How do we address the scarcity of women in politics?
by Sarah Binney
THE lack of female participation in political life is a global issue that weakens the ‘equality of opportunity’ ethos that underpins democratic nations. Women comprise over 50% of the world’s population yet remain significantly underrepresented in national politics, leading many to ask: how can a democracy deliver for all its citizens if half the population’s voice is missing in political debate?
As former Australian Federal Senator Rosemary Crowley said, it is beyond debate, to my mind, that if we promote democracy, particularly its representative dimension, then we must accept 50% women in our parliaments and nothing less…Until women stand equal alongside men, we will not have achieved this.
Australia has much ground to cover if it is to achieve this goal, considering Australia’s representation of women in parliament declined from 20th in the world in 2001 to 48th in 2014. Discussion around increasing female political participation surfaces every few years in an ongoing debate on gender inequality, but the time for discussion has ended. Australia needs implementable solutions to broaden the pipeline and encourage more women to enter the political space.
Greater numbers of women in politics will help ensure Australia has a more diverse parliament — where key decision makers characterise a wide cross section of society — as a step to a truly representative democracy.
As with any complex and multi-faceted issue, there is no clear solution on how to ensure women enjoy equal representation in our local, state and federal governments.
Australian Labor Party and Liberal Party Responses
Both major parties recognise the need for gender balance in their own ranks, with debate on the issue heating up in the national media over the past week. Women comprise 45% of Labor Party MPs, compared to 21.8% of Liberal Party MPs and 15% of National Party MPs. The Liberal Party agree the current numbers are untenable, but are yet to agree on a solution to address this imbalance.
Meanwhile, the Australian Labor Party has committed to boost its number of women MPs to 50% by 2025, with Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop agreeing the 50% target is necessary for the Liberal Party to be truly representative.
Liberal frontbenchers have unanimously rejected quotas in favor of targets, with Education Minister Christopher Pyne arguing merit should be the overriding factor in pre-selection and election on the ABC’s 7:30 Report.
His statement caused former Liberal Senator Sue Boyce to posit why parties don’t frequently apply the same question of merit to the selection of male candidates.
Voters rarely witness bipartisan agreement on key issues, but this national dialogue has shown how the gender imbalance must be addressed through a cross party approach. Wider inequality issues — like the gender pay gap — are likely to be brought to the political agenda once there is an uptake of female representation in parliament.
The challenge is to remove the structural and social barriers that impact fuller participation of women in politics, and to affect cultural change which facilitates greater equality.
Quotas and Targets
There has been peddling from both sides of politics about the implications and effectiveness of quotas, targets and merit based selections. Despite convincing evidence that quotas are effective in balancing gender representation — Norway legislated gender quotas in 1981 and women now comprise 40% of their parliament — there are arguments that such a system would see more meritorious males overlooked. Perhaps anomalously, the Liberal Party does operate on an informal quota system, but are arguing the case for intervention through a long term plan that ensures women are elected based purely on merit — i.e. targets not quotas.
The Liberal Party’s seeming reluctance to adopt affirmative action policy means it is important to present alternative measures that could facilitate such a plan. Targets will only be met through wider cultural change that encourages women of all stripes to enter the political fray.
Why Aren’t More Women Signing Up?
Of course, there are numerous deterrents for women considering a political career. Commentators often argue that the current political climate is rife with disincentives for people, and especially women, of substance.
As Annabel Crabb argued in her book The Wife Drought, “if women MPs were blessed with wives in the same way that male MPs frequently are, you might get quite a noticeable participatory uptick… That way women wouldn’t have to choose between having a career in politics and having a family”.
Meanwhile, Tony Abbott’s Chief of Staff Peta Credlin last month called out the Liberal Party for its ‘blokey’ culture and systems that help entrench inequality.
Key lessons can be taken from Queensland, who is leading the charge in improving political representation. Premier Annastascia Palaszczuk boasts a cabinet of more than 50% women. While there was media rhetoric around ‘tokenism’ at the time, Queensland is currently the only state making significant improvements in gender equality, under Australia’s only female premier.
A cultural shift in our parliament — one that is inclusive of families and addresses institutionalised bias — would be a great first step in encouraging women to enter politics. A reform of parliamentary practices to ensure parliament becomes a part of a politician’s life — rather than their whole life — would not only benefit women, but would allow all politicians to function more effectively.
Big business solutions are working
The business community is also making great strides in the fight for gender equality.
The latest percentage of women on ASX 200 boards is 20% (as of June 2015), which has more than doubled since 2009. ASX funded research showed diversity reporting, objectives and policies to be instrumental in achieving this goal. ASX non-executive director Jillian Segal says:
female representation was boosted by cultural change within organisations, stemming from reform of recruitment and promotion policies, workforce flexibility and parental leave. She says real efforts to promote women to senior management ranks builds a bigger pipeline of future CEOs and directors in what is a traditionally male dominated environment.
Studies show there is a connection between female labor force participation and female political representation, meaning recent shifts to more women in leadership can only have a positive impact on political representation. Furthermore, companies with a high representation of women board members consistently outperform those with no female directors.
The Australian banking system employs a number of successful initiatives, including Women in Leadership programs, flexible leave policies, bias awareness training for staff and diversity recruitment partnerships, earning banks like NAB, Citibank and Commonwealth, respectively, a number of gender diversity awards.
Importantly, NAB and ANZ have both initiated 30% targets for female board representation and the AICD launched the 30% Club in Australia earlier this year. The 30% Club aims for gender balance on boards across its global chapters and has proved successful in the UK, where women on FTSE-100 boards is up from 12.5% to 25.4% since the 2010 launch. The efforts of the organisation in Australia will be complementary to AICD’s current initiatives, such as mentoring and scholarship programs and the publication of research on the correlation between board diversity and improved corporate performance.
The sustained efforts of the business community may not be directly transferrable to the government sector, but any successful initiatives that improve gender diversity are worth closer inspection. It is essential that policymakers consider a broad range of measures and adapt these to be successful in the current political environment.
Of course, this is only the start of the conversation. While the benefits of increasing female representation in our parliaments are clear — greater diversity, wide ranging views and better policy development (to name a few) — there is a long road ahead if we are to achieve lasting cultural change and enduring gender equality in Australia and globally.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARAH BINNEY
Sarah Binney is a Freelance Journalist and Research Assistant at Griffith University.
Sarah is interested in the complex relationship between media and politics and explored this in her thesis on media portrayals of Queensland’s 2011 Civil Partnerships Bill.
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