INTERACTIVE: Breaking down barriers

Often women candidates are pitted against each other, like in GE15 which five women were among the nine candidates contesting for the Ampang parliamentary seat. came from respondents in East Malaysia.

In their 1998 paper"Trends and Forms of Women's Participation in Politics", researchers Prof Dr Rashila Ramli and Saliha Hassan cited the five main barriers women in politics face: Social discrimination on women’s roles in the public domain, time constraints due to career and domestic demands, cultural and religious arguments that a woman’s place is in the home, structural constraints within each political party that do not allow women to advance beyond a certain level, as well as...

Political science researcher Hazman Baharom adds that in Malaysian politics, women leaders tend to be relegated to policymaking in more"soft/feminine" areas such as issues related to"women and children", based on the assumption that these are the"domains" that women can lead in as opposed to more"masculine" portfolios like finance, foreign affairs or the economy, let alone the premiership.

"As a new mum, I too have experienced this sexism after I delivered my baby last year. People began questioning my ability to balance my role as a mother while being in politics. The implication is that I should be looking after my child. These assigned gender roles need to change, and we need to talk about and challenge this more," she says."We must be pretty and slim, not too young either. And, if you are in your 40s, you will be accused of not looking after your family.

Syerleena says that when she was a councillor in Penang, she didn't feel sexism or misogyny and attributes it to the good, empowering leadership of the Island's two former female mayors Patahiyah and Maimunah.

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