ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the commonly asked question: ‘why is it necessary for women to become engaged in politics and public life’? Tracking a continuum of inequalities that extends from the structural violence of poverty within policy and institutions to women’s subordination and marginalisation within public life, to patterns and practices of intimate violence within the home and community, in this chapter it is argued that, following Fraser, there can be no meaningful recognition (of women and men’s equal status and value) or redistribution (towards those discriminated against and marginalised by development policy and in public and private life) without political representation. The chapter examines both the different dimensions and intersectional manifestations of gendered inequalities and the principal reasons for their persistence. A case study of gender-based violence in Malawi is presented towards the end of the chapter. Exploring the complex reasons for its widespread incidence, the Malawi case illustrates the political nature of gendered insecurity as part of a continuum of multiple globalised inequalities.
