Gender ideology has turned male privilege into “female oppression” and is making women release them from it
As of 2021, the global average for women in Parliament is 25.5%. There are only three countries in the entire world where the number of female MPs reaches 50% or over. Rwanda leads the way with an impressive 61%. In second and third places are Cuba and UAE with 53% and 50% respectively. In addition to women in Parliament, Rwanda boasts significant female representation across all government branches, with 32% of Senators, 42% Cabinet Members and 50% Judges. But this wasn’t always the case. Before the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the female participation average was a paltry 17%, and soon after, the country needed a complete overhaul. Owing to the fact that a large number of males were killed during the war, the government that formed in 2003 came up with a new quota system for females to help uplift the now majority population of the country.
Article 9 of the 2003 Constitution decided that 30% of the seats are to be reserved in Parliament for women. But when the elections concluded, women were not only elected for 30% of the seats, but also for some non-reserved seats. In one of the Parliamentary elections, the number went as high as 63%. Today, it stays at 61%.
While this system worked in Rwanda’s favour, whether quota requirements restrict women from competing in and winning elections beyond these quotients is an issue that concerns India. A report of the Inter-Parliamentary Union found that, after evaluating 57 countries in 2020, on average, the Parliaments that had quota systems ended up electing 11.8% more women into Parliament (as compared to where there were no legalised quotas). The importance of female representation in politics can’t be stressed enough and historically, the world has seen stupendous pro-women policies because of it. For example, the legal ban on female genital mutilation in Kenya coincided with the systematic rise in number of female politicians leading up to 2011 when the law was implemented. Similarly Rwanda, with the help of the Anti Gender-Based Violence Law, (2008) became one of the few countries that made marital rape a crime. A fundamental right that Indian women are still deprived of.
Political landscape in India
A Women’s Reservation Bill has been under consideration for quite a while, and accordingly, it would ensure that 33% of the seats in Lok Sabha are reserved for women. The total strength of women in the Lok Sabha is a meagre 14% – even lower than pre-genocide Rwanda.
The reservation of 33.33% seats in Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament) and in the State Legislative Assemblies for women is in accordance with the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments– which reserved the same percentage of seats for women in rural and urban local bodies respectively. The Bill was first introduced in Parliament in 1996 and has not yet been converted into an Act, a consequence of negligence from successive governments, strong opposition from various political parties in the past, as well as due to strong patriarchal norms prevailing in society.
The total strength of women in the Indian Lok Sabha is a meagre 14% – lower even than pre-genocide Rwanda which was at 17%. India ranks 148th in a list of 193 countries based on the percentage of elected women representatives in their national parliaments.
In 2010, Rajya Sabha passed a constitutional amendment Bill saying that the reservation would cease to exist 15 years after its implementation. The Bill then needed to be passed by the Lok Sabha and ratified by half of India’s legislative assemblies. However, it lapsed four years later due to a lack of political consensus.
As per the Bill, the seats ought to be reserved on a rotational basis, and would be determined by a draw of lots in such a way that a seat would only be reserved once in every three consecutive general elections. India ranks 148th in a list of 193 countries based on the percentage of elected women representatives in their national parliaments.
At least 20 Indian States have given women 50% representation at the ‘panchayat’ or village council level. A 2010 study showed that female representation on village councils increased female participation and responsiveness to concerns such as drinking water, infrastructure, sanitation and roads, without crowding out other disadvantaged groups.
“There is enough empirical evidence to suggest that feminisation of political governance leads to changes in public policy decisions and expenditure patterns. Studies have also found that such representation favours women’s preferences in fiscal policy making,” Lekha Chakraborty, professor at New Delhi-based National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, told in an article.
Quotas’ efficacy
A research article titled: Quotas as Opportunities and Obstacles: Revisiting Gender Quotas in India by Brian Turnbull, addresses the empirical uncertainty regarding whether female quotas establish a foundation of political representation, and whether this further encourages female candidates to compete against men. The article (based on research into four municipal corporations in one State) argues that the Indian quota system has not encouraged women to broadly compete outside the quota at the local level but has made some wards more likely to elect women. Parties also continue to resist nominating women outside the quota but are more likely to do so in wards previously represented by a woman.
Indian quota system has not encouraged women to broadly compete outside the quota at the local level but has made some wards more likely to elect women.
The female quota system borrows from the much older community quota system for marginalised communities in India, providing a useful benchmark. The community quota system was originally designed with the explicit goal of making Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates more electable across the general electorate, not just within SC communities.
While caste-based affirmative action has seen some success where members of marginalised castes have won in the general category, there is almost no similar precedent for women competing (or winning) against men. These women-only quotas are a temporary shock that is expected to shift normative perceptions and might potentially encourage female candidates to compete against men. But for such a shift to happen, these models have to be in place for a significantly long period of time.
