O presente trabalho trata das discriminações de gênero em São Tomé e Príncipe, direcionando a atenção a problemas relacionados à situação das mulheres como os da participação política e da violência, enfatizando a inserção feminina no mercado de trabalho. O objetivo da monografia é dimensionar a realidade das santomenses com vistas a encontrar elementos e subsídios capazes de contribuir para o aumento da participação da mulher na sociedade e, em decorrência, para reduzir a desigualdade social e de gênero. A maior participação das mulheres na vida social e a sua maior inclusão na economia e na política é importante pelas modificações que pode produzir na classe feminina e, também, pela potencialidade de propiciar mudanças culturais. Assim, este estudo pretende chamar a atenção para o papel e a dignidade da mulher. A pesquisa, de abordagem quantitativa e cunho exploratório, congregou dados e documentos impressos e digitais da Assembléia Nacional e do Centro de Acolhimento Contra as Vítimas da Violência Doméstica, entre outras instituições. O estudo empírico forneceu elementos importantes sobre a realidade e a participação da mulher na sociedade santomense. Os resultados do estudo permitiram identificar avanços na situação das santomenses. Apesar disso...

Since the early 1990s, countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region have made admirable progress in reducing the gap between girls and boys in areas such as access to education and health care. Indeed, almost all young girls in the Region attend school, and more women than men are enrolled in university. Over the past two decades, maternal mortality declined 60 percent, the largest decrease in the world. Women in MENA are more educated than ever before. It is not only in the protest squares that have seen women whose aspirations are changing rapidly but increasingly unmet. The worldwide average for the participation of women in the workforce is approximately 50 percent. In MENA, their participation is half that at 25 percent. Facing popular pressure to be more open and inclusive, some governments in the region are considering and implementing electoral and constitutional reforms to deepen democracy. These reforms present an opportunity to enhance economic, social, and political inclusion for all, including women, who make up half the population. However, the outlook remains uncertain. Finally, there are limited private sector and entrepreneurial prospects not only for jobs but also for those women who aspire to create and run a business. These constraints present multiple challenges for reform. Each country in MENA will...

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is one of the most oppressive forms of gender inequality and stands as a fundamental barrier to equal participation of women and men in social, economic, and political spheres. Such violence impedes gender equality and the achievement of a range of development outcomes. VAWG is a complex and multifaceted problem that cannot effectively be addressed from a single vantage point. The prevention of, and response to, such violence requires coordinated action across multiple sectors. This resource guide was developed through a partnership between the Global Women s Institute (GWI) at George Washington University, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the World Bank Group (WBG). The primary audiences for the guide are IDB and WBG staff and member countries, as well as other development professionals who do not yet have experience addressing VAWG. The purpose of this guide is to provide the reader with basic information on the characteristics and consequences of VAWG, including the operational implications that VAWG can have in several priority sectors of the IDB and WBG. It also offers guidance on how to integrate VAWG prevention and provide quality services to violence survivors across a range of development projects. Lastly...

This assessment presents a broad picture of the main gender disparities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in endowments, economic opportunities, and agency. The report builds on the framework of the 2012 World Bank World Development Report 2012 on gender and development and the World Bank’s regional gender report on Europe and Central Asia: opportunities for men and women, that focuses on the household and individual members’ bargaining power and their ability to access (i) endowments, education, health and physical assets, (ii) economic opportunities, labor market, employment, entrepreneurship, and (iii) agency, political participation and voice, gender-based violence, and the legal framework. The remainder of the report is organized as follows. The next subsections provide general patterns of gender gaps across socio-demographic groups. Chapter one discusses ‘agency’ and describes factors which may shape the process how men and women use their endowments and utilize economic opportunities to achieve desired outcomes. Chapter two...

Mit der Novemberrevolution 1989 löste sich die Slowakei (damals noch Teil der Tschechoslowakei) vom kommunistischen System und begann einen langen Weg der Demokratisierung. Fünfzehn Jahre nach der Wende werden die bisherigen Ergebnisse diskutiert, unterschiedliche Kriterien werden als Maßstab für den Erfolg des Prozesses genommen und seit wenigen Jahren spielen auch frauenbezogene Themen eine immer größere Rolle. Vor allem die Diskussion zur politischen Partizipation von Frauen, und hierbei insbesondere ihre Beteiligung an staatlicher Macht erfreut sich seit Ende der 90er besonderer Aufmerksamkeit. Die Abschaffung von Quoten und der zurückgehende Frauenanteil in Parlament, Regierung und Parteienspitzen hat Sorgen über Qualität und Inhalt des Demokratisierungsprozess geweckt. Brachte die Transition neue Chancen für Frauen oder machte sie Frauen zu Verliererinnen? Diese Arbeit versteht sich als Beitrag zu der entstandenen Diskussion, Kernpunkt ist die Analyse und Erklärung des heutigen niedrigen Frauenanteils in den zentralen Machtorganen der Slowakei: Regierung, Parlament und Parteien. Durch die historische Herangehensweise sollen die Auswirkungen mehrer Regime auf die heutige Lage verdeutlicht werden. Die Analyse stellt Vorurteile über das angeblich geringe Interesse von Frauen an der Politik in Frage. Das Desinteresse darf nicht als gegebenes Faktum hingenommen werden...

