Gender and Politics Marian Sawer Kerryn Baker - Gender Innovation in Political Science 2019 Springer International Publ

Gender Innovation
in Political Science
New Norms, New Knowledge
GENDER AND POLITICS
Edited by
Marian Sawer
and Kerryn Baker
Gender and Politics
Series Editors
Johanna Kantola
University of Tampere
Tampere, Finland
Sarah Childs
Birkbeck, University of London
London, UK
The Gender and Politics series celebrated its 7th anniversary at the 5th
European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in June 2017 in
Lausanne, Switzerland having published more than 25 volumes to date.
The original idea for the book series was envisioned by the series editors
Johanna Kantola and Judith Squires at the first ECPG in Belfast in 2009,
and the series was officially launched at the Conference in Budapest in
2011. In 2014, Sarah Childs became the co-editor of the series, together
with Johanna Kantola. Gender and Politics showcases the very best interna-
tional writing. It publishes world class monographs and edited collections
from scholars—junior and well established—working in politics, interna-
tional relations and public policy, with specific reference to questions of
gender. The 15 titles that have come out over the past five years make key
contributions to debates on intersectionality and diversity, gender equality,
social movements, Europeanization and institutionalism, governance and
norms, policies, and political institutions. Set in European, US and Latin
American contexts, these books provide rich new empirical findings and
push forward boundaries of feminist and politics conceptual and theoreti-
cal research. The editors welcome the highest quality international research
on these topics and beyond, and look for proposals on feminist political
theory; on recent political transformations such as the economic crisis or
the rise of the populist right; as well as proposals on continuing feminist
dilemmas around participation and representation, specific gendered policy
fields, and policy making mechanisms. The series can also include books
published as a Palgrave pivot.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14998
Marian Sawer · Kerryn Baker
Editors
Gender Innovation
in Political Science
New Norms, New Knowledge
Editors
Marian Sawer Kerryn Baker
Australian National University Department of Pacific Affairs
Canberra, Australia Australian National University
Canberra, Australia
Gender and Politics

ISBN 978-3-319-75849-7 ISBN 978-3-319-75850-3 (eBook)
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Acknowledgements
This volume is one of the products of the Gendered Excellence in the Social
Sciences (GESS) project led by Fiona Jenkins and hosted at the Australian
National University (ANU). The project is funded by the Australian
Research Council (DP 150104449) and more details about it, including
case studies of gender innovation in other social science disciplines, can be
accessed at: http://genderinstitute.anu.edu.au/gess-home.
In 2016, the project held an international conference on Gendered
Innovations in the Social Sciences and workshops on three of the
five disciplines covered in the project. These included the Gendered
Innovation in Political Science Workshop, which forms the basis of this
book. The workshop was funded under the Australian Political Studies
Association’s workshop programme and was co-funded by the School
of Politics and International Relations (ANU) and the ANU’s Gender
Institute. Thanks to this support, international speakers could be invited
as well as participants from around Australia. Both leading scholars
and early career researchers participated, enabling cross-generational
exchanges and excellent discussion of the papers that now make up this
volume.
Almost all of those who contributed to the workshop discussion can
be seen in the workshop photograph below (missing are Fiona Jenkins
and Katrina Lee-Koo). It records a remarkable gathering; a roomful of
Australian feminist political science (Fig. 1).
Fiona Mackay was unable to come from Edinburgh to participate
in the workshop but acted as a very helpful external reviewer on two
v
vi Acknowledgements
Fig. 1 APSA workshop on gender innovation in political science, ANU, 10

November 2016
L to R: Kerryn Baker, Almah Tararia, Siobhan Austen, Sonia Palmieri, Joy McCann,
NI, Jim Jose, Maria Maley, Jacqui True, Blair Williams, J Ann Tickner, Marian Sawer,
Shakira Hussein, Merrindahl Andrew, Juliet Pietsch, Jane Alver, Jennifer Curtin, Katrine
Beauregard, S Laurel Weldon, Laura Shepherd, Carol Johnson, Manon Tremblay, Louise
Chappell, Sarah Maddison, Deborah Brennan, Elizabeth Reid, Claire Donovan, Caitlin
Cahill, Gillian Whitehead, Renee O’Shanassy, Kirsty McLaren, Monica Costa
Photo courtesy: Department of Pacific Affairs, ANU
of the chapters. Rebecca Pearse conducted the bibliometric research

reproduced in Chapter 12 as a Postdoctoral Fellow with the GESS pro-
ject, while Monica Costa undertook the GESS recognition research as
a part-time Postdoctoral Fellow. The GESS project has meant that, for
the first time, a comparative perspective can be brought to the study of
gender innovation in political science and its integration within the dis-
cipline. The workforce, recognition and bibliometric data compiled by
the project have enabled both similarities and differences to be identified
among related social sciences. We are grateful to the Australian Research
Council and to the ANU for making this possible, as well as to all those
who have contributed to the GESS project.
The support of the Department of Pacific Affairs at ANU was invalu-
able in the final stages of preparing the manuscript for publication. The
Department provided funds for a research assistant and we acknowledge
the careful work of Claire Cronin on the referencing. We would also like
to thank the team at Palgrave for their support, in particular Imogen
Gordon Clark and Ambra Finotello.
Contents
1 Introduction: New Norms, New Knowledge 1

Kerryn Baker
2 How the Absence of Women Became a Democratic

Deficit: The Role of Feminist Political Science 13
Marian Sawer
3 Gendered Innovation in the Social Sciences 41

Fiona Jenkins
4 Inclusion and Exclusion: Contributions of a Feminist

Approach to Power 61
S. Laurel Weldon
5 Uncovering the Gendered Effects of Voting Systems:

A Few Thoughts About Representation of Women
and of LGBT People 91
Manon Tremblay
6 Feminist Innovations and New Institutionalism 115

Jennifer Curtin
vii
viii Contents
7 Gender Research and the Study of Institutional Transfer

and Norm Transmission 135
Jacqui True
8 Gender Research in International Relations 153

J. Ann Tickner
9 Feminist Institutionalism and Gender-Sensitive

Parliaments: Relating Theory and Practice 173
Sonia Palmieri
10 Gender Research and Discursive Policy Framing 195

Carol Johnson
11 What Feminist Research Has Contributed to Social

Movement Studies: Questions of Time and Belonging 219
Merrindahl Andrew
12 The Thorny Path to a More Inclusive Discipline 243

Monica Costa and Marian Sawer
Index 277
Notes on Contributors
Merrindahl Andrew is Program Manager for the Australian Women

Against Violence Alliance. Since completing her Ph.D. at the Australian
National University, she has published widely, including in Politics
& Gender, Social Movement Studies and Australian Feminist Studies
and in The Women’s Movement in Protest, Institutions and the Internet
(Routledge, 2013). With Mitchell Whitelaw, Merrindahl created the
interactive data display, www.institutionalharvest.net, which tracks the
establishment and survival of women’s services and policy machinery
in Australia. She is also the creator of online social art project Hearts in
Causes (http://heartsincauses-blog.tumblr.com).
Kerryn Baker is Research Fellow specialising in Pacific politics with the
Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. She
has published in leading journals including Government & Opposition,
Australian Journal of Political Science, Representation, and Political
Science on issues of electoral reform and women’s political representa-
tion. Her book Pacific Women in Politics is forthcoming.
Monica Costa Curtin University of Technology, Australia, is a former
international gender adviser in the Asia-Pacific region including Timor-
Leste, Solomon Islands and Indonesia. One of her most recent posi-
tions was as gender adviser to the government of Timor-Leste. She
has also worked in the non-government sector and has broad experi-
ence of applied research and advocacy work related to gender equality.
ix
x Notes on Contributors
Monica has contributed to leading economics and political science jour-

nals and recently published her first book, Gender Responsive Budgeting
in Fragile States: The Case of Timor-Leste (Routledge, 2017).
Jennifer Curtin is Professor of Politics and Director of the Public
Policy Institute at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She writes
on New Zealand and Australian institutions and elections as well as com-
parative gender politics. Her feminist-focused research has appeared in
a range of international and regional journals. Her latest books include
the co-authored The Unequal Election: How and Why New Zealand Voted
in 2014 (with Jack Vowles and Hilde Coffe, ANU Press, 2017) and the
co-edited Double Disillusion: The 2016 Australian Federal Election (ANU
Press, 2018).
Fiona Jenkins is Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy,
Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University,
and was Head of the ANU Gender Institute 2013–15. She is the Lead
Investigator on the Australian Research Council project ‘Gendered
Excellence in the Social Sciences’. Prior to the grant, a special issue of
Australian Feminist Studies (2014), also with this title, laid the ground
for investigating gender in a range of social science disciplines. She has
published widely on topics in social, political and gender theory and is
the co-editor (with Katrina Hutchison) of Women in Philosophy: What
Needs to Change? (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Carol Johnson is Professor of Politics at the University of Adelaide,
a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a for-
mer President of the Australian Political Studies Association. She has
published widely on issues of political discourse, policy and the politics
of gender in both an Australian and comparative context. Recent arti-
cles have appeared in journals ranging from the Australian Journal of
Political Science and Australian Feminist Studies to Politics & Gender,
Sexualities and Government & Opposition. She is also the author or
co-editor of several books on issues ranging from the study of Australian
politics to analyses of the comparative politics of sexuality and issues fac-
ing the social sciences in the Asian Century.
Sonia Palmieri is a consultant on gender and political participation.
Sonia has worked for UN Women, the Inter-Parliamentary Union
and the United Nations Development Programme as well as for the
Notes on Contributors xi
Australian Parliament. She is the author of groundbreaking reports such

as Gender-Sensitive Parliaments: A Global Review of Good Practice (IPU,
2011).
Marian Sawer is Public Policy Fellow and Emeritus Professor in the
School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National
University. She was made an Officer in the Order of Australia in 1994
for services to women and to political science and is a Fellow of the
Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She has been President of
the Australian Political Studies Association and Vice-President of the
International Political Science Association and edits the International
Political Science Review. She is former head of the Democratic Audit of
Australia and the most recent of her books is Party Rules? Dilemmas of
Party Regulation in Australia (co-edited with Anika Gauja, ANU Press,
2016).
J. Ann Tickner is Professor Emerita at the University of Southern
California, USA; Professor, Politics and International Relations,
Gender, Peace and Security Centre, at Monash University, Australia;
and Distinguished Scholar in Residence, American University, USA.
She was the first feminist International Relations theorist to become
President of the International Studies Association and her books
include: Gendered States Revisited (co-edited with Swati Parashar and
Jacqui True, Oxford University Press 2018); A Feminist Voyage Through
International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2014); Gendering
World Politics: Issues and Approaches in the Post-Cold War Era (Columbia
University Press, 2001); and Gender in International Relations: Feminist
Perspectives on Achieving International Security (Columbia University
Press, 1992).
Manon Tremblay is Professor in the School of Political Studies at the
University of Ottawa, Canada. She is the author or editor of some 14
books, a number of which have come out in more than one edition like
her Palgrave Macmillan book Women and Legislative Representation
(2008, 2012). She has also co-edited the Ashgate Research Companion
to Lesbian and Gay Activism (2015) and has co-edited special issues for
journals such as the Swiss Political Science Review (14[4], 2008). She was
the winner of IPSA’s Wilma Rule Prize for best paper on gender and pol-
itics in 2006 and is the former French-language editor of the Canadian
Journal of Political Science.
xii Notes on Contributors
Jacqui True is Professor of Politics and International Relations and

Director of the Gender, Peace and Security Centre at Monash University,
Australia. She is also a Global Fellow at the Peace Research Institute,
Oslo, and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Her book The Political Economy of Violence Against Women (Oxford,
2012) won the American Political Science Association’s human rights
prize, the British ISA’s international political economy prize and the
Australian Political Science Association’s Carole Pateman prize. She
co-edited Scandalous Economics: Gender and the Politics of Financial
Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2016) with Aida A Hozic and The
Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security (Oxford University Press,
2018) with Sara Davies.
S. Laurel Weldon is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and
Director, Purdue Policy Research Institute, Purdue University, USA. Her
books include the prizewinning When Protest Makes Policy: How Social
Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups (University of Michigan
Press, 2011) and the highly cited Protest, Policy and the Problem of
Violence Against Women (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002). She
co-edited the Oxford Handbook on Gender and Politics (2013) with
Georgina Waylen, Karen Celis and Johanna Kantola. She has been the
recipient of large research grants from the Political Science Program of
the National Science Foundation and, most recently, from the Mellon
Foundation for ‘Breaking through: Developing multidisciplinary solu-
tions to global grand challenges’.
Acronyms
ALP Australian Labor Party

APSA American Political Science Association
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
CAD Canadian dollar
CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women
CEDAW Committee Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against
Women
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CPA Commonwealth Parliamentary Association
ECPG European Conference on Politics and Gender
ECPR European Consortium for Political Research
EU European Union
FPTP First-past-the-post
GDP Gross domestic product
GESS Gendered Excellence in the Social Sciences
GII Gender Inequality Index
HASS Humanities and social sciences
ICC International Criminal Court
IDEA Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
IGO International governmental organisation
INGO International non-governmental organisation
IPE International political economy
IPSA International Political Science Association
IPSR International Political Science Review
IPU Inter-Parliamentary Union
xiii
xiv Acronyms
IR International relations
ISA International Studies Association
LGBT Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans*
LGBTQ Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer
MP Member of Parliament
NAP National action plan
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NFAW National Foundation for Australian Women
NGO Non-governmental organisation
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development
OECD-DAC Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development’s Development Assistance Committee
OSCE Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
PPE Political science, philosophy and economics
PPT Political process theory
PR Proportional representation
PSA Political science associations (or political studies
associations)
SGBV Sexual and gender-based violence
SMO Social movement organisation
STEMM Sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics
and medicine
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNSC United Nations Security Council
US United States
USD United States dollar
VAW Violence against women
VIM Visions in Methodology
WPS Women, peace and security
List of Figures
Fig. 1 APSA workshop on gender innovation in political science,

ANU, 10 November 2016 vi
Fig. 2.1 IPSA Executive Committee meeting, Rio de Janeiro, 1978 19
Fig. 2.2 Queen Elizabeth II and the 1981 New Zealand Cabinet 19
Fig. 2.3 Women as a percentage of Coalition and Labor MPs in the
Australian House of Representatives, 1977–2016 31
Fig. 4.1 Number of women’s groups and democracy level, 70
countries, 2005 75
Fig. 4.2 Number of women’s groups and democracy level (with fitted
regression line), Democracy Level > 0, 2005 76
Fig. 12.1 Comparison by decade of number of articles with gender
content in the Australian Journal of Political Science and
Canadian Journal of Political Science 255
Fig. 12.2 Proportion of articles addressing gender as a topic in
high-ranked journals, comparison between Economics,
Sociology and Political Science (1990–2015) 256
Fig. 12.3 Proportion of female authors in 100 most cited papers
in 10 top-ranking journals 257
Fig. 12.4 Statistical and qualitative methods as a share of articles
2000–2004 260
xv
List of Tables
Table 4.1 Women in Lower House of Parliament (%), 1975–2005,

and Expansion in Scope of VAW Policy (1995–2005) 71
Table 4.2 Linear regression, 70 countries, 2005 77
Table 12.1 Feminist institution-building in political science associa-
tions (PSAs) 246
Table 12.2 Selected gender and politics prizes 250
Table 12.3 Proportion of references to women authors in top-cited
articles, 2006–2016 258
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: New Norms, New Knowledge
Kerryn Baker
Political systems throughout the world and throughout time have been
dominated, and almost completely controlled, by men. Political rights as
conceptualised by political science scholars—most of whom, not coinci-
dentally, were men—were seldom seen as extending to women. In the
field of political theory, historically women were ignored and there was
a pervasive, if unstated, idea of maleness as a precondition of political
thought and action.
This norm of the political citizen as male has, of course, been chal-
lenged. In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote in A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman that ‘women ought to have representatives, instead
of being arbitrarily governed without any direct share allowed them in
the deliberations of government’.1 In the nineteenth century, John
Stuart Mill, in collaboration with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, further
developed the critique of the abuse of male power in the family and it
became the basis for the claim that women could not rely on men to
represent their interests and needed the vote for this purpose.2 Mill’s
The Subjection of Women became the bible of the suffrage movements
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which won women
the right to vote in most western democracies. Significant presence of
K. Baker (*) 
Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
e-mail: kerryn.baker@anu.edu.au
© The Author(s) 2019 1

M. Sawer and K. Baker (eds.), Gender Innovation in Political Science,
Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75850-3_1
2 K. BAKER
women in national parliaments had to wait for the arrival of the next
wave of the women’s movement, becoming an international agenda item
in the 1990s. While women are today still under-represented in almost
all national parliaments, they are members of all but four, and at the end
of 2017 there were 14 female heads of government.3
The gains made by women’s movements have been undeniable,
both in winning political and social rights in domestic contexts and in
entrenching women’s rights within the international human rights
framework. World leaders like Emmanuel Macron of France and Justin
Trudeau of Canada and even the Dalai Lama now claim the label ‘fem-
inist’. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, arguably the most high-profile pop star
in the world at the time, performed at the 2014 Video Music Awards
with ‘FEMINIST’ projected on the screen behind her.
Yet while gains have been made, progress has not been linear. There is
still evidence of backlash, the phenomenon that Susan Faludi identified
in 1981 whereby feminist gains are subject to resistance from the media
and other sources. Enduring gender bias, even directed towards women
who have risen to the highest echelons of political power, is obvious. The
role of sexism in the 2016 US presidential election, which saw Hillary
Clinton defeated by Donald Trump, has been well-scrutinised; certainly,
studies have shown voter attitudes towards women leaders influenced
the election result.4 Female leaders globally still face overt sexist attacks,
and disproportionate scrutiny and criticism of their family lives. Former
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was called ‘deliberately barren’ by
a political opponent, while during the 2017 New Zealand general elec-
tion campaign Labour leader Jacinda Ardern was questioned about her
plans for having children by a radio host who asked ‘is it ok for a PM to
take maternity leave while in office?’
The unfinished nature of progress towards political equality is evi-
dent, but so too is the fact that in the last decade of the twentieth cen-
tury a major shift occurred in global norms concerning the relationship
between democracy and the participation of women. This shift took
place with the support of feminist political scientists, who had been
mobilising since the 1970s to promote this kind of change both within
politics and within the discipline. This book surveys the contribution of
their scholarship to new norms and knowledge in diverse areas of politi-
cal science and related political practice. It provides new evidence of the
breadth of this contribution and the strategies to which it gave rise.
1 INTRODUCTION: NEW NORMS, NEW KNOWLEDGE 3
The volume stems from a project that for the first time compares
the gender innovation that has taken place across a range of social sci-
ence disciplines, exploring why feminist knowledge has been more
readily integrated into some disciplines than others.5 The comparative
background to this project makes this study unique. In this volume,
we focus on the discipline of political science, where the contributions
of feminist scholars have often only been absorbed at the margins. In
political science, research on gender from a feminist perspective has con-
tributed new knowledge to the discipline as well as new ways of thinking.
Feminist scholars have introduced broad and multifaceted understand-
ings of power and how it is wielded; reconceptualised political institu-
tions, both formal and informal; and redefined political networks, among
other advances. Building on the feminist slogan ‘the personal is political’,
feminist research expanded the bounds of conventional political science.
But, to borrow a phrase from historical institutionalism, how ‘sticky’ are
these new norms? Despite some advances, political science as a discipline
remains resistant to gender innovation.
The aim is not to provide yet another account of the problem of gen-
der inequality in the discipline or in politics; rather, it is to introduce
readers to the positive contribution of gender innovation in the study of
politics and power. Contributors to the volume were asked to analyse the
way that feminist scholarship has sharpened the focus of the discipline
in different subfields, and the policy impact that followed. The empha-
sis is on conceptual innovation and its policy implications rather than a
‘state of the art’ survey of gender and politics scholarship, of which there
are now a number. Nonetheless, this study has been able to build on
existing surveys of gender and politics scholarship, which are referenced
in the following chapters. An outstanding example is the 2013 Oxford
Handbook of Gender and Politics edited by Georgina Waylen, Karen
Celis, Johanna Kantola and S. Laurel Weldon. ‘Critical Perspectives’ have
appeared regularly in the specialist journal Politics & Gender, providing
invaluable analysis of developments in different political science subfields,
while other leading political science journals have published special ‘gen-
der’ issues. One important study that has looked both at the feminis-
ing of politics and of political science is Joni Lovenduski’s 2015 book
Gendering Politics, Feminising Political Science.
In terms of political theory, the authors who contributed to this volume
are drawing on a breadth of scholarship from feminist political theorists.
4 K. BAKER
While no chapter is explicitly devoted to gender innovation in this

