“A Mom First and a Candidate Second”: Gender Differences in Candidates' Self-Presentation of Family

Parenthood carries different consequences for men and women in politics. While the conventional wisdom is that motherhood is a liability for women candidates and fatherhood an asset for men, recent elections have called this idea into question. Specifically, Sarah Palin's candidacy and her cadre of “Mama Grizzlies” suggest that there may be times when motherhood can be an asset. We analyze how men and women present their families to voters by examining the campaign websites of congressional contenders in 2008 and 2010. The results indicate that despite the proliferation of mother candidates, women still tend to de-emphasize their children compared to their male colleagues, who are more likely to showcase their families, most notably in pictures. Moreover, we find that other factors like parental status, age of children, party, chamber, incumbency, and opponent gender also affect differences in candidates' propensity to use their families in campaigns.     

Japanese women in grassroots politics: building a gender-equal society from the bottom up

Abstract

The 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women highlights the importance of equal participation of women in public life. Since the early 1960s, women in Japan have voted in elections at significantly higher rates than men. However, Japanese women's equal participation in policy formulation and decision making lags far behind major democracies. Gender equality is stated under the Japanese Constitution, but social practices are far from equal. There are no legal constraints on Japanese women's right to candidacy for public office, but they are far underrepresented in local and national elected assemblies. In 1999 an important landmark in the substantial progress towards gender equality took place when the Japanese government, for the first time, legally denounced the stereotyped division of roles on the basis of gender and described men and women as equal partners. An unprecedented amount of legislation, together with policy changes and organizational reform at the national level were introduced from this state-led initiation. In the same year, women's grassroots groups were rapidly moving beyond the reach of policy, organizational, and legal changes; they successfully conducted a major nationwide campaign for ‘More Women to Assemblies¡’ and increased the number of elected women representatives at the local level at an unprecedented rate. The purpose of this article is to assess the potential of increased women's political voices in Japan, which can be seen as an alternative way of solving the problems of political disengagement in the male-dominated representative democracy. To this end, the article examines the course of watershed events in 1999 towards a gender-equal society in Japan, with special emphasis on the importance of grassroots missions in eliminating barriers to Japanese women's political participation.     

Boundary riding: Cross‐cultural analysis,national cinema and genre

This paper addresses the relation between rhetoric and politics through a reading of the term ‘queer’ as it circulated in three different communities in the 1990s: the activist group Queer Nation; the (American) field of study now known as Queer Theory; and an underground queer‐punk press (fanzines'). Reflection on the specific uses of the term ‘queer’ indicates widely divergent and conflicting meaning‐making processes. For some people, the term ‘queer’ signifies all people outside of normative heterosexuality, while for others, the term only refers to lesbians and gay men. Within both Queer Nation and Queer Theory, a metaphorical association is established among ‘queers’ and ‘lesbian/gays’. By contrast, queer‐punks employ the term catachrestically, as a metaphor for which no literal referent exists. Rhetorical theory can clarify these different employments of the same term. Theories of metaphor and catachresis help us to understand how relations of association are established among queers and lesbian/gays, and how particular rhetorical strategies relate to specific political agendas.     

Voters’ evaluation of (contra-)prototypical political candidates. An experimental test of the interaction of candidate gender and policy positions cues in Flanders (Belgium)

Following social psychological models of impression formation, information about candidates' policy positions shapes voters' impressions of their personal qualities (Rahn et al., 1990). This paper presents an experimental test of the impact of the inclusion of information about candidates' policy positions on the prevalence of issue competence stereotypes in Flanders (Belgium), i.e. the idea that male and female candidates have different areas of issue competence. Respondents are found to primarily base their evaluation of the presented candidates on the policy positions presented by the candidate and the extent to which they agree with the presented policy positions. It can therefore be concluded that the inclusion of information about candidates' policy positions trumps the effects of candidate gender on voters’ preferences. This decreased stereotype reliance is potentially beneficial for female candidates because it also decreases the chances of a voter bias.     

