Relatively low number of women in parliaments Essay

Relatively low number of women in parliaments - Essay Example India is the second most heavily populated country in the world and more over the largest democratic country in the world. However, even after 60 years of independence, Indian parliament failed to give the proper representation to the women community in India. India was ruled by only once by a women prime minister: Mrs. Indira Gandhi. The current Indian president and parliament speaker are females. Even then the representation of women in Indian parliament is negligible at present. The cases are not different even in some of the highly developed democratic countries like UK and USA. In UK, only 18% of the total parliamentary seats hold by the women. There are many social, cultural and political reasons for the underrepresentation of women in the parliament. â€Å"The arguments in favour of increasing women’s participation in politics rely on 3 principles: Firstly, on democratic justice, secondly, on resource utilisation and thirdly, on interest representation† (Aggio, 2 001, p.3). Neither the God, nor the nature never ever asked the human to treat the women community in a different manner. In fact the dominant male community using their superior muscle power suppressed the weaker female community needs. It is impossible to the current word to develop properly if we neglect the contributions of the half of our population; the women community. ... Reasons for the underrepresentation of the women in parliament The reasons for the underrepresentation of women in politics can be understood in the case of totalitarian or autocratic countries like China, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, North Korea or Cuba. However, it is difficult to believe that even in democratic countries, the representation of women in the political decision making bodies or parliament are negligible. â€Å"Democracy cannot afford to be gender blind† (Fogg, 2006, p.24). Democracy ensures equal opportunities to all in principles; however these principles often stay on papers alone. India, one of the largest democracies in world, recently tried to ensure at least 33% of women representation in Parliament. An ordinance was presented in the parliament in order to ensure at least 33% women participation in parliament; however, the stiff resistance from some of the prominent political parties and fundamentalists prevented the Indian parliament form passing such an ordi nance. From the above descriptions, it is clear that one of the major reasons for underrepresentation of women in parliament is the male domination in the society. Even though, in principles, most of us agree the ideas of giving equality to the women; however, when it comes to practice, most of the male community object it. By nature, the male community has a dominant attitude towards the female community. For men, the responsibilities of the females are limited to the boundaries within walls of the home. The above belief has changed slightly in recent times and many of the females started to work in offices and other professional organizations just like men. Many feminists’ movements contributed heavily to bring the women out of the walls of the home. Even then, male