MALIGAYAN

G ARAW
EVERYONE!

GROUP 3
WOMENS
IN
POLITICS GRE
EN
Whose in the pic?
What do you know about them
Corazon Aquino
Corazon Aquino was the most prominent
figure of the 1986 People Power
Revolution, which ended the 20-year rule
of President Ferdinand Marcos. She was
named Time magazine's Woman of the
Year in 1986.
Miriam Santiago
Miriam Defensor Santiago is politician,
professor, and public servant who is most
notable for being the very first Filipino to win a
seat as a judge at the International Criminal
Court. In her more than twenty years of political
career, Miriam has proven herself to be an
honest, efficient, and excellent public servant,
which is why the Filipino people love her.
Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris was sworn in on January
3, 2011; she is the first woman, the first
African American, and the first South
Asian American to hold the office of
Attorney General in the state's history.
Facts and figures: Women’s
leadership and political
participation
United Nations
Millennium Development Goals
(United Nations, 2019), women’s
equal participation with men in
power and decision-making is
part of their fundamental right to
participate in political life, and at
the core of gender equality and
women’s empowerment.
Women’s full and effective
political participation is a
matter of human rights,
inclusive growth and
sustainable development
(OECD, 2018a)
 The active participation of women,
on equal terms with men, at all levels of
decision-making and political
involvement is essential to the
achievement of equality, sustainable
development, peace and democracy
and the inclusion of their perspectives
and experiences into the decision-
making processes.
 Women’s equal participation and
leadership in political and public life are
essential to achieving the Sustainable
Development Goals by 2030. However,
data shows that women are
underrepresented at all levels of
decision-making worldwide, and
achieving gender parity in political life is
far off.
 Regional variations noted for women’s
representation in local deliberative bodies, as
of January 2020: Central and Southern Asia,
41 per cent; Europe and Northern America, 35
per cent; Oceania, 32 per cent; Sub-Saharan
Africa, 29 per cent; Eastern and South-Eastern
Asia, 25 per cent; Latin America and the
Caribbean, 25 per cent; Western Asia and
Northern Africa, 18 per cent.

