Fall 1996

As the end of this century approaches, the overarching goal of the women’s movement to achieve gender parity throughout the world remains unfulfilled. With only four years left, the goal of equality for women by the year 2000 as set by the "Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies" in 1985 is far from reach for our current generation, particularly in the political arena.

Despite some progress, specifically among Scandinavian countries, the ability of women to participate as policymakers in the political arenas remains limited. Politics, as usual, remains heavily male-dominated. According to the UN report, women occupy only ten percent of parliamentary seats and six percent of cabinet positions around the world.¹ The number of women who ruled as monarchs in the last 2000 years far exceeds the number of women government leaders in our century. In this so-called century of progress, there have been only 16 women prime ministers and seven women presidents. Of these 23 women, seven came to power as surrogates of deceased male relatives rather than in their own right.² In 1995, only ten women served as presidents or prime ministers. Presently, less than 12 women occupy these positions.

Women in a Post-Communist World

One region where women in politics have faced huge setbacks has been in the countries of the former Soviet Bloc. The transition to a post-Communist Eastern Europe in the 1990s adversely affected the position and political representation of women, which had been largely maintained through quotas within the Communist Party apparatus. The impotence of traditional power structures and the tumultuous nature of the transition period have led to the rise of an image of driven leaders steering their nations through rough times. Aspiring women policymakers are left to fend of themselves, too weak to assert their interests on the basis of gender and divided by powerful currents tearing the fabric of their societies. Due to the new elections held in a post-Communist Eastern Europe, the number of women in European parliaments dropped from 19.1 percent in January 1988 to 13.6 percent in 1990.³

Gender issues were defined in terms of the dominant Communist ideology, and the interests of women were secondary to the interests of the political parties. By maintaining the form rather than the substance of gender equality, the communists were unable to do away with traditional perceptions of the role of women in politics. Thus, post-Communist elections were a better indicator of the voters’ attitude toward women candidates.

Female politicians in the U.S. have fared no better. The electoral success o the "Year of the Woman" in 1992 has given away to the "angry white male" backlash in the 1994 elections. The gains women have made in both the House and Senate were largely swept away by the electorate’s economic anxieties. Voters put more trust in the ability of male candidates to deal with economic issues such as balancing the budget and boosting a depressed economy. Voters also perceive women as unqualified to make crucial policy decisions. Within government structures, women are relegated to cabinet positions that deal with so-called soft issues. The lack of women finance or defense ministers across the world reveals the ghettoization of women in decision making posts.⁶ According to a UN report, "Most women in government leadership are in such ministries as education, culture, social welfare and women’s affairs. Men maintain a stronghold on such key areas as defense, economic policy and political affairs in all regions."⁷

The same situation exists within international organizations. Despite the progress achieved by affirmative action programs, most senior management positions are held by men. In the UN system, women accounted for only 11.3 percent of senior posts in 1994 and headed only four of 27 UN agencies: "Sixty missions had no women among their diplomatic staff. Only eight women held the rank of ambassador."⁹

Scandinavia: The Success Story

Despite these discouraging statistics, Scandinavian countries have made a concerted effort in the last two decades to reach gender parity in the political arena. In Norway, for instance, the number of elected women in local and national assemblies rose from less than ten percent in the 1960s to 35 percent by the early 1980s.¹⁰ In contrast, the representation of women has only moderately improved in Western Europe, with less than ten percent representation in national assemblies in the 1990s. In Norway, Sweden, and Finland, approximately 40 percent of government ministries are headed by women.¹¹ In 1995, Sweden established the world’s first gender-balanced cabinet in which the ministers were half women.¹² In addition, women have been promoted to cabinet posts which are traditionally appointed to men, such as industry and energy, defense, finance, and foreign affairs.

In assessing the outstanding progress of women in Scandinavia, one can delineate various strategies which can be implemented to close the gender gap and the achieve "true" representation in other Western democracies. Scandinavian countries used two strategies. First, women’s issues were incorporated into party platforms and second, a concerted effort was made to favor women throughout all levels of the political structure. By working both inside political party structures and through grassroots movements, women were able to gradually assert their interests without using confrontational tactics. Both "top-down" methods such as quotas favoring women within parties and a voter education campaign were used to create an environment in which women could compete. This early tilt towards women candidates enabled their representation to balloon to 30 percent throughout Scandinavia by the early 1970s, an increase that enabled women to go beyond a token presence t a more substantial one. Today, even within parties without quotas, more than a quarter of the representatives are women.¹³

In the Third World, the strategy if integrating women’s concerns through the state apparatus has been less successful. Cooperation with the state has not led to more representation of women in policymaking posts. Women’s issues are given lip service but marginalized in the process of policy making. In addition, cooperation with the state has often led to the tacit acceptance of policies. As the impoverished nations of the world face the compounding problems of political instability and mounting budget deficits, their governments have proved themselves unable to provide a social safety net.

NGOs: A Shortcut to Power?

The impotence of government to deal with the social and economic problem of their nations has led to the rise of civil society organizations, NGOs, and community-based movements. Their strong presence at the 1995 Women’s Conference in Beijing through the NGO Forum enabled women to influence government agendas. Although women maintain a significant presence in NGOs, the reality is that NGOs do not have the power that governments wield. Therefore, women must be given the opportunity to take part in the political process. The countries of Western Europe and the U.S. should follow the example of the Scandinavian democracies. In the Third World, too, political empowerment of women, more than any other strategy, would better address the issue of second-class citizenship that women face in their daily lives.

Looking at the progress and setbacks since the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement early this century, one may wonder whether we are standing at the threshold of the "Century of the Woman." Treated like second-class citizens throughout the world, women are marginalized as a constituency, and their real interests are often ignored. Real representation would translate into proportionate participation in the decision-making process of their nations. True representation would reshape the political landscape of our country and redefine the priorities of our nations.

Notes: 1. Human Development Report - UNDP, Oxford University Press, 1995, p.iii. 2. edt. Mim Keller, Women and Government: New Ways to Political Power, Preager Press, 1994, p.12. 3. Ibid, p.20. 4. Ibid, p.20. 5. Ibid, p.22. 6. Ibid, p.16. 7. Ibid, p.16. 8. Human Development Report, p.38. 9. Women and Government, p.46. 10. Human Development Report, p.42. 11. eds. Lovenski and Norris, Gender and Party Politics, Sage Publications, 1993, pp.2-3. 12. Ibid, p. 309. 13. Human Development Report, p. 41.

Mr. Sobhani, MC'97, is an economics major at Yale College.