The past decade has seen increasing numbers of women elected
to top offices in countries like Switzerland, Germany, Mongolia, Liberia
and Chile. But most experts say women remain underrepresented in
political office and will lag behind men in leadership positions in the
near future.
Since 1998, Switzerland, Panama, Latvia, Chile, Bermuda, Germany
and many other countries have elected women presidents or appointed
women prime ministers. And throughout the world, women are winning more
seats in parliaments and local councils than ever before.
Rwanda boasts the world's highest percentage of women legislators, more
than 48 percent of all representatives, followed by Sweden at 47 percent
and Cuba at 43 percent.
Challenges Ahead
Still, women make up only 18 percent of the world's legislators,
according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the international
organization of parliaments of sovereign states. That is partly due to
cultural traditions and gender bias, says Kristin Haffert of the
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a non-profit
organization that advocates democracy worldwide.
"Wherever you go, you still see a gender bias. Women are still held to
a different standard and women are largely judged on their appearance,
or at least that plays a factor. People have different expectations of
male politicians and women politicians with regard to their level of
preparedness," says Haffert. "So women are held to a higher degree of scrutiny."
Some experts say that kind of scrutiny sometimes deters women from running for office, while qualified women often lack the confidence to field themselves as political contenders. But Kristin Haffert says there are other hurdles that women candidates need to negotiate.
"They are the same everywhere in the world -- lack of family support, lack of support from political parties, difficulty accessing financial resources. Confidence does play a role and, in fact, I was just in Lesotho where several of the women [candidates] told me that they had chosen to run [in last year's parliamentary elections] because it was men who asked them to run. Women do need to be asked to run. But they do have the same political drive [as men]," says Haffert. "They have multiple responsibilities and oftentimes they are pulled between their families and politics. But the ones that have been successful can tell you how they've been able to balance everything."
The U.S. Example
Studies done around the world show that women, in general, are
less inclined to run for public office than men. Political scientist
Jennifer Lawless of Brown University recently co-authored a similar
study in the United States. She surveyed four-thousand professional men
and women in 2001 and repeated the poll this year.
"In 2001, we found that men were about 20 percentage points more likely
than women to have considered running [for office]. And they were about
twice as likely as women to have done any of the things that precede a
political candidacy, like place their names on the ballot or discuss
fund raising," says Lawless. "So then in 2008, it turns out that the gender gap in
political ambition is just as big now as it was then. When we asked
these men and women if they were interested in politics, if they made
campaign contributions, attended political meetings, there were no
gender differences. Women are just as interested in politics as men.
But for some reason, their interest stops short of running for office."
The implications of these findings worry many experts. Among
them is Sarah Brewer, Associate Director of American University's Women
& Politics Institute in Washington, who fears a potential shortage of
women leaders throughout the world.
"One of the more startling findings is that women of this more recent generation, raised in the language of gender equality, are even less interested in running for office than women over 40 [years of age]. They are less interested in serving in public office than their mothers are," says Brewer. "So when we have this sort of imagination that it's all going to get better as we have generational replacement [of women leaders], that's a wake-up call that that's probably not necessarily some of the dynamics at work."
Inspiring New Leaders
Most experts agree that women's organizations around the world
should foster political participation in younger women to build a pool
of future leaders.
American University's Sarah Brewer suggests that current women leaders
could inspire adolescent girls and help forge a new generation of female
politicians.
"Women's representation and their make-up as public decision makers
still is far beneath what it should be, based on our expectations of
representative forms of democracy," says Brewer. "And I think that there is a
hypothesis to be tested that with the increase of women in these visible
political positions of power. [President Ellen] Johnson
Sirleaf in Liberia and [Chancellor Angela] Merkel in Germany, and even
[House of Representatives] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi here in the U.S. will this change younger women's understanding of
themselves politically in their imaginations about what's possible for
their own careers?"
Many women's organizations are tapping the potential of younger
generations of women, particularly in the United States. But Brown
University's Jennifer Lawless says there is a more challenging task --
changing the way society defines gender roles.
"Because we still have a very traditional division of labor -- both in
this country and worldwide -- when we see greater equity on the work
front, we are not necessarily seeing that same sense of parity or equity
on the home front. And if you are going to be taking on a political
career, for men that means taking on a political career," says Lawless. "For women,
that means reconciling their professional lives with their home lives
with their political careers.
And it's a much more complicated and complex balancing
of responsibilities."
Most analysts agree that much needs to be done to level the political playing field between the genders and shine a spotlight on the difficulties women candidates face, even as they increase their share of top political positions across the globe.
This story was first broadcast on the English news program, VOA News Now. For other Focus reports click here.
