In looking at the Arab Spring and articles discussing the involvement of women I came across a piece in the Guardian about the involvement of women in recent Egyptian elections. It painted a depressing image about the options open to women. With no female presidential candidates and representation in the newly elected house standing at only 2.4% where is the female voice?
The spokeswoman for one of the leading parties, Dr Hassan, said that she saw no problem with low female involvement. Arguing that it should be left to the men to protest for their rights on behalf of the women. How can Egyptian women and female bloggers there, hope to improve their position in society if one of their key representatives does not see a problem with low involvement from half of the population?
The article also states that the UN average for the percentage of women within political bodies (houses/senates etc) within countries stands at 19%. Considerably less than 50%.
This Unicef link provides a good point of comparison. The figures are based on data from 1994. The IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union) link shows current 2012 figures. This shows that Rwanda is top of the 'league' table with women constituting over 50% of the seats in Parliament. There are however, several nations at the bottom of the table with 0% representation for women. These not surprisingly include nations where women can not currently vote such as Saudi Arabia. The UK shares joint 54th with Malawi with just over 22% of MPs being female. Again, still considerably under 50%.
How can we hope to improve women's lives and their position within society if they do not have close to equal representation within their political systems? The next question must surely be, how can we boost and encourage greater involvement from and for women?
*The IPU link is excellent for seeing exactly where and how much representation women have in politics across the world. It provides some shocking examples that can not be ignored.
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