Women and leadership

As a woman my self in the United States, legally, we have every single right to work , and do as men do in the states of America. But, when the mention comes to Iran talks, its' a completely different situation and both countries are taking legal actions to help women become better civilians in Iran. 

Back in the Persian Constitutional Revolution in 1905-11 women in Iran played a crucial roll in history of women's rights. During the Pahlavi era ( 1925 - 1979 ) women had freedom. Marriage law is another different topic for Iranian women. 

In Iran, the prenuptial document has been signed in to law back in 1997 and the divorce law's were modified in 1967. 

The roll in Iranian women was and still is very important. Their beauty, their knowledge and their persistence still prides us, and changes history every day. 

In the United States, women have never been President or a top leader in the states.  Although Susan Rice who is the United States National Security Advisor, and Hillary Clinton who is a Senator in New York have made great strides in the political agenda in the American history.

By Anastasia Khramova

Number of Women in Politics in Cambodia

Finding out why women’s voices are not being listened to is imperative to increasing the proportion of female political representation in Cambodia.

The Committee to Promote Women in Politics (CPWP) – which is made up of 12 organisations – hosted discussions in the capital that included discussion about the importance of having a legislative population that is at least 25 per cent female, one of Cambodia’s Millenium Goals. In the National Assembly women claimed just over 20 per cent of the 123 National Assembly seats in July’s national election comparison with men in the Senate, women hold 8 of the 61 seats, representing only 13 percent. Timor Leste boasts 29.2 percent women in the Assembly while Lao has 25.2 percent in the Senate.

The percentage of Cambodian women in Parliament is low in comparison to that in other countries, such as Timor Leste, Lao PDR and Viet Nam. To reach the participation levels that experts believe will lead to achieving the MDGs will require 30 percent women’s representation in national legislatures by 2015.

Twenty-one percent of National Assembly members are women. The Senate has created a Women’s Department and a new high-level position of Senior Women and Gender Advisor to the President of the Senate. Thirty percent of the Senate Secretariat General staff is women. Programmes are already in place to ensure that at least one of the three members of every village commission is a woman. National policy states that every Provincial Deputy Governor should be a woman. Policies are also in place specifying that 30 percent of the civil service staff should be women.

Adding women to the positions of secretaries of state and under-secretaries of state Labour Ministry in the fourth and fifth mandate was a step in the right direction, said a report by election watchdog the Committee for Free and Fair Elections but women in positions of power typically hold only deputy positions giving them less power.

Poverty has a woman’s face. Economic inequality underlies many of the challenges to achieving MDG3. “Globally, 6 of every 10 of the world’s poorest people are women and girls. In Cambodia, economic opportunities for women are still constrained, with most credit, training extension and support programs not sufficiently tailored to their needs.

Seeing similar improvement, Deputy Prime Minister Ms. Men Sam An said that the Cambodian government had made progress in education, providing scholarships for women in higher education, building more educational institutions and accommodations, and increasing employment opportunities for women. In the health sector, progress has been made in making health care available, providing nutritional assistance, and preventing HIV and other infectious diseases.

“From mandate to mandate, there is a change and advancement for women at every level.”

Written by Kimleang

(Some) considerations about affirmative action in politics

As a female, I find a mistake to establish affirmative actions in order to increase the number of women in representative houses or in any other public offices by quotas for a simple reason: there shouldn’t be any different treatment regarding men and women since they are both equal.

If men and women are not treated equally in a prejudice-free society, than we can understand that different genders do not have the same capacity and female need, therefore, to be tutored or helped as beholders of some kind of disabling condition, which is not the case.

In response to those who think society has an historical debt regarding the female gender it is important to mention that the best way to make up for the lost time is to accept, to include and to treat someone not as a gay or as a woman, but as a human.  

When asked about why she didn’t treated anti-Semitism as a crime against Jews, Hannah Arendt said that it was because Jews were first human, so a crime against Jews was a crime against humanity. Like her, we should consider people first as individuals, than make assumptions based on their merits.

Camille Paglia has also made several comments on the subject. In an article about the feminist movement she said that she would not vote for Hillary Clinton as President just because of her being a woman. Camille affirmed that there was no need for “lockstep gender solidarity” when “women are rational creatures who can vote in each election on the merits”. Moreover, it seems rather futile to vote for women just because of their gender, as it seems wrong to violate meritocracy with the pretense to correct “social injustices”.

