Electoral Thresholds and the Representation of Women Essay

In addition to the arguments above there are some very strong disadvantages to this system such as it excludes women from the legislature. The ‘most broadly acceptable candidate’ syndrome also affects the ability of women to be elected to legislative office because they are often less likely to be selected as candidates by male-dominated party structures. Although the evidence across the world suggests that women are less likely to be elected to the

August 26, 1920 was perhaps one of the greatest victories of the century for women. Now when the polls open women and men stand next to each other and cast a vote that holds the same importance. Every person should remember the time and effort it took to get here as they approach the poll booth. There was a struggle to over come and that struggle was won. The landmark acceptance of the Nineteenth Amendment changed the way of life in American forever.

Female representation is impediment for Political matters and topics regarding women decided by the Federal Government. For example, in 2006, female Senators from all main parties united and supported a bill to change legislation on the abortion pill, removing the Health Minister Tony Abbott’s right to retain the veto on the introduction of the

What was the most underrepresented social group in the elected assemblies of the world? whether is the minority ethnic, religious groups or the poor? According to Putman’s statistic, the answer was “women”. (Putnam 1976 cited in Megyery 1991) Statistics have shown that although women around the globe occupy more than one half of the population, very small proportion become political elite. Different from what women have encountered, man tends to dominate many spheres in life which includes electoral politics. Such gender disparity happens everywhere not just in Canada. Ever since Canadian women suffrage and the right to candidacy was achieved, they have made a couple strides in political arena, yet not as many as they wish with the existence of electoral glass ceiling standing

It is also evident that since female and male candidates are equally qualified for political positions and have the same success rate in elections, the gender gap can be explained through the lack of female participation in elections. Many governments, including the Canadian government, have contemplated introducing quota systems to reduce the scope of the gender gap and ensure female representation in parliament. However, in a democratic system, quotas can be viewed as a “violation of liberal democracy” because they favour a specific people group (“50% Population”). The solution, therefore, rests in the hands of the next generation of female leaders. It is up to young, educated women to embrace Virginia Woolf’s parting message in her essay A Room of One’s Own of acquiring “a room of [their] own” (Woolf 4). In other words, young women are faced with the task of developing a sense of independence and having the “habit of freedom and the courage” in order to pursue a career in politics (Woolf 112). Even though there are initiatives in universities aimed prepare women to run for politics such as the She Will Run, it is essential to acknowledge that gender parity in the political environment will not be achieved automatically ("50% Population”). As instructed by Woolf, young women must move past stereotypes, suppress

This essay will argue why Canada should take a substantive approach to women’s representation in parliament. Having an adequate representation of women in parliament would be a huge turning point for women and allow their voices to be heard. Each woman holds a different view, just like men do. Each gender and person will bring their own view forth and allow for a diverse House. The issue is that women are not getting adequate representation, and therefore are not being able to represent their views. Men have a much larger congregation than women, therefore overpowering the views/ideologies of them. In Canada, everyone strives for equality, and the best place to start is to take a substantive approach to women’s representation in parliament.

Wilson points out that women are steadily gaining traction in legislature, but at a severely slow pace when compared to other Western democracies. Over 30% of all Democratic state legislator are women. Conversely, fewer than one in six Republican state legislators are women. The chances of a woman winning or losing a political election is no greater than a man’s chances.

Swers evaluates whether female representatives in Congress are more inclined to support and promote women’s issues than male representatives. Using original data regarding women’s issue legislation in the 103rd and 104th Congress and qualitative data in the form of survey questions, Swers concludes that gender does in fact make a difference. After controlling for institutional factors and party affiliation, Swers finds that female legislators were more likely to introduce social welfare

Barriers Women may face when entering politics in Canada Women have expressed interest in running for office but not many women get pasted the nomination process. Women make up 52 percent of Canada’s population while only 22 percent of women are members of Parliament. Canada ranked 50th out of 189 countries in the number of women elected in national parliament. This puts Canada behind countries such as Rwanda, Afghanistan and Iraq. Even with economic growth and political stability, Canada has fewer women in parliament than most of Europe.

