Strength Matters: Voter Behaviours and Attitudes Towards Women Candidates in Papua New Guinea

Does Papua New Guinea have a strong-woman concept? This pre-submission seminar examines voter behaviours and attitudes towards women candidates. Since 1972, only ten of the 714 women who contested national general elections became legislators.  Five out of the ten women are from the Southern region, two are from Momase and New Guinea Islands respectively and one is from the Highlands region. This presentation seeks to answer why half of the women elected to parliament come from the Southern region. Following a broad discussion of the experience of women candidates and MPs in PNG, the presentation focuses on the Southern region, and more specifically Rigo electorate as a case study to seek explanations. Quantifying indigenous cultural values and norms informing their social and political behaviors and epistemology is difficult, as such, qualitative data collected in focus group discussions and interviews is used to illustrate more quantitative electoral data on votes cast in elections. The seminar presents a new measure of strength, namely the extent to which women candidates attract a number of votes above the average for the electorate, suggesting that women candidates who do not win their election can use this measure more accurately to understand their placing, and the attitudes of their electorate towards the viability of women candidates.