The 30% Solution

Last week, I listened to a guest speaker from Rwanda talk about the history of women's social and political influence on the country over the years. Today, it is the leading country in the world for female representation in government. Interestingly, before the 1980s, however, Rwandan women could not even go out in public. Nor could they even speak in the presence of men. The transformation of women's social standing in Rwanda is simply astounding! But how did it happen?

Unfortunately, the answer to this question largely has a tragic history. In 1994, a massive genocide occurred in Rwanda against the Tutsi people. This genocide was, in fact, orchestrated by the government. Military leaders were ordered to publicly rape and murder women. Even children were murdered. Citizens were ordered to kill their own neighbors. Within a few months, 1/5 of the nation had been wiped out.

The violence that occurred throughout the genocide was largely sexual in nature, in that it was rare for any female survivors to not have been raped. It was not unusual for someone to see a woman raped several times in one day, and do nothing about it. It is also not a surprise that most of the women who survived the killings were infected with HIV.

Due to this tragedy, Rwanda has gained a much greater sensitivity for oppression due to ethnicity and gender. The politics of Rwanda has also undergone serious reform. In 2003, Rwanda instituted a provision that at least 30% of their parliament needed to be women. This decision was rooted in the deliberations of the UN Conference held in Beijing in 1995. The deliberation for women's rights went beyond addressing personal liberties, it focused on the need to involve women in worldwide democracy and economic development. Speakers did not focus on the discrimination that women faced, or how to reconcile past injustices. The focus was on the strength that women could offer to make the world better.

In her book, Women Lead the Way, Linda Tarr-Whelan describes women as the number one untapped resource in the world. I believe that to be an appropriate description, considering that proposal after proposal for reforms are made in politics and business, but utilizing the unique strengths of women is rarely offered as a solution. In Beijing, the UN offered what is commonly referred to as The 30% Solution. In essence, to experience chance that represents and values the perspective of women, we need women in the highest positions of leadership. Women need to make decisions too. They determined that the critical amount of representation of women required to create a catalyst for change was 30%.

The impact of the Beijing Conference has been tremendous, and nations around the globe began adopting The 30% Solution. Today, at least 23 countries meet or exceed the 30% goal, and 101 others have created reforms in their constitutions and laws to enable progress towards it. As I stated earlier, Rwanda is the leader in female representation, with 56% women in parliament, and 1/3 women in the cabinet. Other leading nations for female representation are Sweden, Cuba, Finland, Argentina, the Netherlands, Denmark, Angola, Costa Rica, Spain, and Norway. In addition, the following countries have elected a female president or prime minister: the Philippines, New Zealand, Senegal, Finland, Indonesia, Peru, Mozambique, Germany, Ukraine, Chile, Switzerland, Liberia, South Korea, Jamaica, Argentina, Iceland, Panama, and Latvia.

How does the United States compare? Well, in 1996, the US ranked forty-second in female representation. Since then, we are falling further and further behind. Even more shocking to me, was the fact that Afghanistan ranks twenty-eighth, and Iraq ranks thirty-fifth. Tarr-Whelan reveals, "The U.S. government under President George W. Bush also promoted change by adopting hard targets for women in office--but only outside U.S. borders." It's strange that the U.S. would require Afghanistan and Iraq to create quotas for women in office, and yet ignore adopting such polices at home. It is pretty shocking to me that the United States of America, founded on liberty and the pursuit of happiness, is so far behind.  And they are complacent about it! I hear statistics rattle off all the time about how much the U.S. is falling behind in the education "race," and believe me, there is plenty of shame for it. But there is practically no recognition or shame for the ways we are failing to further women's rights to participate in making decisions for our country.

Several decades have passed since Eleanor Roosevelt made this observation: "Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression." Today, it hasn't changed much:

I hope it doesn't take a massive genocide like it did in Rwanda for people to realize that without female representation in our government, women will have no voice and no influence on the destiny of our country and our world.