Who runs the world? Not women!

Wednesday, 29 March 2017 00:04 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the global inter-legislative institution established in 1889, has ranked Sri Lanka 179 out of 190 countries for women’s representation in Parliament and 164 out of 174 for the number of women ministers. While this may not come as a surprise to many, given how abysmally low women’s representation has been in Sri Lanka over the decades since independence, it is indeed an eye-opener in terms of just how behind we are compared to other nations.

We’re well over halfway into the second decade of the 21st century, and that Sri Lanka still cannot seem to elect an adequately representative number of women into Parliament speaks volumes of the inherent sexism present in our political system and society at large. The current Parliament, it has been noted by many a columnist with dismay, has only 13 female members. Considering women constitute the majority of the country’s population (52%), to say this is a terribly embarrassing statistic would be an understatement. It would be funny if it wasn’t so shockingly backward.

One of the favourite arguments thrown about by those who deny or attempt to play down this all-too-painfully-obvious disparity is that Sri Lanka elected the world’s first female Prime Minister and President. What they fail to account for, however, is the fact that, barring these two exceptions – if one is hesitant to use the word flukes – women have historically performed poorly at elections at parliamentary, provincial and local government levels. The reasons for this are, of course, complicated and the status quo can be attributed to any number of socio-political realities, but the fact remains that women are grossly underrepresented in Sri Lanka, and not much is being done to correct it.

What’s even more surprising is that this country has long been a shining example of women being at the forefront of electoral decision-making: Our women have been exercising their right to vote since 1931, and politicians here have a history of drafting their election manifestos around what they – often laughably incorrectly – perceive to be the needs of women. Sri Lankan women are also better educated, play a demonstrably more active role in the economy and display higher Human Development Indicators (HDIs) than the rest of the South Asian region, and yet, as of March 2017, there are only 13 women in Parliament.

Affirmative action has been suggested by many as the most practical solution to this problem, with a quota system proposed to somehow bring a semblance of balance to the corridors of power. The idea is that by forcing Parliament and other institutes to allocate a minimum number of seats for female representatives, political parties would be encouraged – nay legally required – to include women in their election nominations lists as well as national lists.

Of course, this remains a pipedream at present, and the voting public has so far been largely apathetic to this all-important issue. It is hoped that the alarmingly-low ranking given to Sri Lanka by the IPU will, at the very least, get some discussion going in this regard and hopefully change some minds for the better.