subfield, political theory is woven into the analysis throughout. Feminist
political theorists have worked to reimagine the political in a way that
foregrounds gender inequalities and highlights the male-centred bias of
the field. The role of political theorists in interrogating the concepts of
gender difference and equality has been crucial to our understanding of
the gendering of power relations and the patriarchal nature of the enforce-
ment of a public/private divide. Carol Pateman (1988) set out what she
called ‘Wollstonecraft’s dilemma’—that women can be accepted as equal
citizens and political actors only insofar as they act like men.6 Seeking to
adapt political spaces to recognise different perspectives, lived experiences
and socio-economic characteristics of women is used as evidence of differ-
ence and therefore unsuitability for political environments. The paradox
of attempting to engage in the public sphere on equal terms, where the
male norm is still entrenched as the ideal, is further elaborated on in the
work of other prominent scholars including Nancy Fraser.7 This enduring
dilemma is examined in this volume in chapters on electoral studies and on
the study of social science itself which mirrors the power relations of the
male-centric political domain.
Other scholars have further grappled with the idea of gender differ-
ence in political representation, ideas picked up in the chapters on the
study of electoral systems, political institutions and legislatures. Anne
Phillips has argued that the lived experiences of women create gen-
der-specific, albeit not easily defined, interests that only women can rep-
resent within politics; Iris Marion Young, on the other hand, rejects the
idea that as broad a group as women can be defined through interests,
but claims there is a shared social status, due to structural inequalities,
that necessitates the presence of women in legislatures.8 While these
scholars approach the issue from different perspectives, they agree that
female legislators are in a unique position to represent women. Nancy
Fraser and Jane Mansbridge have also argued for the descriptive rep-
resentation of disadvantaged groups, including women, stressing the
importance of substantive representation, symbolism and justice.9 The
important distinction made by Fraser between the politics of redistribu-
tion and the politics of recognition has supported a powerful argument
that social movements seeking recognition on the basis of race, gender,
sexuality or ethnicity should not neglect the redistributive aspect of jus-
tice, particularly in the context of the growing inequality brought by
neoliberal policymaking.10
A number of key themes emerge throughout this volume. Feminist

scholars have continued to prioritise research that is relevant to broader
feminist agendas.11 A critical component of feminist political science has
been collaborations between theorists and practitioners to effect social
change. Examples provided in this volume include efforts to combat
gender-based violence; to increase the number of women in politics; to
design electoral systems for more equitable outcomes; to promote the
Women, Peace and Security Agenda; to develop more gender-sensitive
parliaments; and more. At times, the theorists are the practitioners, with
academics using consultancies to implement key ideas. It is at these inter-
sections between theory and practice that gender innovations in political
science have often been most powerful. And yet, the public policy aspect
of political science work—the linkages between research and action—is
undervalued within academia. This may contribute to the enduring mar-
ginalisation of feminist political science; the ‘publish or perish’ model,
after all, does not readily recognise social change as a key performance
indicator. Furthermore, the identification of academics as activists
challenges the ‘impartiality’ claimed by much male-centred academic
research.12
For many scholars, feminist political research has also meant blurring
disciplinary boundaries. The interdisciplinary orientation of feminist
study reflects its problem orientation and the overarching goal of gen-
der equality. Gender innovation in political science has often come about
through the ‘borrowing’ of concepts and framing from other disciplines.
Feminist political science is of course heavily influenced by gender stud-
ies, with concepts of hegemonic masculinity and the performative nature
of gender informing the study of gender, power and politics.13 It also,
as the following chapters will show, expands the bounds of political sci-
ence through engagement with key concepts and frameworks from his-
tory, sociology, philosophy and other disciplines. The idea of ‘critical
mass’ discussed in Chapter 2, is borrowed from physics via organisation
studies. The interdisciplinary bent of feminist political research is funda-
mental to its innovative character, yet may also contribute to its margin-
alisation from mainstream political science. As discussed in Chapter 12,
the pressure to publish in high-ranking political science journals discour-
ages interdisciplinary as well as qualitative work.
The contributors to this volume and the texts they have cited tell a
story of gendered innovation in political science that is dominated by
white and Global North perspectives. The hegemony of theoretical
6 K. BAKER
frameworks generated in the Global North applies to feminist political

science as well as political science more generally. One analytical lens
with which feminist political science could utilise more is that of inter-
sectionality, introduced by the American critical race scholar Kimberlé
Crenshaw in the 1980s. It draws attention to how social identities—
relating to race, gender, class, sexuality and other attributes—intersect
and how marginalisation can be compounded by overlapping forms of
discrimination.14 Important work on the topic as it relates to African
American women has been undertaken by scholars including Ange-Marie
Hancock Alfaro, Julia Jordan-Zachary and Wendy Smooth.15 Feminist
political science needs to engage with and interrogate further the inter-
secting identities and privileges that complicate gendered power relations
both to further advance feminist research agendas and to ensure that
the feminising of political science does not replicate existing inequalities
even as it ameliorates others. Recognising and challenging the hierar-
chies of knowledge—racialised as well as gendered—embedded in aca-
demic systems, and considering how research and methodology can be
decolonised, is an ongoing project to which feminist scholarship can, and
should, contribute.16
Throughout this volume, there is a recurring debate—that of main-
streaming versus specialisation. Is it better to integrate gender and pol-
itics research within mainstream political science, or is this seeking to
dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools? Has the creation
of a subfield of gender and politics produced space for research to flour-
ish or squandered the chance to introduce a gender lens into supposedly
core areas of the discipline? The challenges of mainstreaming gender in
political science are significant; they necessarily include subverting exist-
ing hierarchies of knowledge and challenging dominant methodological
approaches. Institutions developed, controlled and evaluated by men—
be they parliaments, boardrooms or political science departments—come
to be essentially defined by the absence of women.17 Even where women
gain entry, they remain, as Carole Pateman described, ‘marginal partic-
ipants in organisations that are numerically and structurally dominated
by men’.18 The study of such institutions, ironically, is where gendered
innovations are both most needed and most unrecognised.
This volume begins with a reflection by Marian Sawer in Chapter 2
on the ontological shift whereby the absence of women from the polit-
ical domain was reconceptualised as a problem to be solved rather
than something to be accepted as natural. Since the advent of suffrage
movements, the gendering of the abstract citizen has become part of the
public imagination. As Sawer notes, however, in the discipline of political
science such imaginings often conflicted with traditional scholarship. If
the abstract citizen was a (white) man, so too was the abstract political
scientist. In this way, male-dominated and masculinised academic insti-
tutions validated and reinforced male-dominated and masculinised polit-
ical institutions and processes.19 It took about a century from the first
successes of suffrage movements for women’s absence from formal pol-
itics to be recast as a democratic deficit rather than the natural order of
things. In this context, feminist political science—in expanding the scope
of the study of politics and in broadening the definitions of political
power, participation and activity—was a profound disruptive force.
In Chapter 3, Fiona Jenkins then looks at the epistemological foun-
dations of feminist political science and compares the integration of
feminist scholarship both across the social sciences and between social
sciences and science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine
(STEMM) disciplines. An influx of female academics in the twentieth
century altered the environment significantly. This impact was felt not
least in terms of diversity of perspectives within the academy and new
research agendas. Yet, as feminist institutionalist scholars have explored,
institutions have internal logics that are difficult to shift. Women in the
academy have come up against gendered rules and norms that overtly
or implicitly hinder their advancement. This is especially the case in
political science, a comparatively harsh environment for gender innova-
tion.20 Furthermore, assessing the value of feminist scholarship in the
social sciences is an inherently political exercise, reflecting a struggle over
knowledge and power.
Laurel Weldon, in Chapter 4, interrogates the feminist contribution
to the conceptualisation of power, a key facet of political science scholar-
ship. The interpretation of power as a relationship, not an object, and as
context-dependent and at least partly defined by identity, blurred disci-
plinary boundaries as the social and political were intertwined in feminist
scholarship. Relatedly, the artificial divide between the ‘public’ and ‘pri-
vate’ spheres was called into question as scholars investigated the interre-
lated gendered power dynamics of both.
In Chapter 5, the contribution of feminist political research to the
study of electoral systems is explored by Manon Tremblay, as well as the
question of how research on gendered effects can inform research into
the representation of other under-represented groups, in this case sexual
8 K. BAKER
minority groups. Tremblay demonstrates how gender innovation in the

field of electoral studies—and indeed in other subfields—needs to be
combined with the study of intersecting marginalised identities. Efforts
to increase women’s representation through electoral reform can, as
in the case of the French parité law, inadvertently reinforce heteronor-
mative and binary perceptions of gender. She puts forward a case for a
research agenda looking at the ‘gender-sexualised’ effects of voting sys-
tems beyond the focus on women’s representation exclusively.
Chapter 6 looks at the application of a gender lens to the study of
political institutions. As Jennifer Curtin highlights, feminist institution-
alist research has introduced vital innovations and insights in the field of
new institutionalism and more broadly for political science. For instance,
Fiona Mackay’s concept of ‘nested newness’ highlights that new institu-
tions and institutional reforms are layered onto existing rules and norms
within broader institutional frameworks that can shift or even undermine
their aims.21 Furthermore, gender innovation in the study of institutions
has revealed the enduring bias of traditional political science scholarship.
Over time, male-dominated and masculinised academic institutions have
validated and reinforced male-dominated and masculinised political insti-
tutions and processes.
The volume then moves into gender innovation in the field of interna-
tional relations. Jacqui True in Chapter 7 shows how innovative research
into transnational networks of women activists has transformed under-
standings of norm diffusion and transmission, bringing a new aware-
ness of the dynamic nature of this process as both norms and networks
evolve. The emergence of social constructivism, which challenges tra-
ditional approaches to international relations, helped change the way
norms were conceptualised and studied in the field. Gender and post-
colonial scholars have contributed greatly to our understanding of inter-
national relations beyond traditional preoccupations of war, national
security and state sovereignty.
Despite the significant contribution of feminist research, interna-
tional relations remains, as Ann Tickner characterises it in Chapter 8, the
most hostile to gender perspectives of all the major subfields of political
science. While the field has changed rapidly since the end of the Cold
War, encompassing a broader range of perspectives and sites of study, it
remains male dominated and skewed towards security studies. Tickner
shows how, despite this chilly climate, feminist international relations
scholarship has contributed to the study of international relations and
to the policy environment. In international political economy, feminist

scholars such as Nancy Hartsock critiqued the gendered division of
labour and neglect of women’s socio-economic experiences.22 In security
studies, feminist scholarship has expanded the concept of security, devel-
oping a more holistic understanding that encompasses individuals as well
as states and includes structural as well as physical violence.
As previously highlighted, many important gendered innovations
in political science have taken place in the policy-academic nexus. In
Chapter 9, Sonia Palmieri recounts efforts to redefine formal political
institutions through the global diffusion of the idea of gender-sensitive
parliaments. She examines the significant work done by feminist aca-
demics in this policy space, contributing to gender mainstreaming initi-
atives. Another key advance is identifying the gendered nature of policy
discourses and their effect on policy options. Carol Johnson discusses in
Chapter 10, for example, how the discourses in which economic policy-
making is couched can obscure the role of unpaid and non-market work
in the economy, to the detriment of policy outcomes. This link between
research and policy practice harks back to feminist political science’s
activist roots and demonstrates the importance of extra-academic link-
ages. Policy impact is often undervalued in academia, but changes in this
area could advantage scholars of gender and politics.
Many of the key innovations that have advanced our understanding of
politics have come from inter- and multidisciplinary spaces. Merrindahl
Andrew’s evaluation of feminist political science’s contribution to our
understanding of social movements, in Chapter 11, provides a compel-
ling example of how gender research has pushed disciplinary boundaries.
Research into women’s movements has disrupted the assumed logic of
social movement studies, as well as shedding light on aspects of politics
and political repertoire thus far ignored by traditional political science.
Such research contributed not only to the various fields it encom-
passed—including history, sociology, gender studies and political sci-
ence—but also to the feminist agenda itself, becoming in Andrew’s terms
‘a scholarship for and of women’s movements’.23
The concluding chapter of this volume, by Monica Costa and Marian
Sawer, evaluates the overall effect of the contributions made by feminist
political scientists in many subfields on the discipline as a whole. Costa
and Sawer argue that gender innovation in political science has had an
additive rather than transformative effect. While feminist political sci-
ence has provided important contributions to the field—expanding the
10 K. BAKER
bounds of the discipline, in terms of methodologies, epistemologies and

topics of study—these contributions are used and amplified mostly by
female voices and largely overlooked in the disciplinary core. Research
into gender and politics, while becoming institutionalised as part of
the political science canon, continues to be subject to entrenched hier-
archies of knowledge and power within the discipline. This observation
in our concluding chapter does not mean the contributors to this vol-
ume are pessimistic about the future of feminist political science. Indeed,
the following pages are full of examples of the potentially transformative
insights provided by gender research. Rather, we are realistic, acknowl-
edging the distance we still need to travel before mainstream political sci-
ence fully accepts the value of gender innovation in the discipline.
Notes
1. Mary Wollstonecraft (2004) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
London: Penguin (originally published 1792), p. 182.
2. John Stuart Mill (1869) The Subjection of Women, London: Longmans.
3. Inter-Parliamentary Union (2017) Women in National Parliament
(Situation as of 1st October 2017), Geneva: Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Available at: http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm.
4. See Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields (2017) The Impact of ‘Modern
Sexism’ on the 2016 Presidential Election, Fayetteville: Diane D. Blair
Center of Southern Politics and Society, University of Arkansas.
5. See the Gendered Excellence in the Social Sciences Australian Research
Council Discovery Project (DP1501104449). Available at: http://gen-
derinstitute.anu.edu.au/gess-home.
6. Carole Pateman (1988) ‘The Patriarchal Welfare State: Women and
Democracy’, in Amy Gutman (ed.) Democracy and the Welfare State,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 231–278.
7. Nancy Fraser (1994) ‘After the Family Wage: Gender Equity and the
Welfare State’, Political Theory 22(4): 591–618.
8. Anne Phillips (1995) The Politics of Presence, Oxford: Clarendon; Anne
Phillips (1998) ‘Democracy and Representation: Or, Why Should It
Matter Who Our Representatives Are?’, in Anne Phillips (ed.) Feminism
and Politics, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 224–240; Iris
Marion Young (2002) Inclusion and Democracy, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
9. Nancy Fraser (2009) Scales of Justice: Reimaging Political Space in
a Globalizing World, New York: Columbia University Press; Jane
Mansbridge (1999) ‘Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women
Represent Women? A Contingent “Yes”’, Journal of Politics 61(3):

628–657.
10. Nancy Fraser (1995) ‘From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of
Justice in a “Post-socialist” Age’, New Left Review 212: 68–93.
11. Marian Sawer (2014) ‘Feminist Political Science and Feminist Politics’,
Australian Feminist Studies 29(80): 137–147.
12. Carol Johnson (2014) ‘Hard Heads and Soft Hearts: The Gendering
of Australian Political Science’, Australian Feminist Studies 29(80):
121–136.
13. See Judith Butler (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion
of Identity, London and New York: Routledge; R. W. Connell (1987)
Gender and Power, Cambridge: Polity Press.
14. Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality,
Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color’, Stanford Law
Review 43(6): 1241–1299.
15. See, for example, Ange-Marie Hancock (2009) ‘An Untraditional
Intersectional Analysis of the 2008 Election’, Politics and Gender 5(1):
96–105; Julia Jordan-Zachary (2017) Shadow Bodies: Black Women,
Ideology, Representation, and Politics, Newark: Rutgers University Press;
Wendy Smooth (2011) ‘Standing for Women? Which Women? The
Substantive Representation of Women’s Interests and the Research
Imperative of Intersectionality’, Politics and Gender 7(3): 436–441.
16. See Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, Dunedin: Otago
University Press.
17. Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 182.
18. Pateman, ‘Women and Political Studies’, p. 1.
19. Mhairi Cowden, Kirsty McLaren, Alison Plumb, and Marian Sawer
(2012) Women’s Advancement in Australian Political Science: Workshop
Report, Canberra: Australian National University and Australian Political
Science Association; see also Chapter 5 of this volume.
20. Cowden et  al., Women’s Advancement in Australian Political Science; see
also American Political Science Association (2005) Women’s Advancement
in Political Science, Washington, DC: American Political Science
Association.
21. Fiona Mackay (2014) ‘Nested Newness, Institutional Innovation, and the
Gendered Limits of Change’, Politics & Gender 10(4): 549–571.
22. Nancy C. M. Hartsock (1983) Money, Sex and Power: Toward a Feminist
Historical Materialism, Boston: Northeastern University Press.
23. See Chapter 11 in this volume, p. 226.
CHAPTER 2
How the Absence of Women Became

a Democratic Deficit: The Role
of Feminist Political Science
Marian Sawer
One of the major contributions of feminist political science has been to

identify the political status of women as a problem rather than a con-
dition. Feminist political scientists, myself included, introduced into the
discipline the new cognitive frames, or ways of seeing, that we encoun-
tered in the women’s movement. In doing so, we challenged the nor-
mative and empirical assumptions that informed the way political science
had dealt with women’s political participation. We earned the title ‘out-
spoken feminists’ when we drew the attention of our colleagues to the
gender order that underlies both politics and political science.
Until the arrival of second-wave feminism, much political science
rested on a quite narrow definition of politics, restricted to formal polit-
ical institutions such as constitutions, parliaments and political parties.
This narrow definition took male politics and male political behaviour as
the norm. Because political science restricted its gaze to public arenas,
M. Sawer (*) 
Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
e-mail: marian.sawer@anu.edu.au

