Kenya’s 2017 General Election, despite being the second after the promulgation of the new Constitution, ushered in a number of firsts in the political arena. It was the first time that a presidential election results had been annulled. It was also during this election that Kenya got its first set of female governors.

Apart from Charity Ngilu who had won the Kitui gubernatorial race, the other two female governors, Anne Waiguru and late Dr Joyce Laboso, were not considered political heavyweights. They were only mastering the ropes of politics at the very top with the win being Waiguru’s first attempt at politics and Laboso starting on a new path having only come into politics as her sister’s successor.

Dr Laboso, who recently passed on has always been at the forefront of Kenya’s power ground championing for empowerment and encouraging women to set out and achieve their goals. As a pioneer female governor, she highlighted a number of challenges that comes with the role including minding ‘the length of your skirt.’

Delivering on expectations

With the first crop of governors in Kenya all being male, the entrance of the three female governors meant that they were the new kids on the block and all attention was drifted to them. They automatically became the litmus test for what women could do and how well leaders perform. On top of that, as women leaders, they are tasked with managing public expectations on a daily basis.

“People will relate more with women leaders and they are able to share a lot of things that they would ordinarily not even think of sharing with a man. The feeling of motherliness and the feeling that she will understand drives the public to us. At the end of the day, this can be daunting as everybody is having expectations of the things you should be able to do for them, and that you should be able to understand because you are a woman, a mother.”  Dr Laboso had explained during an interview.

Tackling challenges head on

As a female leader, the duty of setting the right image rests on your shoulder and this includes living a life that sets the right precedent for the younger generation. For the female governors, it boils down to the manner in which they carry themselves around including how they dress. Being a county boss upcountry, Laboso said, she was moved to be conscious of her dressing at every one time. “In an upcountry setting, I have had to really be careful about the length of skirts and so on. You do not want people to focus on your dress rather than the content you are sharing.”

Talking about her election win, Laboso did not shy from admitting that a number of people took her to be a joker and thought she was not serious about her decision to run against one of the political bigwigs in the region who was also the incumbent Bomet Governor, Hon Isaac Ruto. She had to stand her ground and do what she believed in despite all the belittling.

Being a politician comes with a number of responsibilities and one of them is being strong enough to counter those who want to bring you down. As the late governor would note, one amasses more distractors as they climb up the political arena. In her case, noted that she got herself more distractors as a governor compared to those during her tenure as the national assembly Deputy Speaker and as Member of Parliament for Sotik. “It is not about being a woman. I am selling myself as a leader. What is it that a leader does?” She challenged.

Word for women leaders

According to Laboso, women’s greatest undoing is their aversion to public scrutiny. She urges that women need to develop a thick skin and get over the fear of being harassed, called names in public and ridiculed. She uses herself as an example and encourages women that “If I can be a governor today, then a lot of women can be.” She adds that once you have set your target on something, set out to achieve it and do not back off out of fear.

Source: Standard Media

When the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau came into office in 2015, he formed the first gender-balanced cabinet in Canadian history. In announcing his cabinet, he ensured that half of his closest advisers (15 out of a total of 30) were women.

Canada’s gender-equal cabinet vaulted the country from 20th to fifth place in the world in terms of percentage of women in ministerial positions.

When reporters asked Trudeau about why gender parity was important to him, he retorted: “Because it’s 2015.” His simple yet momentous response resonated with those committed to equity, diversity and inclusion.

Following his response, public health researchers, began to think that if increasing the number of women in positions of power promotes gender equity, could it also promote population health and well-being?

Based on their findings, they have reported that Population Health, support the argument that yes, women in government do in fact advance population health, given the three major points below: 

1. More women in power, fewer deaths

We first dug into the research literature to see how male and female politicians might differ from each other. Compared to their male counterparts, female politicians are more likely to hold left-wing attitudes (with regard to issues such as civil rights, social equality and egalitarianism) and substantively advance women’s rights in areas such as pay equity, violence against women, health care and family policy.

Also, research has shown that women in government tend to work in more collaborative and bipartisan ways and employ a more democratic leadership style compared to men’s more autocratic style. Women are also more effective at building coalitions and reaching consensus.

Next, we examined whether there’s a historical association between women in government and population health among Canada’s 10 provinces. Between 1976 and 2009, the percentage of women in provincial government increased six-fold from 4.2 per cent to 25.9 per cent, while mortality from all causes declined by 37.5 per cent (from 8.85 to 5.53 deaths per 1000 people).

Using data from provincial election offices and Statistics Canada, we found that as the average percentage of women in government has historically risen, total mortality rates have declined.

