This week marked the beginning of the final push toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals before their 2015 due date; on August 18th, organizations around the world working toward ending open defecation, increasing access to education, lowering maternal death rates, and more, came together across social media to push for keeping the momentum going in MDGs' final 500 days.
Among those organizations was the Women's Democracy Network (WDN), which used the moment to highlight MDG 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. "While we’ve seen great progress over the past 20 years with MDG #3," wrote Johanna Hellrigl, Senior Assistant Program Officer at WDN, "when it comes to closing the gender gap between women and men, the world’s population has nearly closed the gap in in health outcomes, economic empowerment, and educational attainment, but only 21 percent of the political outcomes gap has been closed."
According the World Bank, the only countries where women make up over 50 percent of parliamentary representation are Rwanda, which currently boasts 64 percent female parliamentarians, and Andorra, at 50 percent. Rwanda and Andorra are followed by Cuba at 49 percent; Sweden at 45 percent; Seychelles at 44 percent; Finland and Senegal at 43 percent; South Africa at 42 percent; and Norway, Iceland, and Nicaragua at 40 percent. Countries on the low end of women's parliamentary representation include Haiti at 4 percent; Myanmar at 6 percent; Nigeria at 7 percent; Japan at 8 percent; Brazil at 9 percent; Russia at 14 percent; and China at 23 percent. The world's two largest democracies, India and the United States, have a poor showing in these numbers: India is at 11 percent and the U.S. is at 18 percent.
One of the primary reasons why women do not run for office is that they simply are not asked to—in fact, in the United States, this is the number one reason why more women do not run for office (besides hurdles such as fundraising and persistent media coverage that focuses on women's clothes and appearances, both of which can damage a woman's chances of winning an election). These forces mean that not only is the U.S. Congress only 18 percent women, but also only 17 percent of the 1248 largest U.S. cities have or have had a woman mayor, four U.S. states have never elected even one woman to the House or Senate, and there has never been a female President of the United States.
Most Americans are completely unaware of how poorly women are represented in their government.
How do we fix this gender imbalance? Ask a woman to run for office!
On August 18th, WDN launched their latest initiative in empowering women politically: the Ask a Woman to Run campaign. Beyond encouraging women in your own life to run for office, WDN set up a page where anyone can alert the organization of a woman who should run for office. To bring further attention to the issue of women's political equality and MDG 3, WDN hosted a Twitter chat:
Q1: What are some factors for women’s exclusion from politics?#MDGmomentum #WomenInOffice
— WDN (@wdn) August 18, 2014 @wdn A.1.expose # of women in politics &advocate for redress of gaps,use int.&national law to promote inclusion #MDGmomentum #WomeninOffice
— WDN-Uganda (@WDNUganda) August 18, 2014 .@wdn Studies show that women don’t necessarily see connection betwn being in office and positive social change #MDGmomentum #WomenInOffice
— She Should Run (@SheShouldRun) August 18, 2014 .@wdn This is why you see women make majority of charitable giving, but small percentage of political giving #MDGmomentum #WomenInOffice
— She Should Run (@SheShouldRun) August 18, 2014 @wdn in my country women need to security,reforms laws and good networking
— Azra Jafari (@AzraJafari) August 18, 2014 @wdn in Afghanistan we need more educate people , (women &men) ' jobs and awareness programs
— Azra Jafari (@AzraJafari) August 18, 2014 @wdn need 2 continue 2 support women caucuses & coalitions 2 create impt. legislation #womeninoffice #MDGMomentum pic.twitter.com/XDQiXUI3EG
— Johanna Hellrigl (@JHellrigl) August 18, 2014 .@wdn The truth is we need more women at the decision making table. Whether its politics, in the @UN, everywhere #MDGmomentum #WomenInOffice
— She Should Run (@SheShouldRun) August 18, 2014 For more information about the number of women in politics, WDN put together this infographic:
Chrisella Sagers Herzog is the managing editor of Diplomatic Courier and Editor-in-Chief of WhiteHat Magazine. She can be found on Twitter at @Chrisella.
