The Gender Gap in South African Politics
"Increases in the parliamentary representation of women in South Africa indicate a significant closing of the gender gap." Is this a well-founded, accurate statement? In my opinion, this it is not so, but to substantiate this, one must first define what is meant by the gender gap.The gender gap can be defined as the inequality, which exists between men and women when it comes to social, and in this case, political roles. This gap has been present throughout history, with attempts being made only recently to narrow it. Women have up until now, and in many cases still have limited access to employment, education, health care and in the most extreme cases, life. Some statistics to back this up are as follows: In 1995, women accounted for only 38% of the labour force, with approximately 45% of children enrolled in primary or secondary education being female. In some places it is not unheard of f
A creche was established at Parliament to accommodate Parliamentarians and workers who have small children. This is not to say that there has been no progress or achievements in narrowing this gap. They are the Joint Committee on the improvement of Quality of Life and Status of Women, The Women's Empowerment Unit and the Parliamentary Women's Group. ------------------------------------------------------------------------**Bibliography**Neft, N and Levine, AD. All these examples and many more exemplify the fact that a gender gap does exist. Today, 27% of the national assembly seats are held by women, 24% of provincial legislature members are female, and 31% of Ministers and Deputy Ministers are female. "Male members of parliament are taken more seriously than women," says Ruth Rabinowitz of the IFP. " At the present moment, South Africa displays some of the highest percentages of women in government, although they are still far from equal. Having said this, I do believe that the progress made so far is great, and is in no way futile. It is clear that there has been an endeavour made to close the gender gap, but I do feel that there is a long way to go, and that the changes that have thus far taken place cannot constitute a significant change.
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