Maria Helena Santos

Género e política: análise sobre as resistências nos discursos e nas práticas sociais face à Lei da Paridade

O reconhecimento da desigualdade de genero na politica tem conduzido a adocao de medidas de acao positiva a nivel mundial, como e disso exemplo a Lei da Paridade aprovada em Portugal em 2006. Tal como noutros paises, onde estas medidas foram adotadas, tambem em Portugal elas suscitaram controversia social, um terreno particularmente rico de analise para as praticas assentes na ideologia de genero. Centrando-se no ciclo eleitoral de 2009, este estudo pretendeu verificar se a Lei da Paridade foi cumprida pelos grandes partidos politicos portugueses e, alem disso, conhecer os discursos que emergiram sobre o tema na imprensa periodica. Os resultados revelaram o cumprimento da lei e os seus efeitos positivos na representacao das mulheres nestes partidos politicos nas eleicoes europeias e, embora menos, nas legislativas, e o seu incumprimento nas autarquicas, para alem de mostrarem que as resistencias a lei permanecem sustentadas por uma ideologia que define a politica como um territorio masculino.

Experiences et strategies de femmes investies dans un “monde d’hommes”: le cas de la politique locale portugaise

The article presents a research on the gender dynamics operating in a tokenism context: politics. Twenty-two Portuguese female politicians were interviewed. Their strategies to get a place in the masculine world of politics is mainly determined by the age: whereas the older women fight against gender discriminations and favor women’s skills, the younger value the superwoman profile that distance themselves from their socially dominated group, at the risk of denying the experienced discrimination, and are very attached to the meritocratic ideology threatened by the quotas.L’article presente une recherche sur les dynamiques de genre œuvrant dans un contexte de tokenism: la politique. Vingt-deux femmes politiques portugaises ont ete interviewees. Leurs strategies pour se faire une place dans le monde masculin de la politique sont surtout determinees par l’âge: les plus âgees luttent contre les discriminations de genre et privilegient des competences feminines, tandis que les plus jeunes valorisent le profil de la superwoman qui se distancie de son groupe socialement domine, au risque de denier la discrimination vecue, et se montrent tres attachees a l’ideologie meritocratique menacee par les quotas.

Gender dynamics in elementary school teaching: The advantages of men

This article presents a study that identifies the gender dynamics prevailing in a specific context of tokenism – elementary school teaching – in which the members of an otherwise socially dominant group are proportionally scarce – men. The results contradict Kanter’s (1977) theory by showing that male elementary school teachers do not experience the tokenism dynamics. In line with Williams’ gender perspective and Amâncio’s gender symbolic asymmetry, the article finds that although men constitute a small minority in elementary education, they do not lose the social advantages they generally have: on the contrary, they seem rather to gain several privileges. Indeed, the results show strong links between the tokenism dynamics and gender asymmetry, putting the token men at an advantage. Thus, tokenism seems to be limited to maintaining the gender social order.