Why are there so few women in local government?
I spent yesterday morning at an event in Hamilton to encourage women to stand in the next local body elections. You don’t have to look far to see why an event like this is important. Currently women make up:
- 17% of Mayors
- 8% of Chairs
- 29% of all Members
The stats for young people are even worse. In the last election, only 5 people under 29 years of age were elected to city councils, and 7 to district councils (based on a survey conducted by Local Government).
I guess we could speculate about all the reasons why women and young people aren’t getting involved. Some that have been discussed in the past include the remuneration, hours, impact on family, expense of campaigning, attitudes to young people, and then of course all of the other hurdles that come with public office. In my humble opinion, Rodney Hide’s belief that the core business of councils should be rates, rubbish and roads will only worsen the situation.
The situation worries me. We expect central government to look like New Zealand, surely local government should do the same? And surely we should be doing more to ensure that happens?
Discuss.
“In my humble opinion, Rodney Hide’s belief that the core business of councils should be rates, rubbish and roads will only worsen the situation”
Hi Jacinda. Just wondering why you reckon the above?
If 29% of council members are women, then local government looks about as much like New Zealand as central government does. Female representation is definitely a problem at both levels. Just like MMP improved (somewhat) female representation in Parliament, multi-member districts would (and do) have an impact on the number of women in local government. Although women-for-the-sake-of-women only goes so far. If women who are elected aren’t prepared to act for women, the fact that they’re there doesn’t mean much at all.
Hi Nathan. I’ve met with a few Youth Councils recently. All of the young people there obviously have an interest in local governance (hence their involvement in the council) but it was a pretty
boradbroad interest. They saw council as a place to have a positive impact on things which effected them. I wonder how many would be there, or would consider running for an elected position on council itself, if the scope of the council’s work was narrowed so as per Rodney’s vision?Depends what floats your boat I guess.
You forget one crucial element – how many women actually want to be politicians? You have to factor this in. The family court got plenty of flak for being perceived to favour mothers over fathers, with fathers only getting custody in 30 percent of cases. Then in a television interview a family court judge said that this wasn’t necessarily discrimination against fathers – new statistics revealed that fathers only applied for custody about…30 percent of the time!
So if you think the level of participation of women is too low – then the first step is convincing more of them to stand. Good on you for trying to do something about it.
As for young people, they tend not to be interested in politics. I don’t see how they would stand unless they had some interest…
Women are NOT a minority although somehow they still get treated as though they are. There are more women than men in New Zealand. Unless there is a substantial difference between male and female voter turnout, nobody gets elected without at least convincing a fair chunk of women to vote for them.
If women want women representatives, they can vote for them. They are less susceptible to being a victim of a split vote in a FPP system even, because there are fewer women who stand!
I am curious as to how you think the hurdles put women off in particular. The ones that you mention surely are the same for putting off men as well? Renumeration for example, I don’t think you know anyone, man or woman who want wants to be paid less. Or work longer hours.
I’m not sure how the expense of campaigning is different for men and women – the only argument I could concede is a baseline wealth argument. For example women being paid less than men. Money is not the only expense though, time is crucial. A number of women MPs who have retired have factored in family reasons, I don’t know much about local ones.
Your mention of Hide in all this is just grandstanding. He’s an elected politician just like you, putting forward his ideas. Surely women are just as concerned with the costs of rates, roads and rubbish as anybody else? I would appreciate any elaboration on this?
We should expect that women who stand should have an equal chance of being elected as men. So if more women stand than me we shouldn’t be overly concerned if there are more women politicians than men, and vice versa. Anything else is artificial adjustment.
Where do I begin. The main difficulty facing women in participating in public life is that it is structured around “the boys club”. Very rarely do men have to juggle the multiple competing demands that women do in full time positions. Who hasn’t been racked with guilt at having to send a child into daycare when you know they are not 100% or be torn between finishing work and meeting a collection deadline half way across town. These are not decisions that the current Mayors of the Auckland region need to face. Therefore women are often forced to leave their political careers until after the bulk of the child raising commitments are met. Starting to build such a career also means that you don’t have the experience or credibility to influence key decisions and must spend some time paying your dues before you can compete with the big boys. Once you are seen as competent then you are also seen as a threat and the boys then close ranks and you are driven to using similar tactics to get ahead and in doing so you loose the very reason for being there in the first place – to put forward a different view and make a difference. I don’t wonder why there are so few women in public life who would want to deliberately go through that!
There is a common perception that young people aren’t ‘interested’ in politics.
Yeah, the voter turnout is appalling. I’d say lower the voting age to 16 and introduce effective and informative civics education to go with it, and put some serious investment into getting well-resourced teachers to teach it.
Just because voters above 30 years old turn out in higher numbers doesn’t constitute a greater ‘interest’ in politics. It just shows that the importance of voting and the impact it has on them has become evident.
I would put it to all those who run the ‘interest’ line that most people are generally not interested enough!
We should aim for more than a vote every three years. Until New Zealand instils an ethos where participating in their democracy is part of our culture then I’d suggest that we’re all pretty un-interested at the moment. Regardless of age.
Too many people shrug their shoulders and leave it to somebody else. Too many people are intimidated by the thought of going to a protest, too many people wouldn’t even contemplate going to a protest – let alone making a submission to their political bodies.
Too many people vote National.. lol.
As for women – thank goodness you were encouraging them to stand, Jacinda. People need to be encouraged, otherwise we’ll all suffer the continued representation of the lowest common denominator – old white men.
The answer is simple. Women often have different priorities from men. The same reason why there are fewer women partners in law firms, CEOs, Directorships.
Often very capable women will rather have children and raise a family rather than sacrifice their personal life for the push and shove of politics, or senior management. Also they now choose careers where they can still be successful, but in a different way. For instance I understand over 50% ofDoctors (and vets) are female. I am sure the % of female students at University is greater than 50%. So there is not a capability issue.
