Kassem Hajjoul

Women rights is a critical topic that has been highlighted on in the past few decades with the uprising of feminist movements around the world calling for gender-equality and women rights. Women are not treated fairly in comparison with men in most of the sectors: economic, social, political and cultural. The women participation in the political arena is limited and minor, this world is ruled by men exclusively as the women participation in the political-decision making process is lower than 25% (UN women).

On the world map, we can display using tableau this low participation we discussed and this ratio varies between countries with the variation in the socio-political and cultural spectrum. A potential solution is to legislate a women quota in the parliament where women can prove themselves in ruling the political scene and set a great example of women in politics, later on this quota can be removed with the potential change in the cultural and social identities thus women having a fair competition with men in this arena.

Most of the countries having a high female participation in the parliament have a legislated fixed quota with a number of reserved seats, For example: Rwanda,61%; UAE,50%, New Zealand 48%, Sweden 47%

The evidence can be shown in an evolution of women participation in a country before and after a quota was applied in the parliament. Poland is a great example of that, after applying a 20% quota in the parliament, the women participation in the parliament increased from 3% to 28%

Female quotas can be an effective solution in the political arena and in other sectors, yet this should be a temporary transitional solution to assure competency and fairness as women will not need a quota after proving themselves and contributing in shifting the cultural and social mentalities. Let’s fight for a world with equal opportunities for women and men.