Conditions Shaping Womens' Access into Politics Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by faminconnue

while the formal rules of candidate selection do not discri­minate against women, resulting in the framing of women’s political under-­rep­res­ent­ation as an unfort­unate conseq­uence of a gender­-ne­utral, fair and effective system which produces the best people for the job. → it is the informal rules that puts a signif­icant advantage on men

- social conser­vatism
- social attitudes
- localism → local base and networks → privileges men:
- person­alism → knowing the candidate is important; personal connec­tion, but also being as easily contacted as possible

→ Experience of local office, and being well-c­onn­ected into the local community, are key to the recrui­tment and selection prospects of candid­ates. However as women's repres­ent­ation on local councils has never exceeded 21 per cent in Ireland. fewer women
than men can harness this attribute

- candidate selection procedures
→ women still fulfilling their tradit­ional role by taking care of the house and children do not have the time to develop their networks, etc. and thus often ‘lack’ on these conditions

- the theory of supply and demand → factors that clarify whether one is suitable for candidacy
- 5 C’s: care (childcare or/and other), cash, culture, candidate selection, confid­ence, (cyber­space)
- women are more likely to face harassment and abuse on internet, including physical and sexual violence.
- electors vote equally for men and women, women do face bias in candidate selection

a lot of women who joined politics were either a window of a male TD or the daughter of a previous male TD! → as if women have to prove their political creden­tials through men

The theory of supply and demand(Norris and Lovend­uski, 1993; Norris
and Lovend­uski, 1995; Norris, 1997)

- Supply: condit­ioned by the availa­bility (or lack) of resources
(political experi­ence, time, funds and networks) and motiva­tional
factors (Interest, confidence and ambition)
-> Indivi­dua­ll-­level
- Demand: influenced by the opport­unity structure in a given
consti­tuency, such as the number of seat vacancies, as well as the
selector’s own attitudes and their percep­tions of the “type” of
candidates voters prefer
-> Instit­uti­ona­l/s­tru­ctu­ral­-level

- Care (childcare & other)
- Cash
- Culture (National, Political Instit­utions & Political Parties)
- Candidate selection
- Confidence
-> A 6th C – Cyberspace

Explan­ations for varying levels of women’s
repres­ent­ation across nation­-states at an instit­utional and/or societal level include:

Social­-st­ruc­tural, socio-­cul­tural, socio-­eco­nomic
focuses on whether laws treat people differ­ently based on gender.
key economic and social indicators
- What is the level of women’s educat­ional attain­ment?
- If high, should see high numbers of women in politics
- Puzzling – many countries, inc ROI, with high levels of women’s educat­ional attainment do not have high numbers of women in politics
- What is the level of women’s partic­ipation in the labour force?
- If high, should see high numbers of women in politics
- But again, not always congru­ently so.
- Gender parity in UN GDI corres­ponds to higher percen­tages of women in parliament
- Fertility rates – access to contra­ception
- Women make choices (to have/have not children; delay entry into politics due to family commit­ments; leave politics due to family commit­ments) which men don’t face to the same extent
- What is the social eligib­ility pool?
- Usually, women politi­cians are highly educated, from profes­sional backgr­ounds and are gainfully employed
- The trend seems to be suggesting that when women ‘make it’ in tradit­ionally male-d­omi­nated jobs (judges, journa­lists, 3rd level teache­rs/­lec­turers, MDs. law), one observes increasing numbers of women in politics
- Similar obstacles
- Not always true – see Galligan (2010) in Coakley and Gallag­her’s Politics in the Republic of Ireland
- But comparing across similarly situated nation­-states in terms of socio-­eco­nomic progress, we still observe differ­ences in the levels of women’s parlia­mentary repres­ent­ation


Political or politi­co-­str­uctural and instut­ional
focused on regime type and their effect on women's political repres­ent­ation
- Parlia­ments are considered to be gendered
instit­utions
- Electoral systems – is one type more facili­tatory of the
election of women than others?
- PR systems versus majori­tarian systems
- Need to look at factors such as
- District and party magnitudes
- Incumbency
- Ideal electoral system for the election of women: closed PR List system with a DM of seven and a built-in ‘zipper system’
- Over 100 countries worldwide use some form of gender quota to address gendered barriers and facilitate increased numbers of women to run for
political office
- left-wing parties more favourable to introd­ucing measures to advance the role of women in parties and electoral politics
- pipeline theory: women’s access to lower levels of political office a determ­inant to their access to higher levels of political office
- Political Opport­unity Structures
- sudden openings can advantage women, especially those who have stood outside male political circles
(Jalalzai, 2013: 20)
- But also because of political circum­stances which facili­tates their accidental leadership
- Glass cliff: ‘tendency for women to be more likely than men to be appointed to leadership positions that are risky and precar­ious’ (Forbes , 2016)

Ideolo­gical and Culture Explan­ations
Gendered cultur­es/­ste­reo­types within political instit­uti­ons­/or­gan­isa­tions re-ins­cribe gendered roles
-> Women more likely to hold the positions of ‘Secre­tary’ and ‘Treas­urer’ rather than ‘Chair’ or ‘Vice-­chair’ in political parties - Support rather than leadership positions
-> Women’s appoin­tment to socio-­cul­tural portfolios in cabinet
- “The ‘mascu­line’ associ­ation of toughness favours men in executive positions, while compassion is a
liability for women (Huddy and Terkil­dsen, 1993; Fox and Oxley, 2003).
- In cross-­nat­ional studies, people tend to view leaders as possessing masculine’ traits, which they associate with men, not women (Sczesny et al, 2004)” (Jalalzai, 2013: 17).
- Media reinforces gender stereo­types and'as­sociate women with ‘feminine’ issues
- Reporting on physical appearance and family
background (Jalalzai, 2013 17 – 18)
- Women subjected to common gendered frames by the media (Murray, 2010)

Historical
The standard hypothesis is that the longer men and women have enjoyed equal voting and political rights, the more women are in parliament
-> we expect to see low women’s political repres­ent­ation in states with low GDI [Gender Develo­pment Index] scores and high women’s political repres­ent­ation in states with high GDI scores

However, this is not always perfectly congruent!