Tuesday, June 25, 2013
C3.17 (Oudemanhuispoort)
The aim of this paper is to focus upon political parties as shapers of norms around gender and gender equality and to map out the conditions under which these discourses emerge. Political parties have faced a certain degree of ‘feminization’ in recent years in a sense that women’s political representation in parliaments and party ranks has increased in a number of countries in Europe and across the political spectrum. Yet, parties’ informal institutions in particular continue to be based on a masculine norms and ethos. This paper is interested in the contradictions that this sets for ideas and norms about gender and gender equality. The paper asks: how is gender and gender equality constructed by political parties; what factors shape these constructions and their role in the wider society (women’s and men’s political organizations, party leadership, national discourses, transnational norm diffusion); what role constructions of gender play in party identities. The questions are approached through a case study on Finland where six political parties and their constructions of gender are compared and contrasted in the heated political debate that took place around the country’s first ever Gender Equality Report 2010.
