The first roundtable at the Spain-India Women's Dialogue on Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Social Impact focused on the role of women in politics and public administration. In Spain, the role of women in this field is much more substantial than in India. “In that respect, we have a lot to learn from your country,” said Karuna Nundy, advocate at the Supreme Court of India.
Over the past 30 years, India has made significant progress in women's rights and their participation in the political arena. However, women have not acquired real power (as opposed to recognition in name only) until very recently. The Indian participants in the session, including moderator and Chair of FLO Archana Garodia Gupta, political leader of BJP and journalist Shazia Ilmi and Karuna Nundy, all agreed that there is still a long way to go until women become truly empowered in politics and that specific actions are needed to make further progress.
During the session, several potential ways to achieve equality were discussed, such as improving the financing of political parties and the use of quotas, which were introduced in Spain after the Equality Act was passed. Yolanda Besteiro, Chair of the Spanish Federation of Progressive Women, explained how this system only applies to electoral rolls and not at the government level. She also added that there are still several challenges, as “women have reached quantitative power, but not qualitative power” and mentioned the fact that many of the women on electoral rolls are not part of the parties' structure, which makes them 'expendable' in the long run.
All the participants agreed that the quota system will help overcome discrimination in politics and other fields, but they also emphasised the importance of being better prepared for the positions available. “Gender diversity in itself generates wealth, but it's also important to have good professional profiles,” said Izaskun Landaia, Director of EMAKUNDE.
Shazia Ilmi emphasised one of the conclusions of the session: the importance of increasing awareness to bring about and entrench a change of mentality. She mentioned that women must lead the charge by becoming aware of their own value and added that it is not a gender struggle, it is about “moving towards a new social contract in which men and women share the same spaces in society”.
Education is an all-important tool for equality and access to it should be guaranteed for women in India. The role of women in politics could be crucial in this sense; as was mentioned during the session, it has been proven that women in politics focus their efforts on social improvements, both in services and infrastructure. This idea was backed by Karuna Nundy and Shazia Ilmi.
Karuna Nundy also said that, due to their gender, women have different skills and sensibilities to men, and part of their duty is to bring about change by using these. Yolanda Besteiro added that they can be less corrupt, materialistic and ambitious as leaders, as well as more cooperative, empathetic and willing to dialogue. All of these are powerful elements to make women in politics a true driver of change, as stated in the session's title.
More pictures in the Gallery
Agenda of SICF's Dialogue available through this link
Profiles of Indian panellists available through this link
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