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Debate on Including the Agenda of Women’s Rights in Parliaments of the Americas

The principal challenges that women face in Parliaments of the region and the implications for the agenda of women’s rights was the central theme today in one of the panels in the Hemispheric Forum “Women’s Leadership for a Citizens’ Democracy,” held at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC with the participation of renowned experts and authorities on the issue of gender.

The panel featured the participation of Sheila Copps, former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada; Otilia Lux de Cotí, a Representative in the Congress of Guatemala; Daniela Payssé, Chair of the Special Committee on Gender and Equity of Uruguay; Xanthis Suárez, Nicaraguan Representative in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN); y Solanda Goyes, Specialist in the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA); and it was moderated by Minou Tavares Mirabal, Representative of the Dominican Republic and Vice President of the Confederation of Parliaments of the Americas. The debate, titled, “Parliaments and the Women’s Rights Agenda: State of the Art and Current Challenges,” is part of the First Hemispheric Forum on the subject, being held April 4 to 6, and is organized by the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) of the OAS, UN Women, and the Ibero-American General Secretariat.

Representative Tavares Mirabal, in her role as moderator, centered the discussion on three questions she called “fundamental” to the subject at hand: What are the principal problems in the context of women’s rights that women in congresses face as they seek to fulfill their duties of representation, legislation and administration? What are the implications these problems have regarding the construction of a citizen democracy? And, what are the main challenges in achieving more effective representative action by parliaments?

In this context, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Sheila Copps, who had a 25-year career in politics, recalled that when she was first elected in 1981 she had “a vision and a dream for women’s equality” that has not materializad. “We are stalled,” she said. As an example, she gave that of her own daughter, recently graduated from university, who despite living in an advanced democracy is about to enter a labor force where she will receive 20 percent less in pay than a man with similar credentials.

The former Canadian politician said that while discrimination is evident, politicians fear addressing the issue because “it is politically incorrect to call people sexist.” She highlighted the importance of the work of organizations such as the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) of the OAS, but warned that until this and other institutions “are prepared to dig more deeply into the reasons for this inequality I fear that 25 years from now we’ll have another conference with another group of women coming together and saying why we still have not reached equality.”

The Guatemalan Representative Otilia Lux de Cotí, in response to the questions posed by the moderator, asserted that the principal challenge “is truly to be able to see in what way the electoral law and the law of political parties can achieve true change and contribute to create a social contract with respect for the rights of women, the recognition of the rights of women and of course also of the rights of indigenous peoples.”

She called this “an enormous challenge” that can be faced in the legislative sphere through the creation of new laws that can change parliaments stuck in the past. “The Parliament is a hard nucleus of power, it is there where the pillars of feudalism are cemented, the pillars of an elitist democratic system, it is there where the bastions of patriarchy are found,” she said.

For her part, the Chair of the Special Committee on Gender and Equity of Uruguay, Daniela Payssé, asserted that among the challenges she identifies are not only that of participation and representation of women in political life, but the question of how women can balance their “firm conviction” of leading the defense and promotion of the interests of women with the “imperious need” that women also participate in other issues that historically belong to the male realm. “Women parliamentarians don’t want to identify themselves with the issues of gender so they are not singled out,” and this is a challenge that can be faced when women adopt issues that have until now belonged to men in positions of power, she argued.

Xanthis Suárez, the Nicaraguan Representative in the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), emphasized that the image of women in the media is “fundamental” to achieve the progress of women in the political sphere, among other things in the subject of gender quotas. She said that in the PARLACEN, women represent 26.78 percent of its members, with 30 female parliamentarians from 13 political parties in the Central American region. And these women parliamentarians “have successfully formed a block to influence the incorporation of the gender perspective in the Parliament’s decision making.” She added that nevertheless there remain certain “fears” in Parliaments that prevent women from fulfilling the tasks they undertake. “The principal problems in my view to be able to fulfill our work as parliamentarians continues to be to overcome these fears to be able to confront misogyny in its new manifestations.”

Solanda Goyes, specialist in the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), recalled the importance of distinguishing between formal and real equality. “Real equality is equality as outcome or goal. We all have the right to be equal according to our laws and constitutions,” she asserted. She added that the subject of women’s rights must be viewed, more than as a gender issue, as an issue of democracy. “The demands that we make are not just those of women but those essential to democracy,” she said.

A gallery of photos of the event will be available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-604/11