Women are still grossly under-represented in politics although gender equality has become a basic principle in society. The solution to this issue is obviously a political one, Dr Mona Lena Krook, assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, Washington University, St Louis tells Pauline Puah.

Why is women’s representation in politics important?

It is important to have more women in politics because they form half of the world’s population. I think it’s quite unfair that the global average of women in parliament is about 17%, which is far away from 50%. And it seems to me undemocratic that so many citizens are excluded from positions of political power. For many people, this is simply a question of fairness. But it also raises questions about women’s interests. It is not that men necessarily ignore women’s issues. It’s just that sometimes they don’t know what these are, right?

For this reason, it’s important to have women there as well – and to have a good number of women in politics, because women themselves are quite diverse. If you have just one, she may not know the experiences of women from other ethnicities, classes or language groups. There are also other people who would say women would bring different values and qualities to the political process that would benefit everyone, which would improve the democratic process more generally. So, there are so many different reasons why it is important to have more women in elected political office.

Generally, why are women still under-represented in politics?

There are many reasons, really. It starts from the fact that women gained political rights later than men. So, what often happens is that men already occupy positions of political power. They had already formed political parties before women had the opportunity to become engaged in politics. So, it has been very difficult for women to break through. Evidence for this can be seen in countries where they have recently created new political institutions, for example, in the change from dictatorship to democracy – when institutions are new, where it is possible for women to enter more directly.

For example, the country in the world with the most number of women in politics is Rwanda. After the genocide, there was a new constitution in 2003 with different policies to include women. They now have 49% of women in parliament, which is quite close to the proportion of the female population. This really shows that the reason fewer women than men enter politics is that women haven’t had the same political rights as men, that their contribution to society has not been fully recognised.

Some people say that these are really cultural reasons for the exclusion of women, but I think the most persuasive explanation is the political one. For that reason, we need a political solution to get more women into politics. In many culturally-conservative countries, there have been many women in politics, as well as in poor countries and rich ones. There is an incredible diversity among countries that have a lot of women in politics.

Do poorer countries have fewer women in politics?

No. That used to be the case before 2000. For many years, the countries that have had the most women in politics have been Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and the Netherlands. These had been the top six, not necessarily in the same order.

But what has happened in the last five to ten years is that many countries have adopted various political measures to increase the number of female candidates. So now we see the top ten including not only Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, but also Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa, Argentina, Costa Rica. It has become a much more diverse array of countries.

What has led to the change?

It has to do with a political policy, namely quota measures. For example, in Argentina, they changed the law to say that all parties had to nominate 30% women. In Costa Rica, the law says the number has to be 40%. In Rwanda, there were one third of seats reserved for women. These policies can be controversial, but they are important in getting more women into politics. There should be a political solution, because it’s a political problem, the fact that there are fewer women than men. I don’t think it is connected with social factors or cultural beliefs.

Talking about Malaysia, do you think we have an adequate representation of women in politics?

The data showed only 9% in the Lower House and about 26% in the Upper House. So in the Lower House, that’s quite low (laughs) compared with the 17% world average. It’s better in the Senate. But this is because these positions are appointed. This definitely shows that some political will or some form of policy is required to get some women in.

In order to move beyond the 9%, parties need to change their selection practices, so that more woman are selected as candidates and later elected to office. In essence, this is probably quite an important step. As I understand it, there were actually a few more women in the last parliament in both houses recently. This shows that we can’t expect a slow upward trend without a strong political commitment. The few gains that women have already made, there is no guarantee that these would continue to increase.

Talking about political will, how do you convince male politicians in a male-dominated political arena?

That is a good point. In many countries around the world, I talk about this quite a bit. Quota laws are often adopted unanimously or nearly unanimously by national parliaments, which shows that many men have agreed to pass a law that is fundamentally against their self-interests. In some way it shows that these men had been convinced that there is good value to democracy and good value to development to have more women in politics.

In Malaysia, parliament is still male-dominated. And sometimes, there are sexist remarks made in the House. Do you think we still have a long way to go?

Well, I think this happens a lot, but can be changed. In Argentina, before a quota law was passed, many women in parliament said men had made sexist comments. But this has changed, now that 35% of the Argentinean chamber is made up of women. So, having a quota made it possible to effect change to a certain degree, so that today more people accept women in positions of political power.

The question is how to be lucky enough (laughs) to get this kind of commitment. It’s quite interesting to see that such commitments often come at election time. This is the time when politicians can be made to realise that women are 50% of voters. In fact, it is often quite easy, if people make this into an issue, so that politicians try to show they are better than others in supporting women. It’s a good opportunity when you can use elections to pressure, to take a stand, to remind politicians that is important for women to participate, so they have to be careful not to be sexist in public.

What can women do to show that they need to be better represented?

It is interesting internationally that in most cases women’s representation, or policies to increase women’s representation, don’t make it to the political agenda until women themselves make it an issue, to say "this is what we want". In many countries women have been able to come together across party lines, ethnic lines, class lines, to say that having more women in politics is a women’s issue. It is something that women can identify as a common interest.

