Women in politics

The Government is giving its thought to increasing women's representation at the upcoming Local Government election according to Prime Minister D M Jayaratne. He said the groundwork has already been laid for this. The Premier did not elaborate. Hopefully this would be the first step towards more and more women entering Parliament.

It is time that our present day women who have excelled in many fields and breached male bastions take up the challenge and enter the fray. Beside adorning our legislature with their fair presence they could also be a calming influence in the August Assembly which has not exactly covered itself with glory in the recent past where the conduct of its members are concerned.

At present the Local Government election law makes it mandatory for a 33 percent youth representation - that is those below 35 years - at all Local Government elections. With women comprising 53 percent of our population why cannot a similar quota be set apart for our women in the national Parliament? After all, women are the major contributors to the country's foreign exchange earnings and our women's literacy rate is higher than in other South Asian countries. Besides today they have broken out of the shackles that bound them to the dictates of a highly conservative society in the past. Women have breached the male citadels in the professions, entrepreneurship, in the field of sports and a myriad other disciplines.

But they have been given a raw deal in terms of political representation. This despite all the highfalutin talk about women's emancipation and equal rights for women. What use are all those conferences and workshops held in five star hotels claiming to usher in a renaissance of women when they are being all but shut out from direct representation of the public?

Today in all SAARC countries including the highly Islamic Pakistan there is a conspicuous presence of women in the National Assembly. This is so even in some of the African countries noted for male dominance in politics. Regrettably in Sri Lanka which produced the world's first woman Prime Minister there are only 13 women MPs in the 225 member Parliament.

Although seven decades have passed since our women received universal adult franchise, women representation in Parliament had being a consistent four percent. It is even much lower at Local Government level. This, despite the pioneering role played by some of our prominent women legislators in the immediate post independence era which one would have thought would have acted as a catalyst for women to enter the political fray in their numbers.

True, these pioneer women were strictly products of the system. They either came from political families or political backgrounds or were thrusts into politics to take over the mantle of their husbands. They were also from affluent backgrounds which provided them with the wherewithal to indulge in the game of politics and compete on par with their male counterparts in the fray.

Hardly any woman politician emerged of their own volition. Perhaps our strict hierarchical society which consigned women to the far corner in the totem pole, a highly male dominated social milieu and the general conservative backdrop where women could not fit into existing scheme of things all contributed towards our women shying away from the limelight. And they certainly could not have fitted into a such a high octane bruising discipline such as politics.

But as mentioned our women have come a long way from those cloistered days. Many have shown the way with some aspiring to the very top. Today there are women politicians who can lay claim to fame in their own right without the advantage of family backgrounds.

Perhaps the violent nature of present day politics, the money and muscle power required to emerge winner and the highly unwieldly Preferential voting system that requires extensive campaigning on a district level have deterred women from entering the fray.

It is in this context that the decision to hold the upcoming Local Government election doing away with the Preference vote is a commendable move by the Government which hopefully will open the doors for more and more women politicians entering representative bodies and playing a pro-active role in national politics.