Gender Forum offers you an opportunity to share your views and concerns with us. Email to [email protected] or mail to Gender Forum, C/O Features Editor, Daily News- Editorial, Lake House, Colombo.

Role of women in international politics

Nipuni WIMALAPALA

Female representation in politics and international affairs is gradually increasing even though the expected ratio has not been achieved yet. Dr Maneesha Pasqual of International Relations Department, University of Colombo expressed her ideas about the position of women worldwide in politics at the moment.

According to Dr Pasqual, even though there are a number of strong female leaders in the world, still women’s representation in international politics is not strong enough. Women have not achieved the expected percentage of representation in politics since it is largely male dominant. Women are marginalised as a whole in this issue while only a very few women have achieved success in the sphere of politics.

As she mentioned, there are 193 members of the United Nations. There are 30 female leaders in 29 different countries or self-ruling territories at the moment. Of the monarchies, there are reigning queens in three countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The 12 female presidents are in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Finland, India, Ireland, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Lithuania, San Marino and Switzerland.

Currently there are 12 woman prime ministers in Australia, Bangladesh, Croatia, Germany, Iceland, Mali, Slovakia, Thailand and Trinidad and Tobago and in the self-governing territories of Bermuda, Sint Maartin and the Aland Islands.

“Whenever there is a female leader in a country, always there is a transformative ruling system. They change things very often. It is often said that women are good at peace and the fact is denied by some woman rulers like Margaret Thatcher who was involved in international politics. There should be a good education background, experience and the capability to become a good female leader. Training from the grassroot level, experience of interacting with people, training from the fundamental politics would help women become capable leaders. Women have been involved in politics in early history. There were queens in some countries like Ethiopia, Egypt long ago,” said Pasqual.

As Dr Pasqual states Women in Asian countries fully engage themselves in politics compared to some other parts of the world. In Asian countries like Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Thailand, female representation in politics is somewhat satisfactory. In the Asian context most of the time widows of strong politicians are forced into politics. So it is a clear fact that they come to politics, not because of their own capability and talents, but through the popularity and recognition of their late husbands. The interesting thing is, though they come to politics because of their husbands, most of them could build their own personality without being puppets of male counterparts around them.

But the situation is totally different in European countries. Most of the female rulers in European countries have come to their positions through their own talents and capabilities.

“The female representation in South Asian politics is satisfactory when compared with most of the other women of the world. Sonia Gandhi is the best example. She, being an Italian by birth was able to win the hearts of almost all the Indians through her remarkable political career. Her political decisions are strong and tough. She has an outstanding political career.

Her gender was not at all an issue in her political career. She has her own unique personality and she never became a puppet of men. She could maintain her political personality in very solid manner,” Pasqual stressed.

Dr Pasqual emphasised the fact that Sri Lanka is another specific Asian country which produced very strong female political figures in recent history. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga are the foremost Sri Lankan female political figures who achieved maximum popularity through their unique way. Sirimavo Bandaranaike who once headed the Non Aligned Movement was a very strong spokeswoman. Even though she entered politics as the widow of the late Prime Minister S W R D Bandaranaike, she could build up her own self image. Chandrika Bandaranike Kumaratunga also played a vital role in Sri Lankan politics and had a very strong and solid personality.

Dr Pasqual mentioned that the idea that women are weak in decision-making is a widely spread one which is accepted by a majority of the people in the world. And specifically women are considered to be weak in the Asian region. But it is quite interesting to note that when it comes to politics, the South Asian women are quite talented in politics.

“We need strong women leaders with hard and solid decisions who have the capability and confidence to interact with international community and to handle the male counterparts in a solid manner.”

“There are classic examples to prove the fact that women’s representation in international politics has increased. Some of the figures are Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret Thatcher, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Sonia Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Eleanor Roosevelt and Angela Merkel.

Most of these powerful female political figures had very good family lives, though they were involved in a ‘male dominated’ career. Queen Elizabeth II has four children and even today she leads a successful family life. Most of these women have been able to maintain a balance between both ‘careers’”, she noted.

Another important fact according to Dr Pasqual is most female leaders in the world are very feminine. They always wear saris, skirts, frocks and use their own feminine voice in politics.

Some female politics are very powerful and have gained international recognition. For example when Mao Tse-Tung’s wife entered politics, her male counterparts were uneasy about it and considered her as a threat to them. Another case is, when Barack Obama was fighting for the presidency in the USA, his main challenge was Hillary Clinton. Though she could not win, it shows the power of women in politics.

“Though there are a number of examples to prove women’s power in politics, still there are some regions and countries where women are totally marginalised having only a very low representation in politics. Some of the examples are, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Laos etc.” “But when it comes to regions like USA, South Africa, Nicaragua, Australia, Ireland etc, female representation in politics is really good. But still 50 percent has not been reached in any country.

