Role of Women as Presidents
Women have their role in every single field in society directly or indirectly including world’s politics and international relations. Women and men should participate
in society together, and both have different roles, such as their roles in society, educations, religions, and of course politics.However, these roles have been changed through history due to different reasons.If we look back to history we can easily see that women had a limited amount of participation in politics, but it changed through time.
However, the number of women taking part in world’s politics has changed and increased until today and it would probably increase in the future decades hopefully. The case of women became norm in international relations, so if we ask the question of how this changed and how the case of women became norm in international relations, we can answer by using the constructivist method.
The constructive method mentions that it’s crucial to see the changes that happened nationally and internationally. For example, the simplest right that women do not have is educational participation. Before, families do not allow their girls or daughters to be educated and even go to school, but now this has been changed. If we ask why this has been changed? We can answer by saying that the way that people thinking and thoughtshave changed. Males saw that education is important for their females and it’s not shame to be educated. Women are the major victims, and pay the price for this in almost around the world. In most of the countries, women are seen less valuable and less important by their families, cultures, and usually under the name of theirreligions. For example, most of the women are not allowed to wear what they want,and some are not allowed to work. Also, there are still some families who do not let their daughters to even go outside of the house, and some are not allowed to go to school, which are women’s basic rights, and there are some who have to get married in a really young age to the men who are in the same age as their fathers because their families see this would protect them and the girls will not bring shame to their families.Their limited influence in every field reflected in politics too because women are not allowed to participate in politics or even sometimes vote, such as the case in Saudi Arabia that women are not allowed to vote. As World Bank mentions,”The 2012 World Development Report (World Bank, 2012) notes that women in most regions of the world have limited influence in political decision-making.” And this of course happened due to the limitation that they have because there is limit for almost everything for women.
It’s true that women’s participation in politics has increased and their role became better; however, there are still some other issues that women are facing in almost around the world, and it does not matter which century we are in, there are still some people who are close minded and do not change, and they do not allow women to take part in society. Moreover, one of the important changes that happened is the establishment of the institutions. To support women, there are some institutions and organizations to help women. These organizations have variety of roles such as, helping women to not feel that they are less valuable, less respected, and less important. There are many women who killed themselves because of the way that the society and their families treat them. There are several institutions thatwork for women rights and they have positive influences on the way people thought about the case of women nationally and internationally.In addition, these institutions encouraged people to work with them as volunteer which is a good starting for women to work. It’s important to know that men are also work in those institutions which can have a positive impact on them. For example, when men see and take part in solving a female problem, who is not their relative, in an institution they can understand women more or if the same case happens to their relatives they can solve it peacefully, but this is not always the case. Instead of thinking about killing their female they might think in other ways to solve their problems and this is one of the changes that happened through history as the constructivists method mentioned.
There are a lot of NGO’s and the most famous NGO’s are Women Aid International for Women’s Right, and UN women Watch.These institutions try to advocate aware people and teach them how to behave and treat their daughters. They want to tell people that women and men are the same and have the same rights, so there should not be any difference between them especially in getting jobs. Also, foreign aids have been worked in order to solve women issues and gender inequality, such as US aid. “At USAID, we believe that gender equality and women’s empowerment isn’t a part of development but the core of development.” Of course, saying these words by US aid can have influence on people because once they see that internationally people care about women, they would think more deeply and see women as important as the other gender. Talking about gender equality and women’s empowerment as the core of development make people to see women differently and change their thinking about women. People should start treat women kindly and help them because women are have the cultural value and educate men in order to become successful not to treat them badly and insult them.
