8. recap - representation deficits & solutions

Devroe: legislative recruitment model

Deficits

1. political ambition

2. political parties’ selection

3. voter bias

4. gendered workplaces

5. vertical & horizontal segregation

6. gendered media representations

7. gendered drop-out mechanisms

8. violence against women in politics

Deficit #1: political ambition amongst women (Devroe)

Three common explanations

1) No ambition: women are less ambitious then men

2) No capacities (merit): women are more conflict avoidant and risk averse than men

3) Women have lower levels of political interest

We should also look at preferences and perceptions

• What are the goals we associate with politics? (preferences)

  • Power – status, self-promotion, recognition, …

  • Independence – achievement, individualism, …

  • Communal – helping and caring for others, serving humanity, working with people, …

• How do people perceive if these goals can be reached through politics? (perceptions)

• Goal congruity framework → do these things match?

• = a very big democratic deficit – politics is understood as something hat does not align with

  • 1) what women want

  • 2) what women think can be realized through politics

• If we want to fully understand the gender gap in political ambition, we need to understand the interaction between perferences and perceptions and how they differ between women and men

• Explains the deficit of political ambition amongst women

two responses for establishing gender equality

• Role of parties to spark interest for women

• Different socialization processes so women do not feel like politics is not for them (representation of politics, politician’s behaviour, wanting to reach communal goals …)

Deficit #2: political parties’ selection (Devroe)

• party trade-off → seek to be more occlusive and attractive to minority / cosmopolitan voters VS not pushing away populations that are not in favour of diversity

e.g., visible minority women are selected in less diverse districts and rightist parties; more men in diverse districts and left parties.

→ male spots remain ethnic majority and thus less diverse

nuances the double jeopardy hypothesis

Deficit #3: voter bias (Devroe)

Not an explanation for gender inequality: research on stereotypes shows a positive bias towards female ministers in terms of perceived (issue) competence (and no effect of soft/communal vs hard/agentic issues)

Still, …

• political stereotypes related to other identity markers (e.g., religion) prevail.

• positive bias is only there own the hypothetical

• if real women make mistakes, this bias backfires

However, this does show that inequalities in politics are not about what voters want, but about what parties think voters want.

→ political parties are at the center of the web in structural inequalities

Deficit #4: gendered workplaces (Runderkamp)

Politicians work in a workplace: a physical place where they practice their political job. These workplaces are gendered.

Politics assumes an “ideal worker” – full-time, no care duties

• Late meetings, unpredictable hours, informal hierarchies

• Institutions assume total availability Yet:

• Work-life imbalance = structural, not personal

• Care remains feminized → double burden

• “Outside world” (family) shapes “inside” (politics)

→ Male lifestyle steering how these institutions work

→ The ‘ideal’ worker (or politician) is expected to be flexible, availbale long hours, …

→ We all know (has been studies since the 70s) that this work-life imbalance is not

a personal, but a structural issue – care is still structurally assigned to wome

Deficit #5: vertical and horizontal segregation

Political parties are drivers of gendered ‘division of labour’ in institutions like parliaments

Vertical segregation

• gendered division of leadership positions: chair of parliaments, committees, party groups

  • Gatekeeping role

    • Committee chairs → decide what’ll be discussed, who can speak, whether a committee is public, …

    • Party group leaders → determine who can speak on issues? (visibility)

• Gendered # seniority; positional power, gate keeping & visibility (cfr Devroe on written vs oral questions; cfr. Berthet: women struggle to be seen as expert in economic policy)

  • GL Devroe: research on party questions → oral questions are more visible and extremely divided gender-wise

Horizontal segregation

• ‘Soft/low’ & ‘hard/high’ : family, education, culture, equality (e.g. FEMM), … vs budget/finance, military, foreign aOairs; Defined by how much money is involved

  • GL Berthet: male domination in certain committees (e.g., budget- and female in others (culture, education, …) – certain policy issues seen as male or female – e.g., women struggle to be seen as experts in economic policy. Masculine committees seen as ‘high politics’

  • Gendered division of committees; gendered visibility

Deficit #6: gendered media representation (Runderkamp)

• media highlight difference

  • white men: no mention of background or gender

  • women are referred to a being female, married, mother, … or other identity markers.