2. Women spend more on health and education

This link does not of course mean that the increase of women in government has directly caused the decline in mortality.

To assess this, we regressed mortality rates on women in government while controlling for several potential confounders. Our findings support the hypothesis that women in government do in fact advance population health.

Interestingly, women in government in Canada have had a bigger effect on male mortality rates than on female rates (1.00 vs 0.44 deaths per 1,000 people).

We also found a pathway that connects women in government, population health and the potential role of partisan politics. In an earlier study, we found that four types of provincial government spending are predictive of lower mortality rates: medical care, preventive care, other social services and post-secondary education.

When we tested government spending as a mediating factor, we found that women in government in Canada have reduced mortality rates by triggering these specific types of health-promoting expenditures.

3. Women work in more collaborative ways

We also found that there was no relationship between the political leanings of women in government — whether they belonged to left-wing, centrist or right-wing parties — and mortality rates.

Ideological differences among social democratic (e.g., NDP), centrist (e.g., Liberal), and fiscal conservative (e.g., Conservative) political parties seem to be less important to mortality rates than increasing the actual number of women elected to government.

This finding supports the idea that women in government tend to work in more collaborative and bipartisan ways than their male counterparts.

It is now 2019 and leading public health scholars still tend to downplay the potential effects of political determinants such as gender politics on population health. Instead, they opt to focus almost exclusively on individual and social determinants of health.

We believe gender politics matters in public health because it helps to determine “who gets what, when and how.”

We believe that electing more women in government not only promotes gender equality and strengthens democratic institutions but also makes real and substantive contributions to government spending and population health.

Given that women in government can bring about desirable changes in population health, let us figure out how we can genuinely level the political playing field for women.

Source: WEF

Based on research by Katherine Phillips, Susan Perkins, and Nicholas Pearce

A mere 15 percent of parliamentary representatives around the world are women — a reflection that for all the benefits democracy may bestow upon nations, it has not yet fully delivered on social equity. There are hints of change: women in top national leadership positions — president or prime minister — have more than quadrupled between 1950 and 2004, from four to 18. Recently, women have been elected in every corner of the globe, including, Chile, Germany, Liberia, and South Korea.

Many of these leaders were elected amidst turbulent backdrops: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected as the president of Liberia in 2005, on the heels of its second civil war, for example, while in 2013 Park Geun-hye of South Korea ran on a platform that promoted peace-building with North Korea. Just last month, Catherine Samba-Panza was chosen to lead, on an interim basis, the Central African Republic, which is in the midst of a civil war.

Professor Katherine Phillips worked with Susan K. Perkins and Nicholas A. Pearce, both of Northwestern University, to look more closely at global trends in female leadership since 1950, including evidence that having a female rather than a male leader of ethnically diverse nations leads to different outcomes. “A nation’s leaders have a lot of power to shape policy, including policy that impacts economic growth,” Phillips says. “So we wanted to know: do women leaders have a different impact than their male counterparts? And are there some circumstances under which women might be more effective leaders than men?”

The focus on economic outcomes is important on its own, but also because social unrest often goes hand in hand with economic woes, and economists have shown that nations with higher ethnic fractionalization (EF) — a measure of the likelihood that a fellow citizen is from another ethnicity — experience more inequality and conflict. That makes the challenge of governing particularly complex since leaders must navigate and balance conflicts of interest between ethnic groups, including those groups that are not as well-represented in the government. And nations with a lot of ethnic diversity have historically experienced lower GDP growth: the impact of going from no diversity to full diversity is a loss of 2 percent GDP growth.

To learn the precise relationship between economic performance and national leaders, the researchers compared data for national leaders in 139 nations from 1950 to 2004 with annual Penn World Table GDP growth data. They included Gapminder measures that signal GDP health, including infrastructure investment, post-secondary schooling, and rule of law — how strong a nation’s most important institutions are.

Phillips and her co-researchers found that when troubled nations elect women to the key national leadership office their economies experience a significant rise in GDP compared with their male counterparts. (GDP was measured the year after election to ensure same-year GDP changes — which are more likely attributable to the policies of previous leaders — weren’t attributed to new leaders.) For the most ethnically diverse nations — those with high EF — having a woman in the top national leadership position was correlated with a 6.9 percent greater increase in GDP growth in comparison to nations with a male leader.

