Women's Wings In Political Parties Still Relevant With Caveats

At a recent forum here titled “Women’s Wings in Political Parties: Are They Still Relevant?”, the answer was ‘yes’ – kind of.

The panellists – Yong Bazilah Abu Bakar of PKR’s women’s wing; Anis Afida Mohd Azli, head of Parti Amanah Negara’s (Amanah) young women’s wing; Kasthuriraani Patto, DAP international secretary; as well as representatives from the opposition parties – agreed there was still a need for women’s wings in political parties in order to achieve 30 percent female participation in political leadership and decision-making.

Dr Zaireeni Azmi, senior lecturer of gender studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), was the moderator at the forum. 

Despite being a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and formally adopting the goal of having 30 percent of women in decision-making processes in the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010), Malaysia has continuously failed to hit the target, turning the floor (the minimum number) into a glass ceiling (invisible maximum) instead.

Nearly two decades on, the number of women in corridors of power remains low – just 13.5 percent of Members of Parliament and 12.2 percent of state assemblymen are women – down from the previous parliamentary term. The drop has raised questions not only about political will but also the very structures that were supposed to uplift women into public life.

SAFE SPACE OR SILO?

Women’s wings were originally created to provide support for political parties at the grassroots level – to do canvassing and community outreach, especially for women voters. However, nearly 80 years after the first women’s wing of a major political party was created (Angkatan Wanita Sedar of the Malay Nationalist Party in 1946), not much has changed in the perception of women’s role in political parties.

Much of the support among the forum panellists and audience members for the relevance of women's wings was predicated on their being a safe space for women to nurture leadership and provide women with a platform in male-dominated parties. But critics say these wings have also become comfortable silos, inadvertently reinforcing the marginalisation they were meant to dismantle.

Women wings are usually used to provide support to the male election candidate by doing the canvassing, and meeting the community. Seen here, UMNO Women's Wing Chief Datuk Seri Dr Noraini Ahmad and party volunteers visiting a retiree during the DUN Mahkota by-election last year. --fotoBERNAMA (2025) COPYRIGHT RESERVED

“The conceptualisation of (the) women's wing has not changed. The idea that you need this for women to be mobilised separately as a group does not rest on the idea that we can train women so that they can eventually go into the mainstream,” said Prof Datuk Noraida Endut of the Centre for Research of Women and Gender at USM.

Experts said the way many women’s wings exist in political parties creates battlefields for women to compete against each other, with only the senior members and victors deemed “good enough” to join the male-dominated echelons of power. Young male members have a direct line to party leadership, where they can be chosen and groomed for a future leadership role.

Lee Min Hui, a former policy analyst at think tank Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia, noted that party structures can create a bottleneck for women’s advancement.

“Women's wings do not necessarily combat or serve to undermine the gender dynamics at play in political parties, and actually could serve as a mechanism to limit women's power,” she said.

She added that the structure itself forces ambitious women to compete internally within the wings for a select few to gain visibility, while their male counterparts advance directly through mainstream channels.

This, in turn, creates a shortage of mature political talent. At the forum, several panellists expressed concern over the difficulty in finding young female talent. But experts disagreed, saying it is gender norms and patriarchal attitudes that are to blame.

BARRIERS

At the forum, MUDA secretary-general Nurainie Haziqah (also a panellist) said one of the challenges she faced is the patriarchal mindset of the electorate and among some members of her party, which does not have a women’s wing. In the past election, 50 percent of the candidates MUDA fielded were women.

“When we lost, they said it was because 50 percent of our candidates were women. But no one questioned why we put men as 50 percent of our candidates,” she said.

Her experience highlighted what many experts have identified as a root cause of Malaysia’s low female political participation: gender norms. Changing the mindset is therefore crucial.

Lee said policies to increase female participation in decision-making should be reflected at all levels of society, not just in the public and private sectors, so that the populace is used to and even expects to see women in power.

“The next level is gender responsiveness, and to be gender responsive, all political parties need to change the way they run – society needs to change – where party leadership needs to definitely be more diverse. It cannot be seen as a man’s political landscape,” she said.

One way to correct the gender imbalance, rather than having quotas or reserving seats for women politicians, is to set an upper limit on men’s political representation in parties, proportional to their numbers in the population. However, Lee doubted it would be accepted as men, who dominate the political sphere in Malaysia, are unlikely to pass any policy that would handicap them.

