Several female members of the Dominican Liberation Party demanded equality in the political organization and called for a change in the political culture of the population, in terms of the visibility and participation of women in party leadership positions.
Through a press release issued by the head of the Secretariat for Equality and Gender Equity of the PLD, Claudia Rita Abreu Herrera, they explained that last Monday, a representative commission of women from the Political Committee, including Karen Ricardo, Iris Guaba, Margarita Pimentel and Lucía Medina, accompanied Claudia Rita to express her concern to the President of our party, Danilo Medina and the Secretary General, Charlie Mariotti.
The statement cites Article 24 on the Duties and Obligations of Parties, paragraph 6, which states: “Establish mechanisms that guarantee internal democracy and gender equality and equity at all levels of their organizational structures, establishing in their internal statutes the quota or percentage of women’s participation in the governing bodies of the political organization throughout the national territory and abroad, and in no case may said quota be less than the percentage established by law.”
Abreu stated that the communication was received satisfactorily and in complete understanding of the democratic right that women have to ensure more and better conditions in our political future. “Likewise, yesterday Tuesday, we were received by the Organizing Committee of the 10th Congress, Reinaldo Pared Pérez, headed by Comrade Cristina Lizardo, to learn about the communication in a timely manner and to create the necessary mechanisms to guarantee female representation in all the organizations of our party, from the municipal, provincial, intermediate committees, the representations of the different secretariats at the national level, as well as in the Central and Political Committee.”
She also pointed out that the gender quota, not the women’s quota, is seeking equality between the sexes, and therefore the stigmatization of the “women’s quota” must be broken. “Now, those of us who carry the flag and activism regarding the fight for equality are women politicians, because we drag a series of conditions of inequality rooted in cultural issues, pre-established roles, which are also reflected in the lack of visibility, precisely because of the lack of equal representation policies in decision-making positions,” she explained.
He also pointed out that it is imperative that the 10th Congress implement mechanisms that guarantee compliance with Law 33-18; for example, that for the selection of new members of the Central Committee and the Political Committee, in the voting systems it is mandatory to select no more than 60% of men or women, that is, that the system itself allows for the votes to be distributed equitably.
“These measures will encourage the membership to get to know the women who are running for leadership positions better, increasing their visibility and making women feel represented in leadership spaces. The reports issued by the Gender Board of the Central Electoral Board show that female membership in political parties is technically half of the register, that is, it is not a lack of women in politics, it is a lack of visibility, empowerment and adequate conditions that allow them to break with the obstacles inherited from the unequal society in which we live.”
The head of the Secretariat for Equality and Gender Equity, assured that in the recent document issued by the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development, “DEMOCRATIC CULTURE IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC”, the Dominican Liberation Party has 13.9% more female militants than the PRM and 19.3% more than the Fuerza del Pueblo.
¨The most interesting thing, according to this survey, is that female PLD militants are 13.2% more in number than male PLD militants. It is very common to question gender quotas regarding merit, it seems that meritocracy is a more arbitrary value judgment with women, since male merit is easily accepted and rarely questioned, while women are more prone to different types of political violence being applied to us, as indicated by the recent report of the Central Electoral Board on the Monitoring of Political Violence against Women in the last electoral process¨, she asserted.
She indicated that the circumstances that cause women to be left behind in their aspirations to occupy managerial positions are deep and the product of economic, social and cultural circumstances, which is why it must be assumed as a collective problem and a cause of the PLD, for which everyone must fight, very far from a sole responsibility of women.
“We invite all female politicians in the country to raise their voices within their organizations so that we can move towards a country with equitable and ultimately equal representation.”