14 M. SAWER
women as a group were regarded as politically irrelevant. It was not con-

cerned with the sources of what second-wave feminists saw as women’s
subordination. In other words, political science was unable or unwilling
to identify the gendered power relations underlying and permeating the
political system, or how political power was itself constituted by gender.
Feminists challenged this disciplinary blindness and set out to change
the analytic and normative frame through which the political world was
viewed.1 In doing so, they contributed a new understanding of the polit-
ical system. The absence of women from public decision-making became
seen as a consequence of the gendered nature of the political system as
a whole. This new understanding of the political system contributed a
sharper focus to the discipline.2 But the new understandings were not
only about improving the discipline. The absence of women was now
being framed as an injustice and denial of political equality rather than as
a natural condition.3
A normative commitment to a more equal political world was a unify-
ing aspect of feminist political science, which in other ways began diver-
sifying in approach and methods. One of the identifying characteristics
of feminist political science became the willingness to acknowledge such
political commitment rather than upholding the value of freedom and
distance from the research subject associated with behavioural political
science. During the height of behaviourist dominance of political science,
there was belief in the innate separability of researcher and research sub-
ject and little reflexivity concerning the values and emotions that political
scientists might bring to their research.4
In contrast, a 2004 roundtable at an American Political Science
Association meeting was inspired by the belief that:
…many of the women and minority scholars, in particular, who entered

the field of political science in the past 20 to 30 years did so precisely
because they wanted to make a difference in the world, and to use the tools
of the profession to improve the situation of less empowered members of
society, whether in the United States or abroad.5
Feminist political science began exploring the barriers to women’s pres-

ence in the institutions of political power, perceiving these as problems
of institutional design and of formal and informal rules that were biased
against women. The same approach that was applied in equal employment
opportunity programmes for women in the workforce was transferred
2 HOW THE ABSENCE OF WOMEN BECAME A DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT 15
to political institutions, on the grounds that women should have equal

opportunity to serve as political representatives. Barriers had to be iden-
tified and removed. From the 1970s, feminist scholarship was generating
new knowledge concerning these barriers, including formal and informal
rules within political parties and the effects of electoral systems.6
Moving on from identification of the barriers to women’s entry to
parliament, work began on what difference women’s presence made to
politics and whether becoming a large minority would help change polit-
ical agendas and political processes. Feminist political scientists started
exploring arguments and evidence around the substantive representation
of women, arguments that went well beyond the justice arguments for
the presence of women.
The concept of critical mass, taken up by international standard-
setting bodies in the 1990s, was just one way in which feminist p olitical
science underpinned new international norms of women’s representa-
tion. The concept of ‘intersectionality’ also began to be widely used to
underpin the claims for representation of those with distinctive combi-
nations of experience, such as women from minority backgrounds or
women with disabilities.7 New norms began to have real impact through
democracy assistance programmes and other donor pressure in combina-
tion with domestic mobilisations, particularly in post-conflict situations
where new institutions were being created.
The focus of this chapter will be on how the absence of women
from politics was once taken for granted and how feminist political sci-
ence helped to change this. It will look at the progression, whereby the
absence of women was reframed as a democratic deficit and the presence
of women in national parliaments became a key democratic indicator. It
will then look at how both political scientists and practitioners, often in
consort, are addressing continuing gender deficits in parliamentary poli-
tics. It does not try to cover the now burgeoning literature on the access
of women to executive office.8
Most of the evidence will be taken from Australia and compara-
tor countries such as Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA,
as well as from multilateral bodies. The early achievement of demo-
cratic institutions in this group of countries makes them a particu-
larly interesting example of the significance of timing and sequence in
institutional trajectories. Unlike the case in many of the developing
democracies today, in these countries democratic institutions were cre-
ated and entrenched long before the establishment of international and
16 M. SAWER
regional norms linking democracy to the equal participation of women in

public decision-making. In these older democracies, democratic political
institutions were designed by and for men, sometimes explicitly for white
men, a legacy that the first wave of the women’s movement was unable to
overcome and which remained as a major challenge for the second wave.9
Assumptions of the Inevitability of Women’s Absence

In the USA, the professionalisation of political science coincided with
the height of the international and national women’s suffrage campaigns,
often described as the first wave of the women’s movement. However,
political science took little interest in this large-scale political mobilisa-
tion of women. The forms taken by the political participation of women
and the repertoire and discursive strategies employed by women’s move-
ments were not regarded as part of the subject matter of the discipline,
any more than was the gendered nature of the political institutions that
kept women out of formal politics. Of over 400 articles published in
American Political Science Review between 1906 and 1924, only three
were explicitly concerned with women.10 The four major textbooks in
use in 1916 did mention the question of women’s suffrage but three of
the four authors were sceptical of its merit.11
Once initial fears concerning the ‘women’s vote’ were allayed,
there was even less interest in women’s political participation. There
were occasional exceptions such as the work of Charles Merriam and
H. F. Gosnell on non-voting, which suggested that those wishing to
explain political behaviour should look first to the politics of family life.12
But these were exceptions to the general lack of interest in the structures
of power that might explain absence of women from formal office-hold-
ing. In this way, political science became complicit in the continuing
absence of women from formal politics.
Before the renewed mobilisation of women in the 1960s–1970s and
the arrival of second-wave feminism, the assumptions built into politi-
cal science were that the absence of women from public life was largely
inevitable. In assuming the naturalness of this absence, political science
was simply reflecting more general social attitudes and indeed reinforcing
them. Early feminist critique of the complicity of the discipline in male
dominance was often trenchant: ‘That politics is a man’s world is a famil-
iar adage; that political science as a discipline tends to keep it that way is
less well accepted’.13 Even in the 1960s, when one might imagine the
slogan ‘a woman’s place is in the home’ had become out of date, lead-
ing political scientists still believed that women’s primary roles as wives,
mothers and housewives unfitted them for political roles: ‘there are
inherent limitations in the adult female role, which set an outer bound-
ary to political participation for the great majority of women’.14
While women had achieved full political rights in most democracies,
it was still expected that their citizenship duties would be fulfilled mainly
in the home. And although countries such as Switzerland had still not
given women the right to vote, eminent political theorists such as Robert
Dahl or Giovanni Sartori did not see this as impairing their claim to be a
democracy.15 Indeed even where women had supposedly obtained polit-
ical rights, citizenship duties remained highly gendered. For example,
there were blanket exemptions for jury service in many countries, on the
ground that such service would interfere with women’s primary domes-
tic duties.
Such beliefs about the irrelevance of women to democracy or demo-
cratic citizenship were reinforced by influential political scientists such as
Robert E. Lane, who became President of the American Political Science
Association in 1970–1971. Lane had written that women entered politics
‘only at the risk of tarnishing, to some extent, their femininity’ because
the woman who was too active politically seemed ‘to some people’ to
have ‘moved from the properly dependent role of her sex and to seek the
masterful and dominant role of men’.16 Note the qualifications through
which Lane attempts to distance himself, as the objective observer, from
the beliefs of ‘some people’ that he clearly shares. Further on he ques-
tioned the wisdom of the feminist movement in encouraging women’s
political activity, noting that interest in politics moved women away from
what was ‘considered by the culture’ to be their proper role and sphere
of competence. Moreover, such ‘extra-curricular interests’ meant bor-
rowing time and attention from their children.17
In the light of this history, it is perhaps unsurprising that the first
international treaty on women’s political rights was not adopted until
1953. This was the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Political
Rights of Women, an initiative of the UN Commission on the Status of
Women. It sought to guarantee the rights of women to be eligible for
election and to hold public office, as well as to vote. In conjunction with
the Convention, the UN Commission on the Status of Women initiated
the first cross-national survey research on women’s political participation.
18 M. SAWER
This research, led by Maurice Duverger, took women’s political partici-

pation to be a serious question.
It noted, however, that one of the difficulties in undertaking the
research was that political scientists asked to provide information often
regarded its purpose ‘as a secondary one, of no intrinsic importance’.18
Moreover, it found that the absence of women was often justified by
the argument that politics was by its nature a field essentially suited to
men.19 A further problem was that due to their education and training,
women tended to accept ‘the secondary place to which they are still
assigned’.20
Up until the 1970s, there was little attention to the factors that kept
women out of either politics or political science. It was assumed that
most women would be excluded from both because of the priority of
their family responsibilities. A political science profession in which all the
senior roles were filled by men saw nothing odd or undemocratic about
parliaments or cabinets that were similarly male dominated. As has been
observed elsewhere, the gendering of political science reduced its ability
to understand or explain the gendering of political life.21
A comparison of the 1978 Executive of the International Political
Science Association (IPSA) and the 1981 New Zealand Cabinet is per-
haps suggestive (Figs. 2.1 and 2.2).
It was only in 1973 that attention was first drawn to the concept of
the ‘two-person’ career.22 The concept of the ‘two-person career’ refers
to those occupations in which a wife is expected to participate in her hus-
band’s occupational performance, in addition to taking care of home and
family. In politics, this has usually included constituency work and public
functions. Sometimes political parties interviewed wives as well as male
candidates for preselection, to see how suitable they were for performing
these functions. In any event, male candidates assumed the support of
their wives in their political careers and women made their careers possi-
ble.23 As a New Zealand backbencher reported in Political Science:
At home, I attend to Parliamentary business and letters arranged for me by

my wife, who does the bulk of my secretarial work…It is during the time
spent in Wellington that my wife continues the duty of a Parliamentary
Member. She interviews the women in the electorate who appeal to assist
on committees and in the organisation of charity programmes, who want
their problems discussed, their meetings attended, and hospital visiting
arranged. In addition my wife attends to the routine correspondence on
Fig. 2.1 IPSA Executive Committee meeting, Rio de Janeiro, 1978

Courtesy IPSA–AISP
Fig. 2.2 Queen Elizabeth II and the 1981 New Zealand Cabinet

Courtesy Archives New Zealand
20 M. SAWER
my behalf, looks after the family and our home, and reads numerous books
and publications, marking out the passages which she considers will be of
interest to me. Please bear in mind, in this connection, that there are no
cash allowances for Members’ wives.24
Like a politician, a political scientist also needed a wife who con-

tributed to her husband’s career in a myriad of ways. At the time that
second-wave feminism was at its height, there was a standard acknowl-
edgement that appeared in the preface to political science books along
the lines of the following:
Finally, but far from least importantly, I must thank my wife…who,

among other things, typed numerous drafts of the manuscript both
cheerfully and without pay. My work resulted in demands on her
time and energy which it was sometimes easy to overlook, because of
the automatic way she accepted the responsibilities and commitments
involved.25
Robert E. Lane, whose 1972 book Political Man did not even have
women in the index, apparently failed to notice the irony of his acknowl-
edgement to Betty Hanson, for ‘her invaluable help in preparing the
manuscript for publication’.26 As reflected in such prefaces, the ‘two-
person career’ in academia was taken for granted rather than subjected
to critical analysis. This had changed by 2017 when an American scholar,
Bruce Holsinger, created a Twitter hashtag (#thanksfortyping) that
aggregated screenshots of book acknowledgements that thanked wives
(often unnamed) for typing, proof-reading and editing their husband’s
books.
The taken-for-granted nature of the contribution of wives or secre-
taries to political science was linked to the failure to notice the nature
of politics as a two-person career. Few senior political scientists were
immediately receptive to feminist critique of ‘two-person careers’ or the
‘incorporated wife’, whether that critique was applied to study of path-
ways to parliament or their own professional practice. As Susan J. Carroll
observed in 1989: ‘With the exception of research on childhood social-
isation, issues of family influence, household responsibilities and private
sphere activities have been largely ignored in explaining the political
behavior of men’.27
The Emergence of Feminist Critique

The lack of interest in women’s political participation, or outright disap-
proval of it by those like American Political Science Association President
Robert E. Lane, lingered until the time of the arrival of the second wave
of the women’s movement. It was the upsurge of women’s movement
activism that was finally to change this. One example of the way in which
the resurgent women’s movement drew attention to the ‘problem’ of
the male domination of public decision-making comes from Australia in
1973. That was the year that abortion law reform was first debated in
the Australian Parliament. In the absence of any women members of the
House of Representatives, a women’s embassy was established outside
the front of Parliament with a loudspeaker playing ‘I am woman, hear
me roar’.28
Direct action such as a women’s embassy outside parliament did help
draw attention to the absence of women from the traditional domain
of politics, but this was not the first concern of the second wave of the
women’s movement. Women’s Liberation groups were mounting an
all-encompassing challenge to traditional concepts of politics and politi-
cal organisation. Alternative ways of doing politics were being discovered
or rediscovered; the aim was to replace masculine forms of leadership
and hierarchy with collectives and consensus decision-making.29 It was
thought that hierarchical organisations would always serve to maintain
women’s subordination—the master’s house could not be dismantled
with the master’s tools.
This collectivism and emphasis on not using the master’s tools
extended all the way to how feminist scholars presented their publica-
tions in the 1970s. For example, academic credentials and sometimes
even names were left off publications:
The names of contributors are not listed on the contents page or linked
with the contributions in the body of the book, as it is the ideas themselves
rather than who presented them that is crucial. Nor is it relevant to indi-
cate the academic status of individual writers because these have been allo-
cated in terms of a male dominated and defined system of rewards.30
As we shall see in Chapter 12, collectivist organisational practices

also inspired the way feminists organised inside the political science
22 M. SAWER
profession from 1969 onwards. Perhaps inevitably, despite the lasting

influence of the women’s movement origins of feminist political science,
there was soon criticism of ‘empiricist apolitical conference papers’ deriv-
ing from an academic rather than an activist feminist perspective and
‘closely bound up with the job market’.31
Meanwhile, feminist critique was mounting of the traditional division
between public and private in both politics and political science. The
definition of politics as restricted to the public realm had removed issues
determining women’s lives from the scope of political analysis. As Carole
Pateman said, politics was seen as stopping at the garden gate. In her
Presidential Address to the Australasian Political Studies Association, she
abandoned the safe distance of the third person plural traditionally used
to refer to women’s political participation, instead declaring, ‘That we are
less than full members in political life is still regarded as unremarkable’.32
Second-wave feminists, however, were beginning to bring issues such as
childcare and reproduction to centre stage as a focus for political atten-
tion. In the USA, Canada and Australia in the early 1970s, feminist activ-
ists were rating political candidates on their answers to questions on such
issues that shaped women’s lives. It was claimed that so far, women had
little to show for having the vote.
This challenge to traditional notions of politics soon spilled over
into a challenge to the sexist norms of the political science discipline.
In Australia, political science departments in Sydney, Melbourne and
Adelaide decided their students could gain practical experience by help-
ing Women’s Electoral Lobby conduct its candidate survey.33 In addi-
tion, the Editor of Politics34 ran a number of pieces on feminist activism
in the special issue of the journal on the 1972 federal election. The 1975
New Zealand election book likewise included a chapter for the first time
on issues such as childcare, mother’s wage, sex education and abortion.35
The new feminist critiques drew attention to sexist practices within
politics and the way the traditional public/private division affected the
political representation of women. Legislative recruitment was affected
both by the exclusive allocation of caring responsibilities to women and
by the failure of political parties and parliamentary arrangements to take
account of such responsibilities. The first European Consortium for
Political Research (ECPR) workshop on women and politics was con-
vened by Finnish feminist Elina Haavio-Mannila in Berlin in 1977.36
The first IPSA meetings on the subject followed soon after in Essex 1979
and at the Moscow IPSA Congress that year. The IPSA papers were pub-
lished as a book edited by Margherita Rendel, the first chair of IPSA’s
new Research Committee on Sex Roles and Politics.37
The ECPR workshop led to a cross-Nordic collaboration on women
in politics published by the Nordic Council of Ministers in 1983. It
was published in English two years later as Unfinished Democracy.38
Indicative of the progress being made in the Nordic countries, the
book’s co-author was Torild Skard, who had just finished a term as
the first woman President of the Norwegian upper house. Thirty years
later, she published a monumental analysis of the circumstances con-
fronting the 73 women who had become heads of government in differ-
ent regions of the world since 1960.39 Meanwhile, the Nordic Council
of Ministers continued on their agenda-setting path, commissioning a
handbook on women’s political representation from Drude Dahlerup,
published under the title We Have Waited Long Enough in Danish,
Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish.
Feminists were also contributing to agenda setting within other trans-
national institutions, particularly the UN. Elizabeth Reid, co-author of
the Mindless Matrons or Sexist Scientism critique of voting studies pub-
lished in 1975,40 led drafting work on the World Plan of Action at the
preparatory meeting before the First UN World Conference on Women
in Mexico City in 1975. She then led the official Australian delegation
to the Conference. In her speech to the plenary session, she introduced
the word ‘sexism’ into the official UN lexicon, and hence into languages
around the world.41 She said it was a word nobody should be afraid to
use:
Sexism is the artificial ascription of roles, behavior and even personali-

ties to people on the basis of their sex alone. This does not simply cre-
ate differences but inequalities. We none of us live in, and it is impossible
to imagine living in, a non-sexist society…To attempt to work out strate-
gies for changing this situation must, therefore, be our primary task at this
conference…42
As can be seen from this kind of evidence, feminist political scientists

were playing a significant role in problematising the less than full par-
ticipation of women in political life. They were reframing the issue as
not one of female deficits but of the broader gender order. To take one
24 M. SAWER
example, the first book to emerge from feminist organising within IPSA
argued that one of the key omissions of political science was the failure
to analyse the family as a political unit. While in accordance with dem-
ocratic principle the smallest political unit was the individual citizen, in
practice the operational political unit was the family and the constraints it
placed on women’s political activity.43
Some of the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action reads remarkably like
this kind of early feminist political science:
Inequality in the public arena can often start with discriminatory atti-
tudes and practices and unequal power relations between women and men
within the family…. The unequal division of labour and responsibilities
within households based on unequal power relations also limits women’s
potential to find the time and develop the skills required for participation
in decision-making in wider public forums. A more equal sharing of those
responsibilities between women and men not only provides a better quality
of life for women and their daughters but also enhances their opportunities
to shape and design public policy, practice and expenditure so that their
interests may be recognized and addressed. Non-formal networks and pat-
terns of decision-making at the local community level that reflect a domi-
nant male ethos restrict women’s ability to participate equally in political,
economic and social life. (Beijing Platform for Action, para. 181)
Ten years later, feminist political scientists were using bivariate regres-
sion models to show that in countries where household tasks were more
equally shared, parliaments were likely to include more women.44 While
this had long been known from feminist observation, advanced statistical
methods were now used to give such insights added legitimacy within
the political science community.
The Impact of Feminist Scholarship on Democratic

