Module / week 4 part 1 Notes – Women’s Entry into Mainstream Politics & Persistent Barriers

Module Context, Learning Goals & Theoretical Lens

• Focus shifts from extra-parliamentary/fourth-wave activism to mainstream electoral politics.
• Central guiding questions:
  • How do women get elected?
  • What barriers exist?
  • Once elected, do women make a difference—and what kind?
• Assigned readings adopt a liberal-feminist framework:
  • Emphasis on integrating women into existing public institutions rather than dismantling them.
  • Continuities with second-wave goals (full public participation) even while fourth-wave tactics (digital activism, intersectionality, trans inclusivity) expand the repertoire.

Key Empirical Facts About Women in Canadian Federal Politics

• House of Commons (Nov 2019 election)
  • Women won $29\%$ of the $338$ seats (≈ $98$ MPs), a gain of almost $3\%$ over the previous parliament.
• Senate (Feb 2020 snapshot)
  • Women hold $35.2\%$ of the $105$ seats (≈ $37$ senators).
• Comparative puzzle:
  • After ≈ 1 century of suffrage & eligibility, Canada still has not reached parity (50 %).
  • Other states—e.g.
  • Rwanda: constitutional quota produces ≈ 50 % women MPs.
• Party-by-party 2019 outcomes (illustrative figures)
  • Liberal Party: $51$ women MPs (< parity despite Trudeau’s ‘feminist’ brand).
  • Conservative Party: noticeably fewer; reflects party ideology & candidate pool.
  • NDP: $9$ women in $24$ seats → highest proportion (≈ $37.5\%$).
  • Green Party: $3$ women / $3$ total → full parity (small N).
• Candidate supply not the core issue:
  • Most major parties now nominate ≈ 50 % women candidates; gap emerges at ballot box or during campaign filtering processes.

Analytical Framework – Why Women Remain Under-represented

1. Sociocultural Barriers (Newman, White & Findlay)

• Political socialization
  • From childhood, media, schooling & toys channel girls away from leadership roles.
  • Gina Davis Institute data: under-representation or hyper-sexualization of girls in film/TV.
  • Role models improving (e.g.
    U.S. women of colour in Congress) yet media backlash persists.
• Unpaid domestic labour
  • Statistics Canada: women perform ≈ 2× men’s hours in caregiving, housework.
  • Consequences:
  • Less disposable time & money for campaigning.
  • Added stress for MPs with young children (e.g.
    Catherine McKenna testimony).
• Gendered labour-market sorting
  • Women concentrated in caring/service occupations (teaching, nursing, retail).
  • Canadian candidate pools draw heavily from ${\text{law}, \text{medicine}, \text{business}}$ → women under-supplied there.
  • Fund-raising & elite networks clustered around these ‘pipeline’ professions.
  • Case study: 2011 ‘Orange Wave’ in Québec—young waitress/single mother elected for NDP faced media legitimacy attacks.

2. Gendered Ideals of Leadership

• Dominant leadership traits coded as masculine:
  ${\text{assertive},\;\text{aggressive},\;\text{powerful},\;\text{decisive},\;\text{unemotional}}$
• Feminine-coded traits (caring, nurturing) deemed incongruent with political authority.
• The double bind / Catch-22:
  • Display ‘masculinity’ → branded too harsh, ‘bossy’, “the B-word”.
  • Display ‘femininity’ → judged weak, irrational (e.g.
    media response to Hillary Clinton tearing up in 2008).
• Men also policed via masculinity norms but generally not delegitimized to the same gendered extent.

3. Media Framing & Visual Politics

• 2015 Conservative attack ad: juxtaposed Stephen Harper (head-down, working) vs. Justin Trudeau (bright hall, résumé in hand, tagline “Just not ready”).
  • Aims: feminize Trudeau (youth, ‘pretty-boy’ teacher, focus on appearance).
• Trudeau’s response strategy: publicized images of boxing, sports, rugged outdoor scenes to (re)assert conventional masculinity.
• 2019 campaign: Andrew Scheer similarly highlighted athletic imagery.

4. Hostile Environment & Online Misogyny

• Sylvia Bashevkin: women + power = discomfort hypothesis.
• Women politicians receive disproportionate sexualized & gender-based abuse.
  • Catherine McKenna: office graffiti using misogynist slur; persistent social-media harassment.
• While male politicians face vitriol, the content and targets of attacks on women are specifically gendered, often threatening gender-based violence.

Implications & Open Debates

• Institutional factors also matter (electoral systems, quotas, party rules) and will be treated in later sections.
• Core evaluative question remains open:
  • If/when numbers rise, what substantive, symbolic, and procedural changes follow?
  • Liberal feminists anticipate improved representation of women’s interests; intersectional critiques warn about reinforcing existing hierarchies if only elite women gain entry.
• Cross-wave dialogue:
  • Fourth-wave digital activism (hashtags, intersectionality, trans inclusivity) pressures mainstream institutions to become more representative and responsive.
  • Second-wave organisational tactics (NOW, etc.) still active, illustrating historical layering rather than linear replacement.