Watch it on the NIICE Nepal YouTube channel

EVENT REPORT

A webinar was conducted on the ‘Political Participation of Women in South Asia’, featuring Dr. Soledad Artiz Prillaman, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, whose research mainly centers around the comparative political economy, development, and gender, with a focus on South Asia. She began her talk with a graphical representation of the Global Gender Gap in political participation, including electoral participation and non-electoral participation and that the gender gap in non-electoral participation was a lot higher than electoral participation in the Global South.

The bulk of her study focused on India, but Dr. Prillaman tried to include data from Nepal which showed the electoral representation of women in mayoral positions. The data highlighted the dearth of female representatives in mayoral positions, in contrast to higher female representation for deputy mayoral roles. This signified that women were accepted in political offices as long as they were second to the male leader. Moreover, over the last few years, there has been a steady decrease in women in deputy mayoral positions.

There are prevailing explanations of why women do not participate in non-electoral processes, such as educational and financial resources, gender-biased social norms that tie down a woman to the domestic and private, and lack of female representations in political spaces which curbs aspirations and contacts. In Nepal, lack of education severely compromises women’s selection as representatives. Furthermore, women in most societies, particularly in Dr. Prillamn’s study, are not independent agents with autonomy, and their political decisions are affected by societal coercion. Their political exclusion also advances the interests of those in power.

Dr. Prillaman’s data suggest that women vote, but do not participate in non-electoral processes because their political lives center around the household, the household collectively decides who to vote for – a decision made by the male patriarch of the house, and women’s votes are deemed useful for the selected candidate to come to power with a greater majority but their non-electoral political participation has marginal returns for the household and the people in power alike. This means that women’s gendered political interests are substituted for household interests, which are shared identity-based and often privilege male interests. A woman’s political autonomy relies on having stronger networks with other women, leading to collective women’s action. In Nepal, this is starkly obvious due to data on committees responsible for selecting election candidates, which consists mostly of men, and men who loudly propagate that women aren’t as good of a leader as men.

The chunk of Dr. Prillaman’s research rests on data on Gram Sabha elections and political participation in villages in Madhya Pradesh. The census consisted of individuals’ social and political networks, which highlighted that men discussed politics more often than women, but more importantly, men mostly discussed politics with other men outside their household, unlike women who discussed politics with people both inside and outside the household. This highlights that men seldom register their conversations with women outside and inside their households as being political. Moreover, the data showcases men as the center of political networks, while women are limited to the periphery, showing the gendered nature of political participation. As the study is conducted in India, caste is also shown as another important aspect of political participation.

Women’s autonomy from household chores increases their political autonomy, which often results from mobilization of women’s groups which expands a woman’s network outside her household, fosters a sense of solidarity and shared identity, and activates collective identity. India’s patronage democracy rests on the systematic exclusion of women, and therefore reduction of the gender gap in political participation requires ensuring women’s political agency.

During the final segment of the webinar, Dr. Prillaman answered several questions from online participants, sharing her thoughts on how the Maoist revolution has affected women’s participation in Nepal, the limitations of reservations in elections in increasing women’s political participation, the higher levels of education expected from women candidates implying higher hurdles for women to reach political office and the discourses surrounding women candidate representing or sometimes, not representing women’s issues for the sake of reelection. She wrapped up the discussion round with a wariness towards the narrative of Dalit women having less access to political participation, unlike other caste groups, as her study suggested that levels of political participation and gaps within this political participation do not vary dramatically between women from different caste groups, be it Dalit women, OBC women or upper caste women. She also reaffirmed the media and civil societies' role in bringing women together on shared issues, taking them out of isolation.

The event ended with a note of gratitude from the speaker, Dr. Prillaman, for the invitation to speak on her research, and her attentive audience for their invigorating questions

Prepared by Shreya Das, NIICE Intern