Although last month's election brought an unprecedented number of women into the Lower House, female lawmakers both at home and abroad are still subject to double standards and lack the ambition to take the stage in national politics, experts said at a recent symposium.
"Women need to be three or four times more qualified than men just to hold the same position, and they doubt their own qualifications," Donna Brazile, a renowned political strategist for the Democratic Party, said at an event Sept. 4 at Sophia University in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy.
Brazile has worked on every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000, when she was campaign manager for then Vice President Al Gore, becoming the first black American woman to direct a presidential campaign.