This briefing paper explores the opinions of Malawian adults on women’s political leadership ability. Existing literature contends that people hold opinions in the form of “stereotypes” that have potentially negative implications for women candidates, especially when they are running for national office. Stereotypes reflect perceived rather than real traits of an individual. These perceptions, however, shape how the people holding them interact with those being viewed; they may result in misconceptions, misjudgments and ascriptions of character based on wrong information or hasty generalizations.
Literature shows that voters tend to correlate specific personality traits with each gender, and during elections they may employ these stereotypes when determining who to support for political office. Generally, typical gender stereotypes are thought to work against women who are running for office. However using data from the Afrobarometer Round 5 survey from Malawi, the findings reveal a departure from this pattern.
This briefing paper demonstrates that Malawian adults interviewed in this survey do not appear to be deterred from voting for women by gender stereotypes. This may explain why there is a significant increase in the number of women winning elections to become Members of Parliament in Malawi.
Key findings:
- Although women’s representation in the Malawian legislature is below even the first SADC threshold of 30%, let alone the 2009 SADC 50/50 Gaborone Declaration standard, the number of women participating in parliamentary elections and making it to parliament through the ballot box has been increasing significantly. Moreover, at 22%, Malawian women’s representation in parliament is actually among the top countries in Africa among those using first-past-the post electoral systems.
- Malawi is in the top five in the SADC rankings. Thus the fact that women’s representation in Parliament for 2009 went up to 22% from 14% in 2004 is a significant achievement considering that Malawi has no affirmative action of any kind for ensuring women’s access to the National Assembly. In fact, there has been very little room for women to progress rapidly in politics in countries with first past the post systems as there is no guarantee that even if you field women they will win.
- The findings presented in this brief reveal important conclusions to be made with regard to Malawian adults’ views on women becoming political leaders just like men. First, negative stereotypes of women do not seem to have influenced the attitudes of Malawian adults regarding women’s suitability for political leadership. As the brief has shown, a significant majority of respondents are of the view that women should have the same chance of being elected to political office as men. This observation applies irrespective of one’s location or gender.
- Being from a rural area is not associated with more negative views about women’s political leadership credentials. However, being more educated is related to stronger support for women’s right to serve as political leaders. Since the 2012 findings are quite similar to those from the 2005 survey when both the President and Vice President were men, it does not appear that these findings are driven by the fact that Malawi’s first female president had just taken office when the 2012 survey was conducted.
- Existing studies may therefore be over-emphasizing the influence of stereotypes in determining attitudes toward political leadership by women. These expectations have not been supported by findings of the Afrobarometer 2012 survey.
This briefing paper recommends a follow up qualitative study that will focus on areas where women stood for the 2009 elections and lost, and aim at finding out from respondents why they did or did not vote for women candidates. The findings from such a follow up study would help in targeting actions towards further improving women’s representation towards the 50% target starting with the 2014 elections.
