Overcoming the gender gap in politics

Remarkably, twenty-five years into the twenty-first century, there remains an enormous “political empowerment” gender gap between men and women around the world, even as the health and survival and educational attainment gender gaps are nearly closed, and the economic participation and opportunity gender gap is on the way to being closed. The political empowerment gender gap—like the others, a component of the Global Gender Gap Index (World Economic Forum 2025)—measures ratios of women to men in parliaments, in cabinets, and as executives (presidents and prime ministers). On average, the gap is 25 percent women to 75 percent men. This is as true for Africa as for the rest of the world.

Of course, many of us know that Rwanda leads the world in women’s representation in parliament—and has done so for more than twenty years—with more women than men in its Chamber of Deputies. More than two dozen other African countries had 30 percent or more women in their single or lower houses of parliament in early 2026. The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) tracks this data monthly in its Parline Database (IPU 2026), providing an enormous service to scholars and practitioners alike. Until recently, there was no comparable central repository of data for judiciaries worldwide; this gap has been addressed with the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) new Women’s Representation in Judiciary database (womeninjudiciary.undp.org). Comparing women and men as judges and justices remains challenging, however, because of differences in legal systems worldwide—common law, civil law, religious law, and customary law. For African countries though, in recent years, women have made significant inroads as presidents of constitutional courts and chief justices of supreme courts (Bauer and Dawuni Reference Bauer and Dawuni2016). Similarly, tracking women in executives—as cabinet ministers and heads of state and government—requires extra effort. Whereas the CIA World Factbook once published monthly updates of cabinet members worldwide, that source has been discontinued by the Trump administration (Central Intelligence Agency 2026). For Africa, many scholars have created important databases of cabinet ministers—most notably Saaka (Reference Saaka2025a, Reference Saaka2025b)—but no central repository exists comparable to those for legislatures and judiciaries, save the annual Women in Politics map from the IPU and UN Women (2026). This discussion of gender gaps and data sources references women’s “descriptive representation” in politics—so how many women are represented. Some discussions of descriptive representation also ask what kinds of women are represented, in addition to how many women are represented (Franceschet, Krook and Piscopo Reference Franceschet, Krook, Piscopo, Franceschet, Krook and Piscopo2012).

For more than two decades, scholars and activists have also queried the impact of “more women” in politics in Africa and elsewhere—urging us to look “beyond numbers” (Karam Reference Karam1998; Ballington and Karam Reference Ballington and Karam2005). To assess the impact of greater women’s representation in politics, scholars have generally examined two types: substantive and symbolic. Franceschet, Krook and Piscopo (Reference Franceschet, Krook, Piscopo, Franceschet, Krook and Piscopo2012) defined both. The substantive representation of women’s interests refers to advancing women’s interests through the policymaking process, whether publicly or behind the scenes; it may be measured, for example, in terms of promoting or accomplishing certain policy agendas or legislative items. The symbolic representation of women’s interests refers to altering gendered ideas about the roles of women and men in politics, raising awareness of what women can achieve, legitimating women as political actors, and encouraging women to become more involved in politics as voters, activists, candidates, and leaders. For African countries, a significant literature has emerged that documents both types of representation among women members of parliament; there has been much less work on women cabinet ministers (see reviews in Bauer Reference Bauer, Yacob-Haliso and Falola2021; Nwankwor Reference Nwankwor2021). A few scholars have introduced the concept of sustainable representation—defined as a durable, substantial political representation of women (Darhour and Dahlerup Reference Darhour and Dahlerup2013, 132; Edgell Reference Edgell2018).

Maintaining the focus on moving “beyond numbers,” this review essay of three books reveals the significant roles that African women increasingly play in all branches of government—legislatures, judiciaries, and executives. This is not to diminish the considerable challenges that continue to undermine women’s access to appointed and elected office in Africa—among them unfavorable electoral systems and the absence of electoral gender quotas, gatekeeping by political parties, political violence against women candidates and politicians, biased news coverage and abusive social media, lack of political will among presidents with powers of appointment, and autocratic genderwashing. Afrobarometer surveys conducted over the years show that large majorities of Africans are supportive of women’s political leadership (Afrobarometer 2024, 21). As the authors and editors of the three books reviewed in this essay do, it is critical to make known—and to celebrate—the advances that African women are making in all three branches of government and the implications of those advances.

