Me, The Change: Young Women Voters Are Raring to Enter Politics

65% first-time women voters don’t think men are better politicians than women says the Lokniti-CSDS-The Quint survey

65% first-time women voters don’t think men are better politicians than women, according to the Lokniti-CSDS-The Quint survey.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

Who cares about politics? India’s first-time woman voter, for one. According to the Lokniti-CSDS-The Quint survey conducted as a part of The Quint’s ‘Me, the Change’ campaign, 68 percent of young women believe that women should participate in politics, just like men. In fact, 3 out of 5 respondents interviewed asserted they will vote without any influence of their family or husband in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Move Over, Men in Politics!

More than 3 out of 5 first-time women voters say they will vote in the 2019 elections without the influence of their family. (Graphic: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

With the 2019 general elections around the corner, the question of women’s representation in politics is being debated again. According to the survey, a significant population of young first-time women voters is interested in politics and believes that women make good political leaders.

But Obstacles Remain

Lack of support from family for women aspiring to join politics remains the biggest reason for why first-time women voters are apprehensive about joining politics. (Graphic: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

However, a variety of factors like no support from family, lack of interest in politics and the perception that it’s “bad” for women to join politics prevents women from entering politics. Can this paradigm be shifted in time for the 2019 elections?