Before establishing these organizations, people thought about female as the second person in society. However, by these international speeches and publications the case of women became norm and the families saw that people around the world care about women. And this gave an opportunity to the families to change or at least think about that they are wrong and start to change themselves. Moreover, there are other places which help women’s case like World Bank which help women not emotionally but also financially. Also, World Bank helps women to solve their issues by having projects in countries. As it mentions, “The project will develop a new financing instrument ‘Development Impact Bonds’ to support private sector focused skills development, particularly for youth ages 18–29 years with a targeted share of 30 percent women.”An international financial institution like World Bank which talk about women’s case, draw families specially males attention that women are not alone. Having these supports directly tell people that women are important and can have support from others not just their families.We can say somehow people became afraid of those organizations and they try to solve their problems in a better way. If they kill or hurt their daughters/sisters these institutions share the news publicly and this will cost the family. An example that happened in Kurdistan was the girl who was sitting in the park and her father killed her was published, but this is not the first and the last one because there are similar stories all around the world that we may not hear about them often that is why these institutions are created to help women.
We should not forget that the laws are also changed and have became better and the changes in the laws are toward and supporting women. As UN Women mentions, “On International Women’s Day, 8 March, the President of Pakistan signed the National Commission on the Status of Women Bill 2012 into law, which has afforded the Commission new financial and administrative autonomy, and therefore better scope to investigate women’s rights violations.” Countries are moving forward to change the laws and make them better for women. The rate of women participation in politics has increased and changed. People should think that a better society would be created by both male and female in order to have a balanced society. Moreover, all schools opened for girls as well just like boys which made girls be more educated and knowledgeable. At the same time, women’s right became part of education programs, and women, whom they are teachers, doctors, and professors, have been taken good steps in this situation to make it be norm. Today, the number of women has been increased and around more than 57% of the women is studying in U.S universities which are more than the number of men and this is a good improvement.
As mentioned above there are many reasons that limited women participation in most of the fields, such as religion, and society. As John Berry mentions in the CROSS CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, “Religious beliefs and culturally-based views of family honor may be also influence views of women and reactions to women working outside the home.”Also, it’s important to know that in The Middle East people see women as honor to their families. In our males’ psychology it’s a shame if a female works, and goes to school. This may be because of the interaction which she has to have with males. Before, in this society, it was shame for families if their females have male’s friend or even talked with a male. However, it’s important to know that nowadays families let their female member to go to school, work, and have their businesses which are goodand first starting, and they are proud of them in theirsocieties. But we should not forget that KRGs have been taken good steps to make it easier for women to be a part of its government. For example the quota law is one of those steps that gave women to have a better chance to be parliamentarians, ministers, and councilor. According to Kurdistan Regional Government,”In February 2009 several amendments were made to the Kurdistan election law to increase the inclusiveness of all groups. The minimum age of parliamentary candidates was lowered from 30 to 25. The legal minimum quota of female parliamentarians was increased from 25 percent to 30 percent of the legislature.” KRG uses quota law to make women have better chance to build its government’s structure, but still it is not enough. According to Rudaw,“Women should raise their voices, create pressure groups and not abandon their rights, since 1992 and the formation of the first cabinet of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) there has never been more than one woman in a ministerial position.”Even KRG has been trying to make women have more rights in the Perelman by using quota law, but they have not solved rate of women in the ministries, and there is one or two women that work as ministers. In contrast, in some countries they have not taken even this step that KRG did, so we could see a bright future for women in our community, and we could say that it will become better in the future decades. Moreover, women will not be in need to use quota law to be in the Perlman since for a panty of time they have been working there, and they will work for future generations.
Moreover, women are multitaskers, more peaceful, and it’s their rights to have a chance to lead their counties like men do for centuries. Women are doing several jobs at the same time such as raising children, house works, study, and cook and even get a particular job. Psychologically, women are different from men by the ability of changing from one work to another at the same time quickly than men do. According to livescience,”In an experiment 120 men and 120 women were asked to perform two task at the same time and the result showed that women were quicker that men because they were quicker in switching between the tasks. Plus, women are more serious and they are more organized than men for their jobs, houses and daily work. According to Professor Keith Laws from university of Hertfordshire, “The women have a much better planning and strategy for finding the key. The men tend to jump to into it and be far less organized and thorough. It’s as if they do not top to reflect and plan for a moment.”
