The second evidence gathering session of the Commission focuses on Gender and Politics:
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On Friday 16 January 2015
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Session Lead - Professor Anne Phillips
The gendered nature of political power – at local, national, and international level – is evident to anyone who participates in politics or watches the television news. The Inter-Parliamentary Union has been tracking statistics on women in national parliaments since 1997, and over this period, has identified some considerable areas of change. Yet the world average for women’s participation remains low at 22.1%, and the UK is almost exactly at that world average with 22.6%. It currently comes in as number 64 in the global list of shame. The adoption of gender quotas, including in countries devising new post-conflict constitutions, has proved one mechanism for change. But even where the numbers are more encouraging, increasing the proportion of women in parliaments may not translate into effective influence over policy, or may not translate into policies that challenge gender hierarchies, and may leave untouched many other important arenas of power.
In the forthcoming session on Politics, the Commission will draw on existing bodies of research and expertise to gather evidence:
a) on where power lies and what kind of power most matters;
b) on differences in the gendered distribution and experiences of power, within the different parts of the UK , and between the UK and other parts of Europe;
c) on the major obstacles operating to sustain gendered inequalities, in parliament, in the political parties, in local government, and in women’s attitudes towards politics;
d) on what we can learn from these experiences and differences about the best ways forward towards equal participation in politics.
Podcasts on Gender and Politics and Government
Anne Phillips, Politics Session Lead for the LSE Commission on Gender, Inequality and Power, talks about the gendered nature of political power
In this podcast, Anne Phillips, Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science, talks about the under-representation of women in politics and the corresponding lack of influence over key political debates in the UK.
Purna Sen, Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Affairs, talks about the experiences of women in politics and public life
In this podcast, Purna Sen talks about women in political and public life, drawing on evidence from the Commission, her research about women in public life ('Above the Parapet') and her own experience of being a Parliamentary candidate.