Overcoming Barriers to Better Gender Representation in Politics

Anna-Kaisa Ikonen

08/04/2010

Anna-Kaisa Ikonen is Deputy Mayor of the City of Tampere, Finland and a Vice President of the World YWCA. A lifelong YWCA member, she learned how to lead in the movement. Here she outlines strategies to overcome obstacles to women’s equal participation in decision-making.

When we discuss women in leadership, we almost always end up focusing on conflicts between career and family commitments. Whether they are more family-oriented or more work-oriented, women tend to have a bad conscience about not giving enough time to their families because of work. This is also one of the biggest barriers that women, especially young women, face when they think of taking on leading positions in work or politics.

When struggling with caring responsibilities, it is crucial for women to be supported by their close networks: husbands/partners, family and friends. But it is also important that the society supports women by offering childcare--whether organized by the state, municipality, or NGOs. This is one of the most important steps in ensuring that women have the opportunity to participate in public life.

Women’s movements and their work around equality play an important role in opening doors and breaking through masculine traditions. A clear and easy way of ensuring women’s positions in power is to promote women’s quotas. They are not the best means, but because women don’t have the same opportunities as men, we need them, because they can be the last way to make sure women are there. Another good practice related to election time is to organize a campaign to “vote for a woman”.

We must also pay attention not only to the top leadership but to the whole path that leads us there. We need education as well as skills to campaign and communicate and negotiate. Opportunities to participate in decision-making at the grassroots level allow women to grow into more challenging posts. I myself had a positive personal experience. I started as a three-year-old girl in a YWCA club, later becoming a club leader and then ending up on the local board, going from there to the YWCA national board and presidency and finally serving on the World Board and as one of the World YWCA Vice Presidents. And I believe there are many of us who can tell the same fine story of how our leadership has grown within this movement and beyond.

But it is not only about what we do as a society or as an NGO but also how we act as individuals. Women face a lot of expectations. It is good not to be either too serious or too frivolous. The media still pays a lot more attention to the way that women dress than men and that’s why it’s important to pay attention to how you look too. Still, I believe these are just secondary means--and cheap publicity never gets you far. To be reliable in the long run we need to be clever, do the work, and gain the required knowledge.

Age is a difficult question, too. There never seems to be a proper age for a woman. You are either too young, and potentially a parturient busy mother laden with responsibilities, or just simply too old. As women I think it is our responsibility to overturn these generalizations, especially by acting against them.

When we get older we should not forget to give room and opportunities to those who are younger. Even without a lot of experience, they can bring fresh thinking. We may also innovate ways to combine work and family so that having a baby won’t become a barrier to our careers in our own heads and in societal practices. We can also strengthen the positions of older women by respecting the knowledge they have and learning from them as mentors.

Too often women are merciless to other women and when they get to a position of leadership, they strive to treat women and men absolutely equally, trying to avoid the stigma associated with feminism. Still, I would say, equality is not always enough. Women need some favouritism too, making use of relationships and women’s networks – just as men have always done. None of us can do it alone. When we enter leadership positions, we must remember to open doors to other women.

In the end it’s about our own attitudes. Someone once said that nice girls never end up in the corner room because they are too modest. It is important that we believe in ourselves and have strong self-confidence and determination. It is also important that we lift up other women by giving them responsibilities, by employing them and giving them leadership positions, and finally, by voting for women in elections. It is only in this way that we will see women’s leadership grow. It is in our own hands.

This article was republished from the March 2010 World YWCA Concern: Beyond Beijing.

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