Rainbow Murray

Second Among Unequals? A Study of Whether France's "Quota Women" are Up to the Job

The introduction of France’s “parity” law in 2000 raised fears of electing inferior women candidates via a gender quota. France has since held two legislative elections, with the proportion of women in parliament rising from 10.9% to 12.3% in 2002, and 18.5% in 2007. These rises permit an empirical evaluation of whether “quota women” measure up to those elected without a quota. New women parliamentarians are compared to their male counterparts and to women elected before 2002 to see whether there are any noticeable differences in their background (profession, age, and prior experience) and their levels of parliamentary activity (including numbers of bills, reports, and questions introduced). The findings challenge the notion that parity is producing weak politicians. The slightly different profiles of men and women politicians reflect wider barriers to women’s political careers that would not have been overcome without the parity law. Once women are elected, the volume of activity shows no evidence of being gendered, suggesting that women are as effective in the job as men. These findings imply that sex is a barrier to entry but not to performance, reinforcing claims for the use of quotas to overcome entry barriers and negating claims that quotas produce second-rate parliamentarians.

Quotas for Men: Reframing Gender Quotas as a Means of Improving Representation for All

Gender quotas traditionally focus on the underrepresentation of women. Conceiving of quotas in this way perpetuates the status of men as the norm and women as the “other.” Women are subject to heavy scrutiny of their qualifications and competence, whereas mens credentials go unchallenged. This article calls for a normative shift in the problem of overrepresentation, arguing that the quality of representation is negatively affected by having too large a group drawn from too narrow a talent pool. Curbing overrepresentation through ceiling quotas for men offers three core benefits. First, it promotes meritocracy by ensuring the proper scrutiny of politicians of both sexes. Second, it provides an impetus for improving the criteria used to select and evaluate politicians. Third, neutralizing the overly masculinized environment within parliaments might facilitate better substantive and symbolic representation of both men and women. All citizens would benefit from these measures to increase the quality of representation.

Why Are Gender Quotas Adopted? Party Pragmatism and Parity in France

The passage of electoral gender quotas raises questions about why male elites would support policies that seemingly go against their self-interests. Recent work on France suggests that quota adoption is self-interested because male legislators benefit from alleged voter bias against female candidates. This article evaluates this explanation as a means for understanding quota adoption globally. It argues that the key actors are not legislators but political parties. Developing an alternative causal story centered on “party pragmatism,” it finds that decisions to introduce quotas are rational and consistent once a range of incentives—ideological, electoral, and strategic—are taken into account.

Parity in France: A ‘Dual Track’ Solution to Women's Under-Representation

As the worlds first country to adopt a ‘parity’ quota, France could be considered an example of the growing phenomenon of quotas as a ‘fast track’ solution to the problem of womens under-representation. French universalism had impeded a more ‘incremental track’ to gender equality whilst placing a constitutional ban on quotas. The design of ‘parity’ as a means of overcoming these hurdles was both normative and pragmatic. Parity could be considered an example of a symbolic policy, where grand claims were made early on but the corresponding legislation only became effective over time. While the practical constraints on parity have delayed its impact, the recognition of the need to ‘legislate equality’ has had a more profound impact, leading to the creep of parity into other areas such as ethnic minority representation and parity in the workplace. This broader societal change is indicative of a ‘dual track’ to gender equality.

Linear Trajectories or Vicious Circles? The Causes and Consequences of Gendered Career Paths in the National Assembly

Despite ‘parity’, various factors have contributed to the low proportion of women within the National Assembly. Men and women are still following different career paths to national office, with women facing numerous obstacles along the way. Women are less likely to accede to executive positions in local office, and tend to enter politics slightly later in life, perhaps due to a greater share of domestic obligations. Men are more likely to enjoy fast-tracked political careers, to benefit from strong implantation in their constituencies, and to benefit from alternative routes into politics such as being a suppléant. Once elected, men are more likely to sit on the prestigious parliamentary committees, and have better opportunities for promotion to government. The combination of a later start and reduced power, both within the constituency and in parliament, may explain why womens parliamentary careers tend to be shorter and less distinguished than those of men.

