Women... (personally I'm in favor)

Earlier this week I read this article on women in Politics and got to thinking...

The House of Commons contains 308 seats and at its most recent dissolution a mere 65 of the people elected to fill them were women. In a country where more than half of its citizens are women, a mere 21% of our elected representatives are. In the senate (currently 101 members) we make a bit more progress. 36 senators (or 35.6%) are women. you can find the breakdowns by party here and the breakdowns by province here and here.

If we look at candidates in the last election we're in rough shape. considering only the parties that elected candidates we have the Liberals with 75 (of 308 candidates) the Conservatives with 36 (of 308 candidates) the NDP with 96 (of 308 candidates) and the Bloq with 18 (of 75 candidates).

Total women candidates: 225
Total Candidates:999
Percentage of Major Party Candidates who are women: 22%

Below, I've copied a table from the parliamentary website showing the success each party has had in getting candidates elected.

Party	Candidates	Elected	Percentage Elected
New Democratic Party	96	5	5.20 %
Liberal	75	34	45.33 %
Conservative Party of Canada	36	12	33.33 %
Marxist-Leninist Party	28	0	0 %
Bloc Québécois	18	14	77.77 %

A couple of reflections on these numbers....

It seems to me that given the fact that the proportion of women elected is roughly the same as the proportion of women nominated to run that the election process itself isn't to blame for the lack of women in the House.

The thing that fascinated me in this article is the idea that women are being asked to run but declining. I've been around the Liberal party for a few years and I've had more than one conversation about why there are so few women MPs. Usually I'm being told that the reason so few women are elected is because of the nomination process. By "the nomination process" the people I'm talking to usually mean the idea that local riding associations think that a married man with two kids and a career is the best kind of candidate.

This idea has never seemed far fetched to me. We by no means live in a society that has shrugged off its sexism, there is still a large wage gap between men and women and an even larger promotion gap (fewer women the higher you go up the corporate ladder). I've never had difficulty believing that this "elected gap" could have a similar cause. Then I started to hear stories about women who were turning down nominations or who were being asked to run for nominations and declining.

What if there is another reason. Politics is truly a bloodsport, it is about confrontation, opposition and often it is about winning not compromise. Even more than that, it is hard on families and it is difficult to maintain the social circles you once had. Politics is so far from the mundane ordered existence of average Canadians. On top of all those things, there is no privacy and even less stability. If politics is a sport, it is definately full-contact.

Is it possible that the real reason that so few women are in elected office in Canada is not that the rules are against them but that they are against the rules? It's a pretty narrow distinction to make but I think it's a legitimate one. I think the largest reason that more women aren't elected is because they don't want to be. Let me put it another way: elected office is a sacrifice, but it is a much larger sacrifice for women than for men.

I don't think we can change this easily nor do I think we should expect to be able to change it quickly. However, It is something we need to change and it is something we should take seriously. The easiest thing to do in the short term is to get out there and support some women candidates I suggest any of the following:

Mary Pynenburg - Burnaby-New Westminster
Patricia Whittaker - Delta-Richmond East
Brenda Locke - Fleetwood-Port Kells
Joyce Murray - New Westminster-Coquitlam
Sheila Orr - Saanich-Gulf Islands
Dr. Hedy Fry, M.P. - Vancouver Centre

In the long term I'm open to suggestions - comment away.