Since the early 1990s, countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region have made admirable progress in reducing the gap between girls and boys in areas such as access to education and health care. Indeed, almost all young girls in the Region attend school, and more women than men are enrolled in university. Over the past two decades, maternal mortality declined 60 percent, the largest decrease in the world. Women in MENA are more educated than ever before. It is not only in the protest squares that have seen women whose aspirations are changing rapidly but increasingly unmet. The worldwide average for the participation of women in the workforce is approximately 50 percent. In MENA, their participation is half that at 25 percent. Facing popular pressure to be more open and inclusive, some governments in the region are considering and implementing electoral and constitutional reforms to deepen democracy. These reforms present an opportunity to enhance economic, social, and political inclusion for all, including women, who make up half the population. However, the outlook remains uncertain. Finally, there are limited private sector and entrepreneurial prospects not only for jobs but also for those women who aspire to create and run a business. These constraints present multiple challenges for reform. Each country in MENA will...

The theme of the upcoming lOOth anniversary of International Women's Day, March 8 2011, is Women's Leadership and Political Participation. This highlights the fact that women's political participation remains extremely low in many parts of the world. Women's representation in national parliaments is as low as 4.3% of seats in the Arab States. However despite the fact that women continue to be excluded from the realms of political decision-making, women's global political participation has increased substantially since the 1995 Beijing Conference, when women held just over 10% or less of seats in two thirds of the world's parliaments. The average global proportion of women members of parliament reached an all-time high of 18.8% at the end of 2009; a gain of nearly 75% since 1995 (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2010). The list of top-performing nations in terms of women's political participation is now diverse, and includes countries of varying levels of economic development. This invites inquiry as to how countries such as South Africa and Argentina have achieved such rapid increases in women's representation over the past 15-20 years. While several quantitative studies have found common drivers of women's participation across industrialised countries...

This dissertation is a multi-level, cross-cultural study of women in leadership conducted with both macro-society data and individual-level data aggregated to the country level. The research questions are, “What macro and micro forces are hindering or advancing women into business or political leadership?” “How do these forces impact the level of women’s involvement in business and political leadership in a particular country?” Data was collected from 10 secondary sources, available for 213 countries, and includes about 300 variables for business leadership (N=115) and political leadership (N=181). To date, most women in leadership research has been Western- or US- based, and little rigorous empirical, multi-level research has been done across countries. The importance of cross-cultural studies on women in leadership stems from the potential to better understand why some countries have more women in positions of both business and political leadership; and the factors that affect women’s involvement in such positions in different countries. A “Levels of Women’s Participation in Leadership” country model is tested using cluster and discriminant analyses. Results indicate that the factors that affect women’s participation in leadership in countries with fewer women leaders are different from the factors that affect women’s participation in countries with high levels of participation. This dissertation proposes that initiatives to increase participation of women in leadership need to consider the relevant factors that significantly affect countries at certain Levels of Women’s Participation in Leadership.

The 2012 World Development Report recognized that expanding women's agency - their ability to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities is key to improving their lives as well as the world. This report represents a major advance in global knowledge on this critical front. The vast data and thousands of surveys distilled in this report cast important light on the nature of constraints women and girls continue to face globally. This report identifies promising opportunities and entry points for lasting transformation, such as interventions that reach across sectors and include life-skills training, sexual and reproductive health education, conditional cash transfers, and mentoring. It finds that addressing what the World Health Organization has identified as an epidemic of violence against women means sharply scaling up engagement with men and boys. The report also underlines the vital role information and communication technologies can play in amplifying women's voices, expanding their economic and learning opportunities...

This paper is a critical review of the literature on the issue of how male behavior affects female outcomes in the promotion of gender equality. It employs the family as the main unit of analysis because a large part of gender interactions occurs within this institution. This survey first summarizes recent studies on the distribution of power within the family and identifies several factors that have altered the bargaining position of men and women over the last decades. It then reviews empirical work on the contribution of men, as fathers and husbands, to the health and socioeconomic outcomes of women in both developed and developing countries. Finally, it discusses a set of economic policies that have intentionally or unintentionally affected men's attitudes and behaviors. The main implication is that policies meant to achieve gender equality should focus on men rather than exclusively target women.