Norms and Strategies
Between the First UN World Conference and the Fourth World
Conference in Beijing 20 years later, a remarkable global shift was tak-
ing place in democratic norms, reflecting the agenda setting of Nordic
political scientists and political actors and their concept of ‘Unfinished
Democracy’. The UN was not the only major player involved in this
normative shift. The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which today
represents 173 national parliaments, also played a central role. Women

parliamentarians organised within the IPU to ensure the collection of
statistical data on the distribution of seats between men and women.
They drew attention to the significant drop in the number of women in
parliament globally following the break-up of the Soviet bloc.
In 1992, the IPU Council held that ‘the concept of democracy would
only come into its own when major policy objectives and national legis-
lation were decided upon jointly by men and women with equal regard
for the specific interests and aptitudes of each half of the population’.45
A Plan of Action was adopted to ‘correct present imbalances’, and soon,
the IPU was declaring that equal partnership by men and women in the
conduct of the affairs of society was the fourth principle of democracy.46
For the first time in history, widespread agreement emerged in the
1990s that the under-representation of women in national parliaments
was itself a sign of democratic deficit. This was a far cry from the beliefs
of democratic theorists just 30 years before that not only was the absence
of women from parliament to be expected, but even their absence as vot-
ers might be compatible with democratic credentials. Now the presence
or absence of women from public decision-making became a measure
of the quality of democracy and a vital tool in democracy assessment.47
Such assessment became a new industry in this decade as many countries
transitioned to democracy from communist or authoritarian regimes.
Where once it had been argued that women’s suffrage was necessary to
complete democracy, the new democratic norms disseminated by trans-
national institutions suggested that gender balance in parliaments was a
further requirement.
Under the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action ratified by 189 countries,
special measures were now recommended to increase women’s partici-
pation in public decision-making, including electoral quotas where nec-
essary. The IPU organised a meeting of some 500 parliamentarians at
Beijing, who adopted a pledge to ensure that governments and politi-
cal parties took steps to implement both the Beijing Platform for Action
provisions and the IPU’s own Plan of Action. In the same year, the UN
Development Programme adopted new indices for measuring gender
equality that included representation of women in national parliaments.
Parliamentary representation of women also became a measure of gender
equality in the UN’s Millennium Development Goals adopted in 2000
and in the new Gender Inequality Index (GII) adopted in 2010.
26 M. SAWER
Two recent collections honouring the work of feminist political sci-

entists Drude Dahlerup and Joni Lovenduski48 have highlighted the
interaction between their gender and politics research and the practice of
politics, whether within the political science profession or in the broader
political field. Both Dahlerup and Lovenduski became extensively
involved in consultancy work for governments and transnational agencies
advising on reforms to advance gender equality and improve the political
representation of women.
Dahlerup’s exploration of whether the concept of critical mass could
be applied to parliamentary institutions in itself had an enormous
impact.49 International norm-setting institutions like the UN Economic
and Social Council promoted the idea that women’s representation in
public decision-making must be increased to the critical mass level of
about 30% to make a real difference. The Committee on Elimination of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), the treaty body
for the UN Women’s Convention, also took up the theme in 1997 in its
General Recommendation on Article 7 of the Convention. Such recom-
mendations play a very important role in the interpretation of treaties.
The Recommendation on Article 7 encouraged the use of temporary
special measures to realise women’s right to equal participation in politi-
cal and public life and read in part:
Research demonstrates that if women’s participation reaches 30 to 35 per

cent (generally termed a ‘critical mass’), there is a real impact on the politi-
cal style and content of decisions, and political life is revitalized.50
While this might not have been exactly what feminist political science
was finding—Dahlerup had emphasised more the role of critical actors
than the mechanical effects of numbers51—it indicates the influence of
concepts introduced by feminist political scientists on international norm
development.
Feminist academics, together with feminist officials in transnational
institutions and women’s international advocacy networks, have in fact
played a remarkable role in the international diffusion both of new
norms regarding the political representation of women and of strategic
research suggesting how these norms might be achieved in practice. The
role of feminist scholars in the international diffusion of gender equality
norms has been analysed by Jacqui True in her important contributions
to the understanding of institutional transfer and norm diffusion (see

Chapter 7).
On the mechanics of how to increase women’s parliamentary pres-
ence, one pioneer was the American Wilma Rule, who from the 1980s
was publishing analysis showing which type of electoral system was most
favourable to election of women. Her work was continued by Canadian
political scientist Manon Tremblay (see Chapter 5 of this volume).
Others who took up the cause of electoral system research and electoral
system reform included Pippa Norris, who promoted women-friendly
electoral reform in transitional democracies through her work for the
UN and other international organisations, as well as producing magis-
terial volumes of quantitative political science. Norris was a co-winner
of the Johan Skytte Prize, the political science equivalent of the Nobel
Prize, amongst many other prizes and honours. She was able to bring her
stellar reputation to bear on applied issues such as quota and non-quota
means of increasing women’s parliamentary representation—for exam-
ple through earmarked or conditional funding of political parties.52 Alice
Brown in Scotland drew on her comparative knowledge of electoral sys-
tem design to successfully advocate for the ‘twinning’ system introduced
by the Scottish Labour Party, whereby constituencies were twinned and
the woman with the highest number of preselection votes became the
candidate for one constituency, while the man with the highest number
of votes became the candidate for the other.53
The subject of electoral gender quotas has been one that has given
rise to a wealth of feminist scholarship, which in turn has contributed
to policy diffusion through international organisations and women’s
movement mobilisations. Of particular practical importance has been
research on the intersection of quotas, electoral systems and party struc-
tures. Danish political scientist Drude Dahlerup was not only respon-
sible for the concept of critical mass taking wing, but also contributed
much of the early work on electoral gender quotas. In addition, together
with others (including Julie Ballington, Lenita Freidenvall and Mona
Lena Krook), she oversaw the development of the quota database of the
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
in Stockholm. This database provided invaluable evidence about the
spread of electoral gender quotas around the world and the different
types of quota system being adopted in different countries and regions.
Ballington, Dahlerup and Freidenvall all did very extensive applied
work on quotas not only for International IDEA but also for the
28 M. SAWER
European Parliament, the IPU, the United Nations Development

Programme, the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security
and Cooperation in Europe. Dahlerup and Freidenvall’s successive
reviews of the implementation of quotas in European Union (EU)
countries were originally commissioned by the European Parliament’s
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and published
in multiple languages. As mentioned above, this combination of cut-
ting-edge research and effective international advocacy has recently
been celebrated in a Festschrift for Dahlerup.54 It illustrates the effec-
tive networking of feminist political scientists with a range of political
actors—whether in parliaments, political parties, government institutions
or non-government organisations and whether domestically or inter-
nationally. This kind of policy network, linking feminist politicians and
femocrats with feminist political scientists and women’s movement
organisations, has been described by Belgian political scientist Alison
Woodward as a ‘velvet triangle’.55
The new social media facilitated such networking. For example, in
addition to her own research on electoral gender quotas,56 Mona Lena
Krook was helping create an epistemic community of quota scholars
through a Facebook group with some 500 members. She was also one
of the scholars opening up the new research field of gendered political
violence. The type and extent of violence against women candidates dif-
fer from that directed against men, something not picked up in previous
literature on violence and electoral integrity. Gendered political violence
and intimidation are directed against women’s intrusion in the public
realm and takes many forms including online misogyny and sexual slan-
der as well as sexual harassment.57 The online misogyny directed against
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was found to discourage young
women from thinking of political careers.58
Another important issue being opened up by feminist political sci-
entists like Freidenvall, who worked as a staff member for the Speaker’s
Reference Group on Gender Equality in the Swedish Parliament, con-
cerns parliament as a workplace and how parliamentary work and fam-
ily life can be reconciled.59 Because women have held over 40% of the
seats in the Swedish parliament for over 20 years, it makes a good site
for testing whether presence brings equal opportunity for women legisla-
tors to perform their roles, or whether gendered norms and practices are
persistent.60
In the past, parliament as a workplace has often failed to accom-

modate caring responsibilities. Parliamentary schedules are now more
likely to be aligned with school terms, but the struggle for adequate
childcare in parliaments has been a long one. And only in the first dec-
ade of the twenty-first century were changes made to standing orders
or practices in Australia, so that babies were no longer removed as
‘strangers’ from the part of the chamber reserved for members of par-
liament.61 Such changes are an indication that the focus on achieving
gender balance is moving beyond fixing women to fixing institutions.
Meanwhile it is no surprise that women in parliament are more likely
than men in parliament to be childless, or, if they have children, for
them to be of an older age.62
Attempts to address the complex issues of reconciling parliamen-
tary work and family life are described more fully by Sonia Palmieri in
Chapter 9 of this book. Such efforts are the contribution of feminist
political scientists like Palmieri who have worked for standard-setting
transnational institutions. Feminist practitioners have also produced
influential normative guides like the IDEA handbook, Women in
Parliament: Beyond Numbers first published in 1998 and subsequently
translated into Spanish, French and Indonesian.63 A different kind
of contribution is the IPU’s global rankings of the representation of
women in national parliaments and as ministers, collated by the IPU
and UN Women in the Map of Women in Politics. Such rankings have
become an essential part of the soft regulation promoted by transna-
tional institutions and donor agencies. Soft regulation means requiring
member states to open themselves up to scrutiny by providing data,
which in turn contributes both to rankings and to the dissemination of
best practice.
The rankings are used by national women’s movements and their
allies in their campaigns for quotas or other measures to increase wom-
en’s political representation. Since 2006, the IPU has also collected data
on specialised parliamentary bodies for the promotion of gender equal-
ity, which again contributes to comparisons of the way parliaments are
becoming ‘gender sensitive’.64 IPU and UN forums on strategies to pro-
mote women’s participation and the role of parliaments in gender main-
streaming have brought together feminist political scientists and women
politicians from older and newer democracies.
30 M. SAWER
Continuing Deficits
To what extent does the work of feminist political scientists continue
to contribute to political change? Feminist political science still makes
explicit its normative commitment to gender equality, as in the follow-
ing 2017 statement: ‘The authors subscribe to the understanding of
feminist political science that scientific research should foster gender
equality, or, more general, social equality’.65 And, as we have seen, fem-
inist political science has contributed strongly to the new norms relating
to women’s participation and gender sensitivity adopted by international
organisations.
However, some political configurations may present more challenges
to feminist political scientists than others. Long-established majoritar-
ian political institutions can make the implementation of new norms of
women’s representation more difficult than where there are consensual
political institutions, whether long-standing or newly created.66 There is
also the problem of the ‘nesting’ of new consensual institutions which
feminists have helped design within wider majoritarian frameworks, as
with the devolved Scottish Parliament.67
Feminist political scientists in the English-speaking democracies68
have continued to count the number of women in parliaments and pub-
lic decision-making, reminding the public that the problem of women’s
political under-representation has yet to be solved.69 The Center for
American Women and Politics at Rutgers University provides helpful
infographics ranking US state legislatures in this regard. In addition to
counting, feminist political scientists have worked on identifying sources
of gender bias within legislative recruitment, the practices of politi-
cal parties, parliamentary and executive institutions, media framing and
public opinion. Their research provides the evidence base for strategies
to address this democratic deficit and may well encompass such strate-
gies. The work on strategies for change by Pippa Norris and Mona Lena
Krook has already been mentioned but there are many other examples—
like Sylvia Bashevkin’s ‘What to do’ chapter in her book on the ‘hidden
story of Canada’s unfinished democracy’.70 Often the work of feminist
political scientists feeds into campaigns by civil society organisations such
as Equal Voice in Canada.
One of the issues confronted by feminist political scientists is that at
the national level, most of the English-speaking democracies still have
lower-house electoral systems based on single-member electorates.71
Such systems are usually less favourable to women’s representation than

proportional representation and also make the introduction of candidate
quotas more difficult. In general, the English-speaking countries have
been overtaken by countries that have introduced stronger positive meas-
ures such as legislative quotas and/or earmarked or conditional public
funding of political parties.
Of the English-speaking democracies, only Ireland has introduced
a legislative quota, and this is very recent. The quota came into effect
in the 2016 Irish election and resulted in a 40% increase in the num-
ber of women parliamentarians elected (although from a low base). In
the absence of a legislative quota, labour parties in the UK, Australia
and New Zealand have adopted party quotas. The New Zealand Labour
Party and Australian Labor Party (ALP) both have party quotas aim-
ing at 50% representation of women in their parliamentary parties—by
2017 in New Zealand and by 2025 in Australia. The UK Labour Party’s
approach has been to use all-women shortlists to boost the number of
women in winnable seats. In Canada, the New Democratic Party and the
Liberal Party have long-standing ‘targets’ of 50 and 25%, respectively.
But party quotas in these countries have boosted women’s representation
on one side of politics, not across the board.
The effects of party quotas in widening partisan gaps in women’s
parliamentary representation rather than leading to the ‘contagion of
women candidates’ are well illustrated by the Australian case.72 As can
be seen in Fig. 2.3, the adoption of an effective party quota has led to
a wide gap between the presence of women in the Parliamentary Labor
Party and in the conservative Coalition parties. In the USA, there was a
50
40
% of MPs
30 All MPs
20 ALP
10 Coalition
0
10
04
07
93
16
80
84
83
87
77
90
96
98
01
13
20
20
20
19
20
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
Fig. 2.3 Women as a percentage of Coalition and Labor MPs in the Australian

House of Representatives, 1977–2016
Source Data collected by the Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia
32 M. SAWER
similar gap in 2017, with women making up 8.7% of Republicans in the

House of Representatives but 32% of Democrats.73
Another area in which the performance of the English-speaking
democracies has been patchy is the role of parliament in gender main-
streaming. In 2016, 22 member countries of the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) were reported
as having parliamentary gender equality committees. Most had been
established more than a decade previously but the UK had only estab-
lished its committee in 2015.74 There was also an Irish Sub-Committee
on Human Rights Relative to Justice and Equality Matters established
in 2014. Australia and New Zealand had no dedicated gender equal-
ity committees according to the OECD but in response to the IPU
had reported ‘multifunctional’ bodies with some relevant responsibili-
ties. New Zealand had a Government Administration Committee with
oversight of the Ministry for Women as well as many other portfolios.
Australia had a Joint Committee on Human Rights with responsibility
for ensuring legislation complied with obligations under international
treaties including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The USA reported no
specialised body to either the OECD or IPU, although it has had a
Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues since 1977.
Usually, parliamentary gender equality bodies have been initiated by
feminist political actors, often in conjunction with feminist political sci-
entists looking to their potential role in gender mainstreaming and pro-
viding access to the legislative process for women in the community.75
Amongst the English-speaking democracies, it is the Canadian House
of Commons that has the longest experience with a single-portfolio
Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and feminist political sci-
entist Joan Grace has conducted substantial analysis of its advocacy and
scrutiny role.76
The UK’s move to establish a dedicated Women and Equality
Committee in its House of Commons illustrates very well the ‘use-
ful’ work performed by feminist political scientists. Sarah Childs was
approached by the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on
Women in Parliament to advise on their report, Improving Parliament.
A key recommendation was the establishment of a Women and Equality
Committee. Childs was then able to take up a secondment result-
ing in another report The Good Parliament, providing a blueprint for a
‘diversity-sensitive’ House of Commons. Its recommendations such as

making the Women and Equality Committee permanent were accepted
by the government and the Speaker created a Commons Reference
Group on Representation and Inclusion to take forward its agenda.77
Conclusion
Feminists have made a significant contribution to changing the absence
of women from public decision-making from a ‘condition’ into a prob-
lem to be addressed by political science together with political actors.
This has meant the conduct of both basic and applied research to iden-
tify the causes contributing to the problem. Some of the critical actors
in this project of creating a gender-inclusive discipline have already been
identified, along with the triple roles they have played. These roles have
included path-breaking scholarship and disciplinary innovation; feminist
institution-building in the profession; and promotion of new norms and
strategies to increase the parliamentary presence of women. More will
be said about the feminist institution-building aspect of their activity in
Chapter 12. However, I think we can say at this point that feminist polit-
ical science has ensured that political science is no longer complicit in the
absence of women from public office.
As well as establishing that the absence of women from political
life is a problem, feminist political science has also contributed to new
norms at the international and regional levels of governance. These
norms have expanded to encompass an emphasis on diversity as well as
gender in political representation and the operationalising of the ana-
lytic construct of intersectionality. However, as seen from the English-
speaking democracies, long-established majoritarian political institutions
can pose significant obstacles to the realisation of such evolving norms
of representation. Feminist political science continues to contribute to
knowledge-building on the nature of such obstacles and on the strategies
that may overcome them.
Notes
1.
For example, Nancy McWilliams (1974) ‘Contemporary Feminism,
Consciousness-Raising, and Changing Views of the Political’, in
Jane S. Jacquette (ed.) Women in Politics, New York: Wiley, pp. 157–170.
34 M. SAWER
2. Drude Dahlerup (2010) ‘The Development of Gender and Politics as a

