Why gender equality in politics is slipping backwards

__________________

As International Women’s Day draws near on March 8^th, the lingering question of the milestones women have made comes to the fore, particularly in the political arena.

This is especially so because the year 2025 was meant to be a landmark. Thirty years after the Beijing Declaration set out a global roadmap for gender equality, many expected political leadership to look very different. Instead, new data suggests the world has stalled, and in some places, slipped backwards.

According to the latest Women in Politics map released by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women, men still dominate global politics by a wide margin. Across executive and legislative roles, they outnumber women by more than three to one.

At the parliamentary level, progress has slowed to a crawl. Women now hold 27.2 percent of seats worldwide, up just 0.3 percentage points from last year. In government, representation has actually declined, falling by 0.4 percentage points.

“This should concern anyone who cares about democracy,” said IPU President Tulia Ackson. “The glacial pace of progress in women's parliamentary representation is alarming. The health of our democracies depends on it.”

The data reveals stark regional divides. The Americas lead, with women holding 34.5 percent of parliamentary seats, followed by Europe at 31.8 percent. At the other end of the scale, the Middle East and North Africa trail with just 16.7 percent women MPs, and not a single woman Speaker of Parliament.

Even where women have gained ground, power remains unevenly distributed.

As of January 2025, women head just 22.9 percent of ministries worldwide, down from 23.3 percent a year earlier. Only nine countries, but one in Europe and Latin America, have gender-equal cabinets. This is a sharp decline from 2024, when 15 countries reached that benchmark.

The portfolios women hold also tell a familiar story. They dominate ministries focused on gender equality (86.7 percent), family affairs (71.4 percent), and social inclusion. But when it comes to the most powerful levers of the state, finance, defence, foreign affairs, and internal security, women remain largely excluded.

UN Women’s Executive Director, Sima Bahous, called the situation unacceptable. “We cannot accept a world where half the population is systematically excluded from decision-making,” she said. “We know the solutions: quotas, electoral reforms, and the political will to dismantle systemic barriers.”

There have been symbolic breakthroughs. In 2024, voters in Mexico, Namibia, and North Macedonia elected their first female presidents. Yet such moments remain rare. As of today, women lead just 25 countries, and more than half the world has never seen a woman head of state.

The slowdown is particularly striking given 2024’s status as a “super election year,” with major polls held across continents. Despite that churn, the IPU’s annual report shows the slowest progress in women’s representation since 2017.

There are, however, small signs of movement. The number of women Speakers of Parliament has risen to 64 globally, and women Deputy Speakers now make up nearly a third of those roles.

Still, Martin Chungong, the secretary general of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, warned that incremental gains are not enough. “Gender equality in leadership is not a women’s issue, it is a democratic issue,” he said.

As governments gathered at the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women to unveil the new map, the message was unmistakable: three decades after Beijing, equality in political leadership remains more aspiration than reality.

Whether the next chapter delivers real change—or another decade of missed promises—will depend on whether governments are willing to move from celebration to confrontation, and from commitments on paper to power shared in practice.

Perhaps this year’s theme for International Women’s Day also points to the heart of the matter: Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls, showing that indeed more has to be done about women empowerment.