Feminising British Politics: Six Lessons from Devolution in Scotland and Wales

Modest levels of female representation at the House of Commons are in sharp contrast to the Nordic‐levels of representation achieved in the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales since devolution in 1999. One apparent advantage of devolution is the opportunity that it provides for lesson‐learning across jurisdictions. This article offers six lessons on women's political representation—three positive and three negative—drawn from the experience of devolution in Scotland and Wales. We draw conclusions from these lessons, including the need to keep parties under scrutiny to ensure they deliver on their rhetorical commitments. We also postulate that gender equality might prove too important to be left to political parties and consider whether there is a need to consider stronger measures such as mandatory quotas.     

Gender-Related Political Knowledge and the Descriptive Representation of Women

Past scholarship has documented that women tend to know less about politics than men. This study finds that political knowledge of one kind—knowledge about the actual level of women's representation—is related to support for having more women in office. Individuals who underestimate the percentage of women in office are more likely than individuals who know the correct percentage to support increasing women's representation. Meanwhile, individuals who overestimate the percentage of women in office are less likely to support increasing women's representation. Ironically, women are more likely than men to overestimate the presence of women in office. I also find that gender predicts support for having more women in office, with women more supportive than men. Women would be even more supportive of electing more women to office if they were as knowledgeable as men about the extent of women's underrepresentation.     

How do gender quotas affect public support for women as political leaders?

Gender quotas have shown themselves to be an effective means of getting more women into political office. Less clear is the broader effect of gender quotas on egalitarian attitudes. This article uses a cross-national dataset of 48 countries worldwide to examine the role of gender quotas in the generation of individual-level attitudes to women as political leaders. Firstly, gender quotas appear to improve perceptions of women’s ability as political leaders in countries where they are present, having controlled for a range of individual-level and contextual influences. Second, this effect differs by sex. For women, the presence of gender quotas alone increases their support for women’s political leadership, something theorised as a ‘vote of confidence’ effect. Thirdly, this effect is not dependent on the type of quota implemented and holds for quotas adopted voluntarily by political parties and those that are brought about via a broader legal change.     

Reframing migrant mothers as citizens

This article suggests reframing the study of migrant women's mothering from a question of integration to an engagement with citizenship. Drawing on research with Polish migrants to the UK, it illustrates how migrant mothers and children construct complex belongings, referencing local, national (UK and Polish), transnational and supra-national levels of belonging. Migrant mothers' sense of ethnic distinctness goes hand in hand with universalistic discourses of belonging. The notion of competent mothering is a key aspect constituting the migrant mothers' narratives of ‘good citizenship’. Their narratives challenge the devaluing of their mothering practices as migrants, negotiating not only national but also class and racialized identities so that the figure of the well-educated Polish child symbolizes legitimate mobility and belonging. The article concludes by developing elements of a research agenda on migrant women's mothering as a citizenship practice.     

Entering the men's domain? Gender and portfolio allocation in European governments

While all government portfolios used to be the purview of men exclusively, more and more women are selected to sit around the cabinet table. But under which circumstances do women get appointed to different ministerial portfolios? This article, proposes a theoretical framework to consider how party leaders’ attitudes and motivations influence the allocation of portfolios to male and female ministers. These propositions are tested empirically by bringing together data on 7,005 cabinet appointments across 29 European countries from the late 1980s until 2014. Considering the key partisan dynamics of the ministerial selection process, it is found that women are significantly less likely to be appointed to the ‘core’ offices of state, and ‘masculine’ and ‘neutral’ policy areas. However, these gender differences are moderated by the ideology of the party that allocates them. Women are more likely to be appointed to ‘masculine’ portfolios when a party's voters have more progressive gender attitudes. This theoretical framework and analysis enhances our understanding of women's access to the government, which has important implications for how ministers are selected, as well as how women are represented in the most powerful policy-making positions in Europe.     

Unravelling Equality: The Impact of the United Kingdom's Spending Cuts on Women

This article examines a report on the likely impact of the spending cuts on women. The report, Unravelling Equality: A Human Rights and Equality Impact Assessment of the Spending Cuts on Women in Coventry, concludes that the public spending cuts will increase inequality between women and men. For some women the cuts may have serious negative effects on their human rights. The article argues that this report provides a blueprint for the kind of analysis which should be carried out all over the country to ensure that the impact of spending cuts on women is better understood and acted upon.