Importance of women's political empowerement - Gurmai Zita

Thomas Maes
Importance of women's political empowerment
Overcoming gender underrepresentation
or the microphone
effect
Whoever participates in political processes, whether at the grassroots level within an
organisation or in public elections, can see it happen time and again. An election is held for a
position of some level of prestige, and the day of the hustings has arrived: the two candidates,
Ms A and Mr B, prepare to impress the audience, which is at the same time the electorate, with
their speeches on what their plans for the mandate about to begin are.
The audience is starting to fill up the room. Mr B takes up a strategic position close to the
entrance and chats away happily, to those with many friends and perhaps also to those with
fewer friends. “Well, I don’t really expect to be elected, you know, but we’ll see.” Ms A is sitting
near the front of the room, nervously shifting papers about and internally rehearsing her
speech. A friend of hers sits down next to her. “How’s it going?” “I think I stand a chance, just
need to pull off this speech thing. Still need to rehearse a bit.” The start time of the meeting
comes and goes. No sign of the hustings’s chair, well-respected veteran Mr C, who held the
position for many years in the 1990s. Meanwhile, a group of vaguely rowdy yet friendly young
people known as the “Mr B appreciation society” enters the room and fills up one of the back
corners. They rehearse the playfully joking chant they came up with in the pub last night, “Can’t
you see, vote for B!” It doesn’t do much good for Ms A’s nerves, whose handful of tenacious
friends have meanwhile frantically started waving their hand-made “Change the world, vote A”
placards.
Minutes pass, without a sign of Mr C. The room’s technician noisily swaggers up to the front
and tests the microphone on the prominently installed speakers’ desk: “Test, 1, 2, 3, Test.” The
microphone whistles and pops annoyingly, the technician proclaims that the microphone is “a
bit wonky” but it’ll have to do. Mr B claps the technician on the shoulder, don’t worry.
Finally, half an hour after the start time of the meeting, Mr C arrives. He delivers a long, boring
speech (fifteen minutes, but it seems like an hour to Ms A) about the cardinal importance of the
position and the glorious achievements of the organisation and previous incumbents, especially
himself, implicitly. He makes a lengthy fuss of praising both candidates for their outstanding
abilities, “what a pity we can only elect one of these excellent candidates”. But whoever loses
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