Why Count?

Record numbers of women have been elected in the past 15 years. Given this record of improvement, why are we still counting women legislators? We have five reasons for still counting the women elected to Canada’s parliament and legislatures.

1. We are still counting women in politics because counting continues to matter. Women remain markedly underrepresented in the institutions of democratic politics. On average, women only hold about 20 percent of the seats in Canada’s legislatures - - by this measure, women are less than halfway to political equality.
2. We believe the continued underrepresentation of women in political life reflects a democratic deficit. Half of the population of this country is inadequately represented in the political bodies that make policy decisions affecting our health care, environment, income, security and general well-being.
3. Political parties, governments and mass media do not recognize this democratic deficit for what it is. Women’s underrepresentation and the gendered leadership gap remains unresolved.
4. We wanted to make the numbers transparent and accessible to Canadians. Someone has to point out the scope and impact of this deficit. But counting women candidates, legislators, party leaders and cabinet ministers is not easy, as we found when writing Still Counting.
5. We are unwilling to stop counting women politicians because we believe many important questions about the presence of women in Canadian political life remain unanswered.

Still Counting is our contribution to enumerating women’s political successes, pointing out the reasons for our continued underrepresentation, and illustrating the issues and problems confronted by the women who do make it into the political arena.