| Women Politicians Making Inroads.
[World] Women are slowly making inroads into the world's political structures, very
slowly. An international study says that one out of every five parliamentarians
elected in 2005 was a woman. But the global average has only inched up – it's
gone from 15 per cent to 16 per cent. Nordic countries have the most female MPs,
with 30 per cent representation. Arab and Pacific countries had the lowest number of
women – in some cases none at all elected to their governing bodies. |
| Women Politicians 'Making Gains'.
[World] Rwanda
has the highest proportion of female members of parliament. A
record number of women are serving in parliaments worldwide, but they only account for
just over 16% of all MPs. Women have made progress in elections, but "true
equality of status" is a long way off, says a report by the Inter-Parliamentary Union
(IPU). IPU chief Anders Johnsson said women were "dramatically
under-represented". Women fared best in Rwanda, Norway and Sweden, but there
are no women MPs in nine countries, including Saudi
Arabia and Kyrgyzstan. On
average, women made up about 20% of the deputies elected in the 39 countries which held
parliamentary elections last year, the IPU report said. The numbers fall short of UN
targets set in 1995 of a minimum of 30% women lawmakers in all parliaments. |
| Women
Still Behind in Leadership Roles. [UN] Despite claims about their emancipation,
women across the world are making scant progress in getting into leadership positions in
business, government and academia, a UN report said today. While women have made
gains in parliaments, business management, the media and the academic world, the pace is
still too slow, even in wealthy nations, said the report prepared by UN secretary-general
Mr Kofi Annan to mark International Women’s Day today. “Serious obstacles
remain that hinder women’s effective participation,” said the report, which
called for increased participation and greater say in the decision-making process.
Ms Angela Merkel was sworn in as Germany’s chancellor
in November,
Ms Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf was inaugurated as Liberia’s president
in January and Ms
Michelle
Bachelet is to be sworn in as Chile’s president on Saturday. But a handful of
women leaders attending a meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women said the
trio’s successes masked the many challenges they had overcome and the long and
arduous preparations. “Behind that progress, we can see that it takes time to
get prepared, it takes time to have such awareness and openness in a society at the
political level,” said Ms Rachel Mayanja, the special UN adviser on the advancement
of women. |
| First
Woman PM. [Jamaica]
Veteran politician Portia Simpson Miller will be sworn in as
prime minister of Jamaica on
March 30, the outgoing prime minister said, becoming the
first woman to lead the island's government. Simpson Miller won a special election
to replace Patterson as head of the ruling People's National Party in February.
Under Jamaica's
parliamentary democracy government, the head of the ruling party
becomes prime minister. Simpson Miller, 60, is the Cabinet minister for local
government, community development and sports and has been a member of parliament since
1989. She will become the first female head of government for the nation of 2.7
million. Simpson Miller said she will announce Cabinet appointments on March 31 and
set the ceremonial opening of Parliament and introduction of the budget for April 12.
She takes over, as Jamaicans rank as their top problems a soaring crime rate, lack
of jobs and a rising cost of living. |
| First Female President.
[Chile] Michelle
Bachelet, a Socialist, pediatrician, and former political prisoner
and exile, has been inaugurated as the first woman to be president of
Chile, the
culmination of its long and painful journey from repression and dictatorship to democracy.
Bachelet, 54, was elected to a four- year term in January, winning 53.5 percent of
the vote in a runoff. Her accession to power here is a milestone: Though six other
women have served as presidents of Latin American countries, Bachelet, a single mother of
three, is the first on the continent to be elected who is not the widow of a political
leader and has built a career on her own. Bachelet is the daughter of an air force
general who was jailed for treason and died in prison after General Augusto Pinochet took
power in a U.S.- supported coup
in 1973. In a country where the Roman Catholic
Church wields great power, Bachelet is also openly agnostic, and when she took her oath of
office Saturday she promised rather than swore to uphold the Chilean Constitution.
She also has promised a government that focuses on social equality and respect for
human rights. Her immediate priorities, she indicated as a candidate, are a more
just distribution of income and reform of the country's pension system, which is
increasingly unpopular. But even before her inauguration at the Chilean Congress
building in Valparaiso, Bachelet has
already fulfilled another of her campaign promises:
sexual equity in appointments to government posts. She has named a cabinet of 10 men
and 10 women and designated the governors of the country's 12 regions on the same basis. |
| Roh Taps Woman as Nominee For
No. 2 Spot. [Korea]
A feminist legislator imprisoned under South
Korea's former
military dictatorship was nominated Friday as the country's first female prime minister,
President Roh Moo Hyun's office said. Han Myeong Sook, a two-term lawmaker with the
governing Uri Party, was the first woman designated for the No. 2 job since another female
nominee was rejected by Parliament in 2002. Under the Constitution, the president's choice
for prime minister is subject to parliamentary approval. The job of prime minister is
largely ceremonial, although the minister coordinates many domestic affairs for the
president. Han, 62, has championed women's rights and liberal political ideas. In 2004,
she helped author a bill aimed at abolishing the National Security Law, South
Korea's
anti-communist statute, which liberal politicians have condemned as undemocratic. The bill
was not enacted because of conservative resistance. |
| Californians
Ready for Female President, Undecided About Clinton. [United States] A majority
of Californians say they're ready for a woman president, although New York Sen.
