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The 2010 UK general election presented a rare opportunity to significantly enhance women's representation in the UK due to the larger numbers of vacant-held seats following the parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009. However, despite encouraging words and commitments from the main political parties, the opportunity was missed. The proportion of women's representation in the UK parliament remains at around 22 per cent, comparing unfavourably with countries as diverse as Rwanda and Sweden, and leaving the UK ranking 52nd in the global league table. Although there is no one single answer for achieving sex parity in politics, many factors can increase women's opportunities. …

The system of reserved seats with direct elections to local government bodies has been in place for women since 1997. This article investigates how perceptions have changed about the role of women representatives in local government. By exploring the accounts of women's views, experiences and how they negotiate various structural and attitudinal obstacles, and the changes in the wider sociopolitical context, the article shows that women representatives have gained greater voice and social legitimacy in representing specific types of‘women's issues. ’These gains were partly a result of the supportive policy directives and mechanisms created by the state. …

This article offers some reflections on how the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) theme of women and decision making power came to be translated into a set of policy directions, and what their implementation suggests in terms of their potential to challenge power hierarchies. The article draws on work from the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment programme on voice and constituency building. The article argues that the policy focus of the BPfA, after the introduction of MDG 3 in particular, became one of redressing gender disparities in representation in legislatures. Twenty years later, we are at a critical juncture in which we need to ask ourselves whether we need to go beyond numbers in parliament as a proxy for political empowerment, and probe into: what kind of politics, through which pathways, in relation to whom, to achieve what? …

Women activists, politicians and policymakers including international development experts are seeking to harness the power of the divine. The rationale is simple: if people are driven by faith, then let us use faith to drive them towards social and political change. This article problematizes the instrumentalization of religion, arguing that there are many risks in pursuing this route as a way of addressing gendered injustices. It also calls for a different approach to disentangling women's engagement with religion as politics, as morality and as personal piety, using women's hair as a case in point. …

In 2007, the West Africa Hub of the Pathways in collaboration with ABANTU for Development organized a three-day gathering with district assembly women to talk about their experiences in the 2006 local elections in Ghana. The aim of the dialogue was to create the opportunity for the local female politicians to reflect on their experiences in participating in the local elections. They were encouraged to link these experiences to their life histories as a way of exploring the meaning and sense they have developed about participating in the election process and how it may have empowered them. …

For many countries, despite their adoption of quotas, women's political participation remains low. Costa Rica, however, presents a success story in terms of increasing women's descriptive representation and, as a country which has tried a variety of quota systems, it represents a unique case study. This article looks at the processes which have influenced the evolution of the Costa Rican experience, and the struggle to achieve effective quota law highlights the importance of clear, unambiguous legislation that leaves no loopholes for those resisting its implementation. However, there is also a cautionary note that although quotas can be effective in increasing numbers, the quest by women's organisations to seek transformation can be co-opted by others leading perhaps to undesired outcomes. …

This article introduces an issue of writing on the ways in which religion enters cultural and social life. The papers in this issue concentrate on the way that Islam impacts on the everyday aspects of the lives of people in Muslim societies or communities where Islam plays a part. This issue emerged from a panel presentation on ‘Women Negotiating Islam’, about how women cope with the ways that religion enters their lives, and brings out the cultural aspects behind women’s negotiations of the positions made available to them and their struggle to carve their own spaces. The issue aims to show how women, culture and religion form a difficult and complex terrain in which our political and social lives are lived. …

In this article, Connell argues that true empowerment of women requires radical institutional change – a democratizing of institutions. She reflects on MGD3’s claim that development requires gender equality, arguing that much development is done with the subordination of women. She discusses the rhetoric of empowerment as being politically effective but also problematic in its simplification of the category of women, and says that in order for progress in women’s empowerment and for gender justice, men need to be involved. She argues that any worthwhile concept of development must involve communities, institutions and populations as well as institutions, and must have a sense of limits and justice. …

This chapter contextualises empowerment historically in Palestinian practices of mobilisation and resistance. The author draws on interviews and focus group discussions to explore the meanings the term has come to acquire in the Palestinian context. …

Alan Greig uses his experience as a development practitioner to reflect on the lessons that have been learned with regards to women’s empowerment, what questions remain unaddressed, and what the frictions, hopes and challenges are for women’s empowerment. He discusses the things that need to be considered more attentively in the broader attempts to ‘empower’ economically and politically, and offers his opinion on the determining factors for women’s empowerment. …

Meeting at a weekend-long retreat, the five women discuss what 'success' is for a feminist bureaucrat, and the challenges of gender mainstreaming. They agree on the importance of analysing and understanding the organisations they work for, and of finding opportunities to influence by 'working with the grain'. …

In contemporary post-conflict Sierra Leone, women have managed to secure 13. 5 per cent of seats in parliament – without affirmative action in place, thanks to women's groups' and coalitions' mobilisation and activism. While the political resistance to Sierra Leone having a quota was high, the women's movement has succeeded in forcing the political parties and the government to recognize that it is no longer politically viable to sidestep women's rights, should they wish to capitalise on women's voting power. As women's organisations, in particular the 50/50 group, continue the struggle to introduce a quota, the challenge for Sierra Leonean women is how to ensure that the quota project is not hijacked by the male-dominated political establishment. …

This chapter addresses the debates about gender mainstreaming, organisational change, and the politics of influencing, to which the present book aims to contribute. That gender mainstreaming is political has long been accepted, but for this perception to be useful it needs to be transposed onto a much more strategically oriented understanding of feminist bureaucrats' activism. …

Women are making a difference in their communities in Ghana. Decision-making structures must recognise this and support the entry of more women to advance women's rights and their empowerment. This documentary film entitled "Honourables" and directed by Yaba Badoe, shares the experiences of three District Assembly Women in Ghana. …

This scoping article gives a global picture of dynamics, trends, policies and mechanisms for engaging with women's representation in political office. It discusses the kind of affirmative action introduced, and where it features vis-à-vis electoral cycles. It describes and compares candidate and reserved seats quotas and shows how electoral systems influence the possibilities of challenging power hierarchies in politics. The second part of the article reflects on the extent to which implementing quotas have been effective in engendering political representation and the conditions that allow or inhibit this. …