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Professor Sarah Childs

Explore justice arguments, symbolic representation, and political strategies to increase women's presence in politics. Learn about factors influencing women's descriptive representation, from socio-economic to political aspects.

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Professor Sarah Childs

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  1. Professor Sarah Childs Gender and Politics: Theory and Research

  2. Women’s Political Presence Anne Phillips (1995) • Justice arguments • Symbolic representation • Representation of women’s interests • Introduction of new values and concerns

  3. Women in Westminster,1992-2010 By Sex By party

  4. Determinants of Women’s Descriptive Representation • Socio-economic: women’s participation in the public sphere and ‘pipe-line’ professions; social-democratic state • Cultural: measures of egalitarianism; secularism; date of women’s enfranchisement • Political: proportional representation (PR); positive discrimination/quotas; women’s presence in party hierarchies; left wing parties; centralized party selection processes; salience of ‘women’s vote’

  5. Supply and Demand Supply • ‘outcome reflects supply of applicants’ • Fewer resources: time, money, ambition, confidence, experience Demand • ‘selectors choose candidates depending on their perceptions of the applicants’ abilities, qualifications and experience’ • Direct discrimination • Indirect discrimination – what constitutes good MP • Imputed – perception that voters may discriminate

  6. Descriptive and Substantive Representation • ‘A substantial amount of circumstantial evidence nevertheless connects women’s presence to policies that address women’s concerns’ (Lovenduski 2005)

  7. Re-gendering politics by regulating political parties • Political parties should be more fully regulated in a feminist fashion to • include women; and • be committed to gender equality in politics • This can be achieved via: • Party registration • Party funding • Party organization

  8. appendices

  9. Speaker’s Conference • To ‘consider and make recommendations for rectifying the disparity between the representation of women, ethnic minorities and disabled people in the House of Commons and their representation in the UK population at large; and may agree to consider other associated matters’ (in practice, sexuality).

  10. Recommendation 25 • all political parties registered under part 2 of the PPERA Act 2000 should be required to publish details of their candidate selections online every six months,… • sex; ethnicity; whether the candidate is willing to identify as a disabled person. • The reports might also include the following information: • nature of the impairment; • sexual orientation; • Age • Occupation • educational attainment

  11. Speaker’s Conference Recommendation 24 • Parliament should give ‘serious consideration to the introduction of prescriptive quotas, ensuring that all political parties adopt some form of equality guarantee in time for the following general election’, should the parties fail to make significant progress in 2010 (emphasis added).

  12. Guiding Principles • Prescription (requirements) vs permissive measures (preferences and targets) • Goodness of fit : target, type, and relative importance of individual regulations • Goodness of fit : regulations and associated incentive or penalty. • Financial implications

  13. Making a Difference and ‘Acting for’ women • ‘You can’t say we have changed that, but you can say, we’ve worked six weeks on that and…change has come about.’ • ‘So is it women? I think so. Don’t you think so?’

  14. Acting for Women House of Commons • Parliamentary questions • Signing of EDMs • Sex Discrimination (EC) Act • Reduction of VAT on Sanitary Products

  15. Global rankings (www.ipu.org) • 1st Rwanda 56% • 4th Sweden 45% • 7th Finland 43% • 8th South Africa 42% • 12th Mozambique 40% • 17th Belgium 38% • 20th Spain 36% • 37st France 27% • 58th UK 22% • 80th USA 17% • 89th Ireland 15% • 119th Brazil 9%

  16. Women in National Parliaments, 1997 and 2010

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