论女性在政治中的可见性问题

Women and Politics: The Contestation of Visibility

西方国家的选举权史揭示了女性为了在公共领域得到同等认可而进行的斗争。在民主体制下,性别和选举权状况因环境而异,但要想赋予妇女平等和公正的权利,总是需要政府去干预性别议题。规章制度一直是为妇女赋权和使性别主流化的途径。人们通常认为马来西亚的女性政治参与度仍然偏低,这要归咎于父权制、权力的垂直等级制、女性的偏好和可见性等。然而,评估女性对政治的影响必须超越数量层面。本文的主要观点是:尽管妇女参政人数较少,但女性作为政党成员对政党的存亡至关重要,这对于性别影响的可见性有实质性贡献,必须得到承认。西方通行的女性主义概念也需要加以反思。

History of suffrages in Western countries depict the struggles that women faced in order to be accepted equally in the public realm.Gender and election in a democratic system varies according to context but gender issues always need government’s intervention in order to put value to women’s rights to equality and equity.Rule and regulation have been the way to empower and to mainstreaming gender sensitivity.Nevertheless,gender and political participation in Malaysia is still low.Factors such as patriarchy,hierarchy and power vertical,women’s preferences,and visibility are reasons for such result.However,assessing the impacts of women towards politic has to go beyond number.This article outlines that despite the low number of women’s political participation,the visibility of gender impacts has to recognize women’s substantive contributions as party members that play a vital role to ensure party’s survival.