Tackling gender-based violence: Women members of parliament in South Africa and Botswana

Zainab Monisola Olaitan (2025) urges scholars to look “beyond numbers” in Women’s Representation in African Politics: Beyond Numbers—a call that builds on foundational work in the field (Karam Reference Karam1998; Ballington and Karam Reference Ballington and Karam2005) while centering the African context. Olaitan interrogates two forms of representation—descriptive representation and substantive representation—and the relationship between them, analyzing how electoral systems and electoral gender quotas shape women’s descriptive representation across Africa. Olaitan also investigates the relevance of critical mass theory and critical actors as a framework for understanding the concept of substantive representation. The book’s most original contribution, however, lies in her three extensive chapters comparing Botswana and South Africa, which analyze, first, the extent to which women’s descriptive representation has grown in each country recent decades—and why; and second, the extent to which this growth has produced legislative and policy outcomes addressing gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide—what Olaitan frames as substantive representation impact. Across more than fifty pages in Chapter Eight, Olaitan shares the insights of dozens of legislators and civil society activists from both countries to address these questions. In doing so, she broadens the terms of debate around women’s representation beyond scholars to include practitioners (xiv).

In the early chapters—covering descriptive and substantive representation and electoral systems and electoral gender quotas—Olaitan does not venture far from the findings of a by-now abundant literature on these concepts as applied in Africa and globally. Olaitan notes that Dahlerup and Freidenvall (Reference Dahlerup and Freidenvall2005) asserted two decades ago that countries may either take the “fast track” to more women in elected office—adopt electoral gender quotas—or take the “incremental approach”—eschew electoral gender quotas and instead wait for socioeconomic and other developments over time—to bring more women into political office. In early 2026, according to International IDEA’s Gender Quotas Database (2026), about half the countries in the world use some kind of electoral gender quota for their lower or single houses of parliament, including nearly forty out of fifty-four African countries. There are a few different types of electoral gender quotas and the choice of quota depends heavily upon the type of electoral system in which it will be used. The two main “families” of electoral systems are “first past the post” (FPTP) and proportional representation (PR).

Discussions of representation and its impacts typically revolve around the interests of given groups. Olaitan uses Schwindt-Bayer and Mischler’s (Reference Schwindt-Bayer and Mischler2005) definition of “descriptive representation, or representativeness” as referring to “the extent to which representatives resemble the represented” (25). In elaborating substantive representation, Olaitan references Pitkin’s (Reference Pitkin1967) idea of “acting in the interests of the represented in a manner responsive to them,” with an emphasis on “policy responsiveness” (25–26). Throughout the book, Olaitan nuances women’s substantive representation by incorporating the idea of “protecting” women’s interests. She does not explicitly investigate the symbolic representation of women’s interests, but she does refer to women politicians’ role-model effects. Adding the idea of protecting women’s interests likely reflects the nature of the interests that Olaitan investigates in the final chapters—gender-based violence and femicide.

When women have not been represented in large numbers, scholars have turned to critical mass theory and the concept of critical actors, as introduced by Dahlerup (Reference Dahlerup2006) and Childs (Reference Childs2009) and reviewed by Olaitan (103–13). According to these frameworks, there may be a critical mass of women in a legislative or judicial body—even if short of parity—that allows them to have greater impact; barring that, individual women may emerge as critical actors to advocate for items on a women’s agenda. This is an especially pertinent discussion in Women’s Representation in African Politics, as later chapters reveal, given that in Botswana—in strong contrast to South Africa—women’s representation has historically been remarkably low.