New Research Field Within the Framework of ECPR’, European Political
Science 9: 87.
3. For the difference between a condition and a problem, see John W.
Kingdon (2003) Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, 2nd edn, New
York: Longman, pp. 109–110.
4. Anonymous (2014) ‘No Short-Cuts to Gender Equality: The Structures
of Women’s Exclusion in Political Science’, Politics & Gender 10(3): 441.
5. Martha Ackelsberg (2005) ‘Introduction: Contributions of Women
Political Scientists to a More Just World’, Politics & Gender 1(2): 320.
6. For a classic feminist work on the role of political parties in legislative
recruitment, see Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski (1995) Political
Recruitment: Gender, Race and Class in the British Parliament,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
7. The concept of intersectionality was introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw
(1989) ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black
Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and
Antiracist Politics’, University of Chicago Legal Forum 140: 139–167.
8. See, for example, the thematic issue on gender and the executive branch
edited by Claire Annesley and Susan Franceschet (2015) Politics &
Gender 11(4): 613–745.
9. For discussion of the wave metaphor, see Drude Dahlerup, ‘Disruption,
Continuity and Waves’, in Sarah Maddison and Marian Sawer (eds.) The
Women’s Movement in Protest, Institutions and the Internet: Australia in
Transnational Perspective, London: Routledge, pp. 20–36.
10. Mary L. Shanley and Victoria Schuck (1974) ‘In Search of Political
Woman’, Social Science Quarterly 55(3): 633.
11. Shanley and Schuck, ‘In Search of Political Woman’, pp. 634–665;
Barbara J. Nelson (1989) ‘Women and Knowledge in Political Science:
Texts, Histories and Epistemologies’, Women & Politics 9(2): 5–9; Sue
Tolleson-Rinehart and Susan J. Carroll (2006) ‘“Far from Ideal”: The
Gender Politics of Political Science’, American Political Science Review
100(4): 507–513.
12. Shanley and Schuck, ‘In Search of Political Woman’, pp. 637–638.
13. Susan C. Bourque and Jean Grossholtz (1974) ‘Politics as an Unnatural
Practice: Political Science Looks at Female Participation’, Politics and
Society 4(2): 225.
14. Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba (1963) The Civic Culture, quoted in
Bourque and Grossholtz, p. 257.
15. Murray Goot and Elizabeth Reid (1975) Women and Voting Studies:
Mindless Matrons or Sexist Scientism? London: Sage, p. 6.
16. Robert E. Lane (1959) Political Life: Why People Get Involved in Politics,
Glencoe: Free Press, p. 213.
17. Lane, Political Life, p. 355.
18. Maurice Duverger (1955) The Political Role of Women, Paris: UNESCO,
p. 8; Goot and Reid, Women and Voting Studies, p. 5.
19. Duverger, The Political Role of Women, p. 125.
20. Duverger, The Political Role of Women, p. 150.
21. Tolleson-Rinehart and Carroll, ‘Far from Ideal’, p. 507.
22. Hannah Papanek (1973) ‘Men, Women, and Work: Reflections on the
Two-Person Career’, American Journal of Sociology 78(4): 852–872.
23. Susan J. Carroll (1985) Women as Candidates in American Politics,
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press; Vicky Randall
(1991) ‘Feminism and Political Analysis’, Political Studies 39: 513–532.
24. H. J. Walker (1963) ‘A Government Back-Bencher’, Political Science
15(2): 43. See also Nicholl and Cousins, ‘Brief Encounter?’ pp. 45–46.
25. Malcolm C. Brown (1983) National Health Insurance in Canada
and Australia: A Comparative Political Economy Analysis, Canberra:
Australian National University, p. vii.
26. Robert E. Lane (1972) Political Man, New York: Free Press, p. vii.
27. Susan J. Carroll (1989) ‘The Personal Is Political: The Intersection
of Private Lives and Public Roles Among Women and Men in Elective
Office’, Women & Politics 9(2): 52.
28. Marian Sawer (2008) Making Women Count: A History of the Women’s
Electoral Lobby, Sydney: NSW Press, p. 33. The women’s embassy fol-
lowed the precedent of an Aboriginal tent embassy established the previ-
ous year.
29. Marian Sawer and Merrindahl Andrew (2014) ‘Collectivism, Consensus
and Concepts of Shared Leadership in Movements for Social Change’, in
Joy Damousi et al. (eds.) Diversity in Leadership: Australian Women, Past
and Present, Canberra: ANU Press, pp. 283–300.
30. Jan Mercer (ed.) (1975) The Other Half: Women in Australian Society,
Melbourne: Penguin, p. 5. See also McWilliams, ‘Contemporary
Feminism, Consciousness-Raising, and Changing Views of the Political’,
p. 165.
31. Refractory Girl Collective (1980) ‘The 1980 Women & Labour
Conference: A Discussion’, Refractory Girl, Nos 20–21, October, p. 27.
32. Carole Pateman (1982) ‘Presidential Address: Women and Political
Studies’, Politics 17(1): 3.
33. Marion Macdonald (1972) ‘Women Go Sell with WEL’, The Bulletin, 15
July, p. 21.
34. Renamed Australian Journal of Political Science in 1990.
36 M. SAWER
35. Rae Nicholl and Margaret Cousins (1998) ‘Brief Encounter? Women and
Political Science: The First Fifty Years’, Political Science 50(1): 46.
36. Dahlerup, ‘The Development of Gender and Politics as a New Research
Field Within the Framework of ECPR’, p. 85.
37. Margherita Rendel (ed.) (1981) Women, Power and Political Systems,
London: Croom Helm.
38. Elina Haavio-Mannila and Torild Skard (eds.) (1985) Unfinished
Democracy: Women in Nordic Politics, Oxford: Pergamon.
39. Torild Skard (2014) Women of Power: Half a Century of Female Presidents
and Prime Ministers Worldwide, Bristol: Policy Press [Originally pub-
lished in Norwegian by Universitetsforlaget, 2012].
40. Goot and Reid, Women and Voting Studies.
41. Sara Dowse (2014) ‘The Prime Minister’s Women’, Australian Feminist
Studies 29(82): 391–402, 397; Marian Sawer (1990) Sisters in Suits,
Sydney: Allen & Unwin, p. 245.
42. Elizabeth Reid (1975) ‘Statement by the Leader of the Australian
Delegation’, Third Plenary Meeting, World Conference on Women,
Mexico City, 12 June, p. 2.
43. Rendel, Women, Power and Political Systems, pp. 15, 18–21.
44. Mercedes Mateo Diaz (2005) Representing Women? Female Legislators in
West European Parliaments, Colchester: ECPR Press, p. 63.
45. IPU (1999) Participation of Women in Political Life, Geneva: IPU.
46. IPU (1997) Universal Declaration on Democracy, Geneva: IPU Council.
Available at: http://www.ipu.org/cnl-e/161-dem.htm.
47. Arend Lijphart (1999) Patterns of Democracy, New Haven: Yale
University Press; Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino (eds.) (2005)
Assessing the Quality of Democracy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press; Marian Sawer (2000) ‘Parliamentary Representation of Women:
From Discourses of Justice to Strategies of Accountability’, International
Political Science Review 21(4): 361–380.
48. Lenita Freidenvall and Michele Micheletti (2012) Comparisons, Quotas
and Critical Change, Stockholm: Department of Political Science
University of Stockholm; Rosie Campbell and Sarah Childs (eds.) (2014)
Deeds and Words, Colchester: ECPR Press.
49. Drude Dahlerup (1988) ‘From a Small to a Large Minority: Women in
Scandinavian Politics’, Scandinavian Political Studies 11(4): 275–298.
50. CEDAW (1997) General Recommendation No. 23, 16th CEDAW
Session, para 16.
51. Drude Dahlerup (2006) ‘The Story of the Theory of Critical Mass’,
Politics & Gender 2(4): 511–522.
52. Pippa Norris (2012) Gender Equality in Elected Office in Asia Pacific:
Six Actions to Expand Women’s Empowerment, Bangkok: UNDP;
Mona Lena Krook and Pippa Norris (2014) ‘Beyond Quotas: Strategies
to Promote Gender Equality in Elected Office’, Political Studies 62: 2–20.
53. Alice Brown (2001) ‘Deepening Democracy: Women and the Scottish
Parliament’, in Esther Breitenbach and Fiona Mackay (eds.) Women and
Contemporary Scottish Politics, Edinburgh: Polygon, pp. 213–229.
54. Lenita Freidenvall (2012) Comparisons, Quotas and Critical Change,
Stockholm: Department of Political Science, University of Stockholm.
55. Alison Woodward (2003) ‘Building Velvet Triangles: Gender and Informal
Governance’, in Thomas Christiansen and Simona Piattoni (eds.)
Informal Governance in the European Union, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
56. Mona Lena Krook (2009) Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and
Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide, New York: Oxford University
Press.
57. Mona Lena Krook (2016) ‘Violence Against Women in Politics: A
Rising Threat to Democracy Worldwide’, paper presented to 24th
World Congress of Political Science, Poznan; Inter-Parliamentary
Union (IPU) (2016) Sexism, Harassment and Violence against Women
Parliamentarians, Geneva: IPU.
58. Tory Shepherd (2014) ‘More Women Turning off Politics After Julia
Gillard Was Badly Treated’, The Advertiser, January 14.
59. Lenita Freidenvall (2017) ‘The Swedish Parliament—A Gender Sensitive
Working Place?’, paper presented at the European Conference on Politics
and Gender, Lausanne.
60. Josefina Erikson and Cecilia Josefsson (2018) ‘The Legislature as a
Gendered Workplace: Exploring Members of Parliament’s Experiences
of Working in the Swedish Parliament’, International Political Science
Review, https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512117735952.
61. Mark Rodrigues (2009) ‘Children in the Parliamentary Chambers’,
Parliamentary Library Research Paper, Canberra: Parliament of Australia.
62. Rosie Campbell and Sarah Childs (2014) ‘Parents in Parliament: Where’s
Mum?’, The Political Quarterly 85(4): 487–492.
63. Julie Ballington and Azza Karam (2005) Women in Parliament: Beyond
Numbers, Revised Edition, Stockholm: International IDEA. See also Julie
Ballington (2017) Preventing Violence Against Women in Elections: A
Programming Guide, New York: UNDP and UN Women.
64. Sonia Palmieri (2011) Gender-Sensitive Parliaments: A Global Review of
Good Practice, Geneva: Inter-Parliamentary Union. For a more critical
perspective on the politics of rankings and best practice, see Mieke Verloo
and Anna van der Vleuten (2009) ‘The Discursive Logic of Ranking and
Benchmarking’, in Emanuela Lombardo, Petra Meier, and Mieke Verloo
(eds.) The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality: Stretching, Bending and
Policymaking, London: Routledge, pp. 169–185.
38 M. SAWER
65. Yvonne Galligan and Petra Meier (2017) ‘What Kind of Equality Are
We Talking About When We Speak of ‘Gender-Sensitive Parliaments?’,
paper presented to the European Conference on Politics and Gender,
Lausanne, p. 3.
66. For analysis of the differing dynamics of Westminster and consen-
sus democracies, see Arend Lijphart (1999) Patterns of Democracy:
Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, New Haven:
Yale University Press.
67. Fiona Mackay (2014) ‘Nested Newness, Institutional Innovation and the
Gendered Limits of Change’, Politics & Gender 10(4): 549–571.
68. Canada is included here amongst the English-speaking democracies,
despite its bilingual language policy, as is New Zealand—where the
majority of the population are English speakers but Te Reo Māori and
New Zealand Sign Language are also official languages.
69. Linda Trimble and Jane Arscott (2003) Still Counting: Women in Politics
Across Canada, Peterborough: Broadview Press, p. xiv.
70. Sylvia Bashevkin (2009) Women, Power, Politics: The Hidden Story of
Canada’s Unfinished Democracy, Toronto: Oxford University Press,
Chapter 6.
71. The exceptions at the national level are Ireland, with its long-standing
single-transferable vote (STV) system, and New Zealand, with its rela-
tively recent mixed member proportional (MMP) system.
72. See Blair Williams and Marian Sawer (2018) ‘Rainbow Labor and a Purple
Policy Launch’, in Anika Gauja et al. (eds.) Double Disillusion: The 2016
Australian Federal Election, Canberra: ANU Press. For other European
examples, see Meryl Kenny and Tania Verge (2013) ‘Contagion
Theory Revisited: When Do Political Parties Compete on Women’s
Representation?’ Available at: www.aecpa.es/uploads/files/modules/
congress/11/papers/636.pdf.
73. Women in the US House of Representatives 2017. Available at: http://
www.cawp.rutgers.edu/women-us-house-representatives-2017.
74. OECD (2017), The Pursuit of Gender Equality: An Uphill Battle, Paris:
OECD Publishing, p. 67.
75. See Joan Grace and Marian Sawer (eds.) (2016) ‘Special Section:
Specialised Parliamentary Bodies and Gender Representation’,
Parliamentary Affairs 69(4): 745–875.
76. Joan Grace (2016) ‘Presence and Purpose in the Canadian House
of Commons: The Standing Committee on the Status of Women’,
Parliamentary Affairs 69(4): 830–844.
77. In a parallel if less successful example, in Japan feminist political scientist
Mari Miura was an adviser to the All Party Parliamentary Group for the
Promotion of Women in Politics established in 2014. Unfortunately, the
multiparty consensus over its draft bill on the subject collapsed in 2016.
See Jackie F. Steele (2016) ‘Japanese Political Science at a Crossroads?
Normative and Empirical Preconditions of the Integration of Women
and Diversity into Political Science’, European Political Science 15(4):
536–555, 538.
CHAPTER 3
Gendered Innovation in the Social Sciences
Fiona Jenkins
As women entered the academy for the first time in large numbers in the
twentieth century, the disciplines that received them began to encounter
forms of critical engagement hitherto unseen. Indeed, an ambition often
expressed in the era from the 1970s was precisely the radical transforma-
tion of traditional humanities and social science disciplines through femi-
nist scholarship. Such transformation would mean, at a minimum:
purging [disciplines] of androcentric bias, reshaping dominant paradigms

so that women’s needs, interests, activities, and concerns can be analyzed
and understood systematically, and generating research methodologies that
are neither gender-biased nor gender-blind.1
The aim was both to give gender its due place in scientific inquiry as
a fundamental aspect of social, political and economic relations, and to
establish the significance of the new perspective brought by women’s
participation in the production of knowledge.
This chapter assesses the legacies of this critical engagement, in rela-
tion to a new understanding of the importance of sex and gender
research that has emerged in the twenty-first century. The descriptive
F. Jenkins (*) 
e-mail: fiona.jenkins@anu.edu.au

42 F. JENKINS
and evaluative term—‘gendered innovations’—has come to prominence

in recent times as part of the ‘business case’ for gender equality. The
argument for supporting such innovation has been applied particularly
in relation to science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medi-
cine (STEMM) disciplines, where it highlights the importance of factor-
ing sex and gender analysis into basic research design and suggests the
epistemic, social and commercial benefits that flow from doing so. It has
formed part of an influential suite of arguments for advancing gender
equality in academia, on the assumption that more women means more
diversity, and that from this diversity will come insights that profitably
counter existing biases.2
As compared with the STEMM disciplines that have been receiving
more policy attention of late, what would the parallel benefits of gender
research in the social sciences look like? Here too there is an important
case to be made for increasing the proportion and status of women in
key social sciences, such as political science (see Chapter 12, this volume)
and economics.3 Moreover, there is undoubtedly an argument to be
made about how this would entail better ways of knowing as well as add-
ing to the public value of social science. However, I shall suggest that the
recent focus on paradigms of knowledge associated with STEMM fields
and the framing of a ‘business case’ for shifting research design towards
recognising the importance of sex and gender paradoxically risks obscur-
ing key aspects of the problem. Assessing value and significance, as well
as epistemic gain in the social sciences, will prove more controversial,
indeed more irreducibly political, than this most recent model of pro-
gress towards gender equality in academia allows.
My argument will reflect certain complexities that are evident in the
history of gender-related research. In particular, in challenging received
ideas in social science, feminist scholars have needed to explicitly address
the epistemological and evaluative commitments that protect both clearly
illegitimate ‘biases’ and forms of conventionally well-legitimated author-
ity alike. They have, for instance, contested the very possibility of fully
separating knowledge from power relations, or have insisted on the
importance of reckoning with the ‘standpoint’ of the knower, and with
determining the kind of critical perspective this standpoint may intro-
duce. These epistemological and evaluative debates, as well as broad
questions about the role of social sciences in reinforcing or transforming
social, economic and political realities, have formed vital aspects of the
history of gender scholarship in the social sciences. The question of how
3 GENDERED INNOVATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 43
the project of advancing knowledge relates to the project of advancing

gender equality in the workforce of the social sciences is perhaps simi-
larly complex. While some disciplinary formations, notably those of soci-
ology, have proved able to accommodate in significant part the approach
of feminist and gender scholars,4 in other disciplines, including political
science, feminist and gender scholarship has been largely consigned to
the margins of the discipline.5 Women have, moreover, found their way
into sociology at rates much higher than in political science or econom-
ics. Although I shall not attempt here a full account of the relationship
between there being more women in a field and the higher standing of
gender research, I shall be noting some of the questions that might arise
for us as we try to understand it. To speak of greater diversity as the key
to eliminating bias may not adequately capture the challenges new norms
and new knowledge pose to established fields, nor the gendered power
relations at stake in disciplinary responses to these challenges. If we were
to describe the contribution of the feminist effort to transform disci-
plines as resulting simply from the ‘diversity’ that women have brought
to the academy, we would risk losing sight of the struggles—over knowl-
edge, over social, political and economic realities and possibilities, over
who gets to speak and to be heard and who does not—that not only lie
in the background of the development of forms of feminist critique, but
continue to be important to sustain today. These struggles include the
kind of substantive political disagreement that neoliberal models of social
change tend to regard as unhelpful, given the emphasis placed on mar-
ket-led and profit-oriented forms of consensual practice (as exemplified
in making a ‘business case’ for gender equality).
A set of ideas about the nature and role of knowledge are embed-
ded in the ‘business case’ for bringing gender equality to the academy,
ideas that have been the object of much feminist critique. In the next
section, I describe in more detail how the concept of ‘gendered innova-
tions’ has been developed in relation to examples of progress drawn from
the STEMM disciplines and discuss the applicability of this model to the
social sciences, suggesting that some useful parallels should not lead us
to ignore a range of cautionary considerations. In three subsections, I
describe how conflicting interests relate to the idea of ‘gendered innova-
tions’; the relationship between positivism and post-positivism in gender
research; and the contribution of feminist political theory to challeng-
ing the guiding conceptual fictions that shape today’s social science. The
chapter then turns to the question of whether increased diversity will be
44 F. JENKINS
sufficient to transform invisibly gendered disciplinary categories and con-

tribute to social and political change—concluding that we need to place
more emphasis on supporting the creative forms of dissonance generated
by feminist and gender research.
Knowledge and Gender Relations

The Gendered Innovations project hosted at Stanford University6 pro-
vides a significant example of a very influential discourse on the inter-
section of gender equality and projects of knowledge. The website
associated with this project presents a series of case studies illustrating
the ways in which androcentric bias and gender blindness have limited,
distorted and hindered knowledge in medicine, engineering and biolog-
ical research. For instance, research into heart disease, as well as many
other medical conditions, has often taken male bodies and conditions as
the norm, thus missing what are in fact large variations by sex in symp-
tomology and underlying causes; medical research involving animal
experimentation has typically failed to take account of the difference the
presence of sex hormones can make to reactions to drugs, leading to dis-
torted results and effectively untested drugs being given to women; car
seat belts were long designed with a normal male body imagined to be
their wearers, with disastrous consequences for pregnant women; and
transport systems designed without considerations of gender differences
in daily schedules prove sub-optimal in meeting needs.
The Gendered Innovations project not only seeks to illustrate the ben-
efits of including sex and gender analysis in basic research design but
also to promote gender equity, by implying that such androcentrism
only becomes visible as women enter these fields and introduce sex and
gender difference as a concern. Besides developing epistemic-advantage
arguments for gender diversity, a strong economic rationale is introduced
for the project, citing missed market opportunities, and the costs associ-
ated with, for instance, imperfectly targeted medicines, as reasons to take
sex and gender differences seriously in all research design.
Although in speaking of gendered innovations in social science there
is much that we might carry over from this account and this model,
there are also questions to be raised about doing so. The Gendered
Innovations project implicitly endorses a positivist account of improv-
ing knowledge, proceeding through the elimination of bias as both
the means and the result of gathering more accurate evidence. It also
supposes that the value of correcting this is clear and will be uncontro-
versial once the evidence is presented, with the benefits of gendered
innovations in STEMM appearing largely self-evident, both to the
end-users of science and to the intrinsic quality of the knowledge that
science produces. This is a technological model of advance, to which
gender equality becomes profitably bound; but only in so far as what is
claimed in its name is highly empirically testable and conforms to a sim-
ple understanding of binary sex difference, on the model provided by the
natural body at the core of most of the examples provided. Its capacities
to engage with socially transformative projects for thinking about gen-
der may therefore be limited, as well as its capacity to engage registers of
value where there is little agreement.
Yet such, one might think, are the areas in which gendered inno-
vations have been most important in the fields studied by the social
sciences. There is, perhaps, something troubling about the way in which
the benefits of diversity are so promptly married to a business case for
the value of gendered innovations, which serve the market better and
thus lead to increased profit for companies who integrate this approach.
It is a model that presents gendered innovations as giving rise to all-
round gains including gender equality, eliminating the sense of conflict-
ing interests, or fundamental contestation of terms, that may seem more
characteristic of at least some areas where social sciences engage with
gendered realities. In the following subsections, I lay out some of these
concerns through examples drawn from the social sciences.
Conflicting Interests
Consider a case that would find an obvious place in illustrating gendered
innovation in social sciences—the gendered analysis of taxation systems.
Sylvia Walby makes the argument that:
Taxation is a gendered process. The most important reason for this is

that tax is usually disproportionately collected from men, because they
have more money than women, and usually disproportionately spent
on women, because they have less money than men, and on public pro-
jects disproportionately supported by women, such education, childcare
and health. This means that tax evasion and tax avoidance are gendered
issues, because women are disproportionately the losers when taxes are not
collected.7
46 F. JENKINS
Clear and striking as this is, it is hard to imagine it finding a place in

