Deck 5: Women and Development

Question 1

Which type of government (regime)has had the worst record,on average,of advancing women's rights?

A) Conservative democracies
B) Left-wing revolutionary dictatorships
C) Liberal democracies
D) Right-wing military dictatorships
E) Socialist democracies

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Which country has the highest percentage in the world of women members of parliament?

A) Sweden
B) Thailand
C) Cuba
D) Kenya
E) Rwanda

Answer 2

E

Question 3

According to existing research,roughly what percentage of the seats in parliament do women MPs normally need to reach in order to have the "critical mass" needed to pass "women-friendly" legislation?

A) 21 percent
B) 50 percent
C) 30 percent
D) 40 percent
E) 57 percent

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Which of the following regions has the lowest percentage of women in parliament?

A) The Arab world
B) Africa
C) The Americas
D) Asia
E) Europe excluding the Nordic countries

Question 5

Which of the following regions has the highest percentage of women in parliament?

A) Africa
B) The Americas
C) Asia
D) Europe excluding the Nordic countries
E) The Middle East

Question 6

Since the mid 1990s,the percentage of women in parliaments worldwide

A) has declined somewhat.
B) has increased in the First World, but declined in the Third World.
C) stayed about the same.
D) almost tripled .
E) nearly doubled.

Question 7

What are reserved seats in Parliament?

A) Seats which each party must reserve prior to the election
B) Seats that are set aside only for party notables
C) Seats that are set aside for women or other underrepresented groups such as ethnic minorities
D) Seats that can only be won by parties that won 5 percent of the popular vote
E) Seats that are set aside for the military

Question 8

In what ways does social class play a role in the leadership and the base of women's advocacy or protest groups in the less developed countries?

A) Poor women never become attached to feminist issues such as gender equality, embraced by their middle-class, more educated leaders.
B) Poor women are often initially uninterested in gender equality and other feminist concerns important to their middle-class leaders.
C) Working-class women normally refuse to join women's political groups led by more educated, middle-class leaders.
D) Middle-class women in authoritarian systems tend to reject gender-based organizations and instead join the women's wings of political parties and unions.
E) In many cases, low-income women lead political protest movements while many of their rank-and-file come from the middle class

Question 9

Which sector of the economy has the highest percentage of women in its workforce?

A) Banking
B) Transportation
C) Heavy industry
D) Agriculture
E) Fishing

Question 10

In parliamentary or congressional elections based on SMD (single-member districts),the introduction of mandatory gender quotas

A) increases the number of female candidates who are nominated in districts where the party is strong.
B) usually means that candidates must pay more attention to social issues.
C) generally raises the number of seats won by the smaller parties.
D) often is circumvented by running female candidates in districts where the party is generally weak.
E) means that more women are placed towards the top of party lists of candidates.

Question 11

Women's literacy rates are

A) much lower than men's rates in all regions of the Third World.
B) about the same as men's rates in all regions of the Third World.
C) are closest to the men's rate in Latin America and the Caribbean.
D) are closest to the men's rate in Sub-Saharan Africa.
E) have declined in the past decade due to the world economic crisis.

Question 12

Which of the following conditions are needed to establish zipper-style quotas?

A) Men and women alternate from top to bottom on their party's list of proportional-representation candidates, as determined by what the women's quota is
B) Women must hold 5 of the top 10 places on such lists
C) Seats are chosen through single-member districts (SMD)
D) There are run-offs whenever no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote on the first round
E) 40 percent of each party's candidates must be women

Question 13

The "informal sector" refers to

A) non-criminal activities that operate outside state regulation or taxation.
B) leading financial figures who meet informally to plot economic strategy.
C) organized criminal groups that maintain loose ties.
D) a part of the private sector that prospers by bribing public officials.
E) those members of high society who dress informally.

Question 14

Which type of parliamentary electoral system makes it easiest to apply gender quotas effectively?

A) First past the post
B) Single-member districts
C) Single-member districts with run-offs
D) Proportional representation
E) Winner take all

Question 15

Which one of the following Latin American countries has NOT had a female president?

A) Argentina
B) Chile
C) Mexico
D) Brazil
E) Nicaragua

Question 16

What is the effect of modernization on women's status and income?

A) Initially, women peasants are the greatest beneficiaries
B) It is still too early to know the effect
C) In its early stages it hurts many low-income women, but its effects are generally beneficial in the long run
D) It raises the average woman's salary, but lowers her status
E) It enables middle-class women to take jobs away from men

Question 17

Which developing region has had the greatest number of national political leaders who were the widows or daughters of earlier male leaders?

A) Latin America
B) South and East Asia
C) Sub-Saharan Africa
D) North Africa
E) Central America

Question 18

In which of the following political protest movements did women play the greatest role?

