Woman and Canadian Politics

Prior to 1921, hands were the solitary(prenominal) divisions of the Canadian parliawork forcetary agreement. With the offshoot Canadian women macrocosm pick out into the Canadian parliament in 1921, women stick had the top executive to participate and require elected into the offer of b anypark. Since then, Canadian womens participation in the business firm of common land has substantiall(a)y change magnitude from 1 womanish seat be ber in 1921 to the present twenty-four hours 64 lay held by women. Although this append is seemed as substantial, the regard about the underrepresentation of women in semi semi semi policy-making accomplishment has been a central topic of debate by politicians, scholars and the universal domain in Canada.Although it is widely agreed that representation of women in the raise of super acid makes to change magnitude, in that location be two fundamentally assorted views regarding this underrepresentation the informative mili tary position and the feminist perspective. The explanatory perspective argues that policy-making institutions should reflect the organization of civil society , mend the feminists perspective argues that, since women offer unique perspectives, their exclusion from political power hatefuls that their needs, demands, and interests would currently non be echoed in the political arena. However, finished with(predicate) the assessment of the definition of republic, and the evaluation of the feminists arguments and explanatory perspectives, the relatively busted number of women elected to the kinfolk of Commons does not mean the Canadian political ashes is insufficiently democratic. In influence to understand the underrepresentation of women in the Canadian political system, democracy must be outlined. jibe to Rand Dyke, the definition of democracy is, a political system characterized by popular reign, political equality, political freedom, and majority rule. Popular sovere ignty and political equality entails that everyone suitable to choose has a suffrage to participate in a final outcome, and an equal heavy vote. political freedom involves equal opportunities and rights to all. mass rule entails that when it comes to making a last regarding differences in opinions, the larger number should win. Therefore, democracy suggests that there should be representation for all genders and race, everyone should enjoy the equal opportunities, and everyone has an equal label when it comes to choosing their representatives.Firstly, women hold approximately 20. 8 percent of the suffer of Commons in Canada. Although this is an underrepresentation of the women universe of discourse in Canada, it is not undemocratic. Based on the definition of democracy as defined above, it is argued, and has been proven with the election of women into the House of Commons, that women concur equal opportunity to fashion a member in the House of Commons. Out of the Canadia n population of eligible voters, women approximately make up much then 50 percent of that population.With women property the majority of the votes in Canada, and an equal vote, it is pose that there are complaints regarding unfair representation. The feature that women lead equal right to men shows that the Canadian political system is democratic. peradventure the underrepresentation is not due to flaws in Canadian democracy regarding electing egg-producing(prenominal)s to the House of Commons, moreover mortal wants regarding representation. Womens traditional role in society has been to stay home and take a shit care of children as they are seen as nurturing creatures.The shipway politicians have been portrayed by the media are ruthless and powerful people. The passage of traditional roles of women verse politicians may be part of the reason the ordinary public does not elect more into the House of Commons. Perhaps if women involved in political sympathies became mor e involved with the media, to prove their authoritativeness, the planetary population would be more given to elect strong-willed, assertive women into the House of Commons.Secondly, feminists have argued that females vying for political nomination verbalism challenges decision monetary support for their nomination and campaigns. Although women face this difficulty, men do as well. To hold the financial difficulty of competing nominees the 1974 Election Expenses bit was implemented, and in 2004 notation C-24. The 1974 Election Expenses practice introduced restrictions to the measure that chances and parties could spend on elections, as well as gave tax deductions to sponsors, and uncomplete reimbursement to parties and candidates wining more than 15 percent of the vote.Bill C-24 introduced restrictions once again on sponsorship disbursal placing boundaries on who can sponsor and caps on how much can be sponsored, while giving parties subsidies for each vote they receive i n the last election. By placing these restrictions and caps on spending, the argument in the financial sketch became less of an issue. The facts that these barriers have been acknowledged and attempts have been made remedy these burdens, not only benefited womens likelihood to excite nominated, but made competing playing field equal.Candidates who did not find finance as a burden were restricted to a cap, thusly made it more likely that all candidates would have around the same amount of money to spend on their promotion. some(prenominal) men and women have to go through the same nomination process to become a candidate for elections whether they choose to track the legislative route is based on personal choice, not political inequality. Thirdly, feminists are concerned that the small numbers of women in the House of Commons means that womens interests and needs are not being represented.However, this can be proven erroneous through the fact that for a ample time the Canadian brass has loosely been based on the securities firm system. The brokerage firm system hypothesis suggests that since Canada has such a diverse population, in order for political parties to win elections, they must appeal to the masses. Since Canada follows the brokerage system, it is suggested that everyone will receive representation in the Government because political parties have compromised in order to gain their support. One of the ways the Canadian political parties have gained more support by women was by manner of speaking more into their political party.Since 1921 women candidates in parties have change magnitude from 4 female candidates to present day 380 female candidates. The increase shows that parties are judge women in as candidates, in hopes to discontinue accommodate womens wants and needs however, the general population is not voting them in. not only does it allow from more female candidates, but it makes it easier for Feminists to belong to a political party. However, more feminists in the House of Commons may not be the lift out strategy for meeting needs, demands and interests of women. Women rather vote for women as women rather then feminists.Finally, although the underrepresentation of women in the House of Commons does not mean that the Canadian political system is insufficiently democratic, it does need to be remedyd. Some solutions suggested to improve this underrepresentation is to look at the how seats pee distributed, quotas, and great promotion for women in administration. Canada bases their political relation off of single member plurality. mavin member plurality means that the candidate that wins the most votes wins a seat in the House of Commons no takings how marginal their victory is.This first-past-the-post technique leaves parties solely unrepresented, including women, when there is support for them. A pinch to remedy underrepresentation is to implement a mingled member system. A mixed member would e ntail that a portion of the seats in the House of Commons is elected by the first-past-the-post system, and the remainder of the seats are chosen based on comparative representation. Another suggestion is to place quotas on parties as to a specific circumstances of women must be elected. Countries such as Costa Rica, Argentina and Belgium have sub judice quotas as to percentage of women elected.A advance suggestion would be to create greater publicity to promote womens betrothal in politics. Promoting interest in politics may trigger more women to get involved in politics, therefore peradventure increasing the number of female candidates. done some of these suggestions, female representation in the House of Commons may increase however, this will take time. Underrepresentation of women in the House of Commons is a problem in the Canadian political system which does need to be addressed and remedied. However, this issue did not result because Canadas politic system is undemocr atic. finished the dissection of the definition of democracy, it was proven that both(prenominal) women and men are equally apt(predicate) to be elected into the House of Commons. Through the assessment of the feminist argument that women have greater monetary burdens, it was proven that competition for nomination and candidacy has been regulated through Bill C-24 and the Election Expenses Act to escort expense equality. And the fact that the Canadian government has been based on the brokerage theory system suggests that political parties would want women to be elected therefore making their party more appealing to the masses.Although the number of women in the House of Commons has grown significantly, females are still underrepresented due to then general publics decision not due to undemocratic functionings. move need to be taken to increase female interest in politics and the single member plurality system needs to be re-assessed to make female representation in the House of Commons more representative of its population. Bibliography Cool, Julie. Women in Parliament. cited 1 November 2006 Available from http//dsp-psd. pwgsc. gc. ca/Collection-R/LoPBdP/PRB-e/PRB0562-e. pdf Dyck, Rand. Canadian authorities Critical Approaches. th ed. Scarborough Nelson, 2004. 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