WOMEN IN

Anubhav Ambooken
19TU04SW10
THIRD SEMESTER MSW
 ASSIGNMENT

 
Submitted To Submitted By
Mr. Suresh Anubhav Ambooken
Faculty Second Year MSW
Department of Social Work Department of Social Work
SSUS SSUS
Regional Centre Thuravoor Regional Centre Thuravoor
HISTORY OF WOMEN’S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

• Right to stand for election, US (1788)

• Right to vote New Zealand, (1893)
• First parliamentarians Finland, (1907)
• First head of state Mongolia, (1953)
• In July 2008, women accounted for 80.4 % of parliamentarians
worldwide (IPU, 2008)
• In Arab Countries this number stood at 9.7%
• This disparity rarely reflects legal restrictions:
• Women can vote, women can support candidates, and women
can run for office in almost every country.
• In many countries, female voter turnout exceeds male turnout.
• An important policy response has been gender quotas in politics:
Over 100 countries have some form of political affirmative action.
 WOMEN’S POLITICAL
PARTICIPATION: BENEFITS
• Higher standards of living
• Concerns of marginalized voters represented
• Collaborative leadership styles
• Work across party lines
• Peace building
• Better decisions
 WOMEN IN POLITICS: VOTERS
• The movement for women’s suffrage began in the early
1900s in response to a national movement for suffrage,
even though vast majority of neither men nor women had
a right to vote during the British colonial rule before 1947.
• After Indian independence from Britain, the Indian
Constitution in 1950 officially granted women and men
suffrage. Prior to universal suffrage, provincial legislatures
had granted women the right to vote.
• Fundamental right
• Voter and civic education
• When women vote, women win
 GLOBAL FRAMEWORKS
• CEDAW (1979)
– International bill of rights for women
– Defines discrimination
– States commit to end discrimination
• Beijing Platform for Action (1995)
– Agenda for women's empowerment
– Aims to remove obstacles to women's active participation
• Millennium Development Goals (2001)
– promote gender equality and empower women
• UN Security Council Resolutions
– 1325: Women’s participation in peace negotiations and
reconstruction
– Subsequent Resolutions: 1820,1888, 1889 and 1960
 INDIAN CONTEXT
• Women upliftment and empowerment in India first received
National and International recognition when the Indira
Gandhi’s Government launched the Indira Mahila Yojana and
when the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
incorporated the issue of Women Upliftment as one of its
primary objective.
• In 1954, the United Nations Convention on the Political Rights
of Women went into force, enshrining women's equal rights
to vote, hold office, and access public services as provided for
male citizens within national laws. There has been shift in
policy approaches from the concept of ‘welfare’ in seventies
to ‘development’ in eighties and now to ‘empowerment’ in
the nineties.
 INDIAN ELECTIONS
• State Assembly elections were held in May 2011 for four
States and it gave us two female Chief Ministers i.e.
• Mamta Banerjee became Chief Minister of West Bengal,
• Jayalalitha became Chief Minister of Tamilnadu.
• Mayawati is another strong woman leader of Uttar Pradesh.
At the age of 39, in 1995 Mayawati became the youngest
politician to be elected as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
and the first Dalit woman Chief Minister of any State in
India.
• In addition Sheila Dixit became the Chief Minister of
UnionTerritory of Delhi for the third consecutive term in
2009.
 INDIAN WOMEN
• Sonia Gandhi:The all-in-all of All India Congress, Sonia Gandhi's tenure as the
Congress president has been the longest in its century-old history. She is also
the chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
• Sushma Swaraj: Seven times Member of Parliament and three times Member
of the Legislative Assemby. She was the Union Minister Of External Affairs of
India.  She is the second woman to hold this position after Indira Gandhi.
• Sheila Dikshit:Sheila Dikshit was the Chief Minister of Delhi from 1998 to 2013
• Mamata Banerjee:The first woman Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata
Banerjee, popularly known as Mamata didi, dethroned the 34-year-old left front
government in the state. She was also the first woman railway minister of the
country.
• Jayalalitha: Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha Jayaram wasthe
general secretary of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). She
joined politics in 1982. In 1984, she became a Rajya Sabha MP.
 IN KERALA
• The percentage of female members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) fell from
10.23% in 1996 to 6.06% in 2016, even as the number of women candidates doubled
over these five elections.
• The percentage of female members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) fell from
10.23% in 1996 to 6.06% in 2016, even as the number of women candidates doubled
over these five elections.
• Women in the state led 2014’s Nilpu Samaram (standing agitation), which demanded
that the government implement tribal rights over land that allow local communities to
use forests and curb police excesses.
• They also led Pembilai orumai (female unity), a 2015 protest in the tea-growing hill
town of Munnar in Kerala to demand higher wages and facilities for plantation
workers.
• CK Janu, a popular tribal leader, who contested as an independent candidate with
support from the National Democratic Alliance at the Sulthan Bathery constituency in
Wayanad,which has the highest percentage of tribals in Kerala. She finished third
among eight candidates with 16 per cent of the vote.
• PK Jayalakshmi, Minister for Welfare of Scheduled Tribes in the previous government,
the United Democratic Front (UDF) candidate from Mananthavady in Wayanad
district. She got 42 per cent of the vote.
 GOALS
We want MORE:
• (informed) women voters
• women party leaders
• elected women at all levels
• effective women leaders
• inclusive party platforms
• inclusive public policy
 MINIMUM CONDITIONS FOR
POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
• Access to positions of power
• Transparency
• Changing cultural norms
• Women’s economic empowerment
• Political will
• Voice
– Empowerment
– Critical mass
• Access
– Representative resources
– Material and economic resources
– Democratic/cultural space
– Information – gender-disaggregated
• Capacity
 IMPACTS
• Female leadership in politics is an important way of providing women a say
in the policy process.
• Cultural and social norms often lead to poor perceptions of whether
women can lead effectively.
• This can make initial entry of women into politics difficult.
• However, voters are willing to learn – they update their beliefs after
observing women lead.
• Development of nation & opportunities to all.
• Female leadership shifts policies towards those preferred by women
• Suggests public policy can play an important role in ensuring there is a first
generation of female leaders.
• Women only had right to vote in USA since 1920.
• Women represent 50% of world’s population.
• Have only 16% representation in world’s governments.
• 60% of eligible women vote compared to 56% of eligible men.
THANK YOU