Political parties themselves are partly to blame for gender disparity in politics, a conference heard yesterday.
“Parties need to be convinced about gender equality and democracy and they need to actively recruit women,” said JosAnn Cutajar, a sociologist and senior lecturer at the University of Malta.
She said the parties needed to train their administrative staff on gender sensitivity during her speech at a conference about women’s political participation at the Palace in Valletta.
In a paper commissioned by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, one of the conference organisers, Dr Cutajar said Maltese political parties espoused women’s rights and interests. However, a look at gender representation within party leadership, administration and committees was often disappointing.
“The time has come for political parties and other entities to adopt gender and family-friendly measures that encourage more women to participate in politics at different levels,” she said.
“Political parties might also need to invest in an educational campaign that can help its members adopt a less macho, combative and more conciliatory stance on politics.”
If we continue with the current progress, it will take us 50 years to reach gender parity
A gender adviser in the same office, Ajla van Heel, said political parties held the key to more female participation.
“Why is it that we don’t see more female party leaders and chairwomen, rather than deputy leaders? Parties are gate keepers to democracy,” she said, adding parties had a responsibility to be part of the solution.
Ms van Heel said on average, around a quarter of parliament representatives in Europe were female and Malta was on the lower side with 14 per cent.
“We are often told to be patient as it will take time to reach gender parity, but if we continue with the current progress, without any major change like the introduction of quotas for example, it will take us 50 years to reach gender parity,” she said.
Speaker Anġlu Farrugia, who opened the conference, said that despite an increase in the number of female candidates in recent elections, participation in Malta was still very low – only 16 per cent of the candidates for the 2013 election were women.
In fact, since 1947, only 96 women contested the elections compared with more than 1,000 men.
Women in government are underrepresented worldwide – only 21 per cent of all MPs are women.
As in other countries, he said, Malta needed to implement measures to increase female participation in politics, thereby enhancing gender equality in the democratic process.
Aside from child services, facilities and a language accessible to both genders, Parliament could also establish a committee on gender equality, or rotate positions of parliamentary authority between men and women, he suggested.
Another key speaker at the conference, Adina Trunk, who is the vice president of the European People’s Party in Sweden, spoke of her home country’s increase from 15 to 48 per cent of female participation in parliament over 40 years.
In the 1970s, Sweden was in the same position that Malta is now.
Following the introduction of incentives like child care, women slowly gained financial independence which was important for enrolment in leading business or political roles.
Perception eventually changed as parties started promoting women after realising it was also a way of appearing progressive.
“We have reached a point where the other day a woman told me that her son asked whether boys could also become prime ministers,” she said.
The other organisers of the conference were the House of Representatives, the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality and the National Council of Women.