Evidence of South African political parties commitment to gender equality: women representation in political parties

Abstract

Despite the constitutional, programmatic, policy, and other mechanisms in place for the pursuit of gender equality in South Africa, women are still underrepresented in different spheres of life. This paper examines women representation in politics for the purpose of demonstrating the commitment of political parties to gender equality. This is a mixed method study that employs both qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative aspect scrutinises the manifestos of selected political parties and the quantitative one examines, with a gender lens, the number of candidates that represents each political party. It employs the politics of presence theory that advocates for female political representatives on female issues due to shared common experiences, and the likelihood of influencing decision-making in women’s favour, as well as the critical mass theory that underscores the significance of women numbers in politics due to the correlation between numbers and ability to influence legislative outcomes. The findings reveal that men were overrepresented in all the political parties investigated in this study and this was more pronounced in KZN and least so in the Northern Cape. Some political parties (DA, VF Plus) did not prioritise gender equality, hence they had no concrete plans to eliminate inequality. The EFF and ANC manifestos had the highest number of gender-related undertakings to address gender inequality, GBV, and rape.