Browsing by Subject "Political Participation"

Gender inequalities persist in today's world and women face problems in many areas. One view is that the first thing to guarantee women's rights is to guarantee their political rights. By increasing women's political participation and their influence at the decision-making and leadership levels in the legislature and the executive, more female-friendly policies can be implemented and the gender gap can be narrowed. Finland was chosen for this thesis because of the relatively active political participation of Finnish women and because Finland has a high international index of female equality. The research materials are mainly UN documents and Finnish government reports. The Finnish material is drawn from Finland's follow-up reports to the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which are more continuous and reflect Finland's work on advancing gender equality over the last fifteen years. In addition, the thesis attempts to define women-friendly policies. Finally, this thesis discusses the contribution of women's political participation to the promotion of women-friendly policies, acknowledging its role and feasibility while pointing out some shortcomings and limitations.