More women in govt better for all, say advocates

 

The Inter-Parliamentary Union says Malaysia ranks only 145th in the world in female representation in Parliament. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: Women’s rights groups claim that better female representation in government will result in fairer and more inclusive policy making.

Karen Lai, executive director of the Women’s Centre for Change Penang, and Women’s Aid Organisation spokesman Hannah Jambunathan told FMT they believed that quotas for women in legislative bodies would be a good start towards achieving equality in leadership.

According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Malaysia currently ranks 145th in the world in female representation in Parliament, with a mere 14.9% of parliamentary seats and 13.6% of senatorships held by women. This puts Malaysia second last in Southeast Asia, ahead of only Brunei.

Lai said female representation should be “non-negotiable” and that research by the US-based National Democratic Institute indicated that female legislators tended to emphasise quality of life, families and minorities and were more likely to work across party lines.

Karen Lai.

“Elected officials make a lot of very important decisions about our lives. So it’s critical to have equal representation.”

Lai said temporary special measures were needed because this was not happening organically.

“When more women are at the table, public confidence in women reps increases, women feel more empowered in their roles, and culture begins to shift,” she said, adding that this would improve future prospects for decision making roles in all fields.

Lai sits on a special committee of the Penang government called Top-up Women-Only Additional Seats.

She said the 30% representation the committee was after was a “critical mass” that needed to be the floor, not the ceiling, for women.

Under the proposed system, additional women will be appointed to state seats in order to get to that threshold if not enough are elected.

Hannah Jambunathan.

Jambunathan said political representation at present did not properly reflect the country’s diversity, adding that the “inclusion of women in political decision making is vital to represent the nuanced lived realities of women in Malaysia”.

“It matters for Malaysian women to see faces that look like theirs in politics and hear voices that are championing concerns they share.”

She described the political climate in Malaysia as “inhospitable” to women, saying they were routinely subjected to sexist remarks from the public and their peers.

“Gender-based attacks send a very clear message that women do not belong in the political arena. This sexism and misogyny are grounded in larger realities of gender inequality in Malaysia,” she said.

Jambunathan said quotas for women should not be up for debate as “male gatekeeping” had kept highly qualified and capable women from ascending to positions of power.

She said Malaysia, as a party to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, was obligated to promote measures to improve equality. - FMT