WOMEN IN GLOBAL POLITICS: Progress or Stagnation?

• Author: PATTERSON, AMY S.

"... The more females in office, the more likely it is that policies will reflect women's interests."

IN THE PAST HALF-CENTURY, women have accomplished much in the political realm, having influenced decisionmakers and the allocation of resources. Yet, many females, political scientists, and policymakers do not believe that those accomplishments are enough. To illustrate women's progress in politics and the obstacles that continue to limit their involvement, their participation as voters and roles as political officials should be examined.

Americans have become more aware of the role of females in politics since the 1980 presidential election, when the media reported that eight percent fewer women than men voted for Ronald Reagan. In reality, sex-based voting differences occurred earlier than that in American history, though the gender bias was that, before 1964, women favored Republican more than Democratic candidates. In the 1996 election, the media made explicit statements about the "gender gap" in voting and the fact that 54% of women voted for Bill Clinton, compared with 43% of men, an 11% difference that is credited with enabling him to win the election. Hillary Clinton's current run for the U.S. Senate seat from New York and Elizabeth Dole's short-lived attempt at obtaining the Republican Party presidential nomination captured the attention of the media.

As one thinks about women in global politics, it is necessary to begin with a caveat: They cannot be lumped into a generic category. There is wide diversity in their level of involvement in politics, the strategies and tactics women use to influence political decisions, and the types of success they have in achieving their objectives. The factors that hamper or facilitate females' political participation vary with culture, region, economic development, and political system. Women are not a unified block, being divided in terms of class, race, ethnicity, and country of origin.

Within global women's movements, it has been demonstrated that those from industrialized countries concentrate on issues such as access to birth control and child care, equal pay for equal work, affirmative action, and policies against sexual harassment. On the other hand, women in developing nations often concentrate their organizing efforts on issues such as access to childhood immunizations, clean water, primary health care services, and affordable food.

Nowhere was this division between industrial nation and Third World females more evident than in the 1985 United Nations Conference of Women in Nairobi, Kenya. There, Western women openly condemned traditional African marriage practices such as polygamy. In response, African women attacked Western women for being what they called "racist and imperialist feminists," maintaining that they had no understanding of the economic and cultural obstacles females face in the developing world. Again, it is necessary to keep in mind that women, like any other group in society, are not homogeneous.

In fact, women received the right of suffrage quite late in several countries. In France, for example, women were not granted the right to vote until 1944. Most women in Latin America did not get the right to vote until after World War II. In Africa, females received the right to participate in electoral politics with the continent's independence from colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s, though blacks in South Africa could not vote until 1994.

Thinking about women in politics, it is possible to divide their involvement into two categories--as participants and as officials. In many Western societies, the easiest way for men and women to participate is through voting. In the U.S., females vote more than males, with 56% of eligible women voting in 1996, compared to 53% of men. (American women also tend to register to vote at a four percent higher rate than men.) In other countries, voter turnout for women is generally higher than for men in Scandinavian nations, but lower in France. Italy, East European countries, and the developing world.

In many nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, voter participation has had little meaning because of those countries' histories of authoritarian or military rule. Travel distance to polling sites, especially in rural societies, has hindered women's participation as well. Although statistics are limited, they show that women who vote in developing...