a model of gendered innovation that seeks unequivocally to present the
overcoming of bias as the path to accrual of social benefits based in bet-
ter knowledge. Despite articulating the harms done to women by failed
systems and flawed approaches to gathering knowledge, the apolitical
framework of the Gendered Innovations project does not allow for the
kind of exploration of conflicting interests that Walby seems to initi-
ate here. Nor does it allow for the depth of engagement she proposes
in her wider argument, whereby contestation over the division between
paid and unpaid labour, private and public projects, or conceptualisation
of finance, becomes an element in tracking the distorting and harmful
effects of standard ways of thinking about tax.
There would, no doubt, be ways to recast the points that are being
made by Walby as being less about conflicting interests, and more about
finding consensual terms of agreement on the importance of gender
equity for improving economic productivity. For instance, one could
stress how structural unfairness inhibits women’s full participation in the
market economy or enhances other counterproductive and unintended
consequences. What this brings out, however, is the significance precisely
of reflecting on the political contexts within which we cast the impor-
tance of gendered innovations and the specific questions this raises for
how feminists argue their case.
Recognising that shifting tax burdens may have complex gendered
effects, that it may require the negotiation of many conflicting inter-
ests, and that the existing demarcations of private versus public spheres
of responsibility need to be deeply questioned, does not sit well with
a simplistic model of social progress and benefit flowing from improv-
ing (some) women’s position. Certainly, there is a risk that in focus-
sing primarily on improving economic productivity, for instance, as
the clear benefit that flows from improving gender equality, women’s
unpaid work will remain in many respects invisible and unrewarded.
Such work will form part of the ‘double-shift’ women continue to
do, or be allocated to lower-class women, who occupy the precari-
ous and exploitatively low-paid economy of care work. These complex
gendered realities are all too often remaindered and rendered invis-
ible when we work with a simple dichotomy of men versus women,
without regard to intersectional forms of disadvantage. To seek a
positive and consensual story about the realisation of goals of gender
equality—a ‘business case’—may mean avoiding the conflicting inter-

ests with which it is necessary to reckon, as well as leaving aside the
bolder feminist imaginings of the intersecting worlds of work, family
and government.
Positivism and Post-positivism
To point to flaws in a consensual story about achieving gender equality is
not to deny that the basic conceptualisation of gendered innovations in
STEMM disciplines can plausibly extend to much that is done in social
sciences. In the social sciences, there is often, but not always, an equally
positivist and incremental approach to knowledge. It can be important to
affirm that there is a clear value in demonstrating how factoring sex and
gender as analytic variables into research produces gains in understand-
ing complex social, political and economic realities. Yet for some femi-
nists a post-positivist methodology has seemed essential, and on terms
that may lead to rivalry with positivist projects.
Ann Tickner for instance warns that the desire to present international
relations (IR) as authoritative, and therefore as a science, leads to a reli-
ance on rational-choice models that explicate the behaviour of states in
dangerously inaccurate terms. By eschewing this approach in favour of
‘hermeneutic, historically contingent sociological and/or ethnographi-
cally based methodologies’, it has been possible to investigate critically
the constitution of ‘gendered states’ and their different implications for
men and women, without assuming the ‘state’ as a given unit of analy-
sis.8 It is vital to open up such questions regarding the historically con-
tingent constitution of fundamental objects of inquiry prior to turning
to an empirical approach that investigates the lives of those marginalised
by a classical IR understanding of the state. A concern with women’s
lives in particular leads to methodological shifts that Tickner describes as
offering a ‘bottom-up’ rather than a ‘top-down’ approach to IR.9 Thus
although empiricism re-enters, it is on terms that follow from calling
into question the ontologies and methodological approaches that are,
for many IR scholars, canonical in the field and establish its standing as
‘science’.
The issues raised by thinking about what gendered innovations look
like in a critical theoretical space seem especially pertinent for social
sciences, where one ‘stands apart from the prevailing order of the world
48 F. JENKINS
and asks how that order came about and how it might be changed’,
while by contrast, ‘problem-solving theory takes the world as it finds it
and implicitly accepts the prevailing order as its framework’.10 The dif-
ference between critical and problem-solving projects will be important
to bear in mind in assessing different kinds of ‘gendered innovations’.
Critical theory places emphasis on understanding gender as arising
not simply from sexed or behavioural differences, but from the mean-
ings given to reality. On the critical account, the acceptance of a real-
ity conveyed by established scientific methods may be the first step to
missing the gendered construction of the apparently objective world, and
a way of veiling the power relations that shape lives on unequal terms.
This may count against an incremental approach to improving knowl-
edge and bringing social benefits, as modelled by the Gendered
Innovations project.
We might also consider how the effects of gendered political histo-
ries are embedded in disciplinary self-understandings, limiting the capac-
ity to imagine alternate possibilities. The prior exclusion of women from
a role as active citizens in the public sphere, which forms the object of
political science knowledge, is reflected in the way that the intelligibility
and the limits of this domain are established for study. In other words,
the history of gendered relations has a reinforcing effect on what main-
stream, positivist projects deem appropriate objects of scientific inquiry.
For instance, it is the paid economy of work, not the unpaid economy of
care, that matters to orthodox economists; and it is the public domain
of politics, conceived as the narrowly formal spheres of government
in which men still dominate, that shape the focus of political science.
Public/private, in both instances, is still taken for a potent opposition
of terms, despite powerful evidence of the co-constituting and gendered
relations underpinning it.11 This failure to interrogate ‘the economy’ or
‘politics’ in their relations with the gendered social arrangements that
have always framed and sustained them is a serious deficit in what is all
too readily taken for the most important ‘mainstream’ work in social
science today.
Gendered Political Theory and Feminist Influence

It appears that a masculine set of norms can be re-secured in often sub-
tle ways, by reference to the history as well as the ongoing dominance
of men in the fields of action that many disciplines assume comprise in
full their proper domain of study. If male agency is still in many respects
the uncritically accepted and presumptively neutral norm of both the
public and scientific spheres, then in mutually reinforcing terms the ‘real-
ity’ political scientists track embeds a world view that has long benefit-
ted men, including the men who study it. The language of bias does not
adequately capture this persistent influence of gendered relations in con-
stituting the worlds that social science seeks to understand. Given this,
we need a focus on sites of contestation over the guiding fictions that
shape theoretical approaches.
Some of the most difficult ideas to challenge are those that shape
the normative approaches regarded as foundational for justice. Carole
Pateman’s account of how the apparently neutral fiction of the Social
Contract effectively subordinated women to the ‘Sexual Contract’ is one
outstanding example of the exposure of an ideology that models equal-
ity through a prism of dominance.12 Modernity’s distinctive ability to
articulate a justice that spoke of universals but concealed the particular
interests of men has come under profound challenge from feminist polit-
ical theorists, from Mary Wollstonecraft on. Yet the question of how far
critique like hers or Pateman’s has shifted terms of reference in the main-
stream of political science and theory would be moot. Highly influential
for feminist scholarship, the impact of Pateman’s criticism of the gender
relations concealed in modern versions of social contract theory seems
significantly less pronounced, indeed largely absent, in the many main-
stream areas where the contractualist approach to questions of political
legitimacy still flourishes. The extensive influence of the late John Rawls’
Theory of Justice, which offers a modern revival of social contract theory
as the foundation of a liberal conception of justice, is far more evident
throughout moral, social and political theory, than is any feminist criti-
cism of the social contract model.
As Pateman clearly sets out to show, the realities of the gendered
world constituted by the legitimating fiction of the Social Contract, with
its story of ‘consent’ to rule, continue to this day to disempower and
subordinate women and in ways that the theory effectively renders invis-
ible. These guiding fictions shape the widespread acceptance of the jus-
tice of outcomes from pay gaps in earnings to the use and legitimacy of
reproductive technologies. Moreover, they inform approaches to social
science research that purport to incorporate the highest of human val-
ues and the soundest forms of reason. Yet when we consider the impact
of feminist interventions, reminding us of the gendered hierarchies
50 F. JENKINS
such fictions facilitate and make obligatory, we must reckon with a deep
resistance that comes at once from society and from social science.

Radically transformative ideas, ones that are critical of the basic premises
of contemporary political thought as Pateman’s The Sexual Contract is,
constitute gendered innovations that cannot readily be ‘mainstreamed’
but represent struggles. They must gather strength and influence in sym-
pathetic pockets of reception and will require the congruence of many
aspects of social and political change before they can be more broadly
accepted, precisely because they make a demand for seismic shifts in basic
conceptions of social justice and meaningful political equality.
Another theory of ‘consent’ is also relevant here to the question of
why the issues raised by Pateman and other feminists are not ‘seen’
by the masculine academy. A form of consent bound up with ruling
practices is theorised by Antonio Gramsci as hegemony. It is carried
through the multitude of initiatives and activities which elicit compli-
ance in the ‘general direction imposed on social life’ by those who seek
to rule; it constitutes zones of invisibility and unquestionability that
may still protect the norms and forms of knowledge of mainstream dis-
ciplinary spaces, and especially those that are intimately bound up with
the wider practices of power. Where our categories of understanding
reflect prevailing political arrangements, we occupy a world of con-
flicting interests together with the favour that accrues to the power-
ful.13 As Drucilla K. Barker eloquently makes a related point regarding
economics:
It could be that case that no amount of ‘better’ science and analysis will
ever replace the pseudo scientism that characterizes neoclassical economics –
because neoclassical economics does one thing very, very well: it artic-
ulates the ideology of contemporary capitalism in a manner that makes it
seem natural, inevitable, and beneficent. It does not ‘speak truth to power’
but on the contrary, accommodates and naturalizes power. Interpretative
approaches help us to remember that the elite status and hegemonic influ-
ence of economics stem not from its superior fidelity to the real but rather
from its connection to power.14
Social science itself is surely not unaffected by these realities of power,

though its presentation as science will generally lead us not to think
so. In this context, the positivist approach to progression in knowl-
edge and the emphasis on an improved empirical basis for technological
application in the ‘business case’ model not only differs from some
important critical approaches to knowledge in parts of the social sciences,
but may form a barrier to grasping key sites of struggle over meanings
and values.
The Challenges of Changing Social Science

Consideration of the realities of power forces us to grapple again with
the relationship between gender inequality and the deficiencies this may
give rise to in our projects of knowledge, as well as the path to change.
Although this relation is conveniently simplified when we claim that
greater ‘diversity’ leads to better ‘innovation’, the fate of the contribu-
tions made by women to social science, particularly in terms of feminist
and gender research, will complicate that picture. If, as the previous sec-
tion has argued, male-dominated social science is not simply prone to
‘bias’ but deeply invested in reproducing gendered hierarchies, then dis-
mantling its influence will prove more difficult than simply pointing out
that a group of relevant facts have been missed. This is not to say that
retrieving such facts is not vitally important. Moreover, the capacity to
work as ‘normal social scientists’ can be essential for progressing wom-
en’s careers, as well as projects of knowledge. However, if standards of
judgment, methodologies and ontologies draw significant aspects of their
power from social and political arrangements that have historically, and
continue in the present, to disadvantage women, then demonstrating the
deficiencies of research must go deeper than simply asking ‘where are the
women?’
This section returns, then, to the ‘business case’ for gender equal-
ity and the model of progress it offers, by means of improving diversity
among scientists. The model suggests the almost self-evident nature of
empirical findings concealed hitherto by bias, and the clear social and
economic benefits such research brings. Contrary to this happy pic-
ture however, and given the actual history of the last 40 years or so of
scholarship in social science, we cannot assume ideal or universal agree-
ment as to what constitutes the importance of gender research. We can-
not assume agreement on how gender research should be taken up and
incorporated into mainstream disciplinary thought, how far it adds to
existing projects of discovery and how far it dismantles them. Indeed,
the controversial, often antagonistic nature of these issues, together with
52 F. JENKINS
the deep epistemological and political questions they raise, should not be
ignored or papered over. For not only have they been important for the
self-understanding of feminist and gender scholars, but the challenges
posed by gender scholarship have led to quite variable patterns of recep-
tion across different disciplines, reflecting widely divergent responses to
evaluating its contribution.
Although there is evidence that the impact of feminist and gender
scholarship within different social science disciplines is closely correlated
with the status and representation of women, accounting for these differ-
ences is more challenging.15 It is tempting to make the extent of entry of
women into a discipline the primary factor in understanding the extent
of influence of feminist and gendered perspectives; however, this begs
many questions about interpreting the processes of change. For instance,
we have to give weight both to what has directly flowed from women’s
active critical engagement and how far the wider disciplines they partici-
pated in have proved willing or able to integrate their insights. ‘Diversity’
of views, just like ‘diversity’ of identities, tends to be articulated in
relation to well-established norms, and may therefore fail to provide a
vocabulary apt for the kinds of changes feminist thinking and activism
demands.16
To further develop an understanding of some of the stakes here, we
might usefully follow Sandra Harding in distinguishing between fem-
inist empiricism and standpoint feminism, with the latter construed as
a critical theory along the lines already indicated above.17 On the one
hand, feminist empiricism is the view that bias will be eliminated if sci-
entists more rigorously adhere to the standards implied by empiricist
methods and norms for scientific research. On the other, for standpoint
approaches (of which there are many variants) feminist empiricism fails
to recognise the importance of how the knower is situated with respect
to the object of inquiry. Standpoint theory is often associated with a
methodology that prioritises women’s first-person experience as a source
of insight; but at least in its critical versions, it affirms more specifically
that there are epistemic advantages that accrue to being marginal with
respect to a dominant discourse. The ability to cultivate the perspec-
tives of ‘outsiders within’18 locates epistemic advantage in the dissonant
experience of the disadvantaged and excluded, but needs to be articu-
lated through discussion, critique and analysis. The critical standpoint
is thus both located and a cultivated political position, avowing com-
mitments and values. In affirming from a standpoint perspective that
knowledge is always intersecting with power, and never fully transcends

social situation, claims to overcome bias by simply doing ‘better science’
become moot. This approach aligns most closely with the ‘critical’ meth-
odologies outlined above.
The key point for the present discussion is that critical standpoint the-
ory is not about valuing diversity as such, but rather the resources and
epistemic potential of dissonant experience. This distinction should per-
haps not be overdrawn, but it does contain important lessons. As Kristen
Intelmann notes, feminist empiricism and standpoint feminism form a
spectrum, with terms such as ‘objectivity’ and ‘bias’ important in each,
but with different interpretations of what these entail.19 Whereas for
feminist empiricism diversity matters for its instrumental role in jolting a
homogeneous group out of its blind spots, for standpoint feminism, it is
more important to generate an organised critical perspective on a ruling
discourse, thus to articulate insight into how ‘hegemonic ideologies and
practices’ are made to appear natural and normal.20 As Sandra Harding
explains:
Only through such struggles can we begin to see beneath the appear-
ances created by an unjust social order to the reality of how this social
order is in fact constructed and maintained. This need for struggle empha-
sizes the fact that a feminist standpoint is not something that anyone can
have simply by claiming it. It is an achievement. A standpoint differs in
this respect from a perspective, which anyone can have simply by ‘opening
one’s eyes’.21
Critical standpoint theory also gives us an account of the importance

of epistemic disruption and its relevance in approaching the question of
why some fields of research have engaged critically with gendered real-
ities and feminist analyses while others have not. Although it is impor-
tant to recognise that women came to participate in social sciences, if
not always as feminist scholars, very often as innovators in recognising
the importance of gender for their objects of study, this is not the end
of the story. Their introduction of new perspectives, in part shaped by
the very activism and social change that gained them entry to the acad-
emy, often rendered them epistemically disruptive agents, as they criti-
cally encountered more traditional approaches to the study of politics,
history, the economy, the nature of truth and so forth. Such disruption
occurred at multiple levels, affecting not only the reliability of knowledge
54 F. JENKINS
but the reliability of knowers. It shook up confident assumptions about

the neutral and disinterested perspective of knowers, introducing (not
always intentionally) an awareness of the contingent circumstances of
knowledge-production, and its propensity to uncritically reflect special
interests.
How was this epistemic disruption absorbed? As Alison Wylie
argues, the introduction of an explicit focus on gendered realities in
many fields fundamentally disturbed assumptions not only about what
could confidently be held to be true, but what orders of confidence
were appropriate, given the exposure of the ‘contingency of founda-
tional commitments, of content and practice. These had been presumed
to be neutral with respect to the situated interests of practitioners,
context-independent and trans-historically stable’.22 When newly arrived
women challenged the certitudes of male-dominated fields, reliable
knowledge could seem all too suddenly overturned by both the acts of
insisting upon and instantiating how gender performances were not cast
in stone. Wylie draws her examples from archaeology, with its sanguine
confidence in projections of contemporary gender roles into the deep
past. Implicit theories concerning the inevitabilities of human behaviour
were exposed by feminist scholars as gendered assumptions obscuring
major pieces of evidence in the historical record. This revision was not
always taken up as a simple epistemic gain, as modelled by the Gendered
Innovations paradigm, however, but treated as ideological and controver-
sial. Women, no less than men, could be disquieted by its apparent impli-
cations for confidence in disciplinary knowledge and distance themselves
from critical feminist projects in order to re-stabilise the fields of inquiry
from which their authority as archaeologists was drawn.23
The assumption that the secure claims of scientific knowledge were
damaged by this ‘relativism’ has often been directed against feminist
scholars and can shape their marginalisation in ongoing ways, especially
in fields where strong objectivism or positivist conceptions of knowl-
edge prevail. Yet although the attempt is regularly made to characterise
feminist approaches as bringing a ‘special’ perspective to bear, and one
that is devalued insofar as it is seen as ‘non-neutral’, the argument can
quite reasonably be reversed. Where feminist researchers revealed the
crudeness of long taken-for-granted assumptions, they also revealed the
profoundly situated, interested and perspectival nature of the knowl-
edge generated by communities of privileged male scholars. No doubt
there can be bitter antagonism at such sites of challenge, controversy and
change; equally, however, the fragmentation of a discipline into radically

dispersed foci of interests creates selective indifference and ignorance
that will do quite well to preserve epistemic authority. If you study ‘gen-
der’ and I study ‘electoral politics’ I may conveniently feel I do not need
to engage with your work or your questions, and especially so if explain-
ing the importance of the connection falls primarily to female political
scientists.
Thus, the fragmentation of political science into specialised sub-
fields with autonomous networks and reward systems as described
in Chapter 12 may well be a factor in blocking engagement with c ritical
standpoints. We can speculate that such fragmentation makes it more
difficult to challenge prevailing ideas that reflect and enhance masculine
dominance of both the public political sphere and the academic world of
those who study it. Moreover, the terms on which the discipline remains
masculinised can involve apparently neutral techniques. Shauna Shames
and Tess Wise for instance have discussed how the privilege accorded to
political science methodology, identified with complex statistical model-
ling, has a number of pernicious effects on women’s participation rates,
as well as on the substantive content of political science. Political science
methodology is both a ‘gender integration laggard and the area of the
field that develops the “rules of the game” for good political science’.24
It exercises subtle influence in maintaining a status quo both within and
beyond the academy.
These rules are further underwritten by strong epistemic com
mitments, again displaying important disciplinary patterns and var-
iations. Whereas a thought about how knowledge is situated may find
a friendly reception and acknowledgement in many areas of sociology,
given its capacity to fit with social constructionist approaches,25 it is less
well-received in the more positivist domains of social science, such as
those described by Shames and Wise. Here the pretensions to neutral,
value-free knowledge are much stronger. Better integration of a disci-
pline (in terms of overcoming workforce segregation by gender and areas
of study) may imply deep probing of how methodological commitments
operate to underwrite disengagement from difficult questions. Where
there has been effective integration of feminist and gender research, as
Sylvia Walby argues is the case for sociology, there may still be work to
do, as those who claim there is yet a ‘missing feminist revolution’ in soci-
ology have maintained.26 Some kind of revolution nonetheless seems to
have taken place, shifting terms of reference in ways that have established
56 F. JENKINS
the centrality of gender in these fields; and not simply as a variable or a

