Representation Of Women In Government

Allowing women to vote, wage increases, employment and parental leave have been major winning battles for women in Australia and all around the world, but the fights not over yet. Equal representation in politics is a new critical battle that must be tackled head on. It is essential for women to be able to express their opinions on the political course of Australia.

With wage discrimination between men and women, occupational segregation, higher poverty rates among females, and the lack of women in the decision-making body, Canadian women continue to fall behind men economically, socially, and politically. According to Linda Trimble and Pamela Marie Paxton, the lack of female political representation has been the principal reason for ongoing gender inequality. The underrepresentation of women in decision-making positions results in the neglect of women’s issues in public policies and programs; thus, the lack of critical numbers of women representatives not only impedes women from important negotiations in areas of finance or labour, but it also allows for the unequal status quo to continue/exist between genders.

While America has improved over the past few decades, females are still very underrepresented in the government today. As Lili Gil quotes in her article entitled The Gender Crisis in Politics: U.S. Congress Fails at Equality, “The Nordic countries (Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, and Norway) lead the world regionally with 42.1 percent female representation in national legislatures” (Congress Research Service para 3.) It is very sad to see that America is beginning to fall behind in modern day thinking. While those countries may lack a modern landscape, they do not fail in modern thinking regarding gender equality. Iceland was the first country to elect a female into office 35 years ago, they also required that females have a 40% representation on the board of publicly traded companies, or for the companies to go out of business. Another shocking fact is that America, while being a progressive, democratic and developed country, has “greater gender disparities than Rwanda, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Bolivia and many other “developing” nations” (Gil para 3.) As proven in these successful countries, females being in higher positions do not hurt the country's prosperity, but help the countries in the long

If more women were in higher governmental power, additional action would be taken to improve the government and the world in general. Women have always been considered a follower of men since the beginning of time. However, women are being politically elected to be head of state and government, they are leaders of countries and role models for the younger generations. More than 20 countries currently have a woman holding office as the head of a national government, and the global participation rate of women in national-level parliaments is nearly 20%. In addition, women are highly devoted to promoting national and local policies that address the socioeconomic and political challenges facing women, children, and disadvantaged

Not only were women voting for their nation’s officials, they were some of the ones being elected. Starting in as early as 1866, women had been running for various public offices and in some rare cases they won the election. For example, Susanna Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas in 1887; Martha Hughes Cannon was elected to the Utah State Senate in 1896; and Jeannette Rankin entered the United States House of Representatives in 1917. By the 1920s, women had become more involved in government and were being elected in greater numbers. They had the opportunity and power to organize laws and bills that they had

When the Nineteenth amendment passed, women were encouraged by the suffrage organizations to take part in their nation’s politics. Many women were elected to political offices in the 1920’s. In this time frame seven women had been elected into the House of Representatives. However, no women were elected for positions in the Senate. Although seven women may not seem like a lot that was only on the national level and was a big victory for the suffrage organizations. The greatest success came at the state level politics for women as they began receiving high ranking titles such as Secretary of State and Secretary of Education. This success came from women’s political actions and “taking advantage of their new found freedom” CITATION Lee15 l 1033 (Lee).

While on the other side women only have 4.2% of female Fortune 500 CEOs, 23.7% of female state legislators, and 19% of women in Congress

Many women, 44 to be exact, have had the opportunity to be a part of the US Senate. Currently, we have 21 female senators in Congress as opposed to the few we had this past Century. People, however, say that more women need to represent Congress. I argue that it is not about what a person looks like or identified as, but it is the policies that they intend to put in place. Senators using the ideals of substantive representation should be the Mainstay of our current political system.

Stereotypically, men are considered better than women in every aspect naturally, politics included; also women not enable to make decisions in society (Clover, McGregor, Farrell, & Pant, 2011, p. 21). These stereotypes might be unfair, but they have left an impression still visible today. Research conducted in 2009 by Statistics Canada shows, only 21.1% of provincial and federal government is made up of women, and only slightly more than 25% in the local governments (Clover, et al., 2011, p. 20). This percentage of women might sound like a lot, but when put the numbers all together; there are only a few women. There was only one woman to be elected Prime Minister of Canada. That just shows how rare it is for women to hold a position in Canadian Government. Sometimes, women can bring a different perspective to political meetings. Slowly,

Women in the government has always been an uncommon thing to see except for in recent year’s history. Women were never involved in politics as there were always male leaders representing the nation. Men were typically seen as good political leaders and women were never considered for the American government until the first time a woman ran for vice president in 1984 and everything changed.

One of the main purposes of the United States government is to make policy that is relevant and helpful to the people of the country. To this end, it is important that our leaders understand and reflect the values and concerns of the people they represent. It is important, therefore, that it is comprised of a diverse group of individuals to match the diversity of the nation’s population. It is concerning, then, that, despite the fact that women make up 52 percent of the population, they only make up 17-18 percent of the United States Congress. Not only are they underrepresented, but they also show lower interest in running for office to begin with compared to their male counterparts. It is important to address the causes of and solutions

Even though women have increased their interest in politics, their involvement remains slow-moving almost at a standstill. Participation of women in US government is only a mere 18 percent. There are several factors that have impacted the female participation in the politics. These factors include their responsibility for childcare, their disbelief that they qualify for the position, and they lack confidence in their ability to perform the duties of the position.

Four main areas where America lags in the quest for equality are equal wages, women in leadership positions, impartial leaders, and childcare. For equal work, the United States is seventy-fourth out of one hundred and forty-five countries in terms of equal wages. Essentially, this means that American women are paid 78% of what American men are paid. To worsen this, black women are paid 64% and Latina women 56% of the salary of men. Despite the fact that women often work lower paying jobs with fewer hours than men, this is still an issue because equal jobs should have equal pay. Women fulfill these positions because society believes they are incompetent to work at the standard that men do. This connects to the issue of impartial leaders, because if two people have the exact same capabilities and can prove it in the same ways, there is no reason that a man should be picked over a woman. For example, if two copies of the same resume were sent to a university, under the names “John” and “Jennifer,” the character named “John” was proved to have a better chance of being hired, and with a better salary. Another major issue is how few females are represented in a form of leadership or government. Out of the five hundred and thirty-five seats in congress, 19.4%, or one hundred and four women are put forward. This brings the United States to 81st on the list of equally represented countries. Lastly, America falters with

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.

Women are underrepresented in political offices at the national and local levels. Currently, only 17 women serve in the United States Senate out of 100 seats and only 16 percent of the United States House of Representatives are female. Why is this a problem? Legislatures, the House of