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Monday, March 08, 2004
Amante: Our House needs more women
By ISOLDE D. AMANTE
IF WOMEN ruled the world, a friend liked to say, there would be more waterworks projects than wars and more schools than smart bombs. No wonder she moved to New Zealand, one of a handful of countries where women control at least 25 percent of all parliament seats.
Here at home, women make up 49.7 percent of the population, but hold less than 10 percent of all legislative and executive positions in the government: only 191 out of 1,968 seats nationwide.
“No matter how successful we are at organizing around women’s issues, the impact is limited while we remain outside the circles where policies and decisions are made,” said Rep. Patricia Sarenas, who serves in the House for Abanse! Pinay.
Whatever the failures of the party-list system, the hardworking Sarenas, Loretta Ann Rosales (Akbayan) and Liza Maza (Bayan Muna) show us there’s reason for hope. But the party-list seats are limited.
If women desire parity, more women must seek positions of power. It says a lot about this country that it took no less than revolutions for us to have women for president.
What keeps most women away from politics?
Lack of time is part of the problem. Household tasks are a serious check on women’s ambitions. And while necessity (or enlightenment) makes some men take on unconventional chores these days, home life is still largely organized by women. Many of the women you’ll see in politics are from the business and political elite, more than able to afford a well-trained household staff run by—-you guessed it—other women.
Lack of money is another aspect of the problem. Unless the cost of getting elected is drastically reduced, women who wish to seek political office must be independently wealthy. Or, as is the case now, they must exploit their bonds with political men. That’s the route our three women senators took: Loi Estrada, Tessie Aquino-Oreta and Loren Legarda-Leviste.
Still another problem is the lack of information. Politics is the oldest of the old boys’ clubs around. The Constitution provides for sectoral representation in the lawmaking bodies of local governments, but how many councils have bothered to include women? A part of the budget is earmarked for gender and development. Have you heard any local official account for how these funds were used?
Fortunately, times change, albeit slowly. The Social Weather Stations, in a survey in July 1991, asked respondents whether they would favor a female candidate for president, vice president or senator.
Majority said yes, regardless of age, socio-economic class and, yes, gender. More than half of the male respondents said they would rather vote for a woman too. The year after that, Miriam Defensor Santiago narrowly lost the presidency to Fidel Ramos.
If we want to see a flawed bureaucracy reformed, a good way to start is to recognize that one of its flaws is that it has, for so long, lacked the attentions of honest, intelligent women.
Of course it’s not enough to vote for a candidate simply because she is a woman. If anything, the bar is raised higher. Men have failed so often in politics that they’ve become commonplace. But a woman who gains political power, yet fails to use it well, becomes yet another stone in a wall built to keep women out.
(e-mail: ida@sunstar.com.ph)
(March 8, 2004 issue)
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