Political Disempowerment of Women in Australia

Running head: INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY SERVICES
Introduction to Community Services
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INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY SERVICES
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Introduction
The dictionally defines empowerment as to enablement, equipping or to invest with
power. Political empowerment is specially to invest with legal power which is designed to
increase the degree of freedom and self-assertiveness to enable people to represent their interest
in an assertive way. Political empowerment makes people to overcome their state of
powerlessness making them more influential. Political disempowerment therefore, is when
people are not motivated or enabled to become self-aware of the things that affect them. Women
have been underrepresented in national politics in most countries in the world since the old days.
Most of the people believe the role of women is in keeping the home and do not consider
political career right for women so women have been discouraged from politics since time
immemorial. Australian is one of such countries where women have been politically
disempowered. According to Heurich (2019), Australia has never had an equal representation of
women in federal parliament with men. There has been unfair treatment of women in politics
which is one of the reasons most women and girls in Australia have been reluctant to pursue
politics as a career. Example is the sexist treatment of Julia Gillard who is the only female prime
minister Australia had.
Women Disempowerment
The participation of Australian women in the government has been undermined with
women being mispresented in the parliament and executive governments. According to McCann
and Wilson (2014), the number of women represented in the parliamentary seats was one third of
all the parliamentarians and one fifth of all the ministers. Research has it the ranking of
Australian women in national government continue to decline with time compared to other

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countries. This number of women in government ranges at 30% which in united states is
regarded as the minimum percentage for women to make an influence in the parliament in
decision making. One of the reasons for low representation of women in Australian government
is the political disempowerment of women. The brutal environment for women in parliament
may be one of the contributing reasons why women and young girls may feel discouraged to join
politics. According to Mao (2019), there has been sexist bullying of women in the recent years
which is putting most of the women off politics. Sarah Hanson who won a seat in Australia’s
senate is among the women who faced slander by men despite her fight for progressive issues
and women right. They would mutter about her dressing, body and sex life instead of
encouraging her in the political career. Female lawmakers in Australia say that the treatment they
get can only be gender based since their male counterpart are not treated in the same manner.
Quentin Bryce is the only female in Australia to be appointed governor general since
1901(McCann and Wilson, 2014). Over the years there has been increasingly sexual harassment
in the male dominated environment (McDonald, 2012). Some of the factors that contribute to
disempowerment of Australian women to be involved in politics are: low level of education and
social economic status, believes and traditions concerning role of women in the society, nature of
electoral parties and the fear that they will not be able to balance between work and family
responsibilities. History has it that there are many pieces of discriminatory legislation that favour
men over women. Example legislation allowed women to paid at a rate that was 25% less than
the males in the same career until 1969. Women have been discriminated on gender basis in
Australia until 1984 when sex discrimination act made it illegal to discriminate on sex basis. In
one way or another all these factors contribute in disempower women politically.