's voting rights in the past or for the quota or parity regulations today, were so called "token" women. But this does not mean that we have to accept this development and just continue to fight for more women in politics and for their abstract right to be different, individual and to "freely choose" their values and priorities.

Of course, women in politics have the right to be individual, to be different, to be even anti-feminist if they wish to be, but this is not the reason why women's movements ask for half of women in decision making bodies.

First of all we can not get there 50% of women only with the agenda of women's right to equal participation. We can get them there only if we have a really good reason, why their presence would make a crucial difference for the voters, for the society. Women's movements in post conflict societies of today are effective because they have all a clear understanding that their goal is not that women just JOIN the politics as it is now (in Bosnia, Kosovo or Macedonia it was the rejection of disastrous violent, conservative, male dominated politics which motivated the women to organize their strive for the quotas). For these women it was clear that they have to transform this male politics into something more in line with their basic human needs for non violent communication(peace and security) based on equality, acceptance, inclusion, respect.

Women need very strong and well organized collective strategies of getting 50% of women into politics so that they can do politics in a different way. There is no doubt that modern politics needs to be transformed. It is enough to see the level of totally unnecessary suffering from diseases, hunger, thirst, poverty and violence and the state of the planet! Humankind is heading towards a catastrophy! Women (but also other excluded groups: marginalized by unemployment, week education and skills,youth, minorities, disabled, poor elderly), all these groups need to change practically everything about modern politics: its list of values - freedom based on equality, not freedom based on possession of wealth or monopoly of knowledge-information (top value), the priorities (people come first - not the profit comes first), the methods - participation AND genuine representation, not: fake representation INSTEAD of participation), the rules of the game (inclusion, legitimacy, transparency,accountability - not: exclusion, mere legality and de facto impunity).

Women are the biggest marginalized and discriminated group in the society and the de facto carers for all the victims of bad politics are the ones who have the greatest interest to fight for this change but also the greatest potential to make the difference in a democratic way, as they make a half of the humankind. But this approach pushes the women's movements to DARE to take much bigger responsibility in the global political reforms. It is not enough any more to be a less important stream of the modern progressive movements which will one beautiful day push us aside again, like it has already happened in Christian's movement, in bourgeois revolutions, in socialist revolutions or in the anti-colonial revolutions. This time women have to take the lead. For me the question is not: are we ready, do we dare, can we do it, but WHEN and HOW.

Kind regards, Sonja Lokar .

Barhar, your point about being conscious of the unequal access of women to INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE and OPPORTUNITIES / RESOURCES for development is extremely important. In fact if you talk to many of the women in politics or who are struggling to get into politics, they’ll tell you that, it is the bottom line for them. I remember some women candidates refused to participate in election seminar that was organized for them, because they felt they had a lot of those in the previous election but it did not provide them with the resources and tools, they needed to win. There are some women with all the access and knowledge, skills and even the resources. Nevertheless, the vast majority of women have very limited access to these vital necessities.

Efforts aimed at promoting women’s participation must therefore take a holistic approach that acknowledges these limitations and more importantly tackle these dimensions of the puzzle. This again highlights the point I was making earlier. The assumption that their being in office will automatically do the magic makes us overlook these critical aspects of the issues. Just being a woman is not enough. Desires alone are not enough. In addition to these, one will need some real practical skills, knowledge and tools to be able to stand up for women’s rights and to advance it. This explains why, while many women leaders have made some outstanding contributions to the advancement of women, some have played the opposite role. Though they are all women leaders.

It is great to see the enthusiasm and interest of the iKNOW Politics members around this issue.

I totally agree with the view that engaging more women into politics is an essential factor for social change and development. First of all, women’s inclusion broadens the perspective of policy and decision making institutions as women bring to the table multiple voices. Secondly, an equal representation of both genders brings balance to the views and approaches considered in decision and policy making at all levels. One may compare this to having a brainstorming session without all stakeholders/key groups represented. Such a limited brainstorming without doubt would yield one-sided and narrowly focused results.

A good example of the importance of woman’s perspective in politics is Michelle Bachelet’s fight for making contraceptives available to everyone and specifically to sex abuse victims. Due to her strong beliefs in women’s reproductive rights, Bachelet issued a law on the Regulations on Fertility that permitted women over 14 years of age to obtain contraceptives without parental consent.

I also agree with Maawuli on the point that knowledge and experience do not automatically come to anyone. Therefore, women, equally to men, need to acquire these resources during the course of their political career. However, it is important to realize that women usually do not have equal access to information, knowledge and self-development resources. The fact that almost two thirds of the world's illiterate are women speaks about the degree of inequality that women face in obtaining education and necessary knowledge to climb up the social and political ladder in future.

Sincerely,

Bahar