Women in government

She is the head of the most populous governmental jurisdiction administered by a woman in the Americas, and third most in the world (after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh).

Studies also show that women running for political office raise a similar amount of money in comparison to their male counterparts, however they feel they need to work harder to do so.

According to a survey conducted on a sample of 3,640 elected municipal officeholders, women face adversities with things such as financing a campaign because they are not as heavily recruited as men by party leaders.

[58] She points out that those who "appear to be sexually active outside a monogamous heterosexual marriage run into particular difficulties, since they tend to be portrayed as vexatious vixens"[59] who are more interested in their private romantic lives than in their public responsibilities.

[64] In Canada, there is evidence that female politicians face gender stigma from male members of the political parties to which they belong which can undermine the ability of women to reach or maintain leadership roles.

The study showed that neither voter turnout nor urban/rural constituencies were factors that help or hurt a female candidate, but "office-holding experience in non-political organizations made a modest contribution to women's electoral advantage".

The requisite nomination and declaration of interest forms that political parties require candidates to submit in order to run for seats on their platform frequently out of the reach of women.

Women are also less likely to be able to afford to continue the process of obtaining leadership positions due to unpaid labor responsibilities, unequal inheritance rights, and open discrimination.

[70] The argument put forth by scholars Jacquetta Newman and Linda White is that women's participation in the realm of high politics is crucial if the goal is to affect the quality of public policy.

A key critique is that mirror representation assumes that all members of a particular sex operate under the rubric of a shared identity, without taking into consideration other factors such as age, education, culture, or socioeconomic status.

Sexual and physical violence: In Kenya, a woman's rights activist named Asha Ali was threatened and beaten by three men for standing as a candidate in front of her kids and elderly mother.

[35] Education is a vital tool for any person in society to better themselves in their career path, and equalization of educational opportunities for boys and girls may take the form of several initiatives: Mark P. Jones, in reference to Norris's Legislative Recruitment, states that: "Unlike other factors that have been identified as influencing the level of women's legislative representation, such as a country's political culture and level of economic development, institutional rules are relatively easy to change".

[128] A 2021 study published in American Political Science Review found that this type of state-driven gendered electoral financing is likely to lead to success when combined with either proportional representation of a 15% minimum of women MPs.

[129] Current research which uses sex-aggregated statistics may underplay or minimize the quantitative presentation of issues such as maternal mortality, violence against women, and girls' school attendance.

"Although women's representation in Latin America, Africa, and the West progressed slowly until 1995, in the most recent decade, these regions show substantial growth, doubling their previous percentage".

Sheri Kunovich and Pamela Paxton's research method, for example, took a different path by studying "cross-national" implications to politics, taking numerous countries into consideration.

In their noteworthy paper on examining the effects of female leadership in the times of crisis, Bruce et al. show that women as mayors in Brazilian municipalities had a negative, sizable and significant impact on the number of COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations per one hundred thousand inhabitants.

[140] In addition to the points raised above, Supriya Garikipati and Uma Kambhampati conduct an analysis to determine if there is any significant difference between COVID-19 pandemic being handled by women as compared to men.

Shireen Hassim (2009) writes, "It could be argued that in both countries [Uganda and Rwanda] women's representation provided a kind of alibi for the progressive, 'democratic' nature of new governments that at their core nevertheless remained authoritarian, and increasingly so".

[164] Being assigned highly gender-biased responsibilities within the spectrum of 'women affairs', such as family planning that are reproduction-oriented or with connection to social construction, women's public role and scope of duty are framed under constraints.

The activists suffered from interrogation, detention and month-long imprisonment due to the distribution of stickers on Beijing subways for drawing the wider community's awareness to sexual harassment against women.

[167] Followed by the forced suspension of the Weibo account 'Feminist Voices' due to the government's tightened censorship, feminists encountered escalated obstacles in promoting gender equality.

Given the opportunity to get a party ticket, create a platform and obtain the experience to run for a political position, women are much more likely to be able to overcome these hurdles in the future, even without the quota system in place.

Because gaining support from these groups is usually based on personal connections, women's historically disadvantaged position in networking circles hurts their ability to run for public office.

[37] Following Micheál Martin's appointment as Taoiseach in June 2020, after the formation of a Fianna Fáil, Green Party and Fine Gael coalition, Sinn Féin's president Mary Lou McDonald became Leader of the Opposition.

[199] In 2018, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, member of Forza Italia party, was elected Senate president, becoming the first women to serve in the second highest office of the state.

[206] Presidential elections were held in Finland on 16 January 2000, with a second round on 6 February;[207] the result was a victory for Tarja Halonen of the Social Democratic Party, who became the country's first female President.

Senators Nancy Kassebaum, Dianne Feinstein, Carol Moseley Braun, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Elizabeth Warren; U.S.

Representatives Edith Rogers, Patsy Mink, Shirley Chisolm, Bella Abzug, Barbara Jordan, Marcy Kaptur, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene; and Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

[248] In recent times New Zealand has had many women in top leadership and government roles, including three prime ministers; Jenny Shipley (1997–1999), Helen Clark (1999–2008) and Jacinda Ardern (2017–2023).