A Study On Women’s Political Participation In New South Africa

The level of women’s political participation is one of the important indicators to measure a country’s political civilization and social development. Almost all countries around the world are actively promoting gender equality agenda. In order to promote gender equality agenda, the priority is women’s political participation."Programme of Action" brought up at the Fourth World Conference on Women in1995requires all countries should reach a target of30%representation of women in public service by2000, but until now, most of the countries haven’s achieved this goal. Only a few countries completed the task on time. Women’s suffrage still can not get effective protection. Women are often marginalized in the political decision-making process, the development of women’s political participation is often slow. Only35countries around the world reached the goal of30%of the women’s political participation by2013. There is a long way to go from fully achieving gender equality. One thing that’s particularly noteworthy in the history of the development of women’s political participation, by the time of2000, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Netherland, Iceland, Germany and South Africa complete the task of30%women’s political participation. South Africa is the only African country took lead in the world with seven European countries. As a developing country with the history of apartheid, South Africa successfully transferred to a democratic country. With the historical change,women’s political participation rate went from2.8%in1989, to42.3%in2009after the election,it’s a huge achievement.2014is the20th anniversary of new democratic government in South Africa, in the past20years, new South Africa developed a constitution exalted principle of equality, successfully resolved the conflict of different races. The level change of women’s political achievements in the last two decades needs to be analyzed from two aspects. One is historical perspective, from this perspective we could analyze the background of it’s development, on the other hand, we should also see the constraints to further improve women’s political participation and political influence...