Two groups of women – one based in Scotland and the other in India – recently exchanged views about gender mainstreaming in politics through a British Council video conference.   The title of the debate was ‘Women in Parliament – the Reservation Issue’, referring to the system of quotas that reserve places for women in politics. 

The issue is a topical one in India, where activists have long promoted a bill that would reserve 33% of places in the Indian Parliament for women.  In comparison, a quota system would not be permitted in Scotland, although the Labour Party has taken a formal proactive stance on the issue. 

Almost 40% of members of the Scottish Parliament are women (51 out of 129), but out of 545 seats in India’s Lower House of Parliament, women number only 45 (8.3%). Find out more country comparisons.

On the screen at British Council Scotland were Cathy Peattie MSP, Convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Equal Opportunities Committee, Edinburgh University’s Dr Fiona Mackay, Kate Philips of the Active Learning Centre in Glasgow and Louise Carlin, Vice Convener of the Scottish Women’s Convention.  

On the Calcutta screen were Ishita Mukhopadhyay, director of the Women’s Studies Research Centre at CalcuttaUniversity, former MPs Malini Bhattacharya and Bharati Ray, Aparna Gupta who represents North 24 Parganas and Bonita Aleaz, also from CalcuttaUniversity.  They were joined by members of the Women’s Studies Network, and six journalists.

Four of the Calcutta participants made short presentations on the position of women at various levels in Indian public life, and they asked the women in Scotland to describe their experiences.  Both parties praised the achievement of women’s movements in ensuring that gender equality is ever present on the political agenda in India and Scotland, but expressed concern that women in political parties were often in danger of being sidelined and seen only to represent ‘women’s issues’.

At the end of the video conference, the participants resolved to repeat the exercise, which they described as a valuable and mutually beneficial process.

British Council Scotland increasingly uses video-conferencing as a way of establishing and maintaining links with offices and contacts around the world. If you would like to learn more about our international networks in governance, please contact Lucy.Young@britishcouncil.org

Find out more on our work in gender mainstreaming.

The new edition of the British Council publication Gender Equality News has just been published. A limited number of copies is available from the British Council Scotland office; if you would like to see one, please contact Lucy.Young@britishcouncil.org