Which nation has the most women in its legislature? The answer may surprise you

According to a report of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the nation that has the largest percentage of women in the lower or single house of the legislative system is Rwanda, where women account for 64% of the members of parliament, followed by Andorra (50%) and Cuba (49%).

The US with a measly 18% is tied for 84th place with San Marino. It is even worse than it looks since the list has 15 nations above the US that are tied with others, so the US is actually in 99th position.

According to NPR, the brutal genocidal conflict that Rwanda went through just two decades ago had the unexpected consequence of catapulting women into the political leadership.



“They were the backbone of reconstruction of our country but at the same time also there was a political will to empower women,” said Mathilde Mukantabana, Rwanda’s ambasassdor to the U.S.



“What I see is that women are organizing very much at the grass roots, but what they don’t have is the political pull from the top,” she said. “So it’s much, much harder. But they are making important strides. I mean they’ve surpassed the United States by leaps and bounds.”

She said that in the past 20 years, she’s watched more than 50 countries move ahead of the U.S. when it comes to the percentage of female lawmakers.

Political equality for women is often the first step in getting greater equality for others. Rwanda’s story tells us that out of the ashes of ghastly atrocities, good things can emerge.


  1. khms says

    Mainly that the US are doing it wrong.

    We’re at 22, I see, with numbers that I’d say are nothing to write home about. A place between Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates for the USA? Oops.

    Incidentally, the numbers for us for what they call “Lower or single House” seem ok, but the numbers for “Upper House or Senate” are pretty much fantasy. They’re counting votes, because the real members are not people, they’re state governments which get some number of votes according to size (three to six), and can nominate any cabinet members for their votes, or as deputies, and can change that nomination at any time – and anyway, these people usually vote however the cabinet tells them to. Counting them as men or women seems rather pointless. If you want a representation of how many women have cabinet level jobs, count that directly, not weighted by how many votes a state gets – that seems rather pointless.

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