The ubiquitous minimum 30% figure for women's political representation is believed to be the "critical mass" that is required to make visible impact on political decision-making.
IN her victory speech after being elected United States vice president in 2020, Kamala Harris said, “I may be the first woman to hold this office. But I won’t be last.”
Four years on, Harris now has a shot at being the country’s first woman president after President Joe Biden dropped out of the US presidential race last Sunday.
Interestingly, while politicians and observers fiercely debate the merits of Biden’s right-hand woman stepping into his shoes, down south, Mexico has already elected its first female president Claudia Sheinbaum on June 2.
Across the pond, history was also made when newly-minted United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer appointed a record 11 women to his Cabinet including the first female finance minister Rachel Reeves. Nearer to our eastern shores, Japan is brimming with excitement that a woman might soon take the helm of the country.
Of course, all around the world women have made great strides in the political sphere for decades, with Germany, Brazil, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand, to name a few, having elected a woman leader to the top seat once or twice.
Even in Malaysia, as we like to point out, we had our first woman in the Top Two position way before the US, when Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail became the country’s first female deputy prime minister in 2018.
Critical mass needed
Unfortunately, progress does not tend to be linear and compared to 2018, the participation of women in politics has actually declined in Malaysia.
Empower programme officer Ayesha Sofia did not mince words on how the current situation compares to 2018.
“(It has become) worse! Women’s participation in politics in Malaysia made the biggest jump in 2018 when the percentage of women in Parliament went from 10.36% to 13.9%.
“The highest the number has been was in 2020 and 2021 with 14.86% before dropping to 13.51%, which is where it stands now. Given Malaysia’s goal of having at least 30% women in Parliament, we can see how much more we need to improve.”
The 30% figure forms what is widely believed to be the “critical mass” for women to make visible impact on political decision-making. This is why we often hear political parties across the board talking about hitting a minimum target of 30% female representation, but the reality is very few have even come close to achieving the goal.
“Although the number of female parliamentary candidates has gradually increased over the years, this is still a far cry from the 30% women quota,” says Dr Lai Suat Yan, senior lecturer in the gender studies programme at Universiti Malaya’s faculty of arts and social sciences.
According to data shared by youth-led Parliwomen co-leader Aisyah Adly, in GE15, Pakatan Harapan fielded 19% women candidates, Barisan Nasional 12.4% and Perikatan Nasional 11%.
“Conversely, Muda set a new benchmark by successfully fielding 50% women candidates, showcasing a significant shift and gradually changing the political discourse in Malaysia,” says Aisyah.
In many other parties, women’s representation and involvement in political parties are still mostly limited to the women’s wings, says Ayesha.
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Malaysia has also been languishing at the bottom rankings of the Global Gender Gap Index.
Lai says Malaysia was “very much at the bottom” with a 131st ranking out of 149 countries in 2018. This year, Malaysia landed at the 134th ranking out of 146 countries.
“Malaysia has consistently placed at the bottom of the ranking compared to the UK, US and Mexico,” she says.
However, numbers alone do not paint a holistic picture of women’s participation in political decision-making.
In an article last year titled “The only way is up: Proportions and portfolios for women in Cabinet in Malaysia, 2008-2023”, independent researcher Maha Balakrishnan argues that the value of the portfolios given to female Cabinet ministers is also a relevant matrix to examine.
“When women are in Cabinet, they are typically relegated to less prestigious portfolios that are characterised as ‘soft’ or ‘feminine’ and may hold comparatively less policy salience or electoral pay-offs,” she said.
In the article, Maha stated the five female ministers in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s Cabinet before the December 2023 reshuffle were assigned to three so-called “low prestige” and two “medium prestige” ministries. However, Maha also noted that the two medium prestige ministries, namely the Health and Education Ministries, not only have policy prominence and leadership visibility but are also allocated a significant share of the annual budget.
The pipeline problem
Women’s low participation in politics is not a new issue in Malaysia. While women here have made great strides in leadership of certain sectors, it is clear that they are still lagging in the political sector.
Political aggression and violence do pose a barrier for aspiring women politicians, with the growth of social media exacerbating the challenge further. As Aisyah points, women in politics are often the target of harassment and intimidation, especially online.
The financial barrier to entry could be another deterrent for women joining the political sphere, Ayesha suggests.
However, a variety of societal factors still persist, with Aisyah and Ayesha pointing out some of the more obvious ones being patriarchal social norms, cultural attitudes towards women, gender role expectations and family responsibilities.
Internal party dynamics that include male-dominated decision-making structures and cultures that prioritise loyalty and seniority over merit also remain as obstacles for women, Aisyah adds.
Political analyst Wong Chin Huat of Sunway University expands further on how this type of party dynamic works to shut women out of political representation.
“Few parties today, if any, would oppose the goal of minimum 30% women representation in the legislature but none among serious parties have achieved it.
“Why? This is certainly not because we have too few women talents but because we have too few male retirees.
“If the number of legislative seats remains unchanged, you can only get more women if some men are retired,” he says.
Male elected representatives tend to retire in one of two ways: either male incumbents step aside and are replaced by a female successor within the party or the male incumbent is defeated by a female challenger from rival parties.
Wong says right now, many of our women politicians got into the Parliament or state assemblies through the second way “when new parties win seats in so-called wave elections”.
“Political parties, especially those urban-based ones, are quite happy to field young women as ‘assassins’ against incumbents from their rivals. However, once the new parties get entrenched, it becomes harder for more women to get into the game.”
Wong places the blame for the lack of women’s advancement in electoral politics on the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system used in Malaysia as he says it is difficult to implement a gender quota when there is only one seat per constituency.
“For example, you have a good woman candidate and there is a winnable constituency but the constituency also has a popular male incumbent. You parachute in a woman candidate and both she and the party may lose.”
This is part of a bigger pipeline problem, as Wong describes.
When there is not a big enough pool of women candidates, there will not be enough women MPs elected, which will then lead to a smaller number of women in the Cabinet. The issue is compounded because of our coalitions too, as Wong explains that this renders the total percentage of women representation irrelevant. Instead, we should look at the percentage of women MPs in each party within the government coalition, he says.
“If you have a small percentage of women MPs in the government camp, realistically it would be impossible for all of them to be appointed as ministers and deputy ministers.
“We would have to make sure all parties in government have a decent percentage of women MPs. Otherwise, when executive jobs go to women, those parties with few women would resist because they would get a small share.”
