THE NEW IRAQI constitution -- to be approved or rejected in a nationwide referendum today -- includes a provision that would never get passed in the United States: It sets aside at least 25% of the seats in parliament for women.
Such an idea would be laughed off the table in American politics. It's undemocratic, right? The theory here -- under the system laid out in our own Constitution -- is that if our citizens want to elect women, they'll vote for them.
If "set-asides" were suggested, critics would immediately ask why having women in government is more important than having blacks, or Latinos, or Jews. Should we have set-asides for all of them? That would be deemed ridiculous, unworkable and undesirable.
So why is the United States allowing such a system to be installed in Iraq -- and even encouraging people to vote for it? For a number of reasons, and I think they're absolutely right.
For one thing, it's not such an unusual idea. We may think our way is the only way. But in fact, quotas are common these days and aren't reserved for new democracies emerging from conflict.
In fact, an astounding 50 countries have quotas for women mandated constitutionally or in their election law, and another 72 have quotas or targets in the rules of their political parties.
The new Afghan constitution, passed in 2004, also includes a 25% set-aside for women in the Wolesi Jirga, the national council. But it's not always the countries you'd expect. In Rwanda, the post-genocide constitution guarantees that women hold at least 30% of the lower house (the elected chamber) through a women-only ballot, and women have also competed with men for seats on the regular ballot. Today women total 49% of the House of Deputies, the highest in the world.
The sad truth is that the U.S. trails 66 countries in the percentage of women in the legislature's lower (or in some cases, its only) house, including Mozambique, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. All have quotas.
Generally, such measures are designed to compensate for pervasive cultural, economic and religious barriers that would otherwise prevent women from achieving equitable representation. It's no secret, for instance, that in the most rigid Islamic cultures, women are not allowed to leave the house without a male relative, much less campaign for office. Not exactly a level playing field on election day.
