This was the title given to an interview carried recently in The Malta Independent, in which Brenda Murphy, a university lecturer and media and gender studies expert, gave her views on the role of women in politics and, perhaps more importantly, how the media responds to women in the media and how they are portrayed.

Dr Murphy has worked on what is known as a toolkit, titled Portraying Politics, to help the media reflect accurately on the role of women in politics.

It has been said several times that there should be more participation of women in Malta, not only in the political field but also in other areas of our social spectrum. Statements to this effect have been made by leading male politicians, and although it must be said that there has been some form of improvement, much more needs to be done in this respect.

Malta has six women parliamentarians, three on the government side and three more on the opposition benches. Two are ministers – Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono and Family and Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina, while a third is parliamentary secretary, Helen D’Amato. The three opposition female MPs are Justyne Caruana, Marie Louise Coleiro and Helena Dalli.

Six out of 65 may seem a lot when one considers that there have been legislatures with only one or two women MPs, but on the other hand there is room for more. This translates into just 9.2 per cent of the whole of Parliament, putting Malta in only the 103rd place out of 187 countries.

There have been suggestions in the past that there should be a quota of women in Parliament, but this “positive discrimination” idea was never implemented. And rightly so, we add, because women should involve themselves in politics and get elected on their own merits, and not because they have a number of places allotted to them.

The same goes for other “political” positions, not necessarily those in political parties, but in government bodies, authorities and institutions. There have been women and there are women who have filled up such posts with success.

The reasons which keep women out of politics are the same as those that keep many women out of the world of work. The mentality that the husband works and the wife stays at home is unfortunately still predominant in Malta, although matters have improved over the past two or three decades. Yet, the participation of women in the world of work in Malta is still among the lowest in the whole of Europe.

Added to this, politics is still locally perceived as being mostly a man’s business. Political parties still find it hard to encourage women to contest elections – on a national and local level – and this is largely a result of the fact that many still think that women and politics should not go together.

This should not be the case however, as women have an important contribution to make in all aspects of life. And just as much as women should be encouraged to leave the household and take up a job, so they should be encouraged to get involved in politics.

Of course, this should never be done at the expense of family life. The state, society and the family should therefore offer the right support to all those women who want to give their contribution to the political and economic scenarios.

Most of all, we should move more towards the idea of sharing family matters, with the husband and the wife distributing their duties at home to enable both of them to work and at the same time taking care of the family needs.

Added to this, there should be more outside help, if not from the immediate family through the setting up of more child care centres. Some would even suggest the extension of school hours to “assist” women in this regard.

The presence of more women in politics – and in other areas – would be an asset.