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Women in Politics: Choosing between Ambition and Safety?

At the CSW69 NGO Forum's session Accelerating Progress By Addressing Barriers To Leadership And Democratic Participation examples of barriers for participation and programs and policies that promote inclusion where shared by speakers from Canada, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.  

Evidence shows that barriers such as limited access to mentors and networks, lack of flexible work arrangements, and harassment and discrimination all limit women's participation and advancement in leadership roles.

“In a democratic society, it is necessary to display a fair distribution of men and women at all levels of decision-making,” Jenny Gulamani-Abdulla, Co-Founder of the Canadian Federation For Citizenship (CFC), shared. CFC works to ensure that all residents of Canada are embraced, included and respected as all Canadians to participate in Canada’s progress. According to her “participation is what leads to opportunities to lead”. Furthermore, she shared success stories about mentorship programmes.  

As a retired Lieutenant-Colonel and Advisory Board member of CFC, Chantal Fraser shared about her experiences in the Canadian military as a woman. During military training, she explained, everyone is taught valuable leadership skills. These skills remain useful also after the military to enhance one’s opportunities and support in their communities. Being one of very few women in the military in her time, she expressed the importance of male allyship.

“Women face barriers with regards to participation in decision-making positions,” professor Olga Jurasz, Director of the Centre for Protecting Women Online in the UK, explained. Online violence experienced by women has big impacts on their lives, such as being silenced online and negative effects on both mental and physical health. She gave an example about online violence targeted at female politicians, regardless of their political party. This violence is directed at them as women, rather than about their feminist or political views or the policies they support. “This has a lot of impact on them and future generations.”

“Due to underrepresentation of women in all their diversity in politics, they are not sufficiently included in policy and decision-making,” added Yara Bon,  project lead of Alliance Politica at WO=MEN Dutch Gender Platform in relation to political participation and representation of women in all their diversity in Dutch politics. Women face barriers to become, be and stay politically active. These are social-cultural barriers with regards to stereotyping, political barriers such as the way that political parties are organised, and knowledge and information barriers like lack of access to networks. Yara also seconded what professor Olga Jurasz shared: “seeing the hate and violence that women in politics face influences ambitions of aspiring female politicians to become active in politics. It can also make female politicians decide to stop as they choose safety over ambition.”

By Yara Bon, Alliantie Politica, WO=MEN Dutch Gender Platform

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This event ‘Accelerating Progress By Addressing Barriers To Leadership And Democratic Participation’ was organised by Canadian Federation for Citizenship.

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