Feminism

Politics is the main activity of forming or preserving the general rules of human co-existence. "Political ideologies" that define what stance we take on the political framework are only a result of political socialization that produces the lens through which we view and interpret the world around us.
The main theme associated with political ideologies is its pejorative implications and hence, a complete  intolerance for any other basis of organizing political action other than the ones a person supports.

Some political ideologies were conceived as a reaction to the brutalities of existing political frameworks and were in essence the aspirations for change. One such ideology is "Feminism", the revolutionary counter argument to patriarchal states. This ideology has developed throughout history and movements such as suffrage and second wave feminism presented the growing radical demands of female liberalism internationally. The main roots of this ideology lie in "equality" and hence, it is could be considered the ideology of equalism; providing all genders with uniform opportunities in all walks of life. In a political context, feminism refers to breaking the structure of solely male power and overturning the system to provide female representation without any discrimination.

It aims at ending the sexist belief that women belong to a private sphere and that the public political platform should exclude women. This subjugation of women is a driving issue today that even if women are elected, they hold lesser valued cabinet ministries or offices and the overall gender stigma from male members is too high.

The causes for the prevailing systems of patriarchy are immense.Firstly, sex stereotyping defines gender roles and since politics are aggressive and competitive, it is deemed a masculine profession in most societies. Next, the political socialization rooting from cultures and conservative societies confines women to socially-defined boundaries and children grow up believing women have no role in public spheres and politics is presented to them as a "male's domain" so few women enter the field and few men vote for those who do. Building on this, even if a woman enters the political field, she is judged far severely than her male counterpart. She needs to exhibit masculine traits and strength to remain in office. Often her fashion choices and romantic lives are gossiped about instead of her professional capability and if she is married, her ability to balance personal and public life are questioned, something a male candidate in her place would be exempted from.

These therefore call for a drastic restructuring of female personal life inorder to influence public life. Men are not the enemy and misandry differs significantly from feminism. Radical feminism is only the reaction of continuous deprivation of female rights on all fronts where certain women wish to completely withdraw from male society.

All these sum up to lack of female representation overall. As of October 25, 2013, the global average of women in national assemblies is 21.5%( "Women in Parliaments: World and Regional Averages". Inter-Parliamentary Union. Retrieved October 25, 2013)

As Kate Millet puts it, "half of the population that is female is controlled by that half which is male".
If women, a substantial part of today's world, are excluded from the political framework, then on what grounds do we consider ourselves "Democratic" states when we neglect the interests of more than 50% of the population.