Another barrier is that politicians tend to hang on too long to their posts and influence. Well-known political scientist and analyst Prof Wong Chin-Huat said insufficient male retirees are a fundamental challenge to increasing women’s representation, partly caused by the nation’s First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system.

“Male incumbents are retired in two ways: (a) voluntary retirement or getting dropped by the party, hence creating vacancies; (b) getting defeated by female challengers from opposition parties,” he said via WhatsApp.

He added parties were more likely to field female candidates against opponents' male incumbents than replacing their male incumbents. He also noted that women’s representation often spikes during electoral ‘waves’, when many seats change hands. But once parties consolidate those gains into strongholds, women candidates stagnate, such as in Penang.

“Increasing female candidates would be easier if you can get the strongest female newcomers to replace the weakest male incumbents. If that happens, the strong male incumbents won’t shed a tear for their weak co-gender,” Wong added. But because of the FPTP system, strong male incumbents may feel threatened by and become resistant to an increase in women candidacy.

But men are not always the enemy.

Dr Siti Aminah Muhammad Imran, PAS Professional Women Unit chairman (invited to the forum as a guest), mentioned that one of the barriers to more female political leaders is the women themselves, who see up-and-coming women members as political rivals, rather than future leaders who need guidance, in what is known as the ‘Queen Bee Syndrome’.

“We need to get women to support women. We are capable if given the chance,” she said.

The data seems to bear her statement out. According to data compiled by Bernama, women candidates in the last general election had a win rate of roughly 50.4 percent – slightly higher than the male win rate of 47.9 percent. While the sample size is smaller, the figures suggest electability is not the core issue.

USM’s Zaireeni underscored this point to Bernama.

“Malaysian voters vote for parties, not candidates. That means women stand as good a chance as men – provided parties are willing to field them,” she said.

She cited Johor as a rare success story, with 26.8 percent female representation in the state legislative assembly.

Prof Noraida Endut, Unit for Research on Women and Gender (KANITA) at Universiti Sains Malaysia. --supplied photo

FEMALE TALENT SHORTAGE?

Nevertheless, because most parties have a separate wing for young women joining them, by the time the leadership seeks a qualified female candidate to stand for election, many feel they are too immature and not seasoned enough to do so.

But rather than a shortage of qualified candidates, it is more of a shortage of talent visibility and experience.

Noraida said youth wings should not be segregated so both young men and women have an equal chance at getting noticed by senior party mentors and receive mentorship opportunities.

“I think if you want to create an environment of equality, then you should, if it’s youth, then you should start. But on the other hand, if there’s a dominance by one gender in a particular wing, you also need to address that,” she said, adding it would help build a culture of equality.

That said, there have been changes on the positive side. PKR has 30 percent women representation enshrined in its constitution, the same as DAP. Furthermore, DAP has reached 30 percent female representation in its central party committee, which oversees the party as a whole.

Anis Afida from Amanah announced that its women’s wing chief is in charge of the party’s strategy in the upcoming Sabah state election.

However, other parties in the same Pakatan Harapan coalition have fallen short with PKR at about 21 percent representation, Amanah at about 19 percent and UMNO at 17 percent. As for Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition members, PAS has 15 percent female representation in central leadership posts and Bersatu at around eight percent. Non-coalition party MUDA is at 44 percent. All figures are based on the latest publicly available data contained in news reports.

Kasthuriraani said despite DAP’s progressive moniker, the party had learned from the 2018 elections that change has to come step-by-step, not immediately or there would be a shock to the system, which invites backlash.

International Secretary of Democratic Action Party (DAP) Kasthuriraani Patto speaks during a public forum titled "Women's Wing in Politics: Still Relevant?" --fotoBERNAMA (2025) COPYRIGHT RESERVED

REAL TEST OF RELEVANCE

So are women’s wings still relevant? The answer, based on expert consensus, depends on whether they evolve. If they remain ceremonial and isolated from party power, they risk irrelevance. But if reformed – transformed into integrated, policy-driven platforms – they could still be engines of change.

As the forum closed, it was clear that the question was no longer just about structures – it was about courage and commitment, not just from their female members but from male allies to shift from symbolic inclusion to genuine power-sharing.

“To summarise… you cannot do it without men and good men to help you on this journey. Men have to believe that our struggle is not just for us. (But also) what a woman fights for today will benefit every single person… men, women and all,” said Kasthuriraani.