As stated earlier, the most exciting sections of Women’s Representation in African Politics comprise the chapters on the two case studies. Here Olaitan’s careful data collection and analysis come to the fore. She has chosen Botswana and South Africa as her two cases given that, in theory, both electoral gender quotas for parliament. Both countries use voluntary party quotas, but with important differences. Botswana uses the less woman-friendly FPTP electoral system, while South Africa uses the much more accommodating PR electoral and party list system. Moreover, in Botswana the ruling party does not have a voluntary quota, whereas in South Africa the ruling party does have a voluntary parity quota, leading to the strikingly low percentage of women in Botswana’s parliament and strikingly high percentage in South Africa’s. To uncover the impact of women members of parliament (MPs) on the urgent GBV and femicide policy areas, Olaitan interviewed forty-three women members of parliament and women members of civil society organizations from both countries, with the majority from South Africa. She presents her findings quantitatively but also draws extensively from the qualitative interview record. The interview excerpts in Chapter Eight provide a rich recounting in the women’s own words of their views and experiences around representation. Ultimately, Olaitan (213–14) finds that both of her questions may be answered affirmatively—first, electoral gender quotas have been effective in bringing more women into parliaments (fostering descriptive representation), especially in South Africa and, second, women’s presence in parliaments in both countries has impacted legislative and policy outcomes on GBV and femicide (a substantive representation effect). Thus, in looking beyond numbers, Olaitan concludes that more women in the parliaments of South Africa and Botswana have worked in the best interests of women.

In Women’s Representation in African Politics, Olaitan provides a valuable primer on the concepts and debates surrounding women’s representation in parliaments across the African continent. She grounds the review in two case studies that examine the value of women’s greater representation in two urgent issue areas—gender-based violence and femicide—that afflict women in both countries. In doing so, she adds to a growing literature that supports, with empirical evidence—in women politicians and activists’ own words—the case for women’s increased representation in politics across Africa.

Telling their own stories: African women judges

In African Women Judges: Storytelling as Judicial Freedom, edited by J. Jarpa Dawuni, firsthand accounts from African women in politics take center stage—this time from women from another branch of government under review here, the judiciary. In this edited volume, Dawuni combines seven chapters about African women judges written by African women academics with nine chapters written by African women judges in their own words—“voices from academia” and “voices from the bench.” Operating from the premise that “no one can tell your story better than you can” (xvii), Dawuni emphasizes “the importance of documenting the life stories of judges” (xviii)—in this case, a group of highly accomplished women judges from across the African continent. Moreover, the “stories” presented in the book blend “personal and professional experiences, offering a comprehensive view of the individual beyond the judicial roles” (xxi). Echoing Women’s Representation in African Politics, African Women Judges also “moves beyond the descriptive representation of women judges by highlighting their substantive representation and contributions to justice, equity, and the rule of law in national and international judiciaries” (xxi).

This is Dawuni’s fifth book on women judges in Africa; the other four are: a co-edited volume with the current reviewer, Gender and the Judiciary in Africa: From Obscurity to Parity? (Bauer and Dawuni Reference Bauer and Dawuni2016); a co-edited volume with Afua Kuenyehia, International Courts and the African Woman Judge: Unveiled Narratives (Dawuni and Kuenyehia Reference Dawuni and Kuenyehia2018); and two edited volumes, Gender, Judging and the Courts in Africa: Selected Studies (Dawuni Reference Dawuni2021) and Intersectionality and Women’s Access to Justice in Africa (Dawuni Reference Dawuni2022). Dawuni has also contributed many book chapters and journal articles that offer additional portraits of individual African women judges, investigate the substantive and symbolic representational impacts of women judges across Africa, and document the prevalence of African women in judiciaries, among others. Just as important as her scholarly contributions have been Dawuni’s practical contributions, in particular as founder and executive director of the nonprofit Institute for African Women in Law (IAWL) (https://www.africanwil.org/), established in 2015 to strengthen women’s participation in the legal professions across Africa and the diaspora.