social object to be studied, but as a vital site for ongoing reconceptualis-
ation of social space and meaning, raising questions that are core to the
practice of the discipline.
The story of progress must thus include many kinds of active efforts
to revise conceptualisation, methodology and conduct of disciplines;
given that the androcentric bias of so many fields was only detected once
a monopoly on the production of knowledge was wrested from men, we
cannot assume that knowledge is self-correcting.27 Although well-re-
ceived in certain quarters, it remains true that feminist critique and
gender scholarship have in many social science disciplines been highly
marginalised, and have thus brought little change to mainstreams.28 The
question of how equality of intellectual authority is achieved, such that
criticisms raised by members of a community are not dismissed out of
hand29 is salient here, and would seem to have a bearing on both the
vertical and horizontal segregation we see in political science, as well as
patterns of disciplinary organisation that marginalise feminist approaches
as a special topic, and one that can be safely left on the outskirts of the
discipline (or, in other words, ignored). Given this, we may need criteria
beyond equal numerical representation to claim gender equality in aca-
demia has been achieved, so as to include ways of registering the impor-
tance of receptive engagement on the part of disciplinary participants
with ‘gendered innovations’ considered in the broad and critical sense
I have tried to elaborate here. Likewise, the degree of specifically femi-
nist consciousness that diversity brings in is an important issue. Feminist
approaches, in all their plurality, internal disagreement and complexity,
became possible as a result of women’s arrival in the academy, but they
are not reducible to an effect of diversification. Where the ‘common
sense’ of gendered world views is widely held by both men and women,
the sheer diversity of social identities by itself is no solution here; and a
more active and organised contestation of the presumptive values and
practical commitments of ruling discourses is called for.
Conclusions
In considering how the lexicon of ‘gendered innovations’ might be
brought to bear in the social sciences, we need to ask questions about
the relationship between gender scholarship and wider political cul-
tures and the depth of its potential challenge to ‘business-as-usual’.
At stake in the debate I have staged here is what we might think of as a

useful simplification of the value of gender research in terms of its vir-
tuous scientific effects on the one hand, versus recognition of its politi-
cal, social and epistemological complexities on the other. In the STEMM
disciplines, at least as they are cast in the Stanford Gendered Innovations
project, a simple paradigm of scientific advance, and an emphasis on
technological solutions, gives the recent advocates of ‘gendered innova-
tions’ a clear basis for demanding the removal of implicit biases regard-
ing sex and gender in the interests of improving knowledge and efficacy.
By contrast, the pioneers of gender research in the social sciences have
often not only been seeking the removal of bias, and the improvement
of outcomes for women, but have also been involved in epistemological
and normative debates about the objectivity of knowledge or the evalu-
ative frame of reference for assessing claims of ‘benefit’ or ‘harm’. As we
renew the effort to overcome gender disparities in academic careers, such
questions need close attention.
What forms of appropriation of gender research are the most progres-
sive and according to what criteria? If introducing diversity of perspec-
tives takes place within a neoliberal framework that pre-emptively corrals
and offsets its impact, the transformative agenda of feminism risks being
displaced. Here, I have implied we might recognise something of the
enfolding of feminism within neoliberal agendas that Nancy Fraser
warns of, in casting the project of disciplinary transformation within
the ‘business case’ for gender equality.30 Yet perhaps we must also, with
Elisabeth Prügl, assess case by case what is lost and what is gained in this
process.31 Notwithstanding the complexities that have been canvassed
in this chapter, I think we can confidently say that much progress has
occurred within the domain of the social sciences. The gender innova-
tions of the past 40 years have meant scholarship that is more adequate
to understanding the lives and destinies of half the world’s population,
as well as the creation of public spaces where women have been able to
articulate their individual and collective voices as producers of knowl-
edge. Nonetheless, the debate must continue: over what transforma-
tion consists of, normatively speaking, as well as in historical terms; over
which feminist values and projects to back; and over what constitutes
an adequate approach to thinking gender relations today. By examining
the stakes of the ‘business case’ in relation to what I take to be more
critical agendas in feminist social science, I have sought here to open
out some questions about how to acknowledge both the importance
58 F. JENKINS
of gendered innovations in social science and the uneven terms of their

reception through to the present day. This requires us to revisit from
multiple directions how pursuing gender equality and knowledge can
form entwined projects.
Notes
1. Mary Hawkesworth (1994) ‘Policy Studies Within a Feminist Frame’,
Policy Sciences 27(2/3): 97–118, 98.
2. League of European Research Universities (2012) Women, Research and
Universities: Excellence Without Bias. Available at: http://www.gleichstel-
lung.uzh.ch/politik/LERU_Paper_Women_universities_and_research.pdf.
3. See for instance the Royal Economics Society Report on ‘The Gender
Balance in UK Economics Departments and Research Institutes in 2016’.
Available at: http://www.centreformacroeconomics.ac.uk/pdf/RES-
GenderReport2017.pdf. Also the Committee on the Status of Women in
the Economics Profession, 2017. Available at: https://www.aeaweb.org/
about-aea/committees/cswep/survey. Both accessed 24 February 2018.
4. Sylvia Walby (2011) ‘The Impact of Feminism on Sociology’, Sociological
Research Online 16(3): 21. Available at: http://www.socresonline.org.
uk/16/3/21.
5. Carol Johnson (2014) ‘Hard Heads and Soft Hearts: The Gendering
of Australian Political Science’, Australian Feminist Studies 29(80): 121–
136. See also Chapter 12 of this volume.
6. Stanford University, ‘Gendered Innovations’. Available at: https://gende-
redinnovations.stanford.edu.
7. Sylvia Walby (2009) ‘Gender and the Financial Crisis’, A Report for
UNESCO. Available at: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/doc_library/soci-
ology/Gender_and_financial_crisis_Sylvia_Walby.pdf.
8. Ann Tickner (2005) ‘Gendering a Discipline: Some Feminist
Methodological Contributions to International Relations’, Signs 30(4):
2173–2188, 2177.
9. Tickner, ‘Gendering a Discipline’, p. 2178.
10. Robert W. Cox (1981) ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond
International Relations Theory’, Millennium 10(2): 126–155, 129–130.
11. Johnson, ‘Hard Heads and Soft Hearts’.
12. Carole Pateman (1989) The Sexual Contract, Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
13. Sandra Harding and Kathryn Norberg (2005) ‘New Feminist Approaches
to Social Science Methodologies’, Signs 30(4): 2009–2015.
14. Drucilla K. Barker (2004) ‘A Seat at the Table’, in Edith Kuiper and
Drucilla K. Barker (eds.) Feminist Economics and the World Bank: History,
Theory and Policy, New York and London: Routledge, p. 214.
15. Fiona Jenkins and Helen Keane (2014) ‘Gender and Feminism in the
Social Sciences: Equity, Excellence and Knowledge in the Disciplines’,
Australian Feminist Studies 29(80): 107–114.
16. Sara Ahmed (2009) ‘Embodying Diversity: Problems and Paradoxes for
Black Feminists’ Race, Ethnicity and Education 12(1): 41–52.
17. Sandra Harding (1986) The Science Question in Feminism, Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
18. Patricia Hill Collins (2004) ‘Learning from the Outsider Within: The
Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought’, in Sandra Harding
(ed.) The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader, New York and London:
Routledge.
19. Kristen Intemann (2010) ‘25 Years of Feminist Empiricism and
Standpoint Theory: Where Are We Now?’ Hypatia 25(4): 778–796.
20. Sandra Harding (ed.) (1987) Feminism and Methodology: Social Science
Issues, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
21. Sandra Harding (1991) Whose Science, Whose Knowledge? Milton Keynes:
Open University Press, p. 127.
22. Alison Wylie (2016) ‘What Knowers Know Well: Standpoint Theory and
Gender Archaeology’, to appear in Portuguese translation of Special Issue
of Scientiae Studia on Feminist Approaches in Philosophy and Sociology of
Science. Available as the 2016 Katz Distinguished Lecture at: https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucEM1t3Drek.
23. Wylie, ‘What Knowers Know Well’.
24. Shauna L. Shames and Tess Wise (2017) ‘Gender, Diversity, and Methods
in Political Science: A Theory of Selection and Survival Biases’, American
Political Science Association Newsletter 50(3): 811.
25. Walby, ‘The Impact of Feminism on Sociology’.
26. ‘“The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology” Twenty Years Later:
Looking Back, Looking Ahead’ (2006) Special issue of Social Problems
53(4): 443, https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2006.53.4.443.
27. Wylie, ‘What Knowers Know Well’.
28. See for example Frances Wooley (2005) ‘The Citation Impact of Feminist
Economics’, Feminist Economics 11(3): 85–106; Fred Lee (2008) A
Comment on ‘The Citation Impact of Feminist Economics’, Feminist
Economics 14(1): 137–42.
29. Helen Longino (1990) Science as Social Knowledge, Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
30. Nancy Fraser (2009) ‘Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History’,
New Left Review 56.
31. Elisabeth Prügl (2015) ‘Neoliberalising Feminism’, New Political Economy
20(4): 614–631.
CHAPTER 4
Inclusion and Exclusion: Contributions

of a Feminist Approach to Power
S. Laurel Weldon
Power is a core concept for political science. Influential political theorist

Robert Dahl defined politics as relating to power, and political systems
as ‘any persistent pattern of human relationships that involves, to a sig-
nificant extent, control, influence, power or authority’.1 Though other
definitions have connected politics fundamentally to distribution and to
normative (meaning value-laden) considerations, as in ‘who gets what,
when, how’ or the authoritative allocation of value,2 feminist politi-
cal theorists have critiqued these analytic approaches that focus on dis-
tribution, arguing that they obscure the power dynamics that produce
these distributions, thereby depoliticising them.3 Indeed, feminists of all
stripes have long linked politics and power, offering a distinctive account
of the concept of power. In Sexual Politics, Kate Millett defines politics
as ‘power structured relationships, arrangements whereby one group of
persons is controlled by another’.4
Feminist scholarship on power provides a deeper understanding of
this core concept. Without this contribution, our discipline would oper-
ate with a partial, superficial account of power, examining patterns of
S. L. Weldon (*) 
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
e-mail: weldons@purdue.edu

62 S. L. WELDON
distribution of goods without a deep understanding of the processes

and relationships by which they are produced. Feminists have empha-
sised the ubiquity of power, how it flows like water into every realm of
our lives, obliterating presumed boundaries of public and private, formal
and informal, constituting our very consciousness. Gender scholarship
has illuminated, for example, the ways that identities and norms consti-
tute subjects as powerful or powerless in relation to one another. It has
also provided evidence of how collective action can change relations of
power, by offering empowerment to those ‘at the bottom’ of the hierar-
chy, by offering the ability to upend—at least in some times, some places
and some respects—the presumed order.
In this essay, I aim to illustrate the insights offered by a femi-
nist approach to power. First, I give a very brief outline of traditional
approaches to power to show how feminist approaches to power dif-
fer, emphasising the feminist insight that power is a relationship, not
a thing, and that power is ubiquitous. It is inconsistent with this feminist
approach to power, I argue, to see women’s absence from the top of the
hierarchy as the ‘absence’ of women from power. Thinking about power
in more complex ways gives us a better understanding of the potential
for women’s empowerment as well as the reasons for (and consequences
of) women’s continued exclusion from positions of political leadership.
Feminism directs our attention to the multiple sites of power (pointing
to women in social movements and bureaucracies as well as to infor-
mal dimensions of institutional politics) and helps to moderate expec-
tations of feminist women who occupy so-called positions of power. It
also suggests broader solutions to the problems of exclusion that bedevil
advocates for women’s inclusion in contemporary democratic politics,
suggesting a broader array of policy and civil society initiatives aimed at
gender equality. Along the way, it offers a richer understanding of rela-
tions of inclusion and exclusion that structure modern democracies,
and helps to understand the challenges of—and opportunities for—
deepening democracy.
Traditional Approaches to Power

As many scholars have recognised, feminist scholars take a unique
approach to power.5 Standard conceptualisations of power run through
the several faces of power: The first face of power, usually identified with
liberal pluralists such as Dahl, is the most intuitive, dealing as it does
with the ability to potentially change another’s behaviour on a particular
4 INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION: CONTRIBUTIONS OF A FEMINIST … 63
issue: A is able to coerce B into doing something that B would not oth-
erwise do. This face of power is sometimes seen as focusing on decision-
making. The second face of power deals with non-decisionmaking, the
power of controlling the agenda, of controlling the background condi-
tions such that certain issues or perspectives are never discussed.6 The
third face of power, associated with Lukes, has to do with manipulat-
ing others so that they come to believe that the things that you want
to do are the things they want to do (as distinct from overt coercion).7
An example of this kind of power is the way that powerful actors, on a
Marxist view, encourage workers to develop false consciousness, in order
to obscure what is in their interests and to emphasise the desirability of
behaviours that accord with the wishes of the powerful.
A Feminist Approach to Power

Many feminist theorists, however, move beyond even this third face of
the exercise of power towards a view of power that sees it less as some-
thing someone possesses and more as a relationship.8 The ‘distribution’
of power approach understands power as something like an amount that
can be distributed across people. But power in modern society, many
feminists have argued, is more subtle than something one can pick up,
put down and choose to exercise or not to exercise. (This approach is
closer to Foucault and Marx than to the liberal pluralists like Dahl.)9
Many of us benefit from the power that flows through us by virtue of
our social identity and institutional position whether or not we wish
to benefit in these ways. On the other hand, many of us find ourselves
silenced by these same identities and social positions.
The feminist approach to power points out that some bodies will be
perceived as exercising more authority and as commanding more sta-
tus regardless of whether anyone chooses to exercise that power. Power
structures all relationships to a variety of degrees, and understanding the
ubiquity of power is part of what is meant by the feminist slogan, ‘the
personal is political’.10 Power structures the relationship between the first
world consumer and the developing world sweatshop worker, though
they may never meet or cross each others’ minds. Power structures the
relationship between the university president and a faculty member at
a regional campus, between the police officer and the person of colour.
Power structures the relationships between parents and teachers and
children, between husbands and wives and between lovers. There is no
‘choice’ to the ‘exercise’ of power in these relationships.
64 S. L. WELDON
On this view, then, power is less of a thing that inheres in particu-

lar people, or even in particular offices, and more of a set of relation-
ships and background forces that are present throughout society. Power
is ‘productive’, generating ‘identities, subject positions, forms of life,
and behavioural habits in accordance with particular norms’.11 Power
that stems from norms, from ideas about legitimacy and appropriate-
ness, is sometimes called ‘soft power’.12 The omnipresence of power as
a relationship even structures our efforts to seek truth and knowledge.
Knowledge claims themselves are hopelessly entwined in relations of
power, structuring relations of domination and oppression.
The Feminist Contribution to Understanding Power

Recognising the ways that these relations of power depend on the
compliance of the seemingly powerless, of everyday people, is impor-
tant not only for understanding how power works, but also for identi-
fying possible sites of resistance.13 If bureaucratic systems, for example,
depend on compliance with bureaucratic rules, then failing to comply
with those rules can disrupt systems. If economic systems depend on
people being willing to work, then workers retain the power to dis-
rupt those systems by withdrawing their labour in a strike. Women have
the power to disrupt systems that depend on their unpaid labour, and
to draw attention to their contribution, by refusing to do that labour.
In the USA in 2006, on the ‘Day without Immigrants’, Latino and
Latina immigrants, including many undocumented workers, protested
their condition and demonstrated their importance to the economy
when many failed to show up for work on 1 May—a day of great sig-
nificance for the labour movement—causing many delays and disrup-
tions, with lasting effect.14 This ability to disrupt systems through which
power runs is fundamental to the power of protest in modern life. In
this sense, the collective power of those at the ‘bottom’ of the hierar-
chy should not be overlooked, as doing so only further empowers those
at the ‘top’, making their domination seem inevitable and inalterable.
Feminists have also pointed out that the social structures through
which power flows are not confined to the public, to electoral systems, to
political parties or even to the market. Norms and stereotypes advantage
some and disadvantage others in intimate matters, in the family, and in
myriad other contexts15—an observation captured by the feminist slogan
‘the personal is political’ (to which I referred above).
Feminist theorists have particularly emphasised the realm outside

government—civil society, the market, the family and intimate and inter-
personal relations, as arenas of politics, as arenas where power operates.
Many scholars of social movements point to the power of movements to
change society,16 and feminist scholars have particularly emphasised this
point.17 Women’s movements act in civil society to transform the policy
agenda and demand changes to the structure of the state itself.18 In her
book Faithful and Fearless, Mary Katzenstein shows how feminist protest
has challenged and even changed patriarchal, hierarchical institutions like
the Catholic Church and the military, showing the power of protest even
inside these institutions.19 In Women, Civil Society and the Geopolitics of
Democratization, Denise Horn explores civil society as a sphere—and
avenue—of power and empowerment, examining US and EU foreign
policies that are aimed towards women’s organisations and feminist
movements in transitional states, including Estonia, Moldova, Poland
and Belarus.20 Arguing that ‘social entrepreneurship’ can be a kind of
political activity, Horn contends that this is another way that civil society
serves as an arena of power and empowerment. ‘Social entrepreneurs…
can effect change by undermining deeply entrenched power structures or
empowering individuals’ by developing innovative ways to meet commu-
nity needs. Social entrepreneurship is part of the struggle for meaning—
and especially legitimacy—that is the hallmark of civil society.21
Finding ways to challenge gender bias, the formal and informal prac-
tices that maintain gender hierarchy in everyday life, has been called
‘everyday politics’.22 Social structures even create forms of subjectiv-
ity, forms of consciousness and identity that encourage the powerless
to accept their subordinate position and that make the privileging of
advantaged groups seem seamless and natural. Overcoming these forms
of consciousness takes concerted collective action, the formation of an
oppositional consciousness.23 Forming such an oppositional consciousness
might be seen as part of a process of decolonising the mind, pushing
back on the ways that social structures keep us powerless by reinforcing
disempowering versions of the self.24
Effective challenges to structures of power will be collective, work-
ing at a macro level, rather than individual, even if these macro strategies
work through the transformation of a multitude of individual actions.
These challenges to power are called empowerment, an important femi-
nist conceptual contribution that considers power from a more construc-
tive angle.25 Empowerment, then, in the feminist sense, is a collective
66 S. L. WELDON
phenomenon, requiring collective action on a wide array of dimensions.

