Gender Quota Policies Essay -- Law, Women Behavior in Hearing Debate

In general, every country has two choices when it comes to getting women involved in politics; they can either encourage women’s participation in politics or implement policies that require parties and parliament to have a certain proportion of women holding elected offices (Stokes, 2005: 78). The second option requires that the party adopts the gender quota system which is a number of seats reserved for women (Stokes, 2005:77). Ever since quotas have been adopted and diffused across nations, the proportion of women in national legislature has increased from the period of 1975 to 1995 (Caul; 2001:1214). This goes to show that the adoption of quota policies have facilitated women’s entrance into politics. However, the road to adoption of the quotas policies has been influenced by several factors: political and societal (Caul; 2001), as well as parties’ culture and characteristics (Stokes 2005, Chapter 1). The rationale behind using quota policies is that the more women are present in legislative politics, the more chances women will have the chance to influence policy (Lyn: 1994: 560). Lyn Kathlene examines women’s presence and behaviours in a Colorado state in legislature hearing committees to test for their input in policy making and debates. The question that this paper seeks to answer if whether or not women get to influence policy making once in office, like advocates hoped for? We will see that to a certain extent it is possible to observe women’s impact in the decision making process. Although other pressures such cultural, negative conversational dynamics between men and women are present it does not decrease the rate of women’s participation in political decision making process. Instead it exposes the negative response ... ... on issues that directly affect them such as family issues. Their presence in national legislature means that they were elected by the population, they not only acting on behalf of all women but also standing in these hearing committees as their duty as a delegate of those who have elected her. The grounds for their interventions are based on their ability to position themselves as women but also as an elected official. Being present at hearing debates, shows that their presence is aligned with their ability to influence policy, regardless of the times they get interrupted. Male’s behaviours towards women expose a reality that is more related to their characters and behaviours. The findings that we have looked do not show any connection male’s behaviours towards women in hearing debate that discourage them from participating and voicing their opinions in debates.