Kathleen Staudt
University of Texas at El Paso
POLITICAL SPACE BELONGS TO ALL CITIZENS
Inter-Parliamentary Union
This presentation discusses, FIRST, the importance of women's participation for consolidating democracies, thereby transforming their process (re. Julieta Kirkwood's famous quote, "una nueva manera de hacer política") and their outcomes (both "people-friendly" outcomes and gender-fair outcomes). Jane Jaquette is quoted
...in its usual and even democratic forms, politics is an alien and alienating world to most women, not because (as some researchers have argued) it is too abstract or too complicated, but because it is often perceived as destructively competitive, morally compromising and hostile to those women who do try to enter it through the conventional channels. Part of the desire that women's groups have to remain autonomous is to distance themselves from the corrupting pressures and the competitive power plays that they believe will divert them from their goals.
Politics now is a virtual male monopoly in many countries; progressive movement would aim toward gender balance.
SECOND, the presentation goes on to outline the background study done for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as it prepares the 1995 Human Development Report for the Beijing, China, meetings in September. The background paper had two parts one, quantitative, and the other, comparative (ten case studies of democracies, more and less successful, by world region). Using mid- 1994 figures from the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women, (i.e. before Mexico's 1994 Presidential elections, wherein women's representation improved slightly) bar graphs show gendered representation patterns for chief executives (presidents and prime ministers), cabinet appointees, national legislators (parliaments and congresses), regionally (Latin America/Caribbean), best case (Norway), Mexico, and United Nations goals.
THIRD, the presentation offers a map with more and less successful cases, (success in "engendering democratic process and outcomes"), putting Mexico in that comparative context. Sonia Alvarez was the first, among now many, to develop the phrase "engendering democracy."
FOURTH AND FINALLY, the presentation offers promising practices and lessons from more successful cases for engendering democracy, (not all transferable, but some of them perhaps adaptable), including
the importance of "critical mass" numbers of women in legislatures and cabinets 15% women has been a turning point in some Nordic countries, and 30% women is a healthy minimal goal. (One or two women is/are not enough! Can they represent diverse women?) STRATEGIES
quotas on party lists (especially useful in proportional representation electoral systems), typically used at the 30% level in European centrist, leftist, and center-right parties [the Green/Environmental Parties typically use a principle "every other name a woman."]
reserved seats in the legislature (problems typically too small a percentage to make a difference; men appoint who are not accountable to women's nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)); and
(typically 30%) quotas for decisionmaking positions inside parties. [The PRD adopted this principle.]
-critical mass numbers of women in LOCAL councils/legislatures. Examples India's panchayats are now required to have one-third women, adding 800,000 to the pool of political representatives who can supply a "pipeline" to regional and national legislatures; Ghana appoints women to reserved seats in local councils; Norwegian women mobilized at the local level two decades ago to build the basis for the most gender-fair democracy.
-the importance of active, healthy civil organizations/NGOs, (including women's groups) to which political representatives and parties are accountable. Negative examples Romania's (and Eastern European) women representatives (who occupied a high percentage of seats) before 1989 were unconnected to citizens and civil society was weak/dead. Positive Example A coalition of diverse women's organizations worked with once candidate, now Philippine President Fidel Ramos, to sign an adopt its ten-point political agenda.
-visibility for gender gaps in voter turnout/abstentionism. Example women's voter turnout equals or surpasses men's in Costa Rica and the Philippines, stimulating parties to mobilize female constituencies with a "gendered policy agenda." [By gendered policy, I mean alternatives which attend to the ways tax, economic, land, health, etc. policies serve or burden men AND women, and women who head households who are often concentrated in poverty.] (Such a strategy is ineffective in Japan, a country with one of the least successful records of female representation.)
-design comprehensive legislation to stimulate national debate. Examples Costa Rica's LAW OF REAL EQUALITY; Japan's mobilization to make serious the ratification of CEDAW (the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women); Norway's Equal Status Law.
-monitor progressive laws and policies to assure accountability to women and the elimination of discrimination. Example Philippines National Commission on Women, comprised of women's NGO representatives and a political appointee who directs the commission. The NCW generates studies that document problems; it created a parallel Development Plan (for women!); it networks with what its past director, Remedios Rikken, calls a "sisterhood sorority," or what the U.N. calls Focal Points within government agencies who work "from the inside" to transform procedures to serve all citizens, including women. Most countries have a Ministry of Women or women's bureaus.
-build coalitions with progressive men who work toward engendering democracy. Examples Costa Rica's former President Oscar Arias; Nordic men in its relatively egalitarian culture. The Philippines Congressional Caucus on Women completed research which shows that larger percentages of male than female legislators introduce equality and women-friendly legislation. Cross-partisan coalitions among women legislators have also been effective in some countries.
-publish research on women and politics in specialized and mainstream analyses (and for activists and officials, write memorias of experiences).
-support democracy and good governance generally. Democratic processes would include transparent procedures, real choices, honesty, egalitarian policies, and strong civil organizations, including women's organizations. Without women's voices, can there be real democracy?
Bibliography
Sonia Alvarez, "Contradictions of a 'Women's Space' in a Male-Dominant State The Political Role of the Commissions on the Status of Women in Postauthoritarian Brazil," in Women, International Development, and Politics The Bureaucratic Mire (Philadelphia Temple University Press, 1990), pp. 37-78.
Jane Jaquette, "Women's Movements and Democracy in Latin America Some Unresolved Tensions," in Women and the Transition to Democracy The Impact of Political and Economic Reform in Latin America (Washington, D.C. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, #211, 1994).
Kirkwood, Julieta, Ser Política en Chile. Nudos de Sabiduría Feminista (Chile Editorial Cuarto Propio, 1990).
Staudt, Kathleen, Political Representation Engendering Politics, (Background Paper Prepared for HDR/UNDP 1995).