And I personally believe that it is hard to achieve it since men are very strongly established in the field and it is not fair to force people to vote for their leaders in a gender based system. It will produce negative outcomes. However I strongly believe that women must be more forward, educated and should achieve their rights in politics through their own way without waiting till men give it to them. Women have talents, capabilities and are capable of achieving what they want.” Pasqual stated.

Beauty and the feminists

Aditha DISSANAYAKE

Man has extolled the beauty of women from the time he was able to speak, sing and write. “As evening comes/the golden hued beauties/...appear like/vatkol flowers/entangled with katrola flowers” wrote the poet Agboy describing the Sigiri damsels on the mirror wall. “Plucking a flower from my mate’s dress/I place it before the golden hued beauty” said Kital, yet another visitor, who admired the beauty of the women painted on the Sigiri rock.

But, what exactly is beauty? Ask the philosophers. Plato, Immanuel Kant, David Hume. According to Kant (if my interpretation of his theory is right) judgments of beauty are based on feeling, and so, the accuracy of these judgments cannot be proved. “Beauty is no quality in things themselves” says Hume. “It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”

Plato on the other hand, thinks it is only the Philosopher who has special capacities and a particular sort of education who can get a better glimpse of the Form of Beauty than the ordinary citizens. According to his theory, if A is a certain woman and B is a certain statue and both “A is beautiful” and “B is beautiful” are true statements, one might be tempted to think of the woman and the statue as participating in or sharing some common property, despite their being otherwise quite different. Plato calls this common property ‘beauty itself,’ as distinct from the particular beauty of either woman or statue. What does this really mean? Cheer up. As Drew A. Hyland writes in “Plato and the Question of Beauty”, Plato himself does not know what exactly he is explaining and “ultimately gives up on the possibility of a definition for beauty.”

In such a context, one wonders how a panel of judges can, every year, select a certain individual from over eighty contestants and crown her as the most beautiful woman in the universe.

Not surprisingly, beauty contests have never been a hit with strong feminists. According to an article in the Time magazine, describing the history of the Miss America pageant, in 1968, 400 women showed up to protest the pageant held in Atlantic City, N.J. A mock crown was placed on the head of a sheep amidst chants of “Ain’t she sweet, makin’ profit off her meat.” Since then, on two other occasions the protests over beauty pageants snowballed into avalanches. There were demonstrations against Miss World by feminists and Hindu nationalists when it was held in Bangalore in 1996. Riots in Kaduna in northern Nigeria over Miss World 2002 led to the contest being moved to London.

The main argument against beauty contests is that they promote an ideal of female beauty to which only a minority of women can realistically aspire.

Moreover, according to feminist critiques of beauty, beauty contests fail to challenge the harmful political attitudes of society towards women. The contestants in a beauty contest are judged on their physical appearance rather than on any other qualities they may possess (the existence of a ‘talent’ element in these contests is all very well, but ugly women will simply never win, no matter how heavily talented they are). Judging women, but not men, primarily on their looks contributes to the subjugation of women because other qualities, such as intelligence, are not seen as part of ideal femininity and therefore not as things to which women should aspire.

Thus, despite paying lip-service to feminist keywords such as empowerment and self-confidence, beauty contests do nothing concrete to aid the liberation of women. By reinforcing looks as the most important feminine quality, they are seen as harmful to women’s liberation in general.

Yet, there is, as always, the other side of the coin. Those who see nothing wrong in beauty contests argue that a beauty contest too is merely a competition. Every competition, of every kind, values certain qualities over others - being able to lift heavy weights cannot be seen as the best definition of humanity, yet, prizes are given for weightlifting; similarly, giving a prize to a beautiful woman for her beauty, does not mean beauty is all that matters when it comes to women in the whole wide universe.

Beauty contests, like sports, can also be seen as an important focus of national or regional pride. The victories in recent years of Miss India, Miss Turkey and Miss Nigeria in Miss World competitions made many Indians, Turks and Nigerians proud and were seen as symbolic of those countries’ progress in competing with more powerful countries on their own terms.

Good or bad, even as some feminists argue that beauty contests turn a woman into a dupe of fashion and thus a collaborator in her own oppression, there are also other feminists who feel feminism needs to end its long obsession with the politics of personal appearance, and get past its dim view of beauty as well as beauty contests.

“Voices from around the world report a variety of conditions and systems under which only one thing holds constant - the universal second-class status of females. We should not waste time quibbling over what to wear to the conflict” says author Linda Scott, a feminist who thinks the anti-beauty issue has divided women much more than it has aided their cause. Finally, here is Miss Venezuela, who was crowned Miss Universe 2008 answering a question on sexual discrimination in the work place. “I believe that nowadays we women have overcome many obstacles, and I do believe that we have reached the same level that men have. We must realize there are no longer any barriers amongst us.”

The audience goes wild and applauds as if she has made the statement of the century. If you agree, clap along.

If you do not, all you have to do is simply change the channel. As Plato said leave Beauty to the philosophers.

[email protected]