Hillary Clinton may not necessarily be the one they would vote for, according to a
new statewide poll released Friday. The Field Poll showed that 69 percent of
registered voters in the state believe the country is ready for a female president, while
24 percent disagreed. There was little difference in opinion between men and women,
although Democrats (77 percent) and nonpartisan (74 percent) voters were more likely to
favor a female president compared to Republicans (56 percent), and younger people were
more receptive to the idea than those 65 and older. When asked about whether they
would be inclined to vote for Clinton in 2008,
Californians were
more evenly split, with
47 percent saying they would and 42 percent saying they would not, according to the poll.
The survey said those supportive of Clinton tend
to be young, ethnic, liberal and
either non-Christian or nonreligious. If Clinton did
run, 51 percent of California
voters believe she would be treated more harshly than other candidates, the poll showed.
Eighteen percent said she would be treated better, and 22 percent said she'd be
treated equally. |
| Women Gradually Taking
Lead in Assam Polls. [India]
The people of Assam seems to be slowly responding
to the demand for increased representation of women in the state legislature where their
numbers have increased from four in 1985 to 10 in the last Assembly and is expected to go
up in the forthcoming elections. In a 126-member House, 10 might not be a big figure
but women empowerment has become the buzzword in political circles and civil societies in
this North Eastern state. "We do believe that women representation in the
Assembly should be increased though the trend has not been bad so far. Our party,
Congress, has always emphasised for giving proper representation to women in all
spheres," former Assam Chief
Minister and Rajya Sabha MP Syeda Anowara Taimur told
PTI here. In 1985 elections, out of the 1153 candidates, 29 were women and only four
of them got elected to the Assembly. Two - Amiya Gogoi and Kumari Rabi Das - were
from Congress and two - Rekharani Das Boro and Jotshna Sonowal - were from Asom Gana
Parishad. There were more than 45 lakh women voters out of the total of nearly 99
lakh electorates. Das Boro became a minister in the first AGP government led by Prafulla
Kumar Mahanta which assumed power that year. |
| Women Electorate
Outnumber Men in Kerala. [India] Though the women electorate in Kerala
outnumbers men by a huge margin, this is not reflected in the number of seats given by
major political parties to women candidates. In fact, the tally for next month's
assembly elections is down to 26 from 33 in the 2001 polls. Kerala goes to the polls
April 22 and 29 and May 3. Of an electorate of 21.26 million women voters account
for 11.05 million as against 10.21 million men. Of the 140 assembly constituencies
in the state, male voters outnumber female in only 14. Moreover, in nine of the 14
districts in the state, there is not a single assembly constituency where men outnumber
women. The Muslim dominated Malappuram district leads the pack. Of a total
electorate of 2,206,753 voters, 1,141,265 are women and 1,065,488 men. |
| Cameron's Bid to Woo Women
Voters. [England] Tory
leader David Cameron has admitted his party has
"work to do" to convince voters of its commitment to help women. He called
for action to cut the pay gap between men and women as part of the Conservatives' goal
"to make sexual inequality history". During a speech to the Equal
Opportunities Commission, he outlined a series of areas in which he hoped to develop
female-friendly policies. These include flexible working, support for carers,
pensions and childcare. |
| Politics: Still a Man's World.
[Italy] Earlier
this month, Giovanna Melandri, a former Italian culture minister, flew
across the globe for the inauguration of Chile's new
president, Michelle Bachelet, and the
swearing-in of Latin America's first cabinet with an equal number of men and women.
Bachelet is changing the physiognomy of Chile's democracy," said Melandri. "I
took note." When she returned here, Melandri passed on her observations to the
leaders of her party, the Democrats of the Left. "Something strong is changing in the
Latin world," she said in an interview, "so the question is, what do we need to
do to have this happen here?" That is something Italian women across the political
spectrum have been asking ahead of the country's forthcoming elections. If the past year
saw women rise to top posts in several countries - think Bachelet in Chile, Angela Merkel
in Germany and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Liberia - years of ingrained sexism have left the
Italian political firmament bereft of female luminaries. Unlike women who have
consolidated their political clout elsewhere - like Ségolène Royal, on a fast track to
becoming France's first serious female challenger for the presidency - Italian women have
yet to capture widespread popular consensus. To achieve that, they say, they have to
change the rules of what is still very much a man's game. "The problem is getting
power within the political parties - otherwise, we're not going anywhere," said Emma
Bonino, a former European commissioner and one of two leaders of the Radical Party, which
is running as part of the center-left in the elections. Bonino noted that the dearth of
women in politics mirrored the lack of female power in Italian banking, boardrooms and
newspaper mastheads. "Power is always negotiated among the usual group of men,"
she said. |
| Fassino,
DS Aims to Double Female Deputies. [Italy] The DS is aiming to have at least 50
- 55 women in Parliament, double that guaranteed in the previous legislature, reaching the
ceiling of 33 pct, against the current 10 pct. This is the aim of DS leader, Piero
Fassino, who today met journalists in Palermo
on Women's Day, and stated that there is a
great imbalance in that only 10 pct of deputies are women, when they represent 54 pct of
the population. For both House and Senate women will be 33 pct of the total and he
emphasised that they have been placed in positions where they can win. Five women
head the DS list for the Senate, including Anna Finocchiaro in Sicily, while on the Olive
Tree list, six women are in first place or second behind Romano Prodi. Fassino also
recalled the two women DS regional presidents and how this recalls the centrality of women
in the Union manifesto with great attention to the high levels of women's unemployment,
with priority also for an extraordinary plan to support maternity and childhood, to
policies for the family and the strengthening of social services." |
| Pro-Women
Program Produces a Dissident. [Uganda] Ugandans voted last month for 69 special
female members of parliament as part of the country's lauded gender affirmative-action
program. But one prominent female politician says the 10-year-old system has failed
to deliver legal gains for women. The day before Election Day in Uganda
, special
female Member of Parliament Margaret Zziwa was more than busy. Several of her aides
and co-workers were prodding her for meetings, while she was struggling to arrange a
doctor's appointment for her teen daughter who had injured a leg. Gripping her cell
phone, Zziwa rushed back and forth through the dark corridor on the fifth floor of the
parliament building in central Kampala.