A) The struggle for decolonization in Africa
B) Human rights protests against military dictatorships in Latin America
C) The recent Arab-Spring, pro-democracy protests in North Africa
D) The Palestinian protests against Israeli occupation of the West Bank
E) Protests throughout the Third World against globalization

Question 19

When democratic governments replace authoritarian ones,often

A) with their new freedoms, the number of women's political organizations expands sharply.
B) women activists leave gender-specific organizations for traditional organizations like political parties and unions.
C) women's protest groups switch their focus from politics to areas like education.
D) for the first time women's protest groups dare to demonstrate publically.
E) militant feminist groups increase their influence.

Question 20

Which of the following cabinet positions or ministries have Third World women been least likely to hold?

A) Health
B) Education
C) Labor
D) Defense
E) Social Welfare

Question 21

The creation of reserved seats (in parliament)for women sometimes creates a "glass ceiling," which makes it hard for women to win regular parliamentary elections.

Question 22

Gender quotas for parliamentary candidates

A) are mandated either by law or in the constitution.
B) require passage by two-thirds of the parliament.
C) have been less frequently used in the last decade.
D) have had the greatest impact in North Africa.
E) may be required by a party's own rules or may be legally mandated for all parties.

Question 23

One reason why so many farmers in Africa and Asia are women is that their husbands have often left for urban areas or even gone overseas to find work.

Question 24

In a number of Islamic nations it is extremely hard for a woman to prove she was raped and,in fact,rape victims are sometimes charged with adultery.

Question 25

Women who hold reserved seats in parliament

A) must first win elections open to male and female candidates.
B) are sometimes appointed by male figures such as the king or the president.
C) are never elected.
D) can only serve two terms in office.
E) are not allowed to run subsequently for non-reserved seats.

Question 26

In the recent pro-democracy demonstrations in the Arab world (the Arab Spring)

A) most women were required to stay away from the protests by their fathers or husbands.
B) women's rights often diminished after the fall of dictators like Muammar Qaddafi.
C) many women were mobilized and swore that they would not return their former political passivity.
D) generally did not support the pro-democracy protests.
E) were often soldiers in the revolutionary armies.

Question 27

While a number of women have become presidents or prime minister of Asian nations,almost all of them have been the wives of previous government leaders who vigorously campaigned for them.

Question 28

Introducing gender-based quota systems for parliamentary elections has been a major cause of the growing percentage of women in parliament.

Question 29

Female United Nations peacekeepers

A) constitute a substantial percentage of UN peacekeepers since those forces were first organized in the 1950s.
B) are helpful in areas where contending military forces have engaged in widespread rape.
C) are kept out of areas where there have been widespread rapes.
D) now account for over 40 percent of all UN peacekeepers.
E) come primarily from Europe and other First World countries.

Question 30

So-called "honor killings" are directed by a woman's male relatives against men who have "dishonored her," as,for example,a man who returns a woman's dowry and announces he no longer wants to marry her.

Question 31

Using measures of women's empowerment (GEM)as well as measures of gender equality in education and life expectancy (GDI),democratic (Free)Third World governments performed better on these measures than authoritarian governments did.

Question 32

When women have been able to head Third World governments,their administrations have usually made significant gains in women's status and social conditions.

Question 33

Because of the growing availability of legal jobs,fewer Asian women have had to turn to prostitution in recent decades.

Question 34

The gaps between male and female adult literacy rates are greatest in South Asia and the Arab world.

Question 35

Which one of the following statements about the place of women in revolutionary regimes is NOT true?

A) Revolutionary governments in countries such as China, Cuba, and Eritrea have had remarkable success in changing male chauvinist attitudes in society.
B) Many women who fought in the revolutionary or national liberation armies were later chosen for parliamentary seats after the revolution.
C) Revolutionary rhetoric tends to stress gender equality.
D) Some revolutionary governments promote employment for women because mass participation is needed to rebuild the country after the revolution.
E) Countries such as Cuba have a high percentage of women members of parliament.

Question 36

When women's advocates criticize the "double day" they are referring to the fact that,to stay afloat in the current Third World economic crisis,both the husband and the wife in poor families need to work.

Question 37

Africa has the lowest percentage of female members of parliament of any developing region,yet it has had the largest number of women heads of government or heads of state.

Question 38

To the surprise of academic specialists,modernization has actually brought about a short-term decline in the percentage of women in Third World parliaments.

Question 39

In the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia and Qatar,women are prohibited from attending university.

Question 40

GEM stands for "Gender Empowerment Measure."

Question 41

What were the three types of women's political groups that arose in opposition to Latin America's authoritarian governments? What were the goals of each type and what was the social class composition of each?

Question 42

Given the many forms of discrimination suffered by most women in Asia,what explains why there have been so many women prime ministers or presidents in that region?

Question 43

Compare how women's status has progressed or failed to make progress in democratic societies versus authoritarian societies.

Question 44

What roles have women played in revolutionary movements engaged in insurgencies? Discuss the major gains that women have made in revolutionary regimes such as China's and Cuba's.What have been some of the limits of women's gains in those societies?

Question 45

Describe the following methods for increasing the share of women in national parliaments and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each: reserved seats,simple legislated gender quotas for candidates,zipper-style quotas.