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GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT: CONSTITUTIONAL JURISPRUDENCE

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GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT: CONSTITUTIONAL JURISPRUDENCE admin Mon, 11/23/2020 - 00:21

Published: 15 December 2017

Language: English

Author(s): The Just Governance Group

Co-Publisher(s): UN Women

This exploratory study of constitutional jurisprudence on gender equality and women’s empowerment reveals a series of important findings regarding the current state of lived realities for women living under constitutions which purportedly provide for equality between men and women and prohibit discrimination based on gender.

As is well-known, even the best drafted constitutions cannot change the lives of citizens by themselves. Numerous obstacles—including legislative and executive inertia or resistance to change, economic inequalities, social and cultural mores and imbalance of power in government and society—must be overcome before the words of the constitution become meaningful tools for societal change.

However, from the range of cases selected in this study, there are several reasons to be optimistic about progress. Courts have shown themselves to be both progressive and strategic, willing to engage in social context and substantive equality analyses to arrive at decisions in line with the sprit, not just the letter, of the law. Further, the cases demonstrate a wide range of different constitutional provisions which have been referenced to improve women’s equity and agency, beyond non-discrimination and equality clauses.

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Attachments

gender Equality (722.13 KB)

Other resources

International IDEA gender doc link

International Women’s Day 2021 theme – “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”

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International Women’s Day 2021 theme – “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world” admin Mon, 11/23/2020 - 00:16

Published: 1 March 2014

Language: English

Pages: 104

ISBN: 978-91-87729-05-8 (Print)

Author(s): Rumbidzai Kandawasvika-Nhundu

One of the persistent democratic deficits throughout the world is women’s lack of influence in politics. In relation to political parties in particular, the voice of women in decision-making remains insufficient, and, in some cases, is non-existent.

This report is based on the findings of a two-year project implemented by International IDEA, aimed at analysing the commitments of political parties to gender equality in 33 countries in Africa.

One of the key findings from this research is that, although political parties’ constitutions and manifestos contain general gender equality commitments, their utility is limited by the lack of concrete measures to ensure that commitments are translated into effective actions and outcomes.

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pdf file

TAKING STOCK OF PROGRESS ON GENDER EQUALITY USING THE GLOBAL STATE OF DEMOCRACY INDICES: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS SINCE THE BEIJING WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN (GSoD In Focus No. 10)

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TAKING STOCK OF PROGRESS ON GENDER EQUALITY USING THE GLOBAL STATE OF DEMOCRACY INDICES: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS SINCE THE BEIJING WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN (GSoD In Focus No. 10) admin Sun, 11/22/2020 - 22:01

Published: 6 March 2020

Language: English

Pages: 10

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31752/idea.2020.9

Since 1995, the world has made important strides in advancing gender equality. The increase in female representation in parliaments across the globe has been driving these advances, although there has been some progress on other indicators used to measure Gender Equality in the Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices.
Democracies provide better guarantees for gender equality. Out of 29 countries that scored highly in the GSoD Indices on Gender Equality in 2018, 28 of them are democracies.
There are wide regional variations in Gender Equality, with North America and Europe seeing the highest scores, and the Middle East the lowest. However, the greatest progress over the 25-year period has been achieved in Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
The representation of women in parliament is considerably better today than 25 years ago. The world average has increased from 10 per cent in 1995 to 23 per cent in 2018 (and 24 per cent in 2019). The percentage of women legislators is highest in Latin America and the Caribbean (28 per cent), and lowest in the Middle East (11 per cent).
Despite progress made to date, at the current rate it will take another 46 years to reach gender parity in all parliaments.
Civic space is shrinking across all regions of the world and across all levels of democratic performance. The shrinking of civic space has had severe effects on women’s participation in civil society, as women’s organizations tend to be the most vulnerable, the least well-resourced and the least networked.
Over the 25-year period since 1995, the global average of women’s participation in civil society organizations has seen very slow improvement. While the Middle East is the lowest performer, North America and Europe have the highest scores, although Europe has witnessed some declines in the last five years.

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Attachments

adapting-to-the-new-normal-political-parties-during-lockdown-and-social-distancing.pdf (759.11 KB)

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link to publication

https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/taking-stock-progress-gender-equality-using-global-state-democracy-indices