Relevance: GS-2: Women Issues, Parliament, Government Policies and Interventions

Key Phrases: Women Representation, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Parliament, Women’s Movement, Gender Stereotypes, Descriptive Representation, Substantive Representation.

Why in News?

• A recent article, ‘Performance of Women in Parliament : A Quantitative Study of Questions by Women Members in Lok Sabha (1999-2019)’ has drawn attention to women’s performance in the Lok Sabha through a quantitative analysis of the questions posed by women leaders on the floor.

What has been the path of women’s political participation in India in recent past?

• India has not had a single women’s movement that challenged patriarchal and gender norms in the last two decades.
• Women have had to use alternate methods to come to power. Education and wealth have aided women in political participation.
• Studies suggest that more women have started to organise themselves into economic groups, and financial freedom has pushed them to be more politically active.
• The decreased gap in voter turnout between men and women is a positive sign toward gender inclusivity in the political sphere.
• The 2019 general election was a historic moment for women’s politics, as it saw 78 women elected to the lower house of Parliament for the first time since independence where only 22 women were present in the Lok Sabha.
• However, this number is still not representative of the actual proportion of women in the country.

Has women’s descriptive participation transformed into substantive participation?

• Study of the Question Hours of Parliamentary sessions between the years 1999 to 2019 reveals how descriptive representation has transformed into substantive representation.

• Though men members asked more questions and participated in more debates than women, there has been a substantial increase in the number of questions women members asked.
• Moreover, contrary to general belief, women representatives asked more questions on health and family welfare, human resource development, home affairs, finance, agriculture and railways than women’s issues.
• Breaking gender stereotypes is one of the encouraging signs of Indian legislature as male legislators have asked more questions on issues concerning women than their female counterparts.
• Intersectionality of identities became an important factor in the questioning capacity of representatives.
• Members from marginal States, irrespective of gender asked fewer questions.
• Party affiliations, education, regional background, ethnicity, caste and the age of women members played a role in the number and content of questions asked in the lower house.
• Considering women as a homogenous group has limitations and identities intersect and influence the political representation of women.
• While women are expected to bring a feminine quality into the public political domain, they are breaking stereotypes by simply behaving like their male counterparts.

What are the problems pertaining to women’s political participation?

• Analysing the debates on gender and politics, using the performance framework, one concludes that the problem of under-representation of women is only superficial.
• What lies underneath is the problem of structural inequality, wherein women are marginalised at different levels.
• There are examples of Latin American Parliaments to explain how proportional representation will lead to a better representation of women’s interests. Moreover, representation becomes a phenomenon that cannot be isolated from society.
• Social, cultural, economic, religious and political factors affect the process of political participation.
• Though increased political participation is a positive sign toward gender inclusivity and equality in the political sphere, but it has a long way to go, considering the socio-economic and cultural conditions that still socialise women into being averse to politics, hindering them from pursuing politics as a career.

Conclusion

• With more women representatives in Parliament, it is imperative to look at their performance.
• Women’s performance during the Question Hour session becomes relevant as it is a space where legislators act free from party regulation.
• It becomes imperative to analyse whether descriptive representation transforms into substantive representation.
• It was found that contrary to general belief, women representatives asked more questions on health and family welfare, human resource development, home affairs, finance, agriculture and railways than women’s issues.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. “Breaking gender stereotypes is one of the encouraging sign of Indian legislature.” Examine.