Women’s Representation and Participation in Formal Politics

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DAISY PERRY-06/10/2018

Despite the drive for gender equality promoted at the Beijing UN World Conference on Women in 1995, the Sri Lankan state appears to have taken little responsibility for narrowing the gender gap in political representation. Savitri Goonesekere explains this as a “non-recognition of the problem” while Kumari Jayawardena has observed that Sri Lanka has produced a female prime minister and president without confronting the patriarchy that exists across society. While these are credible explanations, the lack of progress in female representation is also part of a pattern of patriarchal  State dominance and its power to render feminist discourses silent.One result of this subordination is that there are currently only 13 female Members of Parliament out of 225.

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