On Oct. 18, 1939, five women  challenged the Canadian Supreme Court for the right of women to sit in the Senate—and won. The day is now celebrated nationwide as Persons Day, after the clause in the British North America Act which stipulated that any person may sit in Senate. Before that day in 1939, women were not legally recognized  as “persons.”  Last week’s celebration came just one day after Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” comment, which itself brought the issue of gender equality in pay and representation of women in politics to central focus in national and American media.

Internet memes aside, Persons Day and the discussion ensuing from Romney’s comment offer an important opportunity to examine the progress that women have made in Canada. Low female representation in public office remains problematic for most democracies, including this one. In 2008, just 22 per cent of seats in the House of Commons were held by women. While this is more than double the 9.6 per cent of seats that were held by women in 1984, the improvement seems to have stagnated. The rate has hardly changed since the late 1990s.[pullquote]There seems to be a clear disconnect … between female representation among leadership in academia, community,  and business, and female representation in public office.[/pullquote]

At a time when women are increasingly claiming top leadership roles education and the corporate world, this underrepresentation is surprising. What’s more, in post-secondary education, representation of gender exhibits a reverse trend. Last year, McGill’s undergraduate population was 58 per cent female. There seems to be a clear disconnect, then, between female representation among leadership in academia, community,  and business, and female representation in public office.

Part of this problem stems from a lack of female role models in politics, especially those who place value on making their work visible to young women. Female political leaders who put women’s issues first, even when it is politically inconvenient, are few and far between.  It’s even worse when female politicians do the opposite. Rona Ambrose, Canada’s Minister for the Status of Women, voted recently with her party to investigate the question of when life begins, which many see as a move to reopen the abortion debate.

Above all, girls need female elected officials who they can look up to and aspire to be like. Programs like the McGill’s “Women in House” program—a student-run, two day trip to Ottawa during which participants shadow a female MP or Senator—are a laudable start to tackling this complex issue.

The most fundamental problem, though, is that girls growing up who aspire to enter politics can easily be dissuaded by the depressing proportion of women in the field, and the lack of public role models. There needs to be a more concerted effort,  on the part of established politicians, to encourage girls interested in politics from a young age. Young people need to be aware that they represent the future, and that they can—and will—change the inequity.

Each year, Persons Day serves to remind us that while we have made large steps towards gender equality, there is still more to do.