The State of Gender in Bangladesh Politics

Abstract

It is ironic that although women’s position in the central leadership in Bangladesh politics has significantly increased in the last three decades, women in general still form a group of disadvantaged minorities in the overall politics of the country. Women and men are not equally represented in the decision and policy making bodies in Bangladesh. For example, women are less represented in the political, legislative and administrative bodies. Women occupy an insignificant portion of the parliamentary seats. A few members of the Cabinet are women. Women’s participation in the local government institutions is also not equal to that of their male counterparts. Therefore, there is lower number of women in comparison to men in the power structure. There are many factors that hinder gender equality in Bangladesh politics. This thesis, however, mainly throws light to the policy level factors and particularly to the national women development policy. In this context, it finds three broad reasons which are responsible for gender inequality in Bangladesh politics. Firstly, this thesis has noticed that the existing provisions of the policy are insufficient to promote gender equality in Bangladesh politics. Secondly, it has further noticed that there is a gap between the existing policy provisions and its implementation12 mechanisms. Therefore, the extent to which the policy reflects in Bangladesh politics is not enough to ensure gender equality. And finally, some of the major challenges of gender equality in Bangladesh politics are not addressed in the current gender policy, this thesis has noted. This thesis has identified ten of such challenges. These are: influence of patriarchal values and culture on politics, mindset on women’s involvement in politics, unequal opportunity for political participation, unequal gender representation in political institutions, unequal access to the decision making processes, unequal political qualifications, unequal economic obstacles, lack of political commitment by the political parties, political trend to depend on black money and muscles power, and unequal domestic labor load. In order to promote gender equality in Bangladesh politics, this thesis has drawn ten recommendations which suggest that gender awareness raising programs should be launched, equal opportunity for political participation should be created, attitudinal change programs should be initiated, quota policy should be revised, scopes should be given to women for taking decisions, special training programs should be launched for female politicians, inheritance law should properly be applied, political parties must commit to promote gender equality, political trend to depend on13 black money and muscles power should be eradicated, and gender policy should address the need of equal distribution of domestic labor load. It is expected that on one hand, the recommendations of this thesis will help the policy makers of Bangladesh to promote gender equality in politics by addressing the unmet challenges that in turn will strengthen the democracy, preserve the human rights, ensure the effective use of human resources and bring a pace to the overall development of the country. On the other hand, the thesis itself will add a new knowledge and dimension to the existing policy discourse.