The situation of gender equality nowadays
Source: Science,2016
Nowadays, there is a decrease in the participation of women in all sorts of areas in society (WEF, 2017). In this blog I will focus on the representation of women in Dutch politics. The representation of women in Dutch politics has become better, but still has a long way to go.
It is important to have an equal representation of men and women in politics, because it changes the political decision making process. Women add different ways of thinking to politics, since they have a different perspective than men. This different perspective of women is strengthened by the history of inequality between men and women and the role assigned to women by culture (Engender, 2016).
I will argue that enforcing quotas is the best option to achieve an equal representation of men and women in politics.
How to solve underrepresentation of women in political institutions?
A possibility to address the underrepresentation of women in politics is by using quotas. There are two different possibilities regarding quotas. Firstly, by enforcing quotas through law (legal quotas), which commits political parties to take on a fixed percentage of women as candidates for the election. The other possibility is voluntary quotas. These are commitments of political parties to ensure a certain percentage of women on the electoral list (Freidenval & Dahlerup & Johansson, 2013:7).
A report of the European Parliament concluded that additional rules regarding electoral lists are necessary, for example, by maintaining a rank-order system. Otherwise, a political party could just place women low on the electoral list, which reduces the chance of women being elected and therefore minimizes the effect of quotas (Freidenval & Dahlerup & Johansson, 2013:7).
The male gender is still the majority in politics. The power to change this is with the political parties: ‘….because they control ‘the secret garden of nominations”’(Freidenval & Dahlerup & Johansson, 2013:7). Despite the fact that worldwide only 25 percent of all members of parliament are women, there are countries In Western Europe and East Asia that are making progress in the area of gender equality. The quota system seems to be an effective measure in changing this. A good example of this is Rwanda. Table one shows that women in Rwanda have a majority in the parliament. In the past the system also worked in the Soviet Union, but after the fall of communism the quota system was abolished and the representation of women in Russian parliament dropped considerably (Carmichael, 2016:92-93).
Table 1
Source: Keen & Cracknell, 2018
The current situation in the Netherlands
Atria, a scientific institute for emancipation and women history, researched the political representation in the Dutch second chamber (the Dutch equivalent of the house of representatives) since 1918, the year before women in the Netherlands were granted the right to be elected. Table two shows that since the late seventies there is a clear increase in female participation in politics. However, recent years show stagnation and even a small decline in women’s representation in parliament.
Table 2
Percentage women in the House of Representatives ( Lower House) in the Netherlands since 1918
(first-female seat) (first female party chairman) (only female party chairman)
Source: Atria, 2017
The situation of women in local politics is much more concerning. Table three shows that the representation in local and regional councils is less than thirty percent. The membership as a local councillor or Member of the Provincial-Executive is viewed and paid as a ‘side job’. Researched concluded that this is an extra obstacle for women to participate in politics, because it makes it harder for women to combine the care for a family and/or work with a job in politics (Sariaslan, 2017).
Table 3
Share women in politics in the Netherlands (in%) 2017
Source: Sariaslan, 2017
When we consider the difference in equality from a broader perspective, it shows that according to a report of the World Economic Forum 2017, the Netherlands does not do well on several aspects of women’s equality compared to the rest of the world. The report “the gap between men and women” looks at the gender difference in areas like health, education, economy and politics. Table four shows that the Netherlands does best in het area of education worldwide. However, women’s economic participation and opportunity falls severely short compared to the rest of the world. The position regarding politics is not that bad, but as I have showed earlier the Netherlands still has some work to do in creating equal representation of men and women in politics. Furthermore, the report states that equality between men and women has not improved since 2006 (the first year of these reports), despite many women getting a high education. This is confirmed by table 4, which shows a drop in rank in the areas economic participation and opportunity, health and politics in 2016 compared to 2006 (WEF, 2017).
Table 4 Gender Gap index for the Netherlands
Source: World Economic Forum, 2017:264
Why more women in politics?
The Scottish feminist organisation Engender, which advocates legal quotas to decrease the gender gap, reasons that a political organisation functions better when women are more involved in politics. According to Engender, this would lead to more heterogeneous ideas. Furthermore, Engender is convinced that success of women in high political positions encourages other women to participate in politics (Engender, 2016).
The Social Democratic and Labour Party responded to the report, “Women in the House of Commons after the 2020 election” of the House of Commons, that certain issues will be addressed better when there is a higher representation of women in politics (SDL, 2016:1).
Firstly, women are more inclined to propose policy to improve the social-economic situation of disadvantaged groups. Secondly, countries that have better women representation in political institutions tent to be less corrupt. Finally, the party states that ‘peace and reconciliation efforts with a higher rate of women involved are proven to be more effective and sustainable’ (SDL, 2016:1).
To conclude, equal representation of men and women in politics must be achieved through enforcing quotas, which contributes in creating a political representation that represents society more fully and equal.
References
Atria 2017,Vrouwen in de Tweede Kamer. Available at: https://www.atria.nl/nl/nieuws/vrouwen-de-tweede-kamer
Carmichael,S. (2016) Marriage, Family and Gender Inequality Available at: https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/330922
Engender (2016) Written submission from Engender (WHC0081).Available at: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/women-in-the-house-of-commons-after-the-2020-election/written/43190.pdf
Freidenval,L., Dahlerup,D.& Johansson,E. (2013) Electoral Gender Quota Systems and their Implementation in Europe . Europarliament. Available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/note/join/2013/493011/IPOL-FEMM_NT(2013)493011_EN.pdf (Accessed: 15/04/2018).
Keen,R. & Cracknell,R. (2018) Women in parliament and government. House of Commons library. Available at: http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN01250/SN01250.pdf (Accessed: 13/04/2018).
Parliament (2016) Women in the House of Commons after the 2020 election. www.parliament.uk Available at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmwomeq/630/63004.htm
Sariaslan,S. (2017) Vrouwen in de politiek, Factsheet , Atria. Available at: https://www.atria.nl/sites/atria/files/atoms/files/factsheet_vrouwen_in_de_politiek_-_online.pdf
Science (2016) Thanks to the glass ceiling breakers Available at: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6303/1062 (Accessed: 16/04/2018).
SDLP(2016) Written submission from the Social Democratic and Labour Party (WHC0080) Available at: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/women-in-the-house-of-commons-after-the-2020-election/written/43094.pdf
World Economic Forum (2017) The global gender gap report 2017. Available at: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2017.pdf