It is undeniable that certain subgroups within society experience political inequalities. As examined in previous blog posts, these segments of the population that suffer from marginalisation and discrimination vary from age cohorts, gender, socioeconomic class, race – this is just a few examples, unfortunately the list does not stop there.
However, in addition to this, there is an interconnected nature to these inequalities, whereby an individual can experience an overlapping of discrimination and disadvantage, coined as intersectionality (Strolovitch, 2007). To put simply, being a working class individual is a disadvantage, but being a working class female is a ‘double’ disadvantage. Therefore, this blog will primarily focus on black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women in political engagement.
BAME women have certainly been hindered from political engagement, arguably even more so than other subgroups who experience inequalities. This may be to due to the fact that BAME women did not have the same voting rights compared to their white female counterparts until 1965 (Michener et al, 2012). Which if you think about it, it is not that long ago at all, especially as some white women were given the right to vote in 1918 due to Representation of the People Act.
IPSOS MORI (2019) found that only 52% of all BAME citizens voted in the 2019 UK election, compared to 63% of the white population. Although this statistic excludes the intersectionality of gender, it nonetheless demonstrates the unequal voting turn out. To elaborate on this further, representation of BAME within politics is also deeply disproportionate; in the 2017 General Election 208 women returned to the House of Commons. However, only 26 out of 208, are from an ethnic minority background (Audickas & Apostolova, 2017), which equates to 4% out of 32% of women within UK politics are BAME. Therefore, as aforementioned, this intersectional approach clearly demonstrates that individuals face barricades with regards to political engagement, in this sense the barrier is gender and race. If you’re visual learner like me, the graph below visually demonstrates this significant disproportion.
Representation of subgroups within politics is integral, whereby citizens can witness whether this political influencer will act in their best interest. In other words, these politicians must reflect the people they represent for. Arnesen and Peters (2017) found that the public are more likely to vote and support decisions when it is made by people who are like them. Moreover, they found that less advantaged groups, BAME women for example, typically value symbolic and descriptive representation more than other citizens (Arnesen and Peters, 2017).
Therefore, with such little representation of women in politics, let alone BAME women in politics, it is no surprise that policies are rarely made with women’s best interests in mind. Consequently, its no wonder why many BAME women have given up on being politically engaged, as the whole system is designed against them. Unfortunately, it is reasonable to conclude, from this blog and previous blogs, that the majority of politics is dominated by stale, pale, males. This is extremely detrimental because it leads so many people away from politics, meaning their needs and desires are not prioritised.
How can we fix this?
There have been some debates as to how we can improve this deeply flawed system; by encouraging political engagement through the introduction of quotas. This essentially means that political parties will be required to fill a certain percentage of the candidates from certain groups, women for example. In 2003, Rwanda adopted this quota system, whereby they reserved 30% of seats in government specifically for women. Today, women make up 61% of parliament in Rwanda (Herrera, 2018). This approximately represents the proportion of men to women, don’t you think politics should represent the population? Surely this should be universal, right?
Not so fast… unfortunately there is a down side.
Simply assuming that these quotas will automatically fix these deeply intrenched inequalities within politics, is too optimistic. The usefulness of this approach, in regards to intersectionality is definitely questioned. While women receive candidate quotas, ethic groups will continue to receive legislative reservations (Htun, 2004). In essence, quotas may help individuals who fit into one or the other of these subgroups, female or BAME, but not both, meaning BAME women will continue to be excluded from politics.
Additionally, the overall effectiveness of quotas is flawed. For example, Uganda has had a gender quota for over a decade now, but it has not made a significant difference in women’s lives (Herrera, 2018). Therefore, quotas for women in politics does not guarantee equal power.
Nevertheless, it is time to get serious about addressing inequalities within politics in the UK. The question is: what can be done to reduce these issues and reduce inequalities overall? Can quotas do this, or do they fall short of the criteria? Either way, we can all agree that something needs to change as the current system is not working.
Repeat after me, “No more pale, stale, male politics!”
A great post that highlights the disadvantage ethnic minority women face and how as a result compared to their white counterparts, they begin to politically disengage. I particularly liked the use of the quote “no more pale, stale, male politics!” as a way of introducing a solution to this phenomenon.
Maybe you could have added a personal experience even though you are not ethnic minority- something how you as a white female are seen to have more of an advantage than ethnic minority women?
Overall, a great and thoughtful post that I enjoyed reading!