Women’s representation is different from other issues. It’s actually about being part of the political process, and less about individual policies themselves. So it’s important for women to try to overlook their differences to to say that this is what we want, because this is the only way that most parties would come behind this demand. It is difficult for only one party to respond, if women in all parties are making this demand.

You are actually suggesting that women from different backgrounds and political parties work together?

Right. International experience shows that these policies are adopted when women make it an issue and say "hey, this is important". This has often meant that they have had to do most of the work to try to make good arguments about why it’s important to have more women in politics. Without pressure from women, it’s quite difficult to get people to listen to you. It is important to have women who are involved in civil society groups. It’s also important to find women who are outside and inside, you know, women who are already members of parliament. Because then you can work inside and outside to convince men.

If they can’t work with each other in parliament, they can work together with women in civil society to foster an active connection between women more generally in the political process. It doesn’t have to mean all women have to be behind the goal of increased representation, but it’s ideal if they can identify this as an important issue. Evidence from many countries shows it is a good strategy to have the insiders and outsiders working together.

From your observations, do you think the Malaysian government has enough political will (to increase women’s representation)?

I am quite happily surprised to see that the government has adopted a commitment to try to have 30% female participation in decision making. This is quite exciting because they are trying to develop an action plan that addresses not only legislative representation, but also women in the judiciary, local government and other areas. This shows there is a commitment to try to promote women’s participation.

Just recently in an Umno assembly, when a senior female minister (Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz) told the prime minister that there should be an increased representation of women in politics, she received boos from a predominantly male audience.

Right. One of the problems here is that in order to get more women in politics, you need to have fewer men. Many men in politics realise this, so they say, well, for cultural reasons we can’t have more women. But this is really about their self-interest, isn’t it? They are saying "I don’t want to lose my position".

I think this dynamic explains why national leaders or party leaders are much more likely to come out in favour of quota policies, because they are less likely than other men to lose their seats with such a law. It takes a lot to convince these other men that it’s for the greater good and is morally right.

In some countries, a compromise has been reached through mechanisms to bring in more women while reducing the need to take out men. In some countries, this has meant increasing the number of seats in Parliament. That way you increase the number of women without necessarily hurting men.

In other countries, it has meant implementing the policy in stages, doing a little bit in an election, a little more in the next election, and a little more later. In that sense, you slowly implement the policy without displacing men.

But we already have more than 200 parliamentary seats?

Right, I know (laughs). But for example, in Bangladesh, they have 300 seats and they added on 45 seats for women. This increased women’s representation from 2% to 15% overnight. It wasn’t ideal, but comparing 2%, which is very low, with 15%, closer to the global average, is quite remarkable.

I know that the number of seats is a major political constraint. It’s difficult, but this shows that it’s important to realise it is not an easy thing to do, to increase the number of women in politics. It’s also important to stress that you have to start somewhere. The main issue is that men are already in politics, and they’ve made politics a career, so it is hard to get women in it. This brings us back to the argument that it’s all about political reasons, rather than social or cultural ones.

You don’t think culture is part of the problem?

I used to think that. And there are some scholars who write about that. But we also see, in terms of women in politics, that many very conservative countries have a lot of women. In fact, when you look at national leaders, most of the countries that ever had a female president or prime minister have been among the most socially and culturally conservative.

I do think that for women in general, cultural ideas shape how they are able to live their lives. They can’t get a job, for example. But interestingly, politics is not a job like other jobs. It’s about representation. There’s no course or training or qualification that you have to have to be a politician.

But as a politician, you can have another career. Anyone can become a politician, you know. There’s much more flexibility here in terms of who is qualified to run. And unfortunately people say that women are just not qualified to run for political office, which is not a persuasive reason for their exclusion. There are many things that women would bring to the political process.

So women’s representation is not a problem only in Malaysia, but a global one?

Yes. It’s interesting that since 2000, there have been many other Islamic countries that have adopted different types of quota policies, for example, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Iraq. There are more, but this is off the top of my head. They all have policies to promote women in politics, mainly reserved seats. Something interesting that just happened in Jordan is that there were six seats reserved for women in 2003, and now in the most recent election, women not only won these six seats, but a woman also won a general seat for the first time. It shows that these policies not only bring women in on the reserved seats, but can also empower women to run for non-reserved seats. Women were never in the parliament of Jordan before that. This shows it’s important to give women these kinds of opportunities.

Reserved seats? You mean seats that are reserved for women?

Yes. In Jordan six seats were reserved for women, that only women could run for. The women who receive the most votes in each district win the seats. A similar system is in place in Pakistan. They have had reserved seats there since the 1950s, with the only gap occurring for a brief time in the 1990s. Today nearly 20% of seats are reserved for women. There have also been seats reserved for women in countries like Egypt, Nepal and India. A few years ago, Indonesia also passed a 30% quota law, although this applied to the candidates nominated, not the exact number of seats. In fact, there are today more than 100 countries that have some type of policy to increase women’s representation. About 80 of these adopted the policies within the last 10 years. This is a major victory, that so many countries around the world have decided to promote more women in politics. That is important. After a while, if Malaysia doesn’t take some steps, there would be only a few countries that hadn’t addressed this important issue.

