“Speak to be Heard”: Women and Deliberative Democracy in the Ugandan Parliament

While parliament and other political deliberative structures have always been the preserve of men, women have nonetheless slowly entrenched into the arena. Even then, they still face discrimination not only in their descriptive representation but also in their substantive participation. Even in pro-women legislation, the inequality in relation to women’s voices is evident during deliberations in parliament. This chapter therefore adopts a qualitative and descriptive research design that includes the content analysis of the Domestic Violence Bill 2010 and interviews with Ugandan parliamentarians who participated in the parliamentary era when the bill was deliberated upon. Using the deliberative democratic theory, this chapter studies and analyses the deliberative behaviour of women parliamentarians in the Uganda parliament. The findings reveal that whereas women parliamentarians used several strategies such as continuous education and capacity building to enhance their confidence and self-esteem during deliberative sessions, women’s voices are often silenced both passively and actively by powerful male voices, and women parliamentarians must constantly and consciously navigate the patriarchal attitude and androcentric nature of parliament to get their voice heard.