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One Easy Way to Get More Women in Political Offices [Infographic]
August 21, 2014
This week marked the beginning of the final push toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals before their 2015 due date; on August 18th, organizations around the world working toward ending open defecation, increasing access to education, lowering maternal death rates, and more, came together across social media to push for keeping the momentum going in MDGs' final 500 days.
Among those organizations was the Women's Democracy Network (WDN), which used the moment to highlight MDG 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. "While we’ve seen great progress over the past 20 years with MDG #3," wrote Johanna Hellrigl, Senior Assistant Program Officer at WDN, "when it comes to closing the gender gap between women and men, the world’s population has nearly closed the gap in in health outcomes, economic empowerment, and educational attainment, but only 21 percent of the political outcomes gap has been closed."
According the World Bank, the only countries where women make up over 50 percent of parliamentary representation are Rwanda, which currently boasts 64 percent female parliamentarians, and Andorra, at 50 percent. Rwanda and Andorra are followed by Cuba at 49 percent; Sweden at 45 percent; Seychelles at 44 percent; Finland and Senegal at 43 percent; South Africa at 42 percent; and Norway, Iceland, and Nicaragua at 40 percent. Countries on the low end of women's parliamentary representation include Haiti at 4 percent; Myanmar at 6 percent; Nigeria at 7 percent; Japan at 8 percent; Brazil at 9 percent; Russia at 14 percent; and China at 23 percent. The world's two largest democracies, India and the United States, have a poor showing in these numbers: India is at 11 percent and the U.S. is at 18 percent.
One of the primary reasons why women do not run for office is that they simply are not asked to—in fact, in the United States, this is the number one reason why more women do not run for office (besides hurdles such as fundraising and persistent media coverage that focuses on women's clothes and appearances, both of which can damage a woman's chances of winning an election). These forces mean that not only is the U.S. Congress only 18 percent women, but also only 17 percent of the 1248 largest U.S. cities have or have had a woman mayor, four U.S. states have never elected even one woman to the House or Senate, and there has never been a female President of the United States.
Most Americans are completely unaware of how poorly women are represented in their government.
How do we fix this gender imbalance? Ask a woman to run for office!
On August 18th, WDN launched their latest initiative in empowering women politically: the Ask a Woman to Run campaign. Beyond encouraging women in your own life to run for office, WDN set up a page where anyone can alert the organization of a woman who should run for office. To bring further attention to the issue of women's political equality and MDG 3, WDN hosted a Twitter chat:
Q1: What are some factors for women’s exclusion from politics?#MDGmomentum #WomenInOffice
— WDN (@wdn) August 18, 2014 @wdn A.1.expose # of women in politics &advocate for redress of gaps,use int.&national law to promote inclusion #MDGmomentum #WomeninOffice
— WDN-Uganda (@WDNUganda) August 18, 2014 .@wdn Studies show that women don’t necessarily see connection betwn being in office and positive social change #MDGmomentum #WomenInOffice
— She Should Run (@SheShouldRun) August 18, 2014 .@wdn This is why you see women make majority of charitable giving, but small percentage of political giving #MDGmomentum #WomenInOffice
— She Should Run (@SheShouldRun) August 18, 2014 @wdn in my country women need to security,reforms laws and good networking
— Azra Jafari (@AzraJafari) August 18, 2014 @wdn in Afghanistan we need more educate people , (women &men) ' jobs and awareness programs
— Azra Jafari (@AzraJafari) August 18, 2014 @wdn need 2 continue 2 support women caucuses & coalitions 2 create impt. legislation #womeninoffice #MDGMomentum pic.twitter.com/XDQiXUI3EG
— Johanna Hellrigl (@JHellrigl) August 18, 2014 .@wdn The truth is we need more women at the decision making table. Whether its politics, in the @UN, everywhere #MDGmomentum #WomenInOffice
— She Should Run (@SheShouldRun) August 18, 2014 For more information about the number of women in politics, WDN put together this infographic:
Chrisella Sagers Herzog is the managing editor of Diplomatic Courier and Editor-in-Chief of WhiteHat Magazine. She can be found on Twitter at @Chrisella.
