Sweden's Role Of Women In The Australian And Swedish Government

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

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.

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.

Too long has it been held that women has no right to enter these movements… Politics is the place for woman”. (Foner, 2010) The role of women in politics greatly expanded during the progressive era. As in prior decades, many reformers were women that were upper class, but as the economy grew there was an the expansion of what would be called the “upper-middle-class”, which meant that there would be more educational opportunities.

The progression of the rights and freedoms of women has changed drastically over the past 100 years. Women have felt the need to stand up for their rights and change the traditional stereotype of women from, weak and unambitious to strong and determined beings. There were two main time periods where their rights were recognized throughout Australia. The first took place in the early 20th century, where women rallied for the rights to vote and stand for elections. The second took place in the 1960s and 1970s, when traditional roles of women were challenged. The third aspect that will also be looked at in this essay, are influential women in the two time

When women try to prove what they can do in the society, they are obstructed with societal stereotyping. In the world of politics, it is rare to see a woman hold a post of any political division. The capabilities that women are able to do has always been overlooked by the society and as a result, women, not just in the Canadian politics, but all over the world, have had begun changing these general views towards them. Actions had been taken,

In an effort to combat these structural impediments, parliaments across the globe have adopted proportional representation (PR) systems. Implementing gender mainstreaming practices have increased the amount of women holding parliamentary seats worldwide. “Non-PR countries only average 13.3 percentage rates. PR countries boast a much higher office holding rate at 20.7 percent respectively.” (Renzetti, Curran, Maier 2012: 312-313).

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.

It might surprise you that while feminist rallies and peaceful protests are taking place worldwide, Australia has in fact retracted their level of female political representation in the last five years. While other nations are progressing in their level of gender equality, the drag in women with an interest in politics is largely to

The evolution of the rights of woman in Australia owes much to successive waves of feminism, or the woman’s movement. The first of these took place in the late 19th century and was concerned largely with gaining the right to vote and to stand for election into parliament. The second wave of feminism took place in the 1960s and 1970s and focused on gaining equality with men in other areas, such as work, the law and general social standing. These protests for the changing rights and freedoms of woman targeted many different aspects of life and presented a broader challenge to traditional ideas of

As being two of the most unliked topics in society, when the two of them are brought together we are faced with a conflicting subject. Politics pursuing the image of justice and fairness, and sexism being a differ in equality between male and female. Although no one can truly be non-sexist, when powerful leaders of our country including a past prime minister, the man who conducts the running of the country makes blunt sexist comments toward a fellow female leader’s numerous times and also toward the women of Australia, it is understandable that women feel a need to fight back for equality.

Reserve the few important portfolios for the women-------- female ministers are typically given ‘feminine’ portfolios, such as education, health, social welfare or environment. Moreover, governments do not consider gender equality as a priority, gender equality issues are missing from the budgeting process, and women are not present in the financial, peace, and international negotiations, structures and delegations. The participation of a proportion of women in government in all levels should be established as one of the rules of democracy. All governments should thus include a proportion of women. Men and women alike are fitted to hold government

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