A government should be neutral, fair and it should not defend any position that puts others in disadvantage. Even though men have been in well-placed positions for a long time, affirmative action is not the solution.

The function of the government is to provide opportunities for each individual to compete freely and equally in different positions and to defend their values based on their personal conceptions and beliefs. Instead of imposing a harming policy, the State should provide equal education, thus giving equal opportunities for everyone in the work place. Affirmative actions do not give impartial opportunities for both groups and do not compensate the history of inequality of the human race.

Furthermore, a democracy should be based on the principle that everyone can become a politician, for instance, but only those who have the most merit or greater qualifications shall be nominated or voted for such functions. Men and women should compete on a fair level, measured only by their achievements.

By violating the principle of equality many countries which have implemented affirmative actions in their constitutions and laws are likely to damage their productivity and efficiency in politics and in other fields because the most qualified person is not, in fact, playing the role he or she is supposed to play.  

Affirmative action for women in politics is just a public policy which aims to reduce the symptoms of the poor engagement of the gender by attacking its side effects. It doesn’t do much, but its effects can be rather harming.

Like Camille Paglia, I too think “we must stop seeing everything in life through the narrow lens of gender”. Women shouldn’t ask for special protections, but demand equal rights and achieve with responsibility their own goals.

Likewise, society should not try to end prejudice and inequality with more imbalance, but it should attack the roots of the problem: education. Palliative measures just won’t do.

Gabriela Isa Rosendo Vieira Campos

Pakistani Women: In search for genuine redeemer

Pakistan surpassed many countries by allocating women seats in parliament in 2002. Out of 342 seated in National assembly, women seats are reserved 72 that is the highest figure in South Asia. This is worth appreciating that such an initiative was taken by military regime that has never remained friendly with fair sex in the past.  The steps were taken in the face of changes in women's parliamentary representation across the world and since then gender balance in politics has become imperative to a nation's international image.
 

Simply allocating or increasing the seats of women in national or provincial assembly does not guarantee that women’s rights will be protected. It is welcoming that women are included into political realms of Pakistan. This will definitely increase women’s influence in politics. However, story in Pakistani politics is quite on the contraray. The inclusion of women into political realms has remained debatable in Media and society that empowering women through parliament was just window dressing to arrest the attention of world in the wake of 9/11 and it served no purpose to redress the grievances of marginalized strata of society I.e. Women. The reason why society is   skeptic about “women empowerment” is that mainstreamed political parties not elected democratically, but selected all women parliamentarians. If we cast glance on the women parliamentarians on reserved seats, we will come to know that all belonged to influential political families who have little knowledge about women living in remote areas.
 
It is widely believed that the system of quota delivers as a momentary special measure to attain gender balance in parliament, but it does not facilitate the genuine political empowerment and democratic participation of women. Some people have argued that women legislators are treated as mere rubber stamp devoid of any real political and economic power. Generally, it is believed in social and political circle that the system offers only symbolic representation to women. in preference to working on policy issues freely, the elected women through this system remain under obligation of the political parties, compared to the directly elected legislators who have their constituencies as their real power base. This thing, it is believed, comes into play in the power politics where political weight is associated with directly elected legislators compared to indirectly elected candidates or those elected on reserved seats.
 
Due to lack of knowledge and actual participation of women in political process, male chauvinist politicians  have awarded  great number of seats to their family members in order to strengthen  the of net their family-centric or dynastic  politics in the country. Ten years have elapsed since women are awarded reserved seats but no significant change in common women’s life has been seen so far. This truly reflects that women parliamentarians are mere dummy and have no power .Moreover, quota based parliamentarians enjoy little rights to influence the decision as they always remain under the obligation of their political leaders. Most of the women are reluctant to comment on women specific issue since it affects the public life of the male political leaders.f
 
The women in Pakistan comprise 52% of the total population and are leading miserable life .Therefore they require genuine redeemer to alleviate their sufferings. The oppressed women need justice and rights and if their gender fellows do not become their wound healer than it is futile to reserve more seats for women or setup ministries or departments. The issues are resolved by involving genuine people and genuine efforts not by cosmetic measures