7 May 2015
Good morning MLE,
Well, it is election day here in the UK, so I am going to speak about elections. No, don’t stop reading, I promise to keep it short!
I’m not going to talk about the UK, but rather Canada. As of yesterday, in Alberta, Canada (where most of my family is from), the NDP government caucus is about 45% female. The numbers are to be confirmed, but it appears that Alberta has elected the most women in any government in Canadian history.
Now some other people are going to stop reading, because they don’t like when I say “feminist” things. This has always seemed a bit strange to me, because I don’t understand why everyone is not a feminist. Who (whether you are male or female) does not want women to have the same rights as men?
Anyway, women's participation and representation in decision making bodies at executive and legislative levels has increased over the past decades - but this has been very slow and uneven across the world.
Education, quotas, legislation and women’s movements have all shown to help. In addition, we need to address gender inequality within families, inequitable division of labor within households, and cultural attitudes about gender roles.
In national parliaments, the global average of seats held by women is only 22%. Parliaments are supposed to be there to represent the people. Considering that 50% of the people are female, we have a long way to go before they truly represent us.
Suzan xx
