Assessment of the Phenomenon of Gender Inequality in the Kwara State House of Assembly, Ilorin Nigeria (1999-2015)
[Thesis]
Adeshewa, Fawuyi Adekunle
Ambali, Abdulrauf
Kwara State University (Nigeria)
2019
127 p.
M.S.
Kwara State University (Nigeria)
2019
Nigeria is a patriarchal society characterized by discrimination against women exclusion inequality and impunity. These features are also reflected in its politics especially, as they relate to issues of gender imbalance in the parliament. Consequently, this study examines the extent of the need for full participation of women in democratic governance; an issue that has received minimal consideration in the Nigerian polity especially in Kwara State. It further presents various strategies that can be applied by both government and/or decision makers and women themselves for full integration of women into the mainstream of politics in Nigeria and Kwara State in particular. It is appropriate to focus on this important aspect of development in the Nigerian polity. The issue of gender inequality in Kwara State House of Assembly has been linked with patriarchal domination, religious belief and poor financial capacity of the women to compete with men in the political arena. And Classic Democratic theory was used for proper analysis, prediction and interpretation of this study. In pursuit of the above goals of the study, questionnaires were administered to residents of the selected Local Governments in Kwara State. The responses from the questionnaires were analyzed using simple percentage and frequency tables for proper clarification. The study found out that many factors/constraints affected full participation of women in Kwara State politics, such as situational constraints which characterizes the average woman's life space as replete with the roles of mother and home-maker which end up isolating women from full access to important resources necessary for political action, structural constraints which argues that important societal institutions such as economy, education and law assigned to the female, positions which cripple the woman when compared with more robust positions assigned to man and socialization difference of male and female to see political activities as a male role. Based on these findings, the study recommends government should commit itself to establishing the goal of gender balance in governmental bodies and committee.