Women have made significant political progress over the past century, gaining the right to vote and winning parliamentary seats in almost all countries.
However, they remain underrepresented, especially in the highest positions.
Here are four eye-opening facts about women in politics.
1. Women gained the right to vote almost everywhere
Until the 20th century, very few women had the right to vote, but by the end of the century that all changed and then suddenly very few women didn't have the right to vote.
Some countries continued to catch up only in this century, with the latest to do so, Saudi Arabia, allowing women the right to vote in local elections in 2015. (The country does not hold national elections.)
According to the UN, this meant that women in every country had the legal right to vote.
However, Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, recently stripped women of their political rights.
"Afghan women gained the right to vote more than a century ago, yet today, under Taliban rule, they are virtually erased from public life," says UN Women, the United Nations agency dedicated to gender equality and women's empowerment.
"No Afghan woman currently holds any significant political position at the national or provincial level."
Until the mid-19th century, universal suffrage was rare even for men, but although they began to gain the right to vote in some countries, women remained largely excluded from elections.
New Zealand became the first country to give women full suffrage in 1893.
(Although it was a British colony, it was already self-governing.)
By the start of World War II, men had the right to vote in a third of countries, while women had it in only a sixth, according to Bastian Here, project leader at the British NGO Data Lab for World Change.
"The gap began to narrow rapidly in the decades after World War II, when discrimination against women in voting rights ended in many countries, and both women and men gained the right to vote in many others," says Here.
In many African countries, women's suffrage was introduced after independence.
In some other countries, restrictions remained for a surprisingly long time: many black women (and men) in the US did not have the right to vote until 1965, while women were not allowed to vote in federal elections in Switzerland until 1971.
Black women in South Africa were first allowed to vote in 1993.
But the right to vote on paper and the ability to exercise those rights are two different things.
"In some countries or regions, women have the legal right to vote, but they are prevented from doing so by social norms, harassment and violence at polling stations, or pressure from their husbands," points out the independent non-governmental organization World Population Review.
She points out that Egypt has a "seemingly common sense" rule that requires voters to show their ID at the polls.
But women are less likely than men to have a valid ID card, and if they do, it may be with their husbands, who therefore have control over whether they vote or not.
2. Women make up the majority in parliament in only three countries
Until the early 20th century, women were completely excluded from national parliaments, according to the Swedish project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem).
Finland was the first country in the world to elect members of parliament in 1907.
As for the rest of the world, women's participation in politics increased rather slowly thereafter, but the rate of progress accelerated in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
In 2008, the Rwandan parliament became the first in the world to have a female majority.
Today, only three of the 193 UN member states – Rwanda, Cuba and Nicaragua – have parliaments in which women hold more than 50 percent of seats, according to the Women's Power Index, run by the Women and Foreign Policy program at the US think tank the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
According to this index, three other countries – Mexico, Andorra and the United Arab Emirates – have achieved a 50/50 gender split in their legislatures.
"Of the top six countries, five have legal quotas enacted to promote greater representation of women in their upper/lower houses," says Noel James of the CFR Women's Power Index.
Cuba is the only one that doesn't have it.
According to James, Rwanda's success in achieving gender equality is rooted in the 1994 genocide, when women remained a majority in the population and were involved in the country's reconstruction efforts.
Good access to education for girls was an additional factor, says James.
Although the United Arab Emirates parliament must be made up of 50 percent women, half are elected and half are appointed – and only about half of the country's citizens had the right to vote in the last election.
UN Women says women running for office face challenges in many countries.
"Harmful norms and gender-based violence hinder women's political rights, and stereotypes in the media only reinforce the idea that women are less legitimate and capable as leaders than men," the agency says.
Political parties often resist choosing women as candidates, she adds.
The agency also points out that women often lack access to "financial networks and political patronage," which can exclude them from politics, it says, especially in developing countries.
Currently, eight countries have no women at all in their national legislatures: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Yemen and Tuvalu.
3. Women lead less than 15 percent of countries
As of December 1, 2024, only 26 out of 193 countries had a woman as head of state or government, which is less than 15 percent of the world's countries, according to the Women's Power Index.
And there are only 15 countries where women hold half or more of the government positions.
4. Since 1946, 80 countries have had a woman as their leader.
Since 1946, 80 countries – roughly 40 percent – have had a woman head of state or government, according to the Women's Power Index.
These were all monarchs who inherited power until Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became the world's first democratically elected female prime minister in 1960.
"Since then, many more countries have had a woman as their chief executive, a trend driven largely by democracies," Here points out.
However, women remain in a convincing numerical minority compared to men in the highest positions.
"At any given point in history, almost all political leaders have still been men," adds Here.
Why is women's representation important?
Studies show that the presence of more women in political positions brings positive changes.
A 2021 study from the University of Colorado-Boulder found that when women become more influential in national legislatures, countries tend to invest more in education and health.
Likewise, a 2020 study by the University of Cambridge linked the increasing number of women in sub-Saharan African legislatures to increased health spending and lower child and infant mortality.
And in 2019, researchers from Curtin University in Australia suggested that parliaments with more women implement stronger climate policies.
However, James, of the CFR Women's Power Index, warns that electing women does not guarantee these outcomes.
She argues that women are not a homogeneous group – not all will advocate for gender equality, peace, or cooperation.
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