So it’s important for Malaysia to quickly catch up?

There are many countries that had said this is an important issue. There are also many countries in the same region and with similar cultures and traditions and religious backgrounds that have said having more women in politics is important. So I think that it should be possible to do this here as well, whether or not the ideas come from abroad or are generated internally.

It’s possible to implement it as long as we have the political will to do so?

Yes. I mean, there is evidence from around the globe that shows that if people are serious about increasing women’s representation, they come out with a way to do it, despite all sorts of constraints. So I think it’s possible to do that for sure. And I feel strongly, the more I know about women in politics, that women’s representation is a political problem that needs a political solution. Waiting for society to change, for cultures to change, we will be waiting forever. Politics can also play an important role in changing cultural ideas, social ideas about women’s roles. Women’s experiences and values should be reflected in the democratic process.

Further, in countries where there are more women in politics, many of them find that they are contacted by a lot of female voters who say, ‘I could never raise this with a male politician, but I feel I could raise it with you’, in terms of important issues like domestic violence, healthcare and education. They are more willing to go to the women, even to women politicians in a different district who are not even their own representatives. That shows that having more women in politics is not just good for the women who win office, but also for female voters, who feel more connected as a result to the political process. It’s good for democracy to have people more engaged.

Any ideal example that Malaysia can learn from?

There are so many good examples around the world. It’s important to look at countries that have adopted various kinds of quota policies. It depends though on what kind of policies we might find to be the most useful. The strategy that would work in Malaysia would be to pass a legislative quota, a quota law. Most countries have adopted a quota law, usually a 30% quota, but it’s important to design these in a way that makes sure they apply to electable positions. It’s important to identify what kind of districts the quotas have to apply to. There are some countries where the law says 30%, but women were put in the bottom third of the list or in districts where parties did not think they were going to win.

Experiences of other countries show that it’s important to say that these have to be, for example, the districts that the party won in the last election, or districts where the party thinks it is going to win in the next election. Many countries have taken 10 years to figure out how best to do it.

Another option is through reserved seats, which can work very well with the type of electoral system you have in Malaysia. The question is how to do this, within the existing seats or by adding on to seats, whether those people are elected or appointed. There are so many examples in terms of good and bad practices, what has worked or what hasn’t. It would be difficult to say exactly.

There are some good cases for having reserved seats, such as in Rwanda, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They all have reserved seats, between 20 and 30% women in parliament. In terms of the quota law, basically all parties have certain percentages of candidate. There are countries like Argentina, Belgium as well as Indonesia. That shows that many countries view 30% as a good figure.

In any case you want to make sure you adopt a strategy between 30% to 50%.

Some male parliamentarians would argue that women and men should be in the same position and question why women should be given more winnable or electable seats?

Because they say promoting women would disadvantage men and that they both should have the same opportunities? This is an interesting tendency in other countries as well. For me, the question is how you understand equal opportunity. Some people think equal opportunity is everyone having the legal right to run for office. If you are good enough, you will get to the top. But patterns in many countries show that there are distortions in practice and thus that this type of equal opportunity is simply not enough. You need to have the support of your party. You need to be given the opportunity and resources that actually give you truly equal opportunities. We want the equal opportunity that means something.

Equal opportunity to me is not just the right to run for office, but the right to hold the office. And we need to have a much deeper understanding of what equal opportunity is. Women should be equally distributed to the districts with electable positions. In countries where they have adopted quota policies, but women end up in unwinnable districts, why bother to do this?

This happens because male politicians say they believe in democracy and inclusion, but they in fact don’t want it when it affects them negatively. It’s important to convince people to see the bigger picture instead of their own selfish interests. It’s important to show some commitment to that, especially in support of democracy and equality and representation and inclusion. None of those things mean anything if you don’t actually give people that opportunity, if you give them only lip service.

It’s quite easy for people in dominant positions to say "oh, we gave you the opportunity, you just didn’t want it or didn’t take it or were not good enough for it". But none of those things are true. You find many male politicians saying "I would like to have women in politics, I think it’s a good idea". But when enough women come forward, they say "I would like to have you, but voters would not want to have a woman". This is like saying "oh, I’m a good person, it’s just other people, and it’s their fault, really". But the evidence shows that all of these objections are simply not true. A lot of women don’t come forward as candidates because they see that women are not included.

So political leaders have to take the responsibility for showing that they are truly open to having women in politics. In many countries, it is actually the case that the women who do run for office are in fact more qualified then the men. They have a higher level of education, or a better profession. Also, in many countries, if you compare male with female candidates, women tend to win at a higher rate than men. Voters find women to be desirable candidates. They don’t show bias against women. So, it actually turns out to be bad electoral strategy for parties that do not take in these qualified politicians. Saying that voters don’t want to vote for women is simply a poor excuse, employed for selfish ends. Yet, people say it so many times that many believe this to be true, even if it’s not, no matter how many times you say it.