Is the Coalition deaf to the upsurge in women's discontent at being treated as second-class citizens? The dumping of Jane Prentice, LNP member for the federal seat of Ryan and Assistant Minister for Disability Services, seems to suggest this.

The upsurge in discontent can be seen in the success of #MeToo, a movement chosen to be the 2017 Time Magazine Person of the Year and referenced by the winning song in the 2018 Eurovision contest.

Australian women were quick to join in the #MeToo movement.

Of course, there will always be differing opinions over the merits of a sitting member and, in the case of Mrs Prentice, whether that sitting member is spending too much time in Canberra attending to portfolio responsibilities rather than working the branches in her electorate.

But since the second half of the 1990s the Coalition has appeared deaf to the political aspirations of Australian women.

The partisan gap between the parliamentary representation of women has grown steadily larger.

By February 2018, women formed 44 per cent of Labor parliamentarians around Australia but only 20 per cent of Coalition parliamentarians.

In the House of Representatives there were only 13 women on the Government benches (17 per cent).

Coalition failure behind Australia's rankings slide

The failure of the Coalition to preselect women for winnable seats (or moves to deselect them, as with Mrs Prentice) is in stark contrast with the Liberal Party's commitment to a target of 50 per cent female candidates by 2025.

The failure of the Coalition to operationalise such commitments has been responsible for Australia slipping down the international league table maintained by the Inter-Parliamentary Union of the representation of women in national parliaments. While Australia was in 15th place in 1999, by April 2018 it had slid to 50th place.

This slippage is due to other countries taking more proactive steps to increase the representation of women in public decision-making.

One way this is being done is through introducing legislative quotas that require all political parties to increase the number of women candidates.

This avoids the lopsided effect that can occur when just some parties adopt quotas, as in Australia.

Almost a third of OECD countries had adopted legislative quotas by 2016, including Ireland.

Non-quota methods of increasing the number of women candidates are also recommended by international standard-setting bodies like the OECD and International IDEA and include conditional or earmarked public funding.

In a number of countries public funding for political parties has been made conditional on their putting forward a minimum proportion of female parliamentary candidates.

Meanwhile, in Finland…

Earmarking of public funding is another approach — as in Finland, where 12 per cent of the annual public funding of political parties must be used to fund their women's wings.

Regulation of the private funding of political parties, such as caps on political donations, can also help promote gender equality because women usually have less access to private campaign money.

One reason the Coalition has been slow to adopt candidate quotas or non-quota means of increasing the number of women candidates is lack of pressure from their voters. ( ABC News: Matt Roberts )

Over the years, the Coalition has repeatedly stated that to introduce positive steps such as candidate quotas would be both "patronising" and a violation of the merit principle.

This is despite organisational quotas being part of the Liberal Party since its foundation, for example the 50 per cent quota for executive positions in the Victorian division.

One reason the Coalition has been slow to adopt candidate quotas or non-quota means of increasing the number of women candidates is lack of pressure from their voters.

In 2013 there was extensive controversy over Tony Abbott appointing only one woman to his first Cabinet.

However, an Essential poll found that only 17 per cent of Liberal voters were concerned about this, compared with 67 per cent of Labor voters.

Similarly, during the 2016 federal election campaign, Vote Compass found that while a majority of Labor voters backed quotas, 60 per cent of Coalition voters opposed them.

However, Vote Compass, like other surveys, also shows a big gender gap, with men being less concerned about the absence of women and less keen than women for something to be done about it.

Women less likely to support Coalition

Both the gender gap in concern over the absence of women from Parliament and the partisan gap need to be seen in the context of a shift towards a modern gender gap in voting in Australia, with women being less likely to support the Coalition.

For example, in 2016, 47 per cent of men but only 38 per cent of women voted for the Coalition.

Given the broader concern among women about male dominance of politics and the recent upsurge in militancy shown by the #MeToo movement, it might well be time for the Coalition to take some positive steps to realise its official commitment to gender balance in parliament.

Marian Sawer is an emeritus professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University and vice-president of the International Political Science Association. She was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to women and to political science.