April 2nd, 2013
Women and Politics
Gender and Politics is one of the most energized fields in the discipline of Political Science. The field explores power relations and governance from a perspective that recognizes gender as a politically and socially constructed category. Women politicians represent a new wave of game-changers on the Canadian political scene and their recent successes may signify shifts in our society’s attitudes toward gender and politics. However, even considering these recent accomplishments, women remain vastly underrepresented in Parliament and provincial/territorial legislatures. The gender gap in political ambition remains substantial despite the many women who have risen to prominence in recent years. Some of the conventional reasons still apply: women continue to be responsible for the majority of child-care and household tasks. They are also less competitive and "much less likely" than men to think they are qualified. But women are also less likely to get a suggestion that they should run for office, underscoring another reason women are under-represented in politics: they see the process as biased against them. These are significant reasons why women still encounter barriers when seeking elected office. For Canada to truly be an equal-opportunity society, bringing women into one of the most important roles in the political domain is critical. Yet it is precisely in this area where we are failing most embarrassingly. Statistics Canada indicates that the majority of students graduating from post-secondary institutions are women. So why aren't more Canadian women, who are considered to be some of the world's most educated and talented, engaging in parliamentary politics? How can Canada claim to be an equal-opportunity society when the demographics of our decision-makers are so out of proportion with the gender demographics of Canadian society? When seats in Parliament do not accurately reflect the demographics of this country,...