Female Politicians Plagued By Gender Bias: Study

Female politicians in Hong Kong are found to be battling a host of issues, among them sexism and under-representation, but the public is divided on whether a quota system should be used to boost their numbers.

In a study released on Wednesday on public attitudes towards female political leadership commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) and conducted by Chinese University researchers, gender stereotypes are found to exist on the perceptions of leaders' performances in different areas.

Men were generally considered more capable in security as well as economic and finance, whereas women are believed to do better in social welfare and education.

In addition, men were found to be more "visionary" while women were more "compassionate" and more capable with coming up with compromises.

Professor Jing Song from the university's Gender Research Programme said some of the respondents might not even be aware of their own biases.

"They tried to provide some socially-expected answers about gender parity and gender equality, but on the other hand there are some deep-rooted gender stereotypes or notions that may be they're not explicitly aware of," she said.

More than 1,000 members of the public and hundreds of politicians took part in the study from November 2018 to May 2019.

The study also found that women face obstacles that men don't, such as domestic responsibilities and double standards.

It also highlighted traditional sexist attitudes. The study said women "received unwanted public attention with a focus on their body shape and appearance".

Respondents voiced support for measures such as family-friendly polices to boost the number of women in political leadership. But they expressed reservations about a quota system. Thirty-five percent supported requiring nomination-candidacy lists to have a certain number of women, while 40 percent were against.

The figures are similar to the idea of allocating a certain number of seats to women in Legco, the District Council and government.

Still, Ferrick Chu, the EOC's executive director for operations, said it's important to make sure the make-up of the political sphere should reflect wider society.

"If you have a very diverse composition mix within that leadership position, because of their particular gender or age, they are more sensitive towards that particular element or factor, so it would better perform with the society. That's why we encouraged more women representation in leadership positions."