  • same goes for ethnic minorities

• women & ethnic minority MPs are covered via identity

  • amount of space to spend on what they actually say or care for (policy) shrinks

  • minorities are space invaders → highlighted as bodies out of place by stressing elements and identity features that makes them ‘others’

• white men are described along their ideology, policy proposals, …

• this produced unequal legitimacy

• People with clear ideas, good proposals, … merit political power - this information is communicated via the media, and this gendered representation disadvantages women because male political appear as being more competent

• double edge of visibility → not all visibility is good!

Deficit #7: gendered drop-out mechanisms (Runderkamp)

• Drop-out mechanisms are gendered (more women drop out)

• mid-term exits can be the result of

  • conflict with party

  • personal reason

  • new non-political job

  • new political mandate

• = mix of personal and institutional

• Runderkamp research → more women and ethnic minorities leave politics

  • some turnover is healthy, but selective dropout = inequality

• aside from people entering politics, we should look at retention

  • importance of seniority as power prediction in politics

Deficit #8: violence against women in politics (Van Bavel)

Gendered motives

• perpetrators commit violence to preserve the gendered order of political power

• emerges from persistence of roles and stereotypes, and backlash of the increasing number of women in politics

Gendered forms

• typically sexualised language, imagery or content

  • online violence (e.g., appearance, sexual)

  • physical violence (e.g., acid attacks)

  • economic violence (e.g., vandalising with sexual messages)

  • psychological violence (e.g., rape threats)

  • Sexual violence (e.g., jokes, remarks, unwanted physical touching, …)

  • Semiotic violence (e.g., mansplaining, manterrupting, …)

Gendered impact

• inducing fear in female MPs

• women experience these impacts more profoundly

  • silencing → voice disappearing from debate

  • invisibilising → physically removed from the political arena (careful to be present)

  • exiting → leaving the political arena

VAWIP → consequences

Solutions

1. Quota (first generation design)

2. Gender-sensitive parliaments (workplace approach)

3. Feminist democratic representation (second generation design)

Quota (first generation design)

• applied to electoral lists (30-50%)

• path dependency → once one group gets quota, others might follow

  • gender x ethnic?

    • double counting allowed → advantage for ethnic minority women

    • double counting not allowed → prototipicality: most dominant subgroup favoured

• nested / tandem quota → within ethnic quota, half must be women & vice versa

• reserved seats

  • certain number of seats in parliaments are allocated to a certain group

  • usually ethnic or religious minorities

  • in Belgium → language groups

• variations

  • legislative quota → legally binding

  • voluntary party quota → can be combined with legislative (e.g., alternating men and women on electoral lists)

• implementation

  • soft vs hard sanctions

  • financial, not providing candidates beyond quota, …

• why do we have quota?

  • women lobby (women’s movements)

  • party competition & contagion

  • values of equality (left wing ideology)

  • international pressure

• effects?

  • qualitatively → ranges from major increase to setbacks

  • on women?

    • stigmatising (labelling)

    • essentialization of identity

  • on citizens? (democratic effect)

    • closing the gap with representatives

    • erode perceptions about women’s abilities to rule

    • encourages (young) women

    • but also research that says no impact

    • no impact on parties & cultures

• quota and electoral systems → only work if they’re well designed and embedded in electoral systems

  • proportional vs majoritarian

    • PR: higher turnover and contagion

  • district & party magnitude

    • the bigger the better

  • open & closed lists

    • closed lists fit better (but depends on culture and voters)

Quota: Vierge & De La Fuente

RQ: did quota reduce parties’ institutional sexism?

• definition of valuable merits and skills not changed

• informal practices sustaining women’s subordination

• challenging subordination through individual agency and collective action

conclusion → quota are not designed to change political parties, but to increase women’s presence

Gender-sensitive parliaments

→ approach parliaments as a workplace

• infrastructure

• institutional culture

gendered parliaments culture

• masculine culture seems to be less dominant in parliaments with more women

• gender and age intersect → harder for young women

gender-sensitive parliaments

• increasing demand to change infrastructure and culture due to…

  • increase in female MPs

  • growing need for both men and women to combine work and family life

measures

• promote less aggressive language and behaviour

• family-friendly sitting hours

• childcare facilities and parental leave

• gender-sensitive training

• gender neutral language

• rotating positions of authority between men and women

→ both men and women benefit

Feminist democratic representation (second generation design)

• different minorities and marginalised groups

• intersectional update to group representation

• not only focus on voicing, but also ensuring listening