As we have seen, there are fewercountries which have women as presidents and prime ministers all around the world from the past decades and until now. However, Liberia, Argentina, Lithuania, Brazil and South Korea are some of the countries that still have women as presidents. Plus, Bangladesh, Jamaica, Slovenia, Cyprus(North) and Norway are some of the other countries that have women as a prime minster. But there is a question which is why don’t we have women as presidents all around the world? There are multiple reasons for this. For example, culture and traditions could be one problem because they are not allowing women to participate in politics, another reason is that, in most of the countries and cultures men are seen as more powerful than women and they can hold problems and the issues that a country faces that is why women are not elected in politics. Families and tribes may not allow their daughters to participate in politics because they think it would be shameful for their families and tribes, some say men can control the situations more than women, women seem weak through history due to the patriarchal society that we have been lived.
At the same time, there are people who don’t have respect for women and think that they are not fit for those positions or they seem as weak, and others say that women are physically, and emotionally weak and cannot serve in military if something happened in the country. As Megan MacKenzie a writer in Foreign Affairs, “There are physically fit, tough women who are suitable for combat, and weak, feeble men who are not.”
We all know the world and the situations that happen while men are presidents and in power, but what about women? What would happen if women were presidents? One major thing that would happen if women were presidents is fewer wars would occur around the world because women are more peaceful and emotional and solve problems without conflicts and there would be less poverty. For example, war would happen less because as we all have studied that world wars happened under the hands of men who were presidents. As Emma Dalton inWomen and Politics in Contemporary Japan book mentions, “women were less prone to war then men and, in doing so, articulated the stereotypical notion that women are more pacifist than men.” Also, we all know that when a woman is in a fighting situation she thinks about avoiding it, but in the same situation a man thinks about taking revenge and not solving it peacefully. Men want to show their masculinity, so this might lead them to do more wars and have more conflicts instead of solving not violently. The participation of women in politics doesn’t only equalize the gender inequality; however, it has also to do with the prosperity of that region. Of course, if a country has men and women deciding on something their decision would be better when they cooperate together. Moreover, According to the World Bank, “Countries with greater gender equality are more prosperous and competitive.” With having more women participating in political and economical fields a country would be run and perform better. Like International Alert mentions that “[a] recent study by International Alert (2012) points out that the representation and increased involvement of women in politics and in the public sphere has been one of the positive results of peace processes and political transitions in the Great Lakes region in Africa during the last 10 to 15 years.”
It is important to know that women think deeper that men do and this deepness cause them to be more emotional than men. It causes them to understand the other people’s feelings and situations. This scenario should be considered if we related to a war situation. In a war, the sides which are all men don’t think about each other’s citizens. However, this is different for women because studies show that women can understand the others feelings even if it’s their enemies. According to Doctor Dan Goleman, “If the other person is upset, or the emotions are disturbing, women’s brains tend to stay with those feelings.”These cause the women presidents to feel the other countries feeling or any problems and suffering which citizens have.
We as women have to ask ourselves what to do in order to get women as presidents? Or how to give women chances to be presidents? There are several and effective ways to encourage women to participate in that field. One of them is opening campaigns and encourages villages, countries and families that do not allow women to participate in politics. As we mentioned in the earlier paragraphs, families, relatives, and males don’t let their female work in politics but by having campaigns, and seminars we can slightly change the way males think, which can be counted as a good starting point. Women need support by not just their families, but they also need the support from their country.Many people claim that women cannot lead the world or if they do they don’t be successful. So, they have to give women chances to see if they can rule or not. For example, you cannot buy a cloth without wearing it and try it to see if it fits or not, so the case of women as presidents is the same thing because we do not know how they rule until they try it and society see the result. People should start thinking about having women in political positions more in order to see if they are good in ruling. Also, many problems occurred while having men ruling such as the World Wars, Cold War, Terrorism and many other problems. However, this didn’t change citizen’s perspective on men ruling but without seeing women ruling they decided to not have women as presidents. So, people must not claim that women cannot lead the countries if they have not seen them in that position.
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