Women's participation in politics: a view from the Caribbean.

• Author: Moses-Scatliffe, Ingrid A.

Historically, the traditional role of women was thought to be one of domestic ingenuity; managing the household with the greatest proficiency without any prospect of upward mobility. This article looks at the recent progress women have made in politics, particularly in Caribbean Parliaments.

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Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, an American Medical Physicist, co-winner of the 1977 Noble Prize in Physiology or Medicine stated that "we still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home."

According to world population statistics, women make up 50% of the world's population. The passage of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, the introduction of modern democratic constitutions, enshrined with fundamental Human Rights and the need to advance women's issues, have laid the foundation for the emergence of women's participation in politics. But this struggle for equality in empowering and encouraging women's representation in politics is not void of challenges facing women politicians in the British Virgin Islands and the wider Caribbean.

In 1965, the first woman was nominated to sit in the Legislative Council of the British Virgin Islands, and it would be some 30 years later in 1995 that the first woman was elected as a member of the Legislative Council. In fact, two women were elected in 1995. Since then, there has been a continuous presence every four years thereafter of two women on average gracing the halls of the now House of Assembly as representatives of particular districts. To date, no woman has served as Premier in the British Virgin Islands. However from 1999 to 2001, Eileen Parsons served as Deputy Chief Minister, the first woman to accomplish such a feat and from 2007 to 2011, Dancia Penn, served as the first Deputy Premier. We are hopeful today more than ever, that the time is ripe for women's leadership at the helm of our Territory.

Regionally, there has been increased women's representation in politics, but at a slower rate than representation by our male counterparts. The Islands of Dominica, Guyana, St. Lucia, Bermuda, Jamaica and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago have been able to elect female head of states over the course of women's involvement in politics in the Caribbean. But the slow growth of women politicians domestically and regionally can be attributed to some of...