In her work on women in the nationalist struggle in Dar es Salaam and on Tanganyikan nationalism as “women’s work,” Geiger (Reference Geiger1987, 3; Reference Geiger1996, 467) observed the historical “neglect of women” as actors in nationalist struggles and how few African women were “the subject of published biographical/life history work in the context of nationalism or any other aspect of Tanganyikan history.” Keeping in the vein of “life histories,” Dawuni’s work on women judges and the first-person accounts provided via their “life stories” is another step in recovering women’s voices and honoring their contributions. In the Introduction to African Women Judges, Dawuni describes “orality as feminist methodology” and “judicial storytelling as freedom,” situating storytelling as both a political act and a distinctly African epistemological tradition (8–11). Further, she elaborates on the interconnections between the personal lives and professional work of the women judges; she identifies a series of themes across the book, including early lives “rich in communal love, determination, and aspiration” (14), “pioneering” educational pathways (15), divergent journeys to national and international “benches,” encountering the politicization of judiciaries, experiences as expatriate judges, and challenges and legacies (16–24). The chapters written by women academics about women judges tend to be more formal, referencing legal cases and contributions to jurisprudence, while the chapters written by women judges tend to provide more personal details about their professional journeys, although there is considerable variation across all chapters. Some chapters conclude with discussions of challenges and recommendations. In many of the chapters, the women judges’ substantive and symbolic representation impacts are evident—for example, in contributions to jurisprudence on family law, human rights, the rights of children, and war crimes, and in serving as role models to subsequent generations of women judges.

Predominantly, the profiled women judges hail from East, West, and Southern African “Anglophone” countries. Those profiled by academics are Joyce Aluoch, from Kenya, on feminizing judicial spaces; Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza, from Uganda, on navigating uncharted waters; Reine Alapini-Gansou, from Benin, on service to country, continent, community; Yvonne Makgoro, from South Africa, on service to country and the law; Effie Owuor, from Kenya, on daring greatly, shunning perfectionism; Hannah Okwengu, from Kenya, on breaking judicial silos; and Mary Mamyassin Sey, from The Gambia, on the pursuit of judicial integrity and independence. Those who narrate their own stories include Nancy Baraza, from Kenya, on leadership, service, and judicial transformation; Tujilane Rose Chizumila, from Malawi, on adventures leading to the bench; Memood Embrahim-Carstens, from Botswana, on the journey from the domestic to international bench; Nkemdilim Izuako, from Nigeria, on the making of a transnational judicial career; Sanji Mmasenono Monageng, from Botswana, on building a judicial career; Monica Kalyegira Mugenyi, from Uganda, on providing a judicial voice from the East African Court of Justice; Aminatta L.R. Ngum, from Zimbabwe, on continuous education in pursuit of legal and judicial excellence; Amy Shupikai Tsanga, from Zimbabwe, with reflections on the influence of grounded experiences in becoming a High Court judge; and Margie Victor, from South Africa, on the journey to the High Court of South Africa.

For me, it was especially resonant to read the several accounts of African women judges. I recently undertaken research on women cabinet ministers in five West African countries (Bauer Reference Bauer2026), and in my interviews I encountered some of the same ideas expressed by the women judges. For example, the importance of fathers in encouraging their young daughters’ education was highlighted by several former women cabinet ministers I interviewed, as well as by some of the women judges—giving the lie, Dawuni (14) argues, to “the general assumption that the girl-child in Africa does not always have equal opportunities as the boy-child.” Similarly, Dawuni (22) emphasizes “collective solidarity and women supporting, mentoring, and advocating for other women,” as several women judges in the book attest. Former women cabinet ministers I interviewed also emphasized the importance of a “sister-friend” who would encourage another woman (“push you or urge you on”) in her political endeavors.

Fighting and striving for political office in Senegal: Is the future female?

