Promotion of women in decision-making roles ‘should start within political parties’

Women's political participation in Malta • Video by Ray Attard

The promotion of women in decision-making roles should start within the political parties, “because no societal change can take place effectively unless this goes hand-in-hand with political reform”, a discussion on women’s political participation in Malta heard today.

The conference was organised by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the House of Representatives, the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE) and the National Council of Women.

A report by the World Economic Forum on the Global Gender Gap Index shows that Malta slipped 15 places this year, attaining an overall score of 0.671 and ranking 99th out of 142 countries.  In political empowerment, Malta overall ranks 76th; 99th for women in parliament and 82nd for women in ministerial positions.

Women’s participation in politics is a key indicator of the quality of democratic culture.

According to the figures relayed by Speaker of the House Anglu Farrugia at the beginning of the conference, since 1947, only 96 women contested the general elections, compared with over 1,000 women.

Only 16% of the candidates for the 2013 general elections were women.  Out of 69 MPs, the House has five female Nationalist MPs and four female Labour MPs.

Out of 25 Cabinet members, only two are women, with Helena Dalli as minister and Justyne Caruana as parliamentary secretary.

On the other hand, female candidates shone during the MEP elections, where Malta’s representation in the European Parliament is now led by four women MEPs and two males.

One way of encouraging more women to join politics is by having “gender-sensitive parliaments”.

“Gender-sensitive Parliaments, whose structures, operations, methods and work respond to the needs and interests of both men and women are central to good parliamentary governance,” Farrugia said.

But beyond the conferences, discussion and papers debating female participation in politics – or the lack thereof – Professor Josephine Ann Cutajar argues that the political parties are the actual “culprits”.

“One has to ask why women candidates did so well in the European Parliament elections but fare poorly during the general elections. The EP elections shows that the problem doesn’t really lie in our electoral system, although Malta should explore how it might increase district magnitude to accommodate a proportional representative system,” Cutajar said.

This, she explained, could be done either by increasing the total number of parliamentary members while ensuring the number of districts remains the same, or reducing the number of electoral districts while maintaining the number of representatives.

Cutajar said a lot of responsibility was down to the political parties: “Are parties investing in female recruits? Are they giving them the necessary exposure, both through media visibility and party backing? Because we all know that candidates with the backing of the party get elected, irrespective of the visibility given by the media.”

She pointed out that gender representation in Malta also failed at corporate level, in trade unions and at the University’s leadership.

“We should be leading by example and not by force. Gender parity exercises should start within the administration of the political parties,” Cutajar said, noting that none of the political parties in Malta have a female deputy leader.

During their interventions, both former Labour MEP Claudette Abela Baldacchino and Nationalist MP Claudette Buttigieg spoke about their respective parties’ efforts in encouraging more women to enter the political scene.

“Labour [in its internal structures] has achieved a lot since introducing quotas within its ranks and these officials are now being elected on their own steam,” she said.

Abela Baldacchino noted that Malta’s part-time parliament and the evening sittings were a major stumbling block, for both prospective male and female candidates.

“Moreover, the race for seats in parliament is not only between competing political parties but also between candidates within the same party. Rather than a popularity contest, elections should be a contest of political ideas and visions between opposing party candidates. Such a move could help attract more capable male and female candidates.”

On her part, Buttigieg said the PN’s executive was now equally represented with nine men and nine women sitting on the board.  Increased female participation was also evident in the key structures of the party, including the PN general council, the newly setup convention for ideas and the newly setup equal opportunities movements.

“It’s in the lower ranks of the party that female representation starts withering away,” Buttigieg explained.

The Nationalist MP also pointed out that questions raised in parliament on decision-making positions held by women in the different ministries have remained unanswered by the government, with only two ministers (from 15 including the PM) replying to the question.

It transpires that the ministers required “clarifications” as to what Buttigieg meant by decision-making positions.

During one of the afternoon’s session, the panel discussed the role of civil society and media in advocating for increased women’s political participation.

When opened to the floor, the discussion focused on how news outlets in Malta reported gender-related issues. By way of example, the audience suggested that reporters should stop writing ‘chairman’ or ‘chairwoman’ and stick to a generic term such as ‘chair’.

According to one of the interventions, the media was also “disinterested” in the conference organised today because “there were no ministers” present for the duration of the seven-hour conference, which was also streamed live on the parliament website.

“The media were here for the opening of the conference and left soon after the politician spoke,” Mary Gaerty, President of the National Council of Women said.

Another member of the audience said the “media is very selective” of the news it chooses to report.

“It chooses to make a big deal out of certain topics but completely ignores others. Why are no journalists present here, even from magazines that should be dealing with women’s issues? Media should rethink the way it tackles subjects.”

Nationalist MP Kristy Debono agreed that the media tend to report sensational issues while arguing that the “tabloid media” were becoming more popular.

She said that, between a choice of reporting social and economic issues, the media would give more importance to economic issues, especially in the run-up to the presentation of the Budget.

On her part, Lorraine Spiteri, chairwoman of the Malta Confederation of Women’s Organisations, underlined the media’s role in promoting women in decision making roles.

“Unfortunately the media has a strong influence in the reinforcing and perpetuating the traditional roles of women and men, depicting women mainly as housewives and mothers or else objectified according to their beauty and physical attributes within the private sphere rather than their intellectual and political abilities in the public sphere,” she said.

Malta is one of the countries included in the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP). This large longitudinal study confirms with each research that women are underrepresented in news coverage in contrast to men.

For example, globally, out of 25 occupational categories, women outnumber men in only two: as homemakers (72%) and students (54%). Experts and spokespersons are mostly men at 80%. In the meantime, victims in news subjects are mainly female and survivors are mainly males.

“This gender-biased power system affects who has the most power in society and one of the worst manifestation of this is domestic violence, human trafficking, prostitution and all violence against women. Alas, not everybody realises that this is a result of a gender bias of the power systems in society. But we are very much aware that the media can be a catalyst for change to remove gender prejudices and instead promote success stories of women in decision making, business, politics regularly,” Spiteri said.

She argued that, during elections, voters reflect on the gender stereotypes and this affects their decision to whom they will vote. “Malta, especially when compared with other democratic countries, has a strong media ownership from the political parties and therefore the parties can use this power to give proper coverage of their female candidates and politicians to increase the public awareness about them and serve as role models for others to follow, whilst helping to increase women’s self esteem.”