May 25, 2021
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This UK campaign is working to close the politics gender gap
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This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.
Author: Kate Whiting, Senior Writer, Formative Content
It will take145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics globally, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report.
In the UK, there are still twice as many male as female MPs.
Frances Scott launched the cross-party campaign 50:50 Parliament to call for gender equality in UK politics.
The writer is a freelance contributor.
A COMMENT by a UK-based friend during a trip was that women in Pakistan were few and far between a normal state of affairs for those who live here although some of us have noticed women missing from offices, shops, markets, mosques, streets, parks, dhabas or from positions of authority. They are not seen in policymaking fora or foreign delegations. They are missing from schools and the teaching profession.
Globally, societies are assessed through indicators that measure economic aspects, intellectual progress, social conditions, living standards and other factors to determine how human beings fare. The Human Development Index (HDI) is one indicator that measures health, education and income levels in all countries. An adjustment for gender inequality, measuring health, empowerment and labour market for both women and men produces the Gender Inequality Index (GII).
Caught between home and the office
March 11, 2019
A typical week-day in the life of a woman with a career and children looks something like this: She gets out of bed at 6 a.m. to get her children ready for their day, then goes to work for at least nine hours (often working through her lunch break) before picking up her children from daycare or their grandparents and being fully engaged with them and their needs until they sleep at 8 p.m. She then spends the remaining few hours before going to bed either catching up on small household chores or work, spending some quality time with her husband, or doing things that interest her and the next day she gets up to repeat it all again.
Years of efforts to improve gender parity in the workplace have been undone by the COVID-19 pandemic that has played havoc with livelihoods, especially in the case of women.
Backed by opposition parties, Haruko Miyaguchi, center, won in the Upper House re-election in Hiroshima in April. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Women make up half of the population, yet they account for only 10 percent of Lower House members and occupy just 20 percent of seats in the upper chamber, a level of political representation that ranks among the lowest in the world.
Each political party has an obligation to field as many female candidates as possible in the Lower House election that must be held by autumn to help correct this gender disparity in politics.
Three years have passed since a law to promote candidate gender parity in both national and local elections came into force. It calls for political parties to make utmost efforts to ensure the numbers of their male and female candidates match as far as possible.