Gender and Elections

Topic IndexBuilding gender-sensitive parliaments

According to an Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) survey, conducted between 2006 and 2008, women face great obstacles entering politics, including prejudice and cultural perceptions about the roles of women in society, violence against women in politics, and lack of financial resources. When they do become involved, women parliamentarians bring new perspectives and priorities to the decision-making process, placing women’s concerns in the parliamentary agenda. This study concluded that women’s participation is a major driver of change in terms of gender equality in parliament. However, its findings also showed that parliaments as a whole are not generally gender-sensitive institutions, with most parliamentarians agreeing that gender equality is only “occasionally” or “rarely” mainstreamed in parliament. [1]

The IPU published in 2011 another study on gender-sensitive parliaments [2], focusing on what parliaments are doing, as institutions, to promote gender equality. Gender-sensitive parliaments respond “to the needs and interests of both  men and women in its structures, operations, methods and in its work”. In gender-sensitive parliaments men and women have equal right to fully participate without discrimination in the decision-making process and gender is mainstreamed throughout all parliamentary work. Some concrete examples of actions that gender-sensitive parliaments may take would include appointing women to lead important committees, allowing them equal time to speak on the floor of parliaments, ensuring their offices have equal and adequate resources, and holding sessions at times when women are not responsible for care or domestic duties, among others.

Parliaments should be safe spaces for all men and women, but in practice sexism, harassment and violence against women members of parliament are widespread, as shown by the IPU’s 2016 publication “Sexism, harassment and violence against women parliamentarians”. This research shows high levels of prevalence, with 81.8 percent of respondents being subjected to psychological violence, 21.8 percent to sexual violence, 25.5 percent to physical violence and 32.7 percent to economic violence.[3]

Parliamentarians can promote gender equality within the institution’s internal policies, structures and culture, as well as when fulfilling their parliamentary responsibilities in the legislative process, governmental oversight and representation. The IPU’s 2017 Plan of Action for Gender-Sensitive Parliaments, building on the previous 2012 Plan of Action, aims to assist parliaments in their efforts to become more gender sensitive, presenting strategies in the following action areas: [4]

Increase the number of women in parliament and achieve equal participation;
Strengthen gender equality legislation and policy;
Mainstream gender equality throughout all parliamentary work;
Institute or improve gender-sensitive infrastructure and parliamentary culture;
Ensure that responsibility for gender equality is shared by all parliamentarians, men and women;
Encourage political parties to be champions of gender equality; and
Enhance the gender sensitivity of, and gender equality among, parliamentary staff.

[1] Ballington, Julie (2008): “Equality in Politics: A survey of Women and Men in Parliaments”. Inter-Parliamentary Union. Reports and Documents nº 54.

See: archive.ipu.org/PDF/publications/equality08-e.pdf

[2] Palmieri, Sonia (2011): “Gender-Sensitive Parliaments: A Global Review of Good Practice”. Inter-Parliamentary Union.

See: https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/reports/2016-07/gender-sensitive-parliaments

[3] Inter-Parliamentary Union (2016): “Sexism, harassment and violence against women parliamentarians”.

See: https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/reports/2016-10/sexism-harassment-and-violence-against-women-parliamentarians

[4] Inter-Parliamentary Union (2017): “Plan of action for gender-sensitive parliaments”.

See: https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/reference/2016-07/plan-action-gender-sensitive-parliaments

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Gender and Elections