A U.N. study released last Thursday examines the ways in which women are demanding accountability on gender equality and women’s rights.

Accountability from a women’s rights perspective exists when all women are able to get explanations from those in power for actions that affect them, and can set in motion corrective actions when those responsible fail to promote their rights.

Since 1995, the proportion of women in public office worldwide has increased by seven percent. Much of the increase, we’re told, was the result of women realizing that power was the real avenue toward change.

“We need to convince women that the only way to really make a change is to stop complaining and just be the owner of power,” said Senator Cecilia López Montaño, the speaker of the opposition Liberal Party in Colombia. nytimes

Where there are few women in public office, there is little incentive for accountability on the part of those who are charged with protecting women’s rights.

Women in politics are good for women. When women hold public office, other women are more inclined to get involved in the political process, and they turn out to vote in greater numbers when there is a woman on the ballot. This helps to build the foundation by which women can insist on accountability on gender equality and women’s rights.

In the absence of political accountability, when aspirations to advance women’s interests can find no expression, and when representatives are unable to advance legislation or see it enacted, the result can be a loss of faith in democratic participation or in engagement with the state. This can contribute to the growing appeal of other forms of mobilization, such as identity groups or religious movements. Women have found an important source of support in these associations, which often provide services and social recognition to women in areas where the state does not deliver. However, some of these associations take decidedly restrictive perspectives on democratic participation, and recruit women as spokespersons of conservative interpretations of women’s social roles. This is a matter of concern to gender equality advocates, and in some contexts it threatens to reverse democratic political developments. This speaks to the urgent need to ensure that political accountability systems engage women as equal participants at every stage of the accountability cycle.

When women cannot demand accountability, they have no political voice, and as a result, policymakers are not particularly aware of women’s needs and preferences. In addition to this lack of awareness, if women want to gain access to the political process, they’ll have to grapple with the status quo.

Political parties have been slow to respond to women’s interest in political participation, and they often fail to adequately respond to significant barriers encountered by women standing for [election].

When women win elections, their contributions are often constrained by the fact that they are vastly overrepresented in ‘social’ policy positions, while being underrepresented in critical decision-making areas, such as security, the budget, and foreign policy. Even once they’ve attained public office, gender bias remains a significant barrier to women’s full and equal participation in policy-making.

Demand and supply of accountability: ‘Voice’ and ‘Choice’

When women’s rights are denied, their responses may range from ‘voice’-based approaches that employ demonstrations, demands, and public exposure, to ‘choice’-based approaches that promote changes in the public service and the market.

‘Voice’-based approaches seek to demonstrate the existence of a constituency demanding delivery on promises to women. ‘Voice’-based approaches seek to publicize accountability failures and to demand accountability processes such as judicial investigations or legislative enquiries into abuses of women’s rights.

‘Choice’-based approaches seek to apply a market-derived rationale to accountability processes. Here the stress is on the individual end-user of public or private services as the agent of accountability, using market tools to motivate providers to improve delivery. Administrative complaint systems, women’s or consumers’ charters, and encouragement of competition between providers of services, are examples of such approaches intended to empower individuals to seek redress through pursuing complaints or switching to other providers. Cash transfer schemes are based on the choice model, enabling households to purchase health or education services from providers of their choice. Fear of loss of clients creates incentives for providers to improve accountability.

Building political accountability

In order to make the transition from ‘voice’ to influence, institutional change must take place where public policy decisions are implemented, such as resource allocation, public service changes, health care providers, and schools, and if they’re to be effective, governance reforms must address the factors that undermine women’s capacity to participate in public decisions.

Party reform. Hostility toward women candidates is observable the world over. Political parties striving for a democratic process will work to change the public perception of women candidates and to circumvent the intimidation and violence directed at them. Quota systems, party and media codes of conduct, and campaign finance controls have also been effective in providing women candidates with a more level playing field.

Quotas that reserve seats for women have proved instrumental in increasing their numbers. In elections held in 2007, women in countries with some form of electoral quota captured 19.3 percent of the seats, as opposed to 14.7 percent in countries without such quotas, the study said. Of the 22 countries where women constitute more than 30 percent of the national assembly, 18 have some form of quota. nytimes

Electoral structure. Where proportional representation is the electoral structure in place, women candidates have better results than they do in a plurality structure. In proportional representation, the candidate is running on a group ballot, which makes it less of a risk for the party, because a negative bias toward a woman candidate has less impact. In plurality voting, where there’s a winner and a loser, gender bias toward a woman candidate can present a greater risk for the party.

Women’s Manifesto

The violence experienced by women candidates in the example from Kenya* is emblematic of obstacles to women’s political participation that limit their effectiveness in making political accountability systems work for gender equality in many parts of the world. Nevertheless, more and more female candidates are running on a gender equality platform, and women voters are asserting themselves as a distinct constituency. Women are seeking to transform politics itself and to reinvigorate political accountability.

As the “women’s vote” becomes a constituency with political leverage, women voters in many countries are subscribing to a list of priorities to present to political parties prior to elections. These ‘Women’s Manifestos’ call for parties to sign on and respect women’s demands in their campaign platforms.

The 2007 Irish Women’s manifesto ‘What Women Want from the Next Irish Government’ had five cardinal demands:
• More women in positions of decision-making;
• Zero tolerance of violence against women;
• Sharing of childcare and household work;
• Economic equality between women and men; and
• Equal respect and autonomy for all women, irrespective of diversity
and difference.

* The 2007 Kenyan general elections saw a record number of women – 269 women out of 2,548 candidates, compared to just 44 in the 2002 elections – vying for a Parliamentary seat. These elections also saw unprecedented levels of violence. One woman, Alice Onduto, was shot and killed after losing her nomination bid in South Nairobi, and another woman candidate, Flora Igoki Tera, was tortured by a gang of five men. In spite of this hostile environment, many women candidates persisted in building their campaigns on a platform of women’s rights and gender equality.