Understanding the Effects of Gender Norms on Women’s Political Participation

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) has identified women’s equal participation and leadership in political life as essential to achieving sustainable development. However, more than 40 years after the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and despite ratification by 189 states, a tremendous gap in the political participation of women remains. Although women make up half of the world’s population, they are still largely restricted from public spaces and decision-making power. Data shows that women are underrepresented at all levels of decision-making. As of September 2023, only 26 countries have women heads of state or government, and women fill only 22.8 percent of cabinet positions and 26.5 percent of single or lower house legislative seats. In only three countries have women reached 50 percent of their local deliberative bodies. Given these numbers, what barriers hold women back from positions of political power? Some promising approaches outlined in the USAID 2023 Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Policy to advance gender equality include addressing the power structures that limit, deter, and/or exclude women’s full political participation as well as addressing the barriers across the entire political ecosystem, including those at the individual, institutional, and societal levels. 

This month’s DRG Learning Digest focuses specifically on how social norms regarding gender shape a woman’s ability to participate in politics and public life. In many countries around the world, women are encouraged toward, and often restricted to, a private life focused on household work, childcare, cleaning, and caring for the family. In these societies, when women attempt to engage in politics and public life, they face various challenges accessing political processes and exercising agency and power within those systems. These challenges exist within a society’s “ecosystem” of individual, institutional, and socio-cultural barriers and openings that either support or undermine women’s political leadership. 

This edition of the DRG Learning Digest examines the following topics:

• How gender norms shape women's role in society 
• How gender norms create barriers to gender-inclusive politics and public life 
• Challenging patriarchal norms and putting norms to work for us