Women in Parliament

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Sadia Hussain’s article, ‘Performance of Women in Parliament: A Quantitative Study of Questions by Women Members in Lok Sabha (1999-2019)’ draws attention to women’s performance in the Lok Sabha through a quantitative analysis of the questions posed by women leaders on the floor.

It was found that contrary to general belief, women representatives asked more questions on health and family welfare, human resource development, home affairs, finance, agriculture and railways than women’s issues.

Women in politics

• Women have had to use alternate methods to come to power. Education and wealth have aided women in political participation.
• Studies suggest that more women have started to organise themselves into economic groups, and financial freedom has pushed them to be more politically active. 
• The decreased gap in voter turnout between men and women is a positive sign toward gender inclusivity in the political sphere. 
• The 2019 general election was a historic moment for women’s politics, as it saw 78 women elected to the lower house of Parliament for the first time since independence where only 22 women were present in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

Access to power versus participation

• Women’s performance during the Question Hour session becomes relevant as it is a space where legislators act free from party regulation. 
• Substantive representation or acting in the interest of those represented defines the quality of a leader. It becomes imperative to analyse whether descriptive representation transforms into substantive representation.
• The author analyses these research questions through the study of parliamentary sessions. The questions asked during the Question Hour of Parliamentary sessions between the years 1999 to 2019 were specifically chosen as they involved four general elections with governments completing their full five-year terms with two different ruling coalitions. 
• As part of the evaluation, the number of questions raised by representatives, the Ministries under which they fell, and the content of questions including terms like ‘women’, ‘girls’, ‘rape’, ‘crimes against women’ and ‘maternal’, were collected and categorised.

Breaking Stereotypes

• The study reveals how descriptive representation transforms into substantive representation. 
• It goes against the popular notion that women members only touch upon softer issues or that they are silent spectators in Parliament.
• Though men asked more questions and participated in more debates than women, there has been a substantial increase in the number of questions women asked. 
• Moreover, contrary to general belief, women representatives asked more questions on health and family welfare, human resource development, home affairs, finance, agriculture and railways than women’s issues. 
• Male legislators asked more questions on issues concerning women than their female counterparts. 
• These are very welcoming signs as the representatives were seen not to be held back by gender stereotypes.
• Members from marginal States, irrespective of gender asked fewer questions. 
• Party affiliations, education, regional background, ethnicity, caste and the age of women members played a role in the number and content of questions asked in the lower house. 
• The paper studies the friction between the burden women bear to represent women’s issues more and on the other hand, being concerned in representing the issues pertaining to the general public at large. 
• What lies underneath is the problem of structural inequality, wherein women are marginalised at different levels. Through examples of Latin American Parliaments, the author explains how proportional representation will lead to a better representation of women’s interests.
• Moreover, representation becomes a phenomenon that cannot be isolated from society. Social, cultural, economic, religious and political factors affect the process.

The increased political participation is a positive sign toward gender inclusivity and equality in the political sphere. But it has a long way to go, considering the socio-economic and cultural conditions that still socialise women into being averse to politics, hindering them from pursuing politics as a career.