Women and European Politics: What impedes women’s progress ?

1. Women and European Politics: What impedes women’s progress? Dr Rosie Campbell r.campbell@bbk.ac.uk Twitter: @Rosiecampb

2. July 2014 information is only indicative based on provisional results of 13 June 2014. Kindly made available by European Parliament Information Office in the UK

3. Provisional results

4. Change in the percentage of women elected to the European Parliament 2009-2014 More Women in European Politics Partner States Provisional figures

5. Do women participate less than men at every level? Partisan politics Civic engagement Cause oriented activities Voluntary work Education, child and health related groups

6. Figure 4: Respondents to the European Social Survey 2012 who had contacted a politician by sex N=44102

7. Figure 5: Respondents to the European Social Survey 2012 who had worn a campaign badge or sticker in the last 12 months by sex N=44102

8. What impedes women’s progress? Demand and Supply • Demand is perhaps the most important and the short to medium term solution is practically speaking addressing demand is straight-forward (if not always politically)- Gender Quotas Key source: Norris and Krook. (2011). Gender Equality in Elected Office. OSCE • Supply changing cultural attitudes and gender roles

9. Norris and Krook- 6 point action plan • Constitutional rights • Electoral system • Legal quotas • Party rules and recruitment procedures • Capacity development- skills mentoring etc • Parliamentary reform- facilities sitting hours childcare facilities

10. Demand • Quotas- reserved seats, legislative or party • Party recruitment processes Examples: Legislative quota- French Parity Law Party quota- British Labour Party All Women Short Lists

11. Supply

12. Engagement with politics Political interest Political knowledge Women generally found to be less knowledgeable But it depends how knowledge is measured (Guessing/risk taking, useful knowledge, gendered knowledge) • Women routinely found to be less interested in formal politics • But it depends how you ask: Less interested in partisan politics and foreign policy more interested in local politics, health and education

13. Political talk • Women less interested in political talk (Verba et al 1997) • Women often talk with women and men with men (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995) • Women’s knowledge is often under-estimated (Mendez and Osborn 2010) • Women sometimes exclude themselves fearing that they will not be persuasive (Miller et al 1999) • Focus group research suggests that women more often talk about politics through a family/community lens rather than an abstract ideological or national lens.

14. Figure 6: Average general interest in politics by sex and age group Figure 7: Average interest in domestic politics, by age group and sex

15. Role models? • "the more that politicians are made visible by national news coverage, the more likely adolescent girls are to indicate an intention to be politically active" 233 (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006). • “where there are more female members of parliament (MPs), adolescent girls are more likely to discuss politics with friends and to intend to participate in politics as adults, and adult women are more likely to discuss and participate in politics.” (Wolbrecht and Campbell 2007) • Randomized natural experiment in India- young women’s educational attainment and career aspirations were raised in districts with a woman representative(Beamanet al. 2012) • In US gender gap in political knowledge shrinks to zero when share of women in the state legislature exceeds 20% (Wolak and McDevitt 2011) • Wives and mothers sit at the centre of households: their partisanship influences the partisanship of everyone else, and the others affect them.(Zuckerman, Dasovic and Fitzgerald 2007)

16. Resource Barriers Figure 15: British MPs’ average number of children by sex 2013 • Parental status • Income • Education?

17. Confidence Focus group participants: “I’m much more open about my ambitions with my friends and family- before it’s just so embarrassing and now I will tell anybody.” “[It’s not] just about the relationship with the mentor but with the people around the table.” “The fact that we can sit in the Shadow cabinet room and think ‘one day I could do this’” “Westminster and Brussels [trips were a] fantastic chance to experience, sitting here and having ministers giving us their expertise and time, sharing their experiences and having informal conversations with us.” “Meeting these women who were already successful made me realise I just needed to get on and do it. A real shift in terms of how I was approaching everything.” Fabian Women’s Network Mentoring and Political Education Scheme 2013

18. What can be done? http://www.jackyfleming.co.uk/cartoons/?pid=89 • Address supply side barriers: • Generate avirtuous circle- use the women we have in politics and public life to mentor and recruit other women. • Maintain and create majority women spaces. • Encouragement to stand- seek them out in non-partisan spaces • Focus (although not exclusively) on the issues and topics that particularly motivate women (education, healthcare, children, pensions, caring for the elderly). • More focus on consensus rather than focusing exclusively on conflict • Build confidence in knowledge and efficacy 2. Address demand side barriers: ensure all EP elections are undertaken with PR systems with large district magnitudes and apply a double quota.