Valentine Moghadam and Lucie Senftova, for example, define wom-
en’s empowerment as ‘a multi-dimensional process of civil, political,
social, economic, and cultural participation and rights’ and conceptualise
‘empowerment in terms of the achievement of basic capabilities, of legal
rights, and of participation in key social, economic, and political domains’
requiring policy and legal changes.26 While many contemporary critics
point to an increasing tendency to see empowerment in individualistic,
depoliticised terms, feminist theorists and analysts have long emphasised
the collective, political nature of empowerment. Bonnie Keller and Dorcas
Chilila Mbwewe define empowerment as ‘a process whereby women
become able to organize themselves to increase their own self-reliance, to
assert their independent right to make choices and to control resources
which will assist in challenging and eliminating their own subordina-
tion’.27 This element of organising or collective action is critical to femi-
nist accounts of how empowerment counters domination. Empowerment
in the feminist sense encompasses both the individual level dimensions of
increased agency and the broader efforts to secure the societal conditions
that make individual agency possible and meaningful. As Young puts it,
‘empowerment refers to the development of a sense of collective influ-
ence over the social conditions of one’s life… [it] includes both personal
empowerment and collective empowerment and suggests that the latter is
a condition of the former’.28
On this view, there are multiple sites of power, and power works
through all of us in a multitude of ways. In order to understand how
women are excluded and marginalised—and yet, not powerless—we have
to understand all the different ways and sites where power operates. We
have to look at all the ways power operates to see women’s power, as
well as to understand why male domination persists. More generally, we
want to consider these dimensions and sites of power in all analyses of
politics. In other words, the feminist analysis of power not only helps us
understand gender inequality and male domination, it gives us a deeper
understanding of power, a core concept of our discipline, and suggests
that we expand our disciplinary vocabulary to include empowerment.
The smooth operation of bureaucratic, social, political and economic
systems depends on women’s compliance.29 If they organise, women
can use their collective power in these realms to make a difference. The
connective tissue of such collective efforts can inhere in social networks
that may not appear to be oriented towards the state—towards social,
cultural and community activities.30 This helps to explain why women’s
organising in civil society—women’s movements—is an effective ave-

nue of empowerment for women. In addition, it helps us understand
how informal institutions, norms, can be a source of power. Ideas about
appropriateness and legitimacy can undergird ‘soft power’, sources of
influence that inhere in ideas.31 Thus, power and identity are closely
linked, something feminists have pointed out in their critiques of con-
structivist approaches to international relations.32 Collective action in
civil society can not only result in changing formal laws and policies that
affect women and other marginalised groups, it can also change norms,
informal institutions.33
If we move beyond an understanding of political power that sees it
as equivalent with formal office holding in the state, we can see the way
power operates in civil society, the market, the family and in intimate
and interpersonal affairs. We can see informal aspects of power as well as
power that depends on formal rules. We can also see the possibilities for
resistance and empowerment in all these sites.
If feminists want to do more than mitigate rollbacks in women’s
rights, they must keep pressing for new visions of gender equality, cre-
ating and disseminating new norms that will empower women across
a wide range of contexts. Women can use their power not only as con-
sumers and voters but also as citizens and participants in civil society
more generally. Universities and other academic organisations are also
sites of struggle, and feminists can do a great deal to advance women
by emphasizing values that are also the values of democracy and science,
namely publicity, transparency, fairness and equal treatment. In order to
empower women, feminists must make visible the problems they con-
front outside the state—violence and harassment, and the subtle and not
so subtle attitudes that dismiss and belittle women in science, politics,
media and other areas of public and private life. These are problems of
power and empowerment.
Contributions of This Approach to the Study

of Representation and Democracy
Understanding that power is a set of institutional relationships, and not

a good that can be distributed, as discussed above, means that we can
look for power in a variety of places. People located at the bottom of
the social and economic hierarchy are collectively necessary to the oper-
ation of nearly every economic, political and social system in existence.
68 S. L. WELDON
This critical role is the source of their potential influence. The ability
to withdraw participation in these systems in the necessary ways is the
source of considerable power. Of course, this power is unlikely to be felt
unless it is exercised in a collective way.
Organisation of those ‘at the bottom’—or even cogs in the machinery
of bureaucracy—that is, street-level bureaucrats, voters, school teachers,
women volunteers can disrupt these systems and force attention to the
issues and concerns of these otherwise unremarkable, seemingly ‘pow-
erless’ individuals. Organisations, for example social movements of such
people, are critical to resistance and change of these systems. Social move-
ments can disrupt business as usual and force attention to new ideas and
constituencies. As counter-publics, formed in opposition to dominant
public spheres, marginalised groups, such as women and people of colour,
can develop their distinctive perspective, encompassing a range of issues
and concerns, and different ways of framing or approaching issues that
are salient. When movement activists and organisations intervene in dom-
inant public spheres, in democracy, they speak for the groups they repre-
sent in an important way, providing substantive representation of views
that otherwise would never be articulated.34
Women’s autonomous social movements, then, represent one form
of women’s collective power, and a mechanism for their substantive
and descriptive representation.35 Indeed, such movements have been
critical to policy innovations advancing actions on issues of concern to
women, such as violence against women (VAW), reproductive rights
and family law among others.36 Movements prompt policy change by
developing feminist positions on these policies and disseminating them
in both feminist and dominant public spheres. Movements improve
democratic representation of and government responsiveness to mar-
ginalised groups. I illustrate and provide some support for these claims
below, focusing first on the issue of VAW, and then turning to analyse
the relationship between women’s organising, democracy and good
governance.
Women Empowered to Act Against Violence

Let me develop one example of women’s power in civil society. There
are many feminist successes in the policy arena that come in the area of
VAW, successes that show the impact of women’s collective action on
their own behalf.
VAW refers to a specific kind of violence to which women are sub-

ject.37 It does not include all violence that victimises women, but instead
refers to violence that happens to women at least in part because they are
women, including a range of abuses such as domestic violence, sexual
assault, stalking and street harassment, female genital mutilation, honour
killings, forced prostitution and sex slavery, and bride and widow burn-
ings.38 Such violence is all too prevalent. For example, one in six women
in the USA is sexually assaulted, and one in five experiences domestic
violence during the course of her lifetime.39 In Europe, VAW is more
dangerous to the female population than terrorism or cancer.40 Such vio-
lence, which occurs in every region of the world, inhibits development,
harms children, and poses tremendous costs.41
Governments from all regions of the world, as well as international
and intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations and the
World Health Organization, have pledged to fight such violence, and
most governments today undertake some measures to combat violence.42
However, current efforts to stop VAW are inadequate. They focus on
treatment after the fact, rather than prevention, and many efforts to
address VAW through policy are subverted in the process of implementa-
tion. New approaches to this problem are desperately needed.
Anyone who is seriously working on the issue of VAW will reject the
idea that there has been too much success. Too many women still suffer
violence in their intimate relationships. It is too easy to find the exam-
ples—they are readily at hand. In September 2016 in Indiana, where
I live, hundreds of people gathered to mourn a 31-year-old woman,
Heather Smith, mother of three young children, killed by her ‘on-again
off again boyfriend’.43 Smith had an active protective order against her
murderer, but it did not protect her. This experience of violence is typi
cal both in the USA and in Australia; on opposite sides of the globe, in
spite of the many differences, about half a million women a year experi-
ence this kind of violence.44 Women are still twice as likely to be killed
by intimate partners in the USA as are men. When the President of the
USA is elected in spite of having unapologetically bragged about touch-
ing women sexually against their will (as was the case in 2016), it can
seem as if not much has changed with respect to issues of sexual assault,
domestic violence or the wider range of sexual violations that women
suffer every day.
Nevertheless, there has been change on this issue in the last 40 years, and
it is mainly because of the power women have exercised in civil society.45
70 S. L. WELDON
In the 1980s, few international human rights agencies considered inti-

mate violence a human rights issue, objecting that it was not perpetrated
against citizens by the state, and so did not fall into their purview.46
Legislators in Canada openly joked about domestic violence,47 and
in many places, sexual assault of intimate partners was not a crime, or
was not even considered possible (indeed, it was not until July 1993
that marital rape became illegal in North Carolina, the last US state to
make it so).48 Today, marital rape is illegal in all 50 US states. The US
Violence Against Women Act of 1994, reauthorised several times, out-
lines a variety of measures to address VAW in their homes and on our
streets, measures such as legal reform, training for police and social work-
ers, funding for services for victims, funding for administrative bod-
ies, policy evaluation and research. Funding just for the Office on VAW
alone is about half a billion dollars per year.49 This is not to claim that
the work of addressing VAW is complete; indeed, government action on
VAW is in need of reform, even in those countries that may seem to have
made some progress.50 However, it is critically important to recognise
that the glass ‘half-full’ is significant progress over not having a glass (in
other words, having no real government response to VAW). More to the
point, it is also important to recognise the source of this progress, which
can be attributed in large part to women’s independent organising in dem-
ocratic politics.51
A series of studies at the state level in the USA, at the national level in
Canada and Australia, of the 30 stable democracies, and most recently, of
70 countries over the period 1975–2005, show that the most consistent
catalyst for government action on VAW is women’s autonomous organ-
ising in civil society.52 This organising has been more important than the
number or proportion of women in government, ideology of political
party, or a host of other factors in driving policy response. For example,
Table 4.1 shows the proportion of women in the legislature during the
biggest expansions of government action on VAW from 1995 to 2005.
Note that in most cases, large increases in the proportion of women in
elected office were not observed, and in some cases, the proportion of
women had actually declined. Similarly, the countries where governments
have been the most active on VAW (Canada, Australia and the USA) are
not countries that have elected large numbers of women.
The point here is that women can shape the policy agenda, the pol-
icy landscape, in ways that advance their distinctive perspectives and
concerns, even when they are relatively absent from the top of the
Table 4.1 Women in Lower House of Parliament (%), 1975–2005, and

Expansion in Scope of VAW Policy (1995–2005)
% Women % Women % Women % Women Change in VAW

1975 1985  1995 2005 % Women Index change
1995–2005  1995–2005
(in % points)
Denmark 15.10 26.30 33.50 37.99 4.49 8

Japan 1.40 1.60 2.70 7.08 4.38 7
Indonesia 7.20 9.10 12.20 11.30 –0.90 7
South Africa 0.50 1.00 33.00 32.80 –0.20 7
South Korea 4.00 2.00 1.00 13.40 12.40 7
Dom Republic 14.30 5.80 11.70 17.30 5.60 6
Portugal 8.00 7.20 13.00 19.13 6.13 6
Switzerland 5.50 11.00 17.50 25.00 7.50 6
Thailand 4.20 8.64 4.44 6
Source Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon

Note The final column indicates the scope of VAW policy, on a scale of 0–10
institutional hierarchy. This means women are not powerless to advance

their concerns when they are absent from these positions, and if we think
they are, we do not understand power. Indeed, it means we are failing to
recognise a critical source of power, a source of resistance, and one that
feminist theorists pointed to long ago.53
Informal Power and Normative Change54

Norms, or informal institutions, can reinforce power relations that struc-
ture societal relations between groups. But norms can also provide the
basis for challenging such inequalities, for ‘speaking truth to power’.
Discursive politics, when they call norms into question through critical
discussion, can challenge power.55 I suggest a few such strategies below,
drawing on the example of VAW.
First, activists can challenge norms that oppress women, such as norms
that contribute to VAW and block effective policy responses. Although
the causes of VAW are complex, norms are important factors contribut-
ing to VAW.56 Cross-cultural studies have found that norms endorsing
male dominance, female economic dependency, the importance of vio-
lence, toughness and honour in conflict resolution, and male authority
72 S. L. WELDON
in the family predict high societal levels of domestic violence and rape.57
Norms about the acceptability of violent behaviour in relationships, par-
ticularly the acceptability of perpetrating such VAW in sexual or intimate
relationships, make women vulnerable to violence and render others
more likely to abuse them with the expectation of impunity.58
VAW can also be used to preserve norms that empower some and
oppress others. VAW is seen in some contexts as appropriate punishment
for those who deviate from acceptable social scripts regarding sexual-
ity, gender and race. Punishment for deviation from gender or commu-
nity scripts through VAW may even be seen as a sort of duty in some
cultural contexts, for example, as the responsibility of the head of
household. Male heads of households may be expected to leave visible
evidence of punishment (e.g. bruises) to show they are exercising their
authority. Similarly, activists in Malaysia and the Philippines report that
rape and the threat of rape are used to intimidate women who seek to
exercise their legal right to vote. So-called honour killings are prevalent
in many societies, so-called because they involve punishing female family
members who have violated norms of ‘honour’ through actions ranging
from being a victim of rape to merely being seen with unrelated men in
public. Perceived norm violation may also be the impetus behind vio-
lence against openly gay or interracial couples. In this sense, the impulse
of punishment associated with social norms may be part of the explana-
tion for the prevalence and persistence of VAW.
Again, feminists and other anti-violence activists can challenge these
norms that lead to gender-based violence, questioning them and propos-
ing new norms to replace them. Indeed, this is what the idea of challeng-
ing ‘rape culture’ is all about. Because norm-driven behaviour is mostly
unconscious or habitual, an important step towards getting people to
follow a new norm is to draw attention to the harmful or less desirable
nature of the old pattern of behaviour in relation to some new way of
behaving. Merely discussing apparent patterns in behaviour can affect an
individual’s awareness of the norms he or she is following, which can in
turn lead to behaviour change. For example, psychological research has
found that merely attending to sexist norms in everyday life made young
women (but not young men) more aware of these sexist practices and
more likely to correct them.59 Critical discussion of a norm can itself be a
powerful mechanism for change.
These same social norms that contribute to the prevalence of
this problem sometimes also block efforts to address the problem
through public policy. For example, Louise Chappell’s The Politics

of Gender Justice at the International Criminal Court: Legacies and
Legitimacy shows how a broader context of informal rules and principles
that are part of international law have frustrated feminist efforts to make
the International Criminal Court (ICC) more receptive to concerns
about VAW. Chappell’s work shows that discriminatory social norms
may result in institutional practices that treat VAW (such as rape) as less
important than other violent and/or invasive personal or sexual viola-
tions, even when formal laws stipulate that this should not be the case.60
Formal institutions and policies to address women’s human rights,
then, may be undermined by informal understandings that contradict
formal rules, such as an unwillingness to challenge male authority in the
household or to hold men responsible for their behaviour in sexual mat-
ters or to enforce the law. Recognising and highlighting these norms is
therefore a crucial first step towards social change in this area.
Groups can organise to highlight problematic norms as a strategy of
social change, prompting public discussion of particular problematic
norms. In social movements, people can work together—organising,
mobilising in a sustained way—to force attention to particular issues and
to make people see things in a new way. Changing norms can mean cre-
ating new ways of doing things, new norms of behaviour. For example,
feminist activists can work to alter the norms that make policymakers and
everyday citizens overlook VAW or see it as an unimportant problem.
As late as 1999, the Eurobarometer survey found that as many as
one in three Europeans thought VAW should probably not be consid-
ered a crime. About a decade later, the majority of people in Europe saw
domestic violence as a serious issue: 84% think it is unacceptable and
should always be punishable by law.61 These attitudes represent signifi-
cant change, a normative change, a change in the way domestic violence
is seen.
New norms can be created by civil society groups, public policy, or
both. Groups can use techniques of protest, for example, to raise issues
and contest the usual ways of doing things. As noted, forcing awareness
of old norms draws attention to harmful, if habitual, practices and atti-
tudes. However, new ways of doing things also need to be presented to
enable change. So, criticising media representations that glorify VAW
is part of the answer, but providing alternative forms of entertainment,
alternative media representations, is also important. Groups can also
model new norms by showing new ways of doing things.
74 S. L. WELDON
Public policy can further norm change by supporting civil society

groups working to change behaviour. As noted earlier, Horn shows the
way that foreign policy supported organisations working on VAW in
Eastern Europe.62 Another example is EU funding for NGOs working
in the area of VAW through its Daphne Project, which aids in build-
ing local capacity and non-governmental effort in combating this prob-
lem.63 In addition, the Canadian government recently committed $20
million CAD to support women’s grassroots organising in developing
countries.
Those working to stop VAW, then, should generate norms that treat
VAW as a serious problem and develop new ideas about masculinity and
femininity that empower women and men to resist violence and treat one
another with respect. Innovative media and other campaigns to question
norms that contribute to VAW can both raise awareness of these unwrit-
ten rules and create public support for victims and for efforts to com-
bat VAW even before there is formal legal change. In addition, efforts
to develop new identities include campaigns that seek to change beliefs
about appropriate behaviour by men towards women, such as the global
‘man up’ campaign against VAW, which uses famous and accomplished
athletes to link masculinity to an obligation to stop VAW.64 Campaigns
emphasising the value of women and femininity, the importance of wom-
en’s economic and legal independence and the unacceptability of VAW
in general should also help to challenge informal acceptance of VAW and
support new norms.
Democracy, Civil Society and Women’s Empowerment

Women’s organising in civil society, then, stands as an instance of wom-
en’s empowerment, and improves women’s substantive representation
in democratic systems.65 Moreover, as I suggest in this section, women’s
empowerment in these collective undertakings is likely related to democ-
racy, even conventionally measured, and also to good governance.
Democracies, especially established democracies, are more likely
to be characterised by high levels of women’s organising than autoc-
racies (Fig. 4.1). The intensity of women’s organising, however, not
only distinguishes autocracies from established democracies, it also dis-
tinguishes among democracies (Fig. 4.2 is only for Democracy Level
Fig. 4.1 Number of women’s groups and democracy level, 70 countries, 2005

Source Data on women’s groups collected by author in 2005 and adjusted for population;
democracy data from the Polity IV series
scores greater than zero). In bivariate terms, women’s movement

organising is significantly and positively associated with higher levels of
democracy (using a summary score for women’s organising and Polity
IV data for democracy, for 2005) (coefficient of 1.06, p = .000). This
association lends support to the idea that democracy is associated with
women’s autonomous organising, and a robust and inclusive civil society
more generally.
Women’s organising is also correlated (in bivariate, cross-sectional
terms at least) with government effectiveness, with a coefficient of .17
(p = .001) using a summary measure of women’s organising for 1995
and 2005. A cross-sectional analysis of data for 2005 finds that a measure
summarising women’s movement organising activity (women’s move-
ment score) is significantly correlated with a measure for government
76 S. L. WELDON
Fig. 4.2 Number of women’s groups and democracy level (with fitted regres-
sion line), Democracy Level > 0, 2005
Source Data on women’s groups collected by author in 2005 and adjusted for population;
democracy data from the Polity IV series
effectiveness even using a simple multivariate model (Table 4.2). The

effects of democracy on government responsiveness, or on any other
measure of government performance, may depend on the development
of a robust civil society, as it allows marginalised groups to self-organise
and articulate their distinctive concerns. Such specific concerns might
not be visible when one focuses on more general measures of well-being.
Research exploring this idea could lend insight into within-country as
well as between-country variation in well-being. So women’s organising
is a source of power for women that produces better policy outcomes
for women, in most areas, and is associated with deeper democracy and
more effective government.
Table 4.2 Linear regression, 70 countries, 2005
Dependent variable = Government effectiveness
Coefficient P-value
Women’s movement organising 0.1026 0.000

Women in lower house (%) (squared) 0.0003 0.006
Logged GDP 1.9103 0.000
R2 0.82
Source Government effectiveness data from the Quality of Governance Dataset; movement organising
data, indicator constructed from original data on women’s organisations (available at laurelweldon.
com); Women in lower house (squared (see Mishler and Schwindt Bayer 2005)), data from the Inter-
Parliamentary Union; GDP data from World Bank, World Development Indicators database
The Absence of Women ‘At the Top’:

A Problem for Democracy?
This argument might be taken as saying that the absence of women from
formal positions of leadership in official political offices is not a problem.
But that is not the point of this chapter. Rather, the point is that there
are multiple sources and forms of power, and that power is not a ‘thing’
to be distributed or exchanged like a bag of flour. Power relationships
derived from senior institutional positions, positions of leadership in an
institutional system, account for only one type of influence—and actu-
ally, a highly constrained form of influence. A better understanding of
the limitations and opportunities presented by these positions helps us
assess the consequences of women’s exclusion from these positions, and
the opportunities represented by their inclusion.
Power flows through institutional relationships, and some positions
offer those who occupy them considerable influence, even if that influ-
ence is constrained by the very institutional rules that empower the
offices. Powerful norms and expectations may govern distribution of
resources from which it may be very difficult to diverge. In addition,
this kind of decision-making power tends to be limited to a specific field,
and a specific area of responsibility, defined by the institutional position.
Influence does not extend directly to other areas.
In some ways, the ability to drive change from the top is frustrat-
ingly limited, and influence, ultimately, is dependent on many of the
78 S. L. WELDON
