women leaders

In an era of government distrust, political gridlock, and legislative dysfunction, women may be the power players who forge solutions and help address our nation’s most divisive problems, argues Swanee Hunt in a recent article in Global Post. Ms. Hunt is a Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School andChairwoman of Political Parity—an organization “dedicated to increasing the number of women serving in the highest levels of government.”

Hajiya Zainab Maina, Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, on Tuesday advised women to adopt strategies to increase their participation in decision making processes.

Maina gave the advice in Abuja at the ongoing capacity building workshop for female parliamentarians on Attaining Affirmative Action for Women.

The minister said, "The low representation of women in government persists. In the general elections of 2003, women made up three per cent of elected officials".

Thirty-six states will hold governor’s elections next year, and Democrats have top female recruits in at least five states who are poised to be their party’s nominee and competitive in the general election. Coupled with the four female governors who are running for reelection – three Republicans and one Democrat – observers say 2014 could see gains for women as states’ top executives.

“This is a year of opportunity at the gubernatorial level,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

The National Council of Women in Fiji is embarking on a project that aims to increase the representation of women in politics in the lead-up to the elections promised for next year.

Its general secretary, Fay Volatabu, says it will work with the United Nations Democracy Fund to raise public awareness and train women as leaders.

Ms Volatabu says the new constitution is silent on the issue of women participating in politics, so it is up to the political parties to decide who they will nominate, and the public to who they are going to vote for.

When war erupts, women are often the first to experience the harsh brutality and the last to be called to the peace table. A resolution adopted today by the UN Security Council moves us one step closer to the full participation of women as leaders for peace and security. 

Due to the government shutdown and debt ceiling debate, Americans have paid particularly close attention to Congress and its members. This new attentiveness to the legislative branch has raised a valid observation: most members of Congress are men. That is why on Wednesday, Oct. 16, Rhode Island College hosted a discussion panel featuring local female politicians as part of its Congress to Campus program. 

No less than 35 percent of the newly elected MPs in Zimbabwe are women, thanks to a special electoral quota system to increase women's representation in Parliament. At age 29, Tionei Melody Dziva is the youngest of them. She has a strong desire to uplift the lives of women and youths.

Courtesy of the proportional representation of women in parliament, brought about by the new Zimbabwean constitution that came into effect in March this year, women's representation in the country's parliament more than doubled after the 31 July elections.

As Ontario's first female and first lesbian premier, Kathleen Wynne was an obvious choice for keynote speaker at the Leadership Summit for Women.

Addressing the (almost entirely) female crowd, she shared her personal experiences in politics — as a woman, as a lesbian, and as a mom.

Ruth Colian was that close to becoming the first ultra-Orthodox woman to run for Petah Tikva city council in Tuesday’s municipal election. But she fell a few dozen signatures short of the number required to register as a new political party when the deadline rolled around last month. So now she’s taking her political activism to another battleground: the courts.