Gender And World Politics

Gender and World Politics

How do we measure the status of women in any given country? Does women’s status reflect the sociopolitical situation of any given country?

Two good measures: Gender –Related Development Index (GDI) And Gender empowerment measure (GEM) Both look at the how women fare in 146 countries (ostensibly, not always data available)

GDI: composite indicator made up of 4 other indicators: 1. Female life expectancy at birth compared to male 2. Female adult literacy compared to male 3. Female school enrollment compared to male 4. Female estimated earned income compared to male

GEM: also a composite indicator that measures gender inequality in terms of: 1. women’s and men’s percentage shares of seats in legislature 2. Female legislators, senior officials and managers as a % of total 3. Female professional and technical workers as a % of total 4. Women’s and men’s estimated earned income

Level of gender equality not always dependent on national income Ex:

Poland ranks 39th in the GEM Japan ranks 54th

Despite the fact that income per person in Poland ($13,847) is less than half of that in Japan’s ($31,267)

EX: U.K. ($33,238 ) and Finland ($32,153 ) have similar income per person, but Finland ranks 3rd in the GEM, while the U.K. ranks 14th

GEM: 1. Norway

57. China

2. Sweden

87. Iran

15. U.S.

92. Saudi Arabia

16.Singapore 17. Argentina 34.Czech Republic 44. Tanzania 56. Venezuela

What aspects of modernity lend themselves to women’s rights?

But:

Gender Development Ranking (and human development ranking) fall as some countries enter the global economy (modernize) 1995

2001

2005

Guatemala

87

98

103

Nicaragua

73

95

98

El Salvador

76

87

91

Women’s rights change with regimes: Before the Taliban, Afghan women could vote and were the majority of the country’s teachers In the former Soviet Union, women earned 70% of male wages Currently in Russia, women earn 40% of male wages In Nicaragua, women activists say the election of the first woman president, Violeta Chamorro, actually hurt women’s status

One of the last bastions of traditionalism in West has to do with gender roles Most obvious sources of backlash against women’s rights can be found in countries where modernity is seen as threatening Ex: Afghanistan under the Taliban (again). Iran and the Khomeini revolution

“Rail as they will about 'discrimination,' women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of singleminded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism."

My buddy Pat

"The real liberators of American women were not the feminist noise-makers, they were the automobile, the supermarket, the shopping center, the dishwasher, the washer-dryer, the freezer."

“Feminism is doomed to failure because it is based on an attempt to repeal and restructure human nature.” “Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women.” “When will American men learn how to stand up to the nagging by the intolerant, uncivil feminists whose sport is to humiliate men?” -- Phyllis Schlafly

"Back in the prelapsarian fifties, women worked if they happened to fall into the .01 percent of the population who are able to have interesting jobs or they retired in their twenties to raise children and, incidentally, do what all serious people would like to do anyway -- be a dilettante in many subjects. As far as I'm concerned this was a division of labor nothing short of perfect. Men worked and women didn't. So when our benefactors come under attack as "patriarchs" and "oppressors," I realize, someone has to put in a kind word for the oppressors. For cocktails alone, I figure I owe the male population several thousand dollars. So I will be the one to step forward and say: To the extent one gender is oppressing the other, it's not women who should be complaining." --Ann Coulter

Is there a place for changing gender politics in other countries as well as our own? Would the practices that hurt women change if more women were in power?

Sirimavo Bandaranaike, first elected female head of state, 1960, Sri Lanka. She held office for three terms. Her daughter would later also become Prime Minister

Muslim State Leaders

Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990, and again from 19 Oct 1993 to 5 Nov 1996.

Khaleda Zia, Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1991 to 1996.

Tansu Çiller, Prime Minister of Turkey from 1993 to 1996.

C. Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, 1996-2002. Megawati Setiawati Sukarnoputri, President of Indonesia from 2001 to 2004.

Current Women Leaders around the World

1997- President Mary McAleese, Ireland, centrist

2000-President Tarja Halonen, Finland, moderate left

1999-Prime Minister Helen Clark, New Zealand, center-left

2001 -President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Philippines, centrist (no defined ideology, accused of corruption)

2004-Prime Minister Luísa Días Diogo, Moçambique, center-right

2005-Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany, moderate right

2006-Executive President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia, centrist 2006-President Michelle Bachelet Jeria, Chile, moderate left

Newest Members of the “club”:

2007- Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, Ukraine, centrist

2007- President Pratibha Patil, India, moderate left 2007- Executive President Cristina E. Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina, moderate left

2008- Prime Minister Zinaida Grecianii, Moldova, communist (in name at least)

2008- Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis, Haiti, moderate left