The female stereotype of motherly nurturing and compassion may not immediately elicit an image of masterful leadership. So why might people choose a woman to lead when a nation is facing enormous strife, and why do these leaders perform better under these trying conditions than their male counterparts? The team looked to other research to consider possible explanations, much of which tells a story of evolutionary psychology. Studies show women leaders tend to have a more participatory, democratic style than men; others have shown that when people perceive a threat and need to change their environment, they prefer female leaders, choosing men to lead during times of stability. In short, women may simply be seen as better at managing difficult situations that require more inclusionary or cooperative approaches.

Phillips and her co-researchers’ findings parallel those found in private sector where, mirroring their parliamentary colleagues around the world, women account for just about 15 percent of upper management in firms. There, too, the presence of women in the upper ranks is associated with better performance: firms with a greater percentage of women at the highest level of management are more innovative and more profitable. Taken together, these findings point to the need for policies that promote equity in leadership, and suggest such efforts could produce better economic outcomes while stimulating the inclusion of other under-represented groups. “Women are perceived to have qualities needed to improve the lot for everybody,” Phillips says. “And they deliver.”

As the clock ticks towards the 2020 US Election six women amongst others, have declared their candidacies for the Democratic nomination in 2020. It’s the most women who’ve ever run for a major-party nomination in history.

Until this cycle, there had been, at most, two women who had ever competed in a major party primary, according to the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics. Now, that number has already been far surpassed, as Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, and Amy Klobuchar, along with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Oprah’s spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, have all announced presidential runs.

Political science tells us that the surge of women this cycle is in large part due to the inroads Hillary Clinton made in 2016, along with the outrage women across the country have experienced since Donald Trump, an alleged sexual harasser, has taken office. The historic 2018 midterms, which saw the election of more than 100 women Congress members, also demonstrated that women could, overwhelmingly, win.

“Did Hillary inspire many women to run? Absolutely,” says political strategist Maria Cardona, though she adds that the visceral response to Trump’s presidency is likely an even more powerful motivating factor. “I think the anger and fear of what we’re becoming after Trump really lit a fire in women’s bellies.”

But there could be another explanation — one that many women running for office themselves have cited: If Donald Trump can be president, why can’t I run for office? Whether it’s a Clinton effect or a Trump effect is a matter of debate, but it has opened the floodgates for women, especially Democratic women, around the country.

What it takes to get women to run for office

A record number of women ran — and won — in the 2018 midterms, and the same dynamics that led to this boost could be contributing to the increase in women presidential candidates as well.

Clinton, the first woman to secure a major-party nomination for the presidency, carved out a path that other women could follow. Research has found that women in leadership positions can serve as key role models for younger women in their field, and help improve their performance. Additionally, one person’s efforts to break a barrier can make a position seem more accessible to others in the future.

“I think that Hillary did help, but also I think the victories in 2018 helped. It proved that women can mobilize women voters,” says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who runs Lake Research Partners.

Thus far, however, Democratic women candidates are still polling far behind other men expected in the field including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, though much of their leads could be driven by name recognition.

According to a Monday poll from Monmouth University, Biden is leading the Democratic field with 28 percent of voter support, and Sanders is coming in at 25 percent. Harris currently has 10 percent of voter support.

As much as Clinton can claim credit here, outrage directed at Trump has also been a major mobilization factor for women. Trump is unpopular with women — historically so. Sixty-five percent of women disapprove of his handling of the presidency, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll, compared to 45 percent of men.

Trump also completely shifted the expectation on a candidate’s qualifications, Lake notes.

“Trump definitely mobilized women. Women used to ask, ‘Am I qualified enough?’ Donald Trump is such an unusual candidate and also, from a Democratic perspective, such a flawed candidate, it was liberating,” she says.

It’s also worth noting that women, historically, have been more likely to lean to the left than the right, with a higher proportion of women voting Democratic and running for political seats as Democrats. Fifty-six percent of women lean Democratic, compared to 44 percent of men, according to a Pew Research Center study.

The surge in Democratic women candidates can also be attributed, in part, to longtime investments the party has made in building a bench.

“The filling of the pipeline was a 35-year project or longer,” says Lake, who adds that Barbara Mikulski, one of the first women to join the Senate, used to joke that she was a 30-year overnight success. Emily’s List, one of the organizations that have led recruitment for women and training for women candidates, most recently heard from more than 42,000 women interested in running during the 2018 midterms.

As the New York Times’s Susan Chira noted in a story following the 2018 elections, the degree of funding Emily’s List has brought to the table for Democratic women far outpaces that of some of its Republican counterparts — a dynamic that illustrates just how much Democrats have committed to this effort compared to the GOP:

Emily’s List, which endorses and finances Democratic women who support abortion rights, said it raised $110 million this election cycle and has raised more than $600 million since it was founded in 1985. Value in Electing Women, one of the analogues for Republican women, has raised $4.5 million since it was founded in 1997, according to its website.

