Women encouraged to step into government and politics

Female politicians in Antigua & Barbuda are encouraging other women in the country to consider government positions as serious career options.
President of the Senate Alincia Williams-Grant was among several women who spoke on the issue at Women in the Changing World of Work Squared, an event organised by the Directorate of Gender Affairs under the Ministry of Social Transformation, in commemoration of International Women’s Day yesterday.
In her presentation, Senator William-Grant, who was the featured speaker, cited Malaysian Minister of Parliament NoorAni Ahmad’s International Women’s Day address. According to the statistics in Ahmad’s address, there are only 9,000 women in positions of power in government worldwide.
“This only translates to 22 per cent of women in national parliaments today. The underrepresentation and marginalisation of women in other social groups and other minorities are not only unjust and unequal, but undermines the legitimacy of our democratic institutions,” she said.
The senator highlighted that women should not only be the “backbone” of political parties, but can and should be leaders as well.
“We are the campaigners, we are the ones [who] go and argue for our preferred candidates, but that does not define our potential and it does not limit our abilities. We ought also to be the drivers of these machines, the faces of the political parties at the highest level,” she stressed.
Williams-Grant added, “We should be in the board rooms, the drivers of entrepreneurial development and economic growth, just as the men.”
Minister of Social Transformation Samantha Marshall agreed with the senator and she added that women should strive to be in higher positions in all fields.
(More in today’s Daily Observer)