Basics of Canadian Politics & Government: Women in Politic Essay

Nowadays, as women come to acquire more rights in every sphere of life including politics and business, the question of whether women candidate should constitute a certain percentage in the total number of candidates of political parties seems to be very important. Evaluating the facts, it appears that the situation in the modern society conditions special attitude to women in a number of situations. Before, women experienced a lot of discrimination in a row of areas especially in politics. Since the end of the nineteenth century, women have been actively fighting for their rights and freedoms. This caused significant successions for women guaranteed by law. In this vein, today, women are not only active participants of political process, but their presence in politics is even actively welcomed by a variety of norms and regulations.

First of all, evaluating the situation with the women’s presence among the candidates to political parties, it becomes evident that the new policies in this area are to be adopted. This is explained by a variety of reasons. First of all, new laws establish the importance of women’s presence among the members of political parties (McGrory, 1995). Of course, there exists a heated debate concerning the percentage of women candidates among the party members. Still, women should occupy their due role among the participants of political process. To guarantee women’s presence among the participants of political movement, set quotas are created in many countries. In particular, in Belgium, the presence of women equals to 35,3% (Dahlerup, 2007). In France, this percentage is 12,1, and in Mexico it is 22,6% (Dahlerup, 2007). These countries along with over fifty different countries demonstrated their unbiased attitude to gender matters (Brooks, 2012). On the contrary, in those countries, politicians understand how important it is to represent the interests of all their citizens including women in politics.

Further, multiple researches conducted by sociologists proved the effectiveness of political campaigns in which women are shown as some of the most active party members (McGrory, 1995). It is noticed that using women’s images in advertising campaigns has a better impact on the electorate. This is explained by the fact that naturally women lie rarer than men. They are also associated with reliability and decentness. What is more important, women are known for their companionate attitude to people’s pain. This all makes women desirable members for political parties. The fact that women are popular among the electorate is the reason why in so many countries, the leaders of major political parties decide to accept women to their rows, and offer them principal positions. For example, in Ukraine where elections to the Parliament are planed to be held in a few months, the major political power of the country accepted popular singer to the rows of its leaders. The woman is very attractive, and has mind-boggling success among the population. This “advantage” is taken on board by clever strategy developers of this party. Similar examples can be found in many other counties including Russia, Poland, Mexico, Argentina, and Australia. Of course, the “lawmaker of this fashion” is the United States. In this country, women are in big politics for a long period. Their attractiveness and popularity among the potential voters are well used by political strategists for decades.

Besides, when women received their right to be voters, the situation also changed for them in politics. In a number of lands, women compile forty or more percent of active voters. There exist many countries in the world where women are more than men. It even happens that female voters exceed the amount of male voters for more than ten percent. This number is colossal for politicians. Of course, they may not disregard such a considerable category of voters. This also explains why female politicians are very important. It is quite understandable that many women will support women during political races. Thus, political leader should include women to their parties in order to meet the interests of their voters.

Finally, when it is quite evident that political parties should have women among their candidates, the second part of the question becomes timely. In particular, the question is what about a certain percentage of women among the candidates of political parties. This question is more difficult. The way it is complicated is even proved by the fact that politicians in different countries do not have the same opinion about this percentage or quota. It was mentioned before, that in different lands there exist different quotas for the presence of women or men in political parties. The debate goes on for decades in this field. The arguments discussed are many including all the facts mentioned above such as women’s popularity among the voters and regulations against discrimination on the basis of gender. I believe, it is important to determine the smallest amount of women present in political parties. This amount can be exceeded, but it cannot be inferior to the stated number. It seems that this amount should be not less than ten percent.

In conclusion, the question of whether women candidates should constitute a certain percentage in the total number of candidates of political parties seems to be answered ‘yes’. Such conclusion is explained by the fact that women are no longer discriminated on the reason of gender bias. In addition, women are popular among the voters.

References

Brooks, S. (2012). Canadian Democracy (7th Edition). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Dahlerup, D. (2007). Increasing Women’s Political Representation: New Trends in Gender Quotas. Web.

McGrory, E. (1995). The Challenge of Local Feminisms: Women’s Movements in Global Perspective. The United States: Westview Press.