See where you’re coming from, but being from Auckland, I’d quite like the local government to concentrate on core business because, to be honest, they don’t even seem capable of getting this right! The road outside my house is hotpatched every four months or so, when common sense would dictate that fixing it properly once and for all would make more sense, both on a practical and fiscal level. Rubbish collection? Don’t get me started on that! lol.
I was one of the young people once that was interested in local politics. I think, looking back, that there is a degree of selfishness involved (not in a negative way!), in that, yes, they’re mainly interested in things that affect them predominately. Thing is, someone’s still gotta do the drudge work behind the scenes, but getting them interested in that is the challenge.
Funny, it just struck me that the same questions are being asked as to why Maori aren’t more involved in politics…
I would argue against the Boys Club line though, insofar as I see that changing, albeit slowly. I don’t think it’s as bad now as it was say twenty years ago, and it continues to improve. Perhaps it’s a reflection of society as a whole?
I find the “different priorities from men” a bit insulting. Women are not inherently programmed to want to stay home and make babies. Some want to, yes, and some men want to. The fact is that it is easier for men to have a career and a family. Women have a more difficult time. That has everything to do with what society views as gender roles and nothing at all to do with different priorities.
In the 1970s the Women’s Electoral Lobby was one group advocating for more women in elected positions (women have always been very active in politics behind the scenes, or more publicly in campaigns such as women’s suffrage, but not in elected positions). WEL had a campaign to encourage and support women into elected positions, as well as get on boards, as that is also where political and economic power lies. There were some successes but the main problem, on reflection, is that it was most effective for right wing middle class women eg Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley both benefitted from this support and pathway. The trouble with right wing women is that they climb the ladder and pull it up behind them so others don’t benefit, and then they join the boys’ club which actively discriminates against women. This is exemplified by some of the current female cabinet ministers who have actively worked against feminist ideals like pay equity.
The issue goes much deeper and has been expressed well by MP Catherine Delahunty ‘Gender equity will be when the refuges are empty and the mothers and babies are at the centre of the economy, not when some post-feminist women claw themselves in some high status jobs’.
Good discussion. I’ll throw in a personal perspective and one which I worry about a lot. A major barrier for many women entering public life is children. If they have children, as I do, it’s an enormous decision to make and one that has implications for your family life, whether you’re in local body or central politics.
And if they are young women, who have yet to make up their mind, or would like to have children, then that’s another major barrier. For many women, it’s enough to either put you off standing for politics, or to feel you have to make a choice between standing, or having a family.
Not good. And something that worries me. It is possible to be a woman in politics with children. There’s a lot more awareness of family pressures and the need for balance in your life. But it’s not easy. And unless you’re particularly driven, then it kind of doesn’t make sense.
unless you’re particularly driven, then it kind of doesn’t make sense.
That’s correct IMO. When you have young children politics is usually the last thing on your mind. Politics doesn’t really affect your day to day life all that much – it often isn’t anything more than that that puts women off, I would suggest.
“The stats for young people are even worse. In the last election, only 5 people under 29 years of age were elected to city councils, and 7 to district councils (based on a survey conducted by Local Government)”.
Perhaps that’s because Jacinda young people of any common sense are entering the workforce with the intent of doing productive meaningful labour to increase their net wealth so they can pay for the whims of politicians.
Anyone that young wishing to get involved in a full-time political position actually shouldn’t be allowed to. It’s just weird.
I think the answer is simple. Women are smarter and harder working and most local government representation is a joke. Women just have better things to do than sitting in pointless meetings that achieve nothing.
My two cents: It would be great to see a greater proportion of women in politics and I hope it happens. I do think that motherhood plays a part in putting women off, plus some people just don’t want to have a career in the public eye, and let’s face it politics can be vicious!
I don’t much care for the idea of really young people being in councils and parliament, I prefer to have people with the wisdom that comes from life experience. I think that organisations such as the young nats or young labour are a great way of giving younger people experience and the chance to see if politics really is for them.
By young, I mean 16-25, not a person in her late 20s like you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-women_shortlists
Most of our institutional structures like central and local government are set up to suit men – meaning those people (usually men) who have a lot of domestic and administrative help so they can shine in a largely adversarial, hierarchical, look at me, 24/7 type occupation like politics. However, many women prefer more collective community based work that takes into account their other responsibilities and things of importance like families and relationships.
Add to this a media and national psyche that assumes that the adult white man is the norm, and anyone else is variant. Look at the fuss when the PM, Speaker and Gov Gen were all women a few years ago. Now they are all men again but where is the media and talkback outrage? There was a lot of work by women to get women into power, set up the Ministry for Women’s Affairs, get NZ to sign CEDAW, go anti-nuclear, fund child care etc in the 70s and 80s. That wave of Helen Clark, Margaret Wilson etc has largely passed but there does not seem to be a group of like-minded women succeeding them, and it seems just as hard to get good women to stand, get selected and elected as ever. Jacinda, you are our new hope. Good luck.
Not sure what it’s like now, but definatley 20 years ago the main problem was without a doubt the old boy’s club. The only reason my Nana became the first female counciller on the council back home was because her appointment would throw the cat amongst the pidgeons (it was all very messy, the councillers were plotting against eachother). Nana didn’t know this untill she got there, and was met with an incredibly cold reception by all the men (except the few that got her there in the first place), and was treated pretty badly for the first year. Nevertheless, she did her job well, gained the respect of the councillers and also won every election she ever contested.
^I was just talking to her about it and she said it was the “old boy’s club” that drove her out in the end, she said although their opinion of her changed for the better, their old habits towards the female councillers in general did not. She just got sick of it.