Background Document - Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy

Another key factor that prompts women to mobilise as women is the pre-transitional
politics in each country. Though the circumstances of transition varied from country
to country, in much of Latin America women mobilised both as several groups primarily
made up of women and women organising specifically as women to press for the guarantees
on women’s rights and democratisation of everyday life.
In some countries as diverse as Argentina, Spain and South Africa women maximised
the opportunities presented during revolutionary transitions to democracy by mobilising
as women along women’s issues. In countries such as Brazil and Chile women
mobilised across class and party lines to ensure that women’s equal participation and
representation in politics and decision making is guaranteed during and post the political
transitional processes.
In all transitional processes the capacity for women to mobilise as women consolidates
women’s political clout and attracts the attention of predominately male political
actors who tend to then harness women’s support for their own political gains.
On the other hand, this can lead to the incorporation of women’s de-mands on the
political agenda if political actors begin to see women as a constituency worth co-opting.
The exclusion of women from the agenda setting and women’s concerns from the
agendas articulated by predominately male leaders heightens the political salience of
gender equality relative to other values. Too often, women’s concerns are considered but
not followed through in the actual decisions and in practice as women’s concerns seem
to have an imposed duty to “give way” or yield to other important values.
RECOMMENDATIONS
How women’s roles in transitional politics translate into critical actions and decisions
is highly controversial politics because those without voice are often ignored by those
with voice. In the face of such on-going challenges, the following multi-dimensional
recommendations if adequately implemented hold enormous potential to increase
women’s participation and representation in politics and transition countries in the
long term. In defining these recommendations, it is important to ask, how much are the
national, regional and international stakeholders willing to invest in women’s empowerment
and gender equality?
WOMEN AS AGENTS FOR CHANGE
´ Support for women to mobilise as women: Supporting women’s mobilisation as a constituency
is a key investment to increase women’s effective participation in transitions. The
support for women has to reinforce women’s capacity as agents for change and cultivate
robust initiatives to mobilise women as women. In order to ensure that the political spaces
opened by revolutionary transitions do not get closed by supporting women to seize the
opportunity offered by transitions to negotiate the changes to their condition and status.
´ Additional empowerment: Cultivating and reinforcing transformative leadership skills
among women through additional empowerment strategies that translate women’s presence
into critical influence and actions to engage from an understanding of women’s rights
as human rights and the broader democratic issues.
´ Agenda setting: One way to support women in transitions is to strengthen the defining
of women’s strategic interests in the agenda setting of transitional processes and institutions
especially constitution drafting bodies and electoral reforms proposals. The agenda
setting support should buttress the need for the implementation of principles and values
on gender equality and women’s empowerment that are written in international covenants
such as the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against
Women(CEDAW), which is among the most ratified of United Nations treaties.
WOMEN IN POLITICS DANISH INSTITUTE FOR PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY PAGE 42