There is a very valid criticism of just a blanket women’s reservation; in that it may unfairly favour women belonging to the ‘upper caste’. Ergo, a nuanced approach which includes subcategories within it for oppressed communities is desired. Also, it is an open secret that male members of the family would often use the female quota as a foot in the door and encourage the women (across caste) to compete. While she may be the face of the ward, the men run the politics and make the decisions while the woman is merely a puppet. Once the quota is lifted from a constituency, the male members contest per usual, and women are sent back to the kitchens. Tamil poet and politician Rajathi Salma has talked about this system extensively, drawing from her own life experiences.
There is a very valid criticism of just a blanket women’s reservation; in that it may unfairly favour women belonging to the ‘upper caste’. Ergo, a nuanced approach which includes subcategories within it for oppressed communities is desired.
Dr. Turnbull’s in-depth analysis has illustrated that as an electoral institution, female reservations cannot force women to compete with men. They cannot force parties to nominate more than the minimum number of women, and reservation design can have significant constraining effects; like the interaction between female reservations and community reservations in India, which in turn can displace women incumbents. He demonstrates thus, that such quotas do not automatically create a foundation from which female politicians can build. If parties continue to view women as a nomination “risk” or are otherwise uninterested in nominating women to compete outside reservations, then the quota can become both a floor and a ceiling that restricts participation. Across these municipal corporations, when men competed, the overwhelming majority of their competition was from fellow men, and for female candidates it was fellow women. Still, wards in which a woman had been elected previously were more likely to elect a woman again, even without a female reservation, which shows the promising potential of such quotas in the longer term.
Dr. Turnbull concludes that if the goal of the quota is to develop a cohort of women who can gain significant political expertise and support, and then use that to make inroads at the State and National levels, then the very low numbers of incumbent women overall, and particularly the low number of women returning to compete against men, is discouraging. Predictably, the likely absence of such a cohort is because of the lack of female candidates and representatives in higher levels of government.
Not all is rosy in Rwanda either
Donatille Mukabalisa, Rwanda’s parliamentary speaker says that true equality is still very far. “We shouldn’t forget that we still live in a patriarchal system. There are still some people who don’t have a full understanding of gender (sic) issues and the necessity of attaining gender (sic) equality” she said in an article. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, results from a survey conducted on Rwanda’s female politicians showed that despite solid political representation, women are still expected to do domestic work and household activities.
The woke Indian quandary
As if the aforementioned obstacles aren’t already proof of a profoundly impossible path to progress for women, we are now faced with the 21st century’s doolally: the ‘woke’ disease. On January 5, 2021, the Bombay High Court allowed a trans-identified male who goes by the name Anjali to contest village panchayat (town council) polls as “female” from a ward reserved for women, saying that such persons have the right to a “self perceived gender identity.” He went on to win the election.
The following is an excerpt from the Indian media announcement: “The petitioner’s advocate informed the court that the petitioner has always chosen female gender for all purposes and will not be switching over to male gender anytime in the future.The court in its order noted that the Union government has introduced the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 and has permitted a transgender person to have a right to self-perceived gender identity.”
The Bombay High Court stated: “henceforth in her lifetime she would not switch over to the male gender driven by opportunism and would continue to opt for the female gender” as part of the judgement. The woke warriors not only found this blatant theft of an opportunity from a woman as absolutely insignificant, some went on to criticise the judge’s ultimatum to remain ‘female’ as problematic where he is seen to be diminishing the “fluidity of genders!”
Gender ideology has glazed our eyes with a non-existent problem and turned us into puppets entirely clueless as to who is holding the string. If I wasn’t so angry about how sinister this neo-misogyny is, I would award it for the brilliant strategy that it is.
In an interview championing him for his misdeed, he said: “I had the body of a boy but inside I felt I’m a girl. I would also prefer their toilets in school. This created lots of problems for me. Parents of other students would complain to the school and to my parents. Being an introverted and shy child, I could not express myself to them clearly. By winning this election, I feel I have completed a full circle in the village I grew up in.”
At a time when women’s rightful reservation in politics has been under debate for more than 25 years, and there is a steady rise in male violence against women, we can’t afford to have our attention diverted to satiate the woke agenda. Gender ideology has done a phenomenal job in turning male privilege into “female oppression” and manipulating women into ‘releasing’ them from it. It has glazed our eyes with a non-existent problem and turned us into puppets entirely clueless as to who is holding the string. There is no time to waste anymore. Women’s sex-based rights are at stake, and an entire generation of young women are being moulded into handmaidens. If I wasn’t so angry about how sinister this neo-misogyny is, I would award it for the brilliant strategy that it is.
—
Subscribe to learn more about the infiltration of gender ideology in India. If you are able, please consider making a donation.