This study uses a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years to test for the impact of legal reforms on employment, health, and education outcomes for women and girls. The database demonstrates gender gaps in the ability to access and own property, sign legal documents in one's own name, and have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. In the initial period, 75 countries had gender gaps in at least one of these areas and often multiple ones. By 2010, 57 countries had made reforms that strengthened women's economic rights, including 28 countries that had eliminated all of the constraints monitored here. In the cross-section and within countries over time, the removal of gender gaps in rights is associated with greater participation of women in the labor force, greater movement out of agricultural employment, higher rates of women in wage employment, lower adolescent fertility, lower maternal and infant mortality, and higher female educational enrollment. This paper provides evidence on how the strengthening of women's legal rights is associated with important development outcomes.

This paper quantifies the link between the timing of state-level implementations of political reservations for women in India with the role of women in India's manufacturing sector. It does not find evidence that overall employment of women in manufacturing increased after the reforms. However, the analysis finds significant evidence that more women-owned establishments were created in the unorganized/informal sector. These establishments were concentrated in industries where women entrepreneurs have been traditionally active and the entry was mainly found among household-based establishments. This heightened entrepreneurship does not appear linked to changes in reporting, better access to government contracts and business, or improved financing environments. One interpretation of these results is that the implementation of the political reservations inspired more women to open establishments, and they did so at a small establishment scale in industries where they had experience and/or the support networks of other women.

Over the last three decades Jordan has made substantial investments in its human resources, spending more than 10 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health and education. Like their male counterparts, women and girls have benefitted from these policies and their quality of life has improved. The Jordan Country Gender Assessment (CGA) has two primary objectives. The first is to assess gender imbalances in the areas of economic participation in the labor market, agency, and access to justice; provide a framework for policies or interventions to the Government of Jordan (GoJ) on addressing imbalances; and provide a basis for implementing the activities included in the Gender Action Plan (GAP). The second objective is to develop and strengthen partnerships with GoJ agencies, Civil Society Organization's (CSOs), and academic institutions to promote collaboration on addressing gender-related issues impacting development, and in particular to develop mechanisms for cooperation on implementation of the GAP. This CGA will further explore...

This study examines whether political empowerment of women affects their economic participation. In the context of mandated political representation reform for women in India, the study finds that the length of exposure to women politicians affects overall female labor force participation. These effects seem to arise through direct and indirect channels: political representation of women directly affects hours of work assigned to women under the recent national public works program, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. In addition, the level of access to public goods, as influenced by exposure to women leaders over time, increases the likelihood of women being engaged in the labor force. The findings suggest that women's participation in politics could be a useful policy tool to increase both the supply of and the demand for labor market opportunities for women, potentially helping to stem India's declining female labor force participation rate.

The World Bank's World Development Report (WDR) on gender equality and development identified women's voice, agency, and participation as a key dimension of gender equality and as a major policy priority. Agency, as defined in the WDR2012, is the ability to use endowments to take advantage of opportunities to achieve desired outcomes. In particular, WDR2012 focused on five expressions of agency: women's access to and control over resources; freedom of movement; freedom from the risk of violence; decision-making over family formation; and having voice in society and influencing policy. An important expression of women's agency is women's political participation and their ability to fully engage in public life. This background paper focuses on women s ability to play a public role in politics and to influence policy-making. Using the data available, it examines the current status of women in politics and makes the case for the full and equitable participation of women in public life. It reviews the direct and indirect barriers that exist to prevent women's political participation and analyzes strategies that have been used to increase it. Finally...

Mestrado em Ciência Política; Este trabalho, intitulado “a problemática da participação das mulheres nos órgãos de poder político: o caso do parlamento Cabo-verdiano” pretende analisar o impacto do desenvolvimento económico, social e cultural, em particular o papel das mulheres neste processo, na participação feminina no parlamento Cabo-verdiano. Procuramos evidenciar ao longo do trabalho que, apesar de este assunto ser encarado como um problema meramente político, envolve outros fatores, nomeadamente económicos e sociais (que serão analisados) mas também questões jurídicas, de cidadania e culturais. Houve mudanças no mundo contemporâneo em torno da condição feminina, nos diferentes domínios da vida económica, social e política, no entanto a participação política feminina nos órgãos do poder político ainda constitui um problema. É de salientar que o fenómeno da desigualdade de participação nos órgãos do poder político ainda não foi totalmente resolvido, mesmo nos países mais desenvolvidos e com democracia estabilizada. Temos que reconhecer, no entanto, que, de um modo geral, foram removidos nos países democráticos, e também em Cabo Verde, os obstáculos de cariz formal e legal para se atingir o objetivo de igualdade entre homens e mulheres. Partindo da premissa que Cabo Verde cresceu e...

