The importance of women in our global society

In most countries they continue to play a secondary role to men despite proving themselves equal to any task

Throughout history women have played an important role in public life, especially in politics, starting from Cleopatra, ruler of Egypt passing by Zenobia the Queen of Palmyra, to Queen Victoria, to cite just a few. These women are still remembered today for their great achievements. Indeed, they had succeeded in ruling their countries for decades in times of peace and war.

They even surpassed their male counterparts in many fields. However, and despite their prestigious past in politics women did not have in modern times the same opportunity to show their abilities by participating in their countries political life. Although, a number of women have held key posts in the 20th century, women's representation is still far from equity.

In 2001, women held worldwide only 14 per cent of seats in parliaments. In many countries in northern Africa and southern and western Asia, women hold fewer than 10 per cent of seats in legislative bodies. With few exceptions in a number of countries such as Rwanda, Mozambique, Vietnam, and Cuba, where women hold more than 25 per cent of seats and in Sweden, where they hold 43 per cent of parliamentary seats.

Moreover, according to a report of the UN Statistics Division published in 1996 women were also under-represented in ministerial positions, only seven per cent of the world's total ministers are women.

The report also underlines the fact that some ministries are strictly feminine indeed 14 per cent of women are appointed as ministers in social areas, 9.4 per cent in legal affairs, but less than five per cent in. economic and political executive affairs.

It is evident from these figures that parity in political representation between men and women still needs a lot of effort to be achieved.

Nevertheless, there is still some hope to reach such equity; in fact on May 2003 the Welsh assembly became the first legislative body in the world to have an equal number of men and women. Other countries are also on the way to achieve similar results: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Netherlands and Germany have reached until now a proportion equal to 30 per cent.

Women heads of state are also rare in the political scene; there have been only 16 women president since 1953, the year in which a woman became president for the first time ever. Eleven of them during the last decade from 1990 to 1999, in that same period there were 16 women prime ministers.

More to be done

This situation prevails also in international institutions and organisations, for example in the UN only nine women are ambassadors of their countries among them Finland, Somalia, Jamaica, Liberia.

Although, a number of women have acceded to Senior levels at the UN such as Deputy Secretary-General, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Director-General of the World Health Organisation and the Executive Director of the UN Population Fund.

In addition to seven other UN institutions, including among others the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) and the UN Volunteers.

Yet, this representation remains below expectation in fact it represents only nine per cent of the top management jobs and 21 per cent of senior management positions. However women were highly represented at junior professional levels where they accounted for 48 per cent.

All these figures take a different aspect when we know that women accounted in 2002 for more than three billions of the world's populations and that they represent 70 per cent of people living on less than $1 per day. Only one per cent of the world's economic assets belong to women.

It seems the process towards a more equitable representation is still long and complicated.

A chronology of achievements

- In 1893 women gained the right to vote for the first time.

- In 1903 Marie Sklodowska Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in physics and in 1911 she received it again for chemistry. She was the first to win two Nobel prizes.

- In 1918 Hungarian feminist and pacifist Rosika Schwimmer was appointed the world's first woman ambassador of her country to Switzerland.

- In 1919 in the UK, Nancy Astor was the world's first woman to be elected Member of Parliament. However, Constance Markievicz, representing Sinn Fein, was elected to parliament the year before Lady Astor's election. Countess Markievicz refused to take her seat.

- In 1924 Nina Bang became the world's and Denmark's first woman minister as education minister

- In1953, Suhbaataryn Yanjmaa, became the world's first female acting president of Mongolia after the death of her husband. In 1976, Maria Estella Martinez Cartas de Peron became president of Argentina after the death of her husband. However the first popularly elected female president in history is Vigdis Finnbogadottir, who defeated three men in Iceland's presidency in 1982. She won four consecutive terms until 1996.

-In 1958, Swedish diplomat Agda Rössel was the first woman to
head a permanent delegation to
the United Nations.

- In 1960, Sirimavo Bandaranaike was elected. She wasSri Lanka's and the world's first female prime minister following the death of her husband. Since that date 31 women have occupied that post worldwide.

- In 1963 Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova was the first woman to
travel into space.

In the Arab world:

- Women in Djibouti were among the first to gain the right to vote in 1946, and won the right to be elected in 1986. Syrian women got the right in 1953 but only joined the People's Assembly in 1972. Women in Egypt won the right to be elected to the people's assembly in 1957 but entered the parliament only in 1991.

- Hekmat Abu Zeid in 1962 became Egypt's first female minister of
social affairs.

- Farida Ibrahim became in 1972 the first Arab and Sudanese woman to be a judge.

- Aisha Rateb became in 1979 Egypt's first Ambassador to Denmark.

- The first woman minister in the Gulf region was Sheikha Aisha bint Khalfan bin Jameel Al Sayabiyah, appointed in March 2003 in Oman as minister of National Authority for Industrial Craftsmanship. She was shortly followed by the another woman minister this time in Qatar, Sheikha Al Mahmoud as minister of education.