What Makes a Good Politician? Reassessing the Criteria Used for Political Recruitment

Certain societal groups are significantly overrepresented within politics, including men, ethnic majority groups, and socioeconomic elites. This has fueled debates regarding meritocracy within political recruitment. While meritocracy is desirable, its definition and measurement are contested. The criteria used in theoretical and empirical academic studies differ from those of political parties and voters, as discussed below. Furthermore, there is bias in favor of the male status quo, with all groups preferring the qualities of existing elites. The definition of a “good” politician is therefore highly subjective. Nonetheless, political traditionalists claim that the “best” candidate should be selected even if this leads to significant gender imbalance in parliaments. Yet, if political recruitment is biased in favor of social elites, the overrecruitment of men may not derive solely from merit (Murray 2014). Without definitive criteria for evaluating prospective candidates and judging those already elected, we cannot determine whether political recruitment is meritocratic.

Quotas, citizens, and norms of representation

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Leverhulme Trust, who funded this research via a Research Fellowship grant.

Political data in 2013

Although countries had succeeded by 2013 in putting economic crisis behind them, others continued to struggle with austerity, high unemployment and cumbersome debt. While the economy remained a dominant theme of the year, it was certainly not the only one. Some countries turned their attention to cultural issues such as gay marriage and women’s rights, while others tried to tackle the endemic problem of corruption. There was a new round of scandals, and a growing indication of widespread disillusionment with politics. In several countries, voters rejected seasoned politicians in favour of nonpartisan experts, and in some countries, frustration with politics spilled over into violence. On the international scene, the credibility of the Eurozone remained weakened by a series of bail-outs, the crisis in Syria created domestic tensions concerning refugees, and the documents leaked by Edward Snowden about the United States National Security Agency turned into an international diplomatic row.

Fifty Years of Feminising France's Fifth Republic

For 50 years, women have been battling against the hostile institutions of the Fifth Republic. Despite barriers such as a majoritarian electoral system and presidentialisation, women have been making incremental gains in the political arena. The breakthrough came in the 1970s when politicians began to appreciate the benefits of appealing directly to women voters with policies such as the legalisation of abortion. The Socialist governments of the 1980s saw the introduction of the first womens ministry and the first parliamentary discussions of positive discrimination for women. However, 20 years later women still remain under-represented at the elite level, as well as continuing to carry a disproportionate share of caring and domestic duties. Despite the gendering of citizenship in the form of the parity law, and the flagship presidential campaign of Ségolène Royal, France still retains at heart a universalist tradition built on masculine norms that continues to disadvantage its citoyennes.

Ségolène Royal and Gendered Leadership in France

The role of gender in the French executive is both a new and an old phenomenon. It is new in the sense that it has only recently attracted much attention from the public, the media and scholars, with the candidacy of Segolene Royal in 2007 throwing the male-dominated tradition of the presidency into sharp relief. It is an old phenomenon, however, in many respects. The absence of women from the Elysee (the presidential residence) and, with the brief exception of Edith Cresson in the early 1990s, from Matignon (the Prime Minister’s residence) demonstrates the extent to which executive office in France has always been gendered to the masculine. Royal was by no means the first woman to stand for the presidency, although she was the first to qualify to the second round. Her predecessors include Arlette Laguiller, Huguette Bouchardeau, Marie-France Garaud, Dominique Voynet, Christine Boutin, Corinne Lepage and Christiane Taubira (Sineau 2008, 106). Furthermore, since the introduction of universal suffrage for electing the president in 1962, presidential elections in France have presented an unusual opportunity for women voters to make their presence felt and to put their concerns on the policy agenda, to the extent that Mariette Sineau credits presidential elections with ‘allow[ing] women to come out of a long period of political insignificance, finally making them visible and audible as autonomous political subjects’ (Sineau 2008, 10).1