chapter 6 - feminism

‘critical and disruptive social movement’ with origins outside of academia feminism is a dialogue around a common evolving agenda, of correcting gender biases in the mainstream of the discipline concern with women’s unequal position in society

they seek to recognise and understand gender power and relations (empirical), but also to change and transform them (normative, prescriptive)

first-wave feminism: focused on legal and constitutional rights and suffrage (19-20 century) second-wave feminism (1960s-1980s): broader issues of equality, e.g. workplace and family, domestic violence and reproductive rights third wave feminism (90s-): diversity + inclusion of women of colour

• most political scientists are male • feminist approaches still often sidelined in political science and teaching • women were relegated to the private sphere and ‘low politics’, men associated with public sphere and ‘high politics’ • distortion of the participation of women in politics (Bourque and Grossholtz) • feminists argued that the positivist legacy wasn’t value free, there where masculine biases + focusing only on measurable political behaviour didn’t capture all politics • feminists sought to expand the definition of politics

• ‘fudging the footnotes’: inaccurate statements are made which aren’t substantiated by the cited material • assumption of male dominance • acceptance of masculinity as ideal political behaviour • commitment to the ‘eternal feminine’, basing explanations of political behaviour on unexamined stereotypes of women’s domestic roles

integrating women into the theories, frameworks and research areas this can have significant influence on theories, concepts and mechanisms e.g. Paxton: democracy is a gendered concept: emphasis on suffrage and participation of all major adult social groups, but in practice women are often excluded : only male suffrage is taken into account when looking at democratic transition -> more countries are seen as democracies than if you would include women participation

feminists prefer gender to sex meaning of gender = inconsistencies in definitions of feminist approaches a widely used definition (Joan Scott) = gender as a constitutive element of social relations based on perceived differences between women and men - this makes gender a relevant analytical category for analysis common in all definitions of different feminist approaches: gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power

lately there is a shift of focus from female underrepresentation towards male over-representation

constructions of masculinity and femininity are intertwined in the daily culture or ‘logic’ of political institutions, rather than ‘existing out in society or fixed within individuals which they then bring whole to the institution’

Kimberl’e Creshaw different intersecting categories of race, ethnicity, class, caste, dis/ability, sexuality play a role in the representation of different people

• political representation • feminising political parties • gendering the state and state feminism

-> shifted focus from individual women to an institutional level of analysis (institutionalized advantages and disadvantages)

• descriptive representation of women: the presence of women ‘standing for’ women = representativeness • substantive representation of women: acting for women, and promoting women’s interests = representation finding: female legislators are more likely than male legislators to ‘act for’ women, although within constraint over time: more interest in how substantive representation occurs: not only focusing on legislature and parliaments, but also including other actors

explores interactive relationship between gender and party politics, conceptualising parties as gendered and gendering • descriptive representation: looking at candidate selection and recruitment: gender shapes these structures, practices and rules • substantive representation: argues that a gendered perspective can offer important insights for theories and frameworks of party characteristics, competition and change

• descriptive representation of women: the presence of women ‘standing for’ women = representativeness • substantive representation of women: acting for women, and promoting women’s interests = representation

emphasizes the fact that states aren’t single coherent entities, but differentiated sets of institutions, agencies and discourses through which specific gender pwower relations are constructed and reproduced *mostly focused on western democracies

• is political science still worthwhile for feminists as their concerns are largely ignored? • feminist critique: feminist political science is not bold enough

• problem-driven rather than method-driven approach • broad range of theoretical and methodological frames and synthesising different types of methods in innovative ways to answer specific questions • open to combining interpretive and discursive approaches with traditional positivist methods and tools

• continue to gender political science research (not enough to describe that it is gendered, its effects need to be analyzed + intersectionality has to be addressed) • incorporating the concept of gender into quantitative research • comparison and its role in theory building (more emphasis on comparative politics of gender)

• women in politics looks at the underrepresentation of women • gender and politics looks at the role gender plays in institutions and power dynamics