women in politics

Chile holds a presidential election on Sunday and both frontrunners are women - the socialist Michelle Bachelet and her right-wing rival Evelyn Matthei.

In a region where politics is still very much a man's game, that, in itself, is remarkable enough, but when one considers the relationship between the two women, it becomes more extraordinary still.

Ms Bachelet and Ms Matthei went to the same primary school and played together as kids.

Women candidates affiliated to major political parties contesting in the upcoming CA election have accused their parties of not being supportive toward them at all.

Speaking at an interaction on ´Media Monitoring: Representation of Women in Constituent Assembly and Women Issue´ organized in the capital, Hisila Yami, a UCPN (Maoist) candidate for Kathmandu´s constituency 7 and a former minister, said that she had to struggle a lot to secure her candidacy as a direct candidate.   

Keynote Speech by Helen Clark on
The Effect of the Global Financial Crisis on Women
At the International Conference
Celebrating the Centenary of Women’s Right to Vote in Norway
Oslo, Norway

We invite you to read the full speech published November 15, 2013 by our partner, UNDP

What, I wonder, explains the gender gap in political corruption?

Women make up almost 20 percent of the current Congress, according to the Center for American Women and Politics, but they don’t come anywhere near that proportion when we are talking about scandals on Capitol Hill.

Will it take breaking news of a female lawmaker doing something truly stupid like former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s tweeting self-portraits of his private parts to strangers to know we are beginning to achieve gender equality?

Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State John Kerry and former First Lady Laura Bush on Friday said that as elections near in Afghanistan and U.S. troops continue to draw down, America must remain committed to the country during what they called a critical juncture.

Egyptian women were at the heart of the revolution that toppled president Hosni Mubarak. Their contribution ranged from work in the labour movement to a female journalist breaking taboos by suing the government for harassment. They walked shoulder to shoulder with men as the Egyptian population demanded the fall of the regime, as did the people of Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. Yet nearly three years later, a poll from the Thomson Reuters Foundation has declared Egypt the worst country for women in the Arab world.