No place for a woman?

We have come a long way since voting rights for women were introduced into international law in 1948, when Malta adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 21 establishes the fundamental human right to take part in government not only through the right to vote but also through candidature for office.

In our country, we had anticipated this declaration by a year as universal suffrage for women was introduced in the election of 1947. This notwithstanding, we are as yet nowhere near a natural balance of representation when it comes to women in public office. Suffice to point out that these past five years we did not have an elected female MEP while in our national Parliament, out of 69 representatives, only four are women, meaning less than six per cent.

We are now in the final run-up to an election for a new five-year term in the European Parliament and of the 34 candidates from all parties, eight are women, an encouraging 24 per cent. But will this be reflected in the seats won or will we once again have an all-male array representing Malta in Europe? That is not for me to decide or even to attempt to guess but it is totally up to the wielders of that so powerful tool: the vote.

The title I chose for this piece can be read two ways.

The first interpretation could be a dig at a passé mentality, which would have the Maltese electorate still considering that politics is not female territory but is still an area better handled by men. I honestly doubt that this is the case but, were it to be so, we cannot expect the electorate to have faith in women in general, unless we women have faith in ourselves to start with. What do I mean?

To date, I would say that a major contributor to this state of imbalance lies in the fact that not enough women have taken the bull by the horns and put ourselves forward as candidates for election.

To say more needs to be done to encourage youths - particularly female youths - to actively engage in politics is an understatement. We need to keep showing the importance of getting involved in the decisions that affect us all and need to continue promoting local role models as examples to follow.

This time round there is an improvement, as with myself and the other seven women candidates, we find that the balance is not as steeply inclined as it was. We're not quite there yet at candidacy level but the trend is extremely encouraging.

Another interpretation of the title could be that, in some way, I am advocating that there should be a place for women solely on the basis of gender. This could not be further from the truth.

As in all enterprises where there is a degree of success, the best way forward is a bottom up approach. The imposition of quotas to fill positions on the basis of gender is, simply put, trying to right an imbalance with another one and cannot have any but negative consequences.

A society that does not elect representation which is truly representative of its groupings, including the simple Mars/Venus divide, is impoverished in its development. It would be just as impoverished if positive discrimination or quotas result in the more able candidates, for any position, being unfairly left out. Unfairness and injustice today will not make up or redress the injustices of yesterday. The way to address unfairness is with fairness and injustice is beaten by justice.

So let us come back to the upcoming election for the representatives at the European Parliament. The electorate is, this time round, faced with at least a half decent turnout of women candidates (lest I be misunderstood, by half decent I am referring to the number of candidates being half of the ideal 50 per cent and not to the qualities of individuals).

So the first step has been taken, albeit a medium-sized one, but it's there. The next step is for the electorate to make. What am I saying here?

That women should vote for us women or that we women should be voted for just because we're women?

Not at all! I am saying that for a healthy balance to be eventually achieved, votes should be cast on the basis of an individual's merits, abilities and experience and totally irrespective of gender.

There is a dire need for female representation in legislative assemblies such as the European Parliament and there is female representation in the European Parliament but, so far, not Maltese!

This time, women have taken the plunge with a far bigger splash of candidates than ever before.

We are asking for your trust and, hopefully, you'll give it to us. That way, we might have taken a giant leap for womankind and for Malta in a truly representative representation.

The author is a Nationalist Party candidate for Saturday's MEP elections.

roberta@roberta2009.eu, www.roberta2009.eu