International Women’s Day 2022: Breaking the bias of gender equality in politics

International Women’s Day (IWD) is a moment for women especially in politics in Ghana to reflect on and celebrate the strides made in women empowerment.

Together, women can take further and make more progress in support of their rights socially, economically, culturally, and politically.

Female politicians in Ghana contribute to strengthening the position of the interest of women.

Thus, there has been advocacy for equitable representation of men and women in national legislative assemblies so that there could be gender parity in the discourse of gender and policymaking and implementation.

Since women MPs represent the social grouping of women, they should be elected to represent the needs, interests, and experiences of women in the development, articulation, implementation, and review of public policy.

Women’s representation in Ghana’s parliament has not been impressive since the country returned to constitutional rule in 1992.

Some women have proven their worth during the parliamentary elections in their various constituencies.

The First Parliament of the Fourth Republic had 16 women out of the 200 MPs, and the Second, Third and Fourth parliaments, saw a slight increase in the number of female parliamentarians.

In the 2020 general elections, results show a slight rise in women elected to Parliament which currently stands at 38.

Gender empowerment activists have been calling for and committing to facilitating gender equity in representation in the House, even in ministerial appointments.

Earlier, some Members of Parliament (MPs) expressed their concern about the regrettably low participation of women at all levels of decision-making in Ghana despite the fact that they constitute more than half of the country’s population.

The members attributed the unfortunate situation where women are not dominant in politics to the patriarchy or male dominance of Ghanaian cultural norms, a key aspect of the Ghanaian social system that recognises the woman’s role and status as inferior to those of the man in almost all aspects of social, political and economic life.

They indicated that custom, law, and even religion have been used to rationalise and perpetuate these differential roles to the extent that women themselves seem to have accepted and internalized them.

The female MPs added that the unequal playing field created by political parties disadvantage women because they do not have the required resources for political campaigns and electoral processes coupled with an uninformed public about women’s human rights and contribution to development.

The MPs, however, agreed that without women’s participation in the public discourse or decision-making process would be difficult for Ghana to achieve sustainable development.

Some proposed that Parliament opens discussions on the possibility of allotting a significant quota for the nomination of women at the district level and further suggested that the 30% allotment for government appointees should be amended to 50% for more women representation, a provision which they maintained must be entrenched to protect the interest of women as well as shore up their participation at the district level to enrich democracy.

The government on numerous occasions has been urged to pass the country’s Affirmative Action Law that promotes women’s effective participation and representation in all decision-making spaces.

This was because the law presented itself as the guaranteed way to increase women’s representation in decision-making spaces such as parliament, district assemblies, ministerial and ambassadorial appointments, and other areas of governance in Ghana.

Women’s organisation such as Abantu for Development, an international women’s Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) together with support from PLAN International, therefore, implemented a project dubbed, “Increasing Advocacy for the Passage of Ghana’s Affirmative Action Bill into Law” to help see to the passing of the Law.

As Ghana joins the world to celebrate women’s day on March 8, 2022, a lot may ask if it is indeed the time to break the bias of gender equality in politics or it will take another 10 years to achieve the goal of gender equality.