Matland and Studler (1996) found that there are larger and more justifiable amounts of female representation in governments that employ a PR electoral system and multi-member districts, as opposed to governments that utilize a FPTP electoral system and single-member districts. Baron and Diermeier (2001) found that Political Parties elected to the government are given a proportion of seats equal to the percentage of votes they receive, in a Parliamentary government with a PR electoral system. These findings are key benefits that a PR system would provide to Political Parties in Canada, which are especially important for smaller parties, such as the Green Party, and women in Canadian Politics since these benefits ensure them better representation in Parliament. In contrast, the FPTP system, an institutional constraint, prevents small parties from gaining governmental power and the diversity of candidates in its single-member districts (Kelly, 2011). Baron and Diermeier (2001) also found that a minority government would be most likely to form in an election under a PR electoral system with list system PR and multi-member districts, which is one change it could have brought to the 2015 election, but there would still be strategic voting in order to support voters' preferred policies. The 2015 federal election saw a high voter turnout, at 68.49 % (Elections Canada, 2015). Blais et al., (2014) found that voter turnout is not higher in PR elections than in FPTP and that voters are not more likely to vote in PR elections when the anticipated reward for voting is higher. This indicates that another change a PR electoral system with list system PR

Statistics Canada shows that women make up of 50.4% (2010) of Canada’s collective population, however, only 25.3 % of those women are situated in the House of Commons (Women, 2015). Why would this be the case? Canadian women have suffered for a long time now regarding the concern that not only dictated history but has also harshly influenced today’s society, which is the social gap between men and women. It is arguable that this gap has prevented women from the ability to seek their highest potential due to the lack of recognition they would receive, mainly because of their gender. Women have been stigmatized in society as being inferior to men in many aspects of life, such as, “not being as intelligent or as strong as men” even if they are.

Women legislators have consistently made up 22 per cent of Canada’s Parliament ranking Canada 48th in the world when it comes to electing women to its national parliament. Canada has lagged far behind other similar countries that are too rooted in values of liberal democracy, the welfare state, and social equality. On average, 43 per cent of women hold decision-making positions in Nordic countries. Why has Canada fallen behind in promoting greater female political representation? Feminists like Catherine MacKinnon, have argued that Canada’s lack of female political representation has been a result of the patriarchal character of Canada’s liberal political system in which concepts of formal

in Heider and Pedersen, 2006). This theory states that any minority can only impact decision if their number exceeds a certain threshold, or critical mass (often set at 30%). Heider and Pedersen translate Kanter’s theory to the gender gap in political parties, asserting that, “in parties exceeding 30 percent female members the female ‘group’ would be able to influence the men to the extent that the gender gap was smaller than in more male-dominated parties”. They refer to this idea as the “critical mass harmonization hypothesis”. While a small minority of women might make concessions to the men in their party, they tend, in a larger number, to grow in confidence and be assertive enough to convince their male counterparts. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Norwegian parties present fewer gender differences in political opinion than Denmark, whose parties count less

When Sylvia Bashevkin wrote “ the higher, the fewer” it was to indicate a pattern in women's political participation. The number of women in politics drops as one moves upward to the upper tiers of government, federal or provincial. The gap between the number of women involved in politics to the number of women in the country is still too wide. Over half the population is female and yet less than 25% were Members of Parliament in 2011. As of 2016 only 31% of senators were female. This gap highlights the need to continue to pursue the feminist movement.

New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote in 1893, however, since then we have dropped to 27th when it comes to gender representation in government, out of 188 countries. One of the many reasons as to why women are under represented in parliament can be linked to the issue of the political obstacles that face women. This is when they want to be in parliament, women whom are in parliament, and the many women who this is not an option for due to lack of opportunity. Women have to face this “masculine model” of politics and government. Men are dominant in parliament, meaning that political life revolves around male norms and values (Shvedova). This can be extended, politics is very much about competition and confrontation. Rather than politics being