Women in local Government

 Data from 133 countries shows
that women constitute 2.18 million (36
per cent) of elected members in local
deliberative bodies. Only two
countries have reached 50 per cent,
and an additional 18 countries have
more than 40 per cent women in local
government.
Women in local Government
Expanding Participation
of women in Politics 17
 Balanced political participation and
power-sharing between women and men in
decision-making is the internationally agreed
target set in the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action. Most countries in the
world have not achieved gender balance, and
few have set or met ambitious targets for
gender parity (50–50).
There is established and growing evidence that
women’s leadership in political decision-making
processes improves them. For example,
research on panchayats (local councils) in India
discovered that the number of drinking water
projects in areas with women-led councils was
62 per cent higher than in those with men-led
councils. In Norway, a direct causal relationship
between the presence of women in municipal
councils and childcare coverage was found.
 Accordingly, the meaningful
participation of women in national, local,
and community leadership roles has
become an important focus on global
development policy. Still, some may ask
why it matters if women become political
leaders, elected policymakers, or civil
society activists.
 Why does the world
need more women involved
in all aspects of the
political process?
Women's political participation
results in tangible gains for
democracy, including greater
responsiveness to citizen needs,
increased cooperation across
party and ethnic lines, and a
more sustainable future.
Women’s participation in politics helps
advance gender equality and affects
both the range of policy issues that get
considered and the types of solutions
that are proposed. Research indicates
that whether a legislator is male or
female has a distinct impact on their
policy priorities.
There is also strong evidence that
as more women are elected to
office, there is a corollary increase
in policy making that emphasizes
quality of life and reflects the
priorities of families, women, and
ethnic and racial minorities.
WOMEN IN
POLITCS
PHILIPPINES
Women’s right to participation and
representation in all spheres of life is vital in
fully realizing their role as agents and
beneficiaries of development. Women
comprise half of the country’s population,
and yet they hold only about one-fifth of
government elected positions. Women in key
positions in government have shown that
they are as capable and effective as their
male counterparts in assuming leadership
and decision-making roles.
 While men can and do participate in
crafting gender-responsive laws and programs,
they cannot always nor fully represent the
interests of women considering their
differentiated needs, issues, socialization and
experiences. Promoting women’s representation
in elected bodies allows them to contribute to
development and nation-building, and ensure
that governance leads to equal access to
resources and to development results and
outcomes for both women and men, girls and
boys.
While the country has made great strides in
promoting and increasing women’s political
participation, with two women having held
the highest position in government as
President of the Republic of the Philippines,
the proportion of women in politics or public
office is still yet to meet the 30 percent
“critical mass,” which scholars identify as
the minimum percentage necessary for a
minority group to be able to influence
decision making.
 From 1998 to 2016, the percentage of
women elected into public office ranged
from 16.1 percent to 21.44 percent,
reaching its peak in the 2016 elections. In
the 2019 National and Local Elections,
only 20.16 percent (8,782) of the
candidates were female.
The slow increase in women’s
representation in politics may be
attributed to prevailing patriarchal norms
and values, and gender stereotypes. It has
often been said that politics is more the
realm of men than women. Gender
stereotypes that consider women as weak,
emotional and indecisive – qualities that are
undesirable in negotiation and decision-
making – discourage voters from voting for
women candidates.
At the same time, the “multiple
burden” experienced by most
women, wherein they bear most of
the responsibility for performing
domestic duties while they engage in
political, economic and social
activities discourages women
themselves from running for public
office.
 The country’s electoral system, which
follows a “first-past-the-post” or plurality
system where the winner takes it all, affects
the preference of political parties or groups
to finance male candidates who are
perceived to have higher probabilities of
winning the election. The difficulty of
women in finding sufficient resources for
costly electoral campaigns tends to hinder
them from running for elective government
positions.
 The proportional system of representation
under the Party-List System Act (Republic Act
7941), which encourages a type of party politics
that is not personality-based but rather one that is
anchored on principles or programs, could have
been a good entry point for women’s increased
representation in the legislature. Nonetheless,
except in the case of women’s party-list groups,
the tendency to place women at the bottom or the
last spot of the list from which party-list
representatives shall be chosen in case the party
obtains the required number of votes still impedes
women from getting elected under this system.
At the local level, Section 9, Article X
of the 1987 Constitution states that
“[l]egislative bodies of local
governments shall have sectoral
representation as may be prescribed
by law. Section 41(c) of the Local
Government Code (Republic Act
7160).
This states that “ there shall be one (1) sectoral
representative from the women, one (1) from the
workers, and one (1) from any of the following
sectors: the urban poor, indigenous cultural
communities, disabled persons, or any other sector
as may be determined by the sanggunian
concerned…” (Emphasis supplied) Its
implementation is still at a halt given that the
enabling law for this constitutional and statutory
policy on local sectoral representation is yet to be
enacted.
Gender Quota
System
 One of the most popular and
widely-used strategy is the adoption of a
gender quota system as a temporary
special measure for the attainment of
gender balance in government
institutions. Under the gender quota
system, a certain number or percentage
of the members of a particular body are
allocated to a particular sex.
 Party quotas (also called voluntary party
quotas) are adopted in Australia, Canada,
Germany, and Switzerland. These quotas are
“adopted by individual parties for their own
candidate lists, and are usually enshrined in
party statutes and rules.” Nonetheless, a lot
of countries are also adopting gender-neutral
quotas that provide that neither sex shall
occupy more than a given percentage of
seats.
 This type of quota may also be in the form
of a requirement for alternating female and male
candidates on candidate lists such as those of
France, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Republic of Korea,
Lesotho and Zimbabwe. As of February 2019, 50
single or lower houses were composed of 30 per
cent or more women; more than half of these
countries have applied some form of quotas –
either legislative candidate quotas or reserved
seats.
Conclusion
It is important to ensure that women’s
representation will not only be a token. The
challenge is to form a critical mass of women in
elective positions so that their voices will be
heard. At the same time, measures should
focus on building the capacity and enhancing
leadership and decision-making skills of women
to be able to effect change and influence policy
discussions.
THANK
YOU ☺