It is striking that the sharp increase in the number of countries moving towards self-governance and democracy has not been accompanied by more equal political representation of women. What is equally puzzling is the contrast in the share of women in positions of political authority observed between countries, with many developed nations having fewer women legislators than a number of lesser-developed countries. Why are there so few women in most parliaments and why is there such variation across countries? To understand gender-based inequality in political authority, we look at the various stages of candidacy and identify potential bottlenecks to women participation and election into public office. There are three stages which one must pass through successfully to become a legislator. The first is becoming eligible and a part of the pool from which politicians are drawn, then being selected as a candidate and finally being elected to office. Potential barriers to entry for women in the legislative process may exist at any or all of these three stages. Each of these candidacy stages is discussed through a cross-national analysis and a case study of India. The cross-national data is for 175 countries at three points in time: 1975, 1985 and 1995. The Indian case study looks at women in parliament from the first general elections in 1951-1952 and focuses most on the 1996 parliamentary data. We argue that the key factor limiting the recruitment of women into politics is women's sparse representation in the pool from which politicians are recruited. Just as in thecase of men...

Dealing with cultural action and associative intervention of Luso-African youth in Portugal, I will draw some hypothesis about young women participation within the associative movement. I first describe the social and political framework that set the emergence of the immigrants' associative movement in order to focus on the ethnic mobilisation of Luso-African youth, linking cultural identity to their strategies of political participation (a concept used in a broader sense).; Partiendo de la acción cultural del asociacionismo de los jóvenes luso-africanos en Portugal, formularé algunas hipótesis sobre la participación de las jóvenes en el movimiento asociativo. Describiré primero el marco sociopolítico en el que se inserta la emergencia del movimiento asociativo de los inmigrantes, para pasar después a detenerme en la movilización étnica de los jóvenes luso-africanos, entrelazando la identidad cultural con sus estrategias de participación política (un concepto utilizado en un sentido amplio).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1414-49802010000100010Este trabalho levanta algumas hipóteses para explicar a significativa presença das mulheres nos Conselhos Gestores de Políticas Públicas, espaços de discussão e deliberação de políticas que foram implementados no Brasil nas últimas décadas. Os dados sobre o perfil dos representantes nestes espaços apontam para um quadro inversamente proporcional, em termos numéricos, ao baixo grau de inclusão política das mulheres nos espaços tradicionais de representação política – Executivos, Câmara de Vereadores e Assembleias Legislativas. Eles desafiam, portanto, o desenvolvimento de novas ferramentas analíticas para o entendimento do fenômeno da representação política, na mesma medida em que problematizam um diagnóstico que, centrado em uma perspectiva redutora da ação e do campo político, conclui pela manutenção de uma baixa taxa de inclusão política das mulheres.; This work raises some hypotheses to explain the significant presence of women on public policy management councils, which are spaces for discussion and deliberation of policies that have been implemented in Brazil in recent decades. The data about the profile of representatives on these spaces indicates a situation inversely proportional to the low degree of political inclusion of women in traditional spaces of political representation – executive positions...

O presente texto faz parte de nossas reflexões e investigações sobre a temática que envolve as mulheres na sociedade, e tem como objetivo analisar, à luz da teoria crítica, a participação política das mulheres no espaço institucional da Câmara Legislativa do Distrito Federal quanto à sua atuação como deputadas no que diz respeito aos projetos de lei apresentados. Como pano de fundo será feita uma breve análise das condições de opressão da mulher na sociedade. Nosso interesse é acadêmico e procuramos trazer para o debate as questões ligadas à contribuição feminina no contexto estudado. Utilizamos estudos de casos para identificar os projetos de cunho social e político em benefício da comunidade, relacionando os aspectos de melhoria da população com a noção de turismo sustentável.; This text is part of our reflections and research on the topic involving women in society, and aims to analyze, the light of critical theory, political participation of women in the institutional space of the Legislative Chamber of the Federal District as to its role as MPs with regard to bills presented. The backdrop is a brief analysis of the conditions of oppression of women in society. Our interest is academic and seeks to bring the debate to issues related to women’s contribution in the context studied. We use case studies to identify projects of social and political benefit of the community...