Female Leadership is On the Rise

In the recent years, the participation of women in the government has been observed to be increasing. There are more women being elected to fill different political positions in the government. In 2015, the global participation rate of women in the national parliament is 22 percent. It increased from 11.3 percent in 1995. Rwanda, a country in Africa, has the highest number of women in the parliament with 63.8 percent of positions in the lower house. 38.5 percent of positions in the upper house are also filled by women. 

A number of major cities around the world are now headed by women. Paris elected its first female mayor, Anne Hidalgo, in 2014. Anne Hidalgo was a councilor of the city before she ran for the mayoral position. Victoria Raggi, the current mayor of Rome, is also the city’s first female mayor. She was a practicing lawyer before she was tapped by the Five-Star movement political party to become its first female mayoral bet.

There are also women who currently serve as heads-of-states. Examples are South Korean President Park Geun-hye, President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, and Aung San Suu Ky of Myanmar. The latest addition to these female leaders is Theresa May, the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She assumed office on July 11, 2016, after David Cameron announced his resignation from the position on June 24, 2016.

The increasing representation of women in politics is seen by experts as a way to break the glass ceiling set for women in this sector of society. They add that it will allow the increase of opportunities for women because there is someone in office who can relate to their grievances and clamors. It is believed that since many countries are now exploring ways on how to increase female participation in local and national governments, people’s attitude towards leadership is no longer highly influenced by gender.

However, there are still some skeptics who say that women’s leadership and political participation are still growing at a very slow pace. Women are still underrepresented during elections, and there are still a lot of hindrances that aspiring female leaders need to face. They hope that in the near future, female leadership will be as welcomed and encouraged as male leadership is.