We're Number 71!

[Cypress]

*The United rank 71st in the world in terms of the proportion of women serving in our legislature, with just 16 percent. That's significantly worse not only than the European countries, it's also a poorer showing than Tunisia, Sudan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan. (High five to Sweden; swedish parliament is 47% women)

http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm


*Maternity Leave: According to Harvard's Project on Global Working Families, the United States is one of only five countries out of 168 studied that doesn't mandate some form of paid maternal leave. The only other advanced economy among those five was Australia's, where women are guaranteed an entire year of unpaid leave. That puts the United States -- the wealthiest nation on the planet -- in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

*Pay gap for equal work: According to the Wall Street Journal, women with similar experience and qualifications earn 16 percent less than their male counterparts worldwide; in the United States, the gender "earnings gap" is 22 percent.

[uscitizen]

But what the heck we are the greatest and freest country in the world.
Why do you hate America ?

[FUCK THE POLICE]

It's generally easier for woman to get elected in nations with party lists because the lists are usually stacked with women to make the list look more diverse. In direct elections, women never usually fare well. Plurality/single member districts makes it even harder for women. But still, that should put us in the company of the UK and Canada, and we're not there. It's shameful for AMerica.

[Damocles]

It's generally easier for woman to get elected in nations with party lists because the lists are usually stacked with women to make the list look more diverse. In direct elections, women never usually fare well. Plurality/single member districts makes it even harder for women. But still, that should put us in the company of the UK and Canada, and we're not there. It's shameful for AMerica.

UK and Canada use party lists.

[charver]

UK and Canada use party lists.

Not in the way Water's referring to. I'm assuming he means the Party List system rather than first-past-the-post system.

The Parties do put forward preferred candidates but they're selected by local constituency parties which, in theory, prevents the parachuting in of central office favourites. (The Tories 'A' list of preferred candidates failed to find favour amongst local members and was all but abandoned, although Labour have instituted all-women short-lists in previous years)

I know, i'm a bloody pedant.

[Cypress]

It's generally easier for woman to get elected in nations with party lists because the lists are usually stacked with women to make the list look more diverse. In direct elections, women never usually fare well. Plurality/single member districts makes it even harder for women. But still, that should put us in the company of the UK and Canada, and we're not there. It's shameful for AMerica.

I don't pretend to be an expert on the elections systems of other countries.

I don't think, however, that women's underrepresentation in legislatures in this country can be dismissed on the basis of our election infrastructure and rules.

There's a cultural and bias element.

More than half of california's congressional delegation is female. In contrast, in the deep south, I suspect you could count the number of elected female congresswomen and senators on one hand.

Same election rules and procedure, different results.

[Diuretic]

I certainly have only a very faint idea how the electoral system works in the US - but thanks to the primaries (?) I'm learning a lot about it.

I don't know what a party lists system is. I do know that here in Australia that it's relatively easy for an individual to get elected to a parliament (state or federal), they just need to put in the work inside the party to get the nod.

It's similar to the British system that charver has described (since we inherited our political system from Britain that's no big surprise).

We have had a history of early political gains for women but until the last few years it's been a bit patchy. I think nowadays we all accept best person for the job (but it's still tougher for a woman to get nominated because politics is a bloke's game here). Our Deputy Prime Minister is a woman (Julia Gillard http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?id=83L).