Increasing Women's Participation in Politics

By Laura Duncan on 04/14/2011 @ 02:04 PM

On Tuesday, April 12, members of the No Limits team attended an event featuring Mu Sochua, a Cambodian Member of Parliament and advocate for human rights and gender equality. She spoke about the challenges that women face in Cambodia, and the ways through which she and her supporters are encouraging women and youth to take an active role in politics by voting in elections and running for office.

Mu Sochua is widely recognized for her human rights activism. As Minister of Women’s Affairs, she helped draft the Cambodian domestic violence law and was responsible for negotiating an agreement with Thailand to combat human trafficking in Southeast Asia. As a member of the current opposition party, Mu Sochua is under attack for criticizing the Prime Minister, and was recently stripped of her parliamentary immunity. Fortunately, none of these threats have intimidated her, and Mu Sochua bravely continues to speak out against Cambodia’s ruling party.

One of the biggest challenges currently faced by Mu Sochua is figuring out how to convince women to take an active role in government. According to her, many women in her country tend to avoid activities that involve “big words” like politics and power. Mu Sochua approaches women by asking them about the problems they are facing, and later helping them identify those responsible and brainstorm possible solutions. By focusing more on issues and less on politics, Mu Sochua hopes to encourage women to participate more actively in the local and national government.

There is no doubt that the situation in America is different from the one faced by Mu Sochua. According to Center for American Women and Politics, in recent elections the voter turnout rates for women have equaled or exceeded voter turnout rates for men. In every presidential election since 1980, the proportion of eligible female adults who voted has exceeded that of eligible male adults. However, there is still a large disparity between the number of male and female elected officials. In Congress, women hold only 16.4% of total seats (17% of seats in the Senate and 16.3% of seats in the House of Representatives). These numbers are even grimmer when we consider that, of the 88 seats held by women in Congress, only 24 (27.3%) are held by women of color.

In the book “It Still Takes a Candidate: Why Women don’t Run for Office”, Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox gathered information from several studies that indicate the impact of electing women to Congress: women who replace men in the same district are more likely to focus on “women’s issues”, such as gender equity, day care, flex time, abortion, minimum wage increases, and the extension of the food stamp program. Moreover, studies also show a positive relationship between the presence of highly visible female politicians and adolescent girls’ expectations of political engagement.

It was inspiring to listen to Mu Sochua speak about her work in overcoming the barriers faced by women in Cambodia. The No Limits team wishes Mu Sochua success and hopes that she achieves her goal of increasing Cambodian women’s participation in politics. In the meanwhile, we should follow her lead and encourage women in the U.S. to take a more active role in government.

Click here to learn more about Mu Sochua.

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