In Teraanga Republic: Women’s Authority and Politics in Senegal, Emily Jenan Riley also focuses on the “stories” of women politicians—in this case four elite women whose stories may reflect the experiences of only a small minority of women in Senegal but which build on those of the majority of Senegalese women stretching back over decades (5). Using ethnographic research methods, Riley, a cultural anthropologist, provides in-depth, nuanced accounts of the experiences of four women—Ayda Mbooj, Aminata Toure, Mously Diakhate, and Aysata Tall Sall—who have served variously as mayors, members of parliament, and cabinet ministers, and who may have aspired to or campaigned for the presidency of Senegal. In relating the women’s stories, Riley foregrounds the context for their political activity—that is, the multifaceted notion of teraanga, a Wolof term with “shifting definitions,” encompassing hospitality, generosity, and honor. The book reflects years of meticulous ethnographic research by Riley, made possible by her proficiency in Wolof and French as well as her strong connections to a wide circle of women across ages, classes, and political parties in Senegal. Teraanga Republic is an impressive, audacious book that merits a much deeper review than a few paragraphs in this essay allow. Instead, I note the synergies among Teraanga Republic, Women’s Representation in African Politics, and African Women Judges.

Teraanga Republic is much less concerned with “numbers” of women in politics than the other two books; indeed, in this regard, at least as far as parliament is concerned, Senegal is already a continental leader, having passed a Gender Parity Law in 2010. In subsequent elections, women have variously occupied between 42 and 45 percent of seats in the National Assembly (with parity eluding them because women’s names appear in the even positions on party lists and dozens of small political parties likely send only one member to parliament—the male party leader). One chapter, “From Associations to Parliament”—about development politics and parity—chronicles how women’s associations ultimately helped to produce a class of women political leaders (78). The chapter serves “as a roadmap,” revealing “the rich history of Senegalese women in politics and, more recently, the pathway toward the parity movement.” (78) Senegalese women’s economic and political history, Riley notes, “has been about struggle and constant negotiations of identity and representation.” (113) The chapter shows how women’s organizing within the confines of development projects “gave way to the parity movement in part because it developed the leadership skills of women who directed associations,” eventually leading to the emergence of “sophisticated networks and state politicians” among women leaders (113).

Nestled within that chapter is another that provides brief “biographies of the women of the Teraanga Republic,” via excerpts from some of the longer interviews and observations Riley conducted over time with Mbooj, Toure, Diakhate, and Sall. For example, Ayda Mbooj, who served as the first female mayor of Bambey and as a member of parliament, and ran twice for president until her latter campaign was “invalidated,” describes politics as “doing development politics” (118), while also emphasizing the need to engage political parties. Or Mously Diakhate, who also served as mayor of her hometown and as a member of parliament, and who describes her path to politics as through her relationships with people and neighborhood women’s associations (120). Or Aminata Toure who served as justice minister at a particularly tense moment in Senegal and briefly as prime minister. Or Aysata Tall Sall, who served as mayor of the town in which she grew up and eventually as communications minister and foreign affairs minister, and who aspired to be the presidential candidate of the movement she founded but did not muster the requisite number of signatures (127). In her testimony Sall notes: “There are women in politics, there are African women in politics, and then there are Senegalese women in politics” (123). To fully appreciate Sall’s observation, which Riley repeats at least once, a close reading of Teraanga Republic is highly recommended.

The final chapters investigate whether Senegal is ready for a woman president and whether “the future is female”—returning, in both cases, to the concept of teraanga. This discussion argues that in Senegal, “especially for women politicians,” politics “is a much more complex performance of social relationships”—indeed a negotiation between the two—with the framework of teraanga highlighted. Riley notes that politicians like Mbooj and Diakhate “employ the tactics of teraanga—a style of governance that depends on the personalities of its leaders instead of serving as an abstraction of the state—while also representing and advocating for their constituents and their needs within the state” (214). Much of the success of the parity movement and women’s style of politics has been, Riley argues, “their ability to translate the practices of teraanga and the networks they build and sustain into the realm of state politics” (214). In the final pages, Riley suggests that her objective has not been to answer questions about whether the parity movement in Senegal has been successful, or whether women’s greater presence in parliament has had an impact on “women’s condition in society.” (218) Rather, her aim has been “to understand how women navigate the different spaces of politics that are often closed off to them and what kinds of opportunities these forms of authority allow them” (218). The book succeeds in this regard, though this reviewer would welcome at least an attempt at answering those two questions.