More women running is normalizing the presence of female presidential candidates

There are many positive effects of more women running for the presidential nomination, including the fact that gender is no longer solely being used as the differentiating factor among candidates.

“I think that any time we have more women running, and greater diversity among those women, it just challenges those monolithic conceptions of what it means to be a woman candidate,” Kelly Dittmar, an assistant political science professor and CAWP scholar, told CBS News.

Unlike 2016, when Clinton was notably the only woman in the race, this cycle’s Democratic primary and the diverse slate of women candidates competing in it makes it much tougher for voters to simply say they can’t find a woman whose policies appeal to them.

The women candidates this cycle also span the Democratic ideological spectrum, so there are fewer generalizations that can be made about their policy positions and strategies. Warren specializes in regulation of the financial sector, and Harris brings an expansive background as a California prosecutor, for example.

“In order to distinguish between them, voters would have to evaluate them on their policies beyond their gender,” says Mirya Holman, a political science professor at Tulane who studies the intersection of gender and elections.

All these female candidates could normalize even more women running in the future.

Source: Vox

In November 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formed the first gender-balanced cabinet in Canadian history. In announcing his cabinet, he ensured that half of his closest advisers (15 out of a total of 30) were women. Canada’s gender-equal cabinet vaulted the country from 20th to fifth place in the world in terms of percentage of women in ministerial positions.

When reporters asked Trudeau about why gender parity was important to him, he retorted: “Because it’s 2015.” His simple yet momentous response resonated with those committed to equity, diversity and inclusion.

As public health researchers, this got us thinking — if increasing the number of women in positions of power promotes gender equity, could it also promote population health and well-being?

Our findings, published recently in the journal SSM – Population Health, support the argument that yes, women in government do in fact advance population health.

More Women in Power, Fewer Deaths

We first dug into the research literature to see how male and female politicians might differ from each other. Compared to their male counterparts, female politicians are more likely to hold left-wing attitudes (with regard to issues such as civil rights, social equality and egalitarianism) and substantively advance women’s rights in areas such as pay equity, violence against women, health care and family policy.

Also, research has shown that women in government tend to work in more collaborative and bipartisan ways and employ a more democratic leadership style compared to men’s more autocratic style. Women are also more effective at building coalitions and reaching consensus.

Next, we examined whether there’s a historical association between women in government and population health among Canada’s 10 provinces. Between 1976 and 2009, the percentage of women in provincial government increased six-fold from 4.2 per cent to 25.9 per cent, while mortality from all causes declined by 37.5 per cent (from 8.85 to 5.53 deaths per 1000 people).

Using data from provincial election offices and Statistics Canada, we found that as the average percentage of women in government has historically risen, total mortality rates have declined.

Women Spend More on Health and Education

This link does not of course mean that the increase of women in government has directly caused the decline in mortality.

To assess this, we regressed mortality rates on women in government while controlling for several potential confounders. Our findings support the hypothesis that women in government do in fact advance population health.

Interestingly, women in government in Canada have had a bigger effect on male mortality rates than on female rates (1.00 vs 0.44 deaths per 1,000 people).

We also found a pathway that connects women in government, population health and the potential role of partisan politics. In an earlier study, we found that four types of provincial government spending are predictive of lower mortality rates: medical care, preventive care, other social services and post-secondary education.

When we tested government spending as a mediating factor, we found that women in government in Canada have reduced mortality rates by triggering these specific types of health-promoting expenditures.

Women work in more collaborative ways

We also found that there was no relationship between the political leanings of women in government — whether they belonged to left-wing, centrist or right-wing parties — and mortality rates.

Ideological differences among social democratic (e.g., NDP), centrist (e.g., Liberal), and fiscal conservative (e.g., Conservative) political parties seem to be less important to mortality rates than increasing the actual number of women elected to government. This finding supports the idea that women in government tend to work in more collaborative and bipartisan ways than their male counterparts.

It’s now 2019 and leading public health scholars still tend to downplay the potential effects of political determinants such as gender politics on population health. Instead, they opt to focus almost exclusively on individual and social determinants of health.

We believe gender politics matters in public health because it helps to determine “who gets what, when and how.” We believe that electing more women in government not only promotes gender equality and strengthens democratic institutions but also makes real and substantive contributions to government spending and population health. Given that women in government can bring about desirable changes in population health, let’s figure out how we can genuinely level the political playing field for women.

Source; https://theconversation.com/the-more-women-in-government-the-healthier-a-population-107075