"Politics is generally seen as a game
of the leaders, the affluent and the brave. And so it has never been the women's
domain," said Zziwa, who belongs to the government party, the National Resistance
Movement. Zziwa was first elected to the Ugandan parliament in 1996, along with 38
other women on a special gender ticket, after the government enshrined a system for
boosting female representation as part of an ambitious program of affirmative action for
women in all spheres of national affairs. |
| Mums
the Only Women for Coalition. [Australia] Having assumed the posture last week
of a right-wing anti-Muslim bigot, Peter Costello shifted to moderate mode this week to
champion the cause of women. "We must look at how to improve opportunities for
women to create the most female-friendly environment in the world," the Treasurer
told the National Press Club. It is ironic Costello's remarks coincided with the
release of a new report that showed Australia had slipped to its lowest-ever ranking in an
international league table of women's representation in national parliaments. Female
representation in the House of Representatives is going backwards because the Coalition
parties have failed to put forward women candidates. The Treasurer's concern about
being "women-friendly" might start with his own party. |
| Lack
of Women in Politics. [Thailand] The United Nations says women remain grossly
underrepresented in Thailand's politics
and government. A UN Development Program
report and a major shift in the country's attitudes -- especially men's -- is required to
address the imbalance. The report, Women's Right to a Political Voice in
Thailand,
notes that women hold only 10 per cent of the seats in the national parliament. UN
official Joana Merlin-Scholtes says closing the gender gap in politics needs to be a top
priority in all countries, not just Thailand. The worldwide average for female
representation in parliament is about 16 per cent -- and Canada isn't doing much better
than that. The Inter-Parliamentary Union recently released its annual report on
women serving in parliaments around the world. It says women only make up 20 per
cent of Canada's
Parliament. |
| Debate on Monarchy
Spurs Nationalists' Fervor. [Japan] It was one of the biggest rallies in support
of Japan's imperial system
since the end of World War II: About 10,300 men and women
gathered at the Budokan martial arts arena to protest a proposal that would let women
become empresses and pass along the title to the Chrysanthemum Throne. At the end,
the throng stood and raised their arms in unison while shouting, "Long live the
emperor!" What could possibly stir so much passion about monarchy in the 21st
century? The question of admitting women to the line of imperial succession has been
growing in importance for the last six months. The issue has been
promoted by Japan's
nationalist movement, whose influence has risen along with the controversy. The
nationalists, who offer the public a version of Japan's past that is cleansed of remorse
for World War II, are now putting the issue of imperial succession - and the imperial
system itself - at the heart of their appeals. "Search all over the world, but
you won't find any other family besides the Japanese imperial family that has maintained
an unbroken male line for 125 generations," Takeo Hiranuma, a former minister of
economy, trade and industry, said at the rally, which was organized by Nippon Kaigi, one
of Japan's largest nationalist groups. "In other words, it is the precious,
precious treasure of the Japanese race, as well as a world treasure." The
object of the crowd's ire was a plan by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to revise the
Imperial Household Law to allow a female line to hold the throne. Never mind that
Koizumi has shelved the plan, after a rebellion by lawmakers in his center-right party and
after an unexpected announcement last month by the second son of Emperor Akihito that his
wife was pregnant. If the baby, due in September, is a boy, the problem will be moot
for another generation, even if the emperor's first son, Crown Prince Naruhito, and his
wife, Crown Princess Masako, never have their own son. The birth of a girl, however,
would bring Japan
back to square one.
So until September, at least, there are likely
to be more rallies as conservatives try to keep the issue alive. The opposition to a
female line is part of a larger nationalist movement that seeks a tougher stance
against China
and North Korea, presses aggressively for a
revisionist history of Japan's
wartime past,
and pushes the myth of Japanese racial exceptionalism. |