Parity Reform in France: Promises and Pitfalls |
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| Authors: | CLAUDIE BAUDINO |
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| Affiliation: | Claudie Baudino received a Ph.D. in political science from Paris-IX Dauphine University. She is a member of the Research Network on Gender, Politics, and the State. Her research focuses on the issue of women's representation in elected office as well as in language and in statistics. Since 2001 she has been in charge of a study on women's titles in the upper civil service for the government commission, Comite' de pilotage pour l'kgal acc &des femmes et des hommes aux emplois suphieur des fonctions publiques. She is also conducting a study of the gendering of official statistics for the European parliament. Her recent publications include Politique de la langue et diffe'rence sexuelle (Editions L'Harmattan 2001) and Le genre giche. La ferninisation de l'action publique (EspaceTemps 2001) with Amy Mazur, and La cause des femmes A l'epreuve de son institutionnalisation (Politix 2000). |
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| Abstract: | In the 1990s, a new social movement emerged in France to address the underrepresentation of women in elected bodies and to promote womens's and men's equal representation, in French called parité. On the eve of the twenty‐first century, the movement achieved its main goal—a constitutional reform. The purpose of this article is to present both the promises of the parity movement and the limits of the reform. During the 1990s, parity reform appeared as a tool to achieve sex‐based political equality, but it was also seen as an indicator of feminist movement renewal and of improving French democracy. The legal texts adopted in 1999 and 2000 did not keep the promises of the movement. While the legal obligations and financial incentives in the reforms established new mechanisms for achieving parity between the sexes in elected office, they have not yet translated into actual parity in electoral outcomes. |
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