In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory, a survey unveils deep concerns over the future of women’s rights, reproductive autonomy and gender equality in the US
In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s electoral victory for the second term, a prominent US daily conducted a survey among more than five thousand women voters for their reactions. A majority of them expressed concerns about the erosion of ‘rights’, and ‘their reproductive future’, and aired an array of emotions such as ‘sadness,’ ‘scariness’, ‘disappointment’, ‘hurtfulness’, ‘betrayal’ and ‘heartbreaking’. Comments of some first-time voters also denoted despair, as many of them felt that their voices were ‘more silenced than ever’ and that they had been ‘left empty-handed’. While a 36-year old woman rued that ‘it is clear that men wanted to hold onto power… sexism won this election’.
While, another leading US daily attributed Harris’s defeat to her greater emphasis on issues like ‘abortion rights’ and the ‘protection of democracy,’ and for not paying adequate attention to the state of the economy or immigration, which many Americans viewed as the most pressing issues.
Harris, on the other hand, in her concession speech urged her supporters to ‘remain vigilant’ and keep fighting for their values. Nevertheless, many non-profits working for reproductive freedom urged Democrats to ‘developing a long-term plan to directly confront the sexism - both within their party and the nation - that hampered, both Harris and Hillary Clinton’, the only women to win a major party’s presidential nomination. In the US, women occupied 28 per cent of congressional seats in 2023, while Democrats had an edge over the Republicans, with 41 per cent of seats, and Republicans with only 15.4 per cent of members.
Women are 32.7 per cent of all state legislators, 48 per cent of Democrats and 20 per cent of Republicans. Democratic women are at or above parity with Democratic men in 26 state legislatures. While Republican women fall short of parity with Republican men in all states, holding one-third or less of Republican seats in 47 state legislatures. Studies commented that prevailing beliefs and attitudes about gender roles in the parties control political representation, and more traditional perceptions among conservatives persist that ‘women’s success is at the expense of men’ (Centre for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University). However, it is not the USA alone that didn’t ever elect a woman in the highest political office, but, several most socially and economically advanced countries like Sweden, despite having a good record of women’s representation in most institutions, 47.5 per cent in Parliament and 54.5 per cent in the council of ministers, has never had a woman as a Prime Minister. Countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have only closed 15 per cent of a hypothetical 100 per cent gender gap in political empowerment (WEF). While India, the largest democracy, has a scant presence of women (13.62 per cent) in the current Lok Sabha.
Last year a law was passed, reserving one-third of seats in Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for women, but, its implementation stands postponed till the process of delimitation of constituencies is over. India did have a woman Prime Minister and two women Presidents. But, deep structural and systemic difficulties (Raje, 2019), created women’s poor representation, resulting in ‘a democratic deficit’ in governance and decision-making (Rahman and Rao, 2004). India ensured women’s participation in the rural-urban local bodies since the early 90s, yet, several surveys found that a majority of women elected representatives reported ‘gender-based discrimination,’ and in many places, their male relatives, especially husbands, played ‘proxy’ roles.While explaining reasons for this uneven power equation in politics, studies (Fox and Lawless, 2004) explicated that there is a ‘gender gap in ambition’, as many eligible women with the required professional and economic credentials as political candidates, often feel ‘less encouraged to run for executive offices and tend to believe that they are less qualified for such offices than men’.
Evidence also suggests that women’s political careers are often influenced by ‘family and relational considerations’, and if they face higher costs for their career achievements, they shy away from pursuing such objectives. At the same time, other researchers pointed out voters’ bias and discrimination which matter quantitatively in women’s electoral prospects. Even political party leaders, act as gate-keepers, if they are aware of voters’ bias against women, and are inclined to promote male candidates, rather than female contenders, as a votes-maximising strategy (Esteve-Volart and Bagues (2012). Nevertheless, data from the latest wave of the World Value Survey ( 2017-2020), in Western Europe found that less than 20 per cent of survey respondents express agreement with the statement ‘Men make better political leaders than women do’.
Now, what is the way out? The introduction of gender quotas in candidate lists in different countries like Sweden (Besley et al., 2017) is more or less effective in empowering women, and improving the ‘quality’ of the elected politicians, particularly by regulating the composition of candidate lists (Campa and Hauser, 2020). Many also suggested that a combined politico-economic strategy that emphasises women’s inclusion in the labour market, and the re-distribution of economic roles within couples, could change gender-role attitudes and help women to make entry into positions of political power (Folke and Rickne, 2020 and Campa and Serafinelli, 2019). As the world remains deeply entrenched in patriarchal mindset, sexism and gendered divisions of labour, women’s share as chief political executive is still outnumbered by men by more than 9 to 1.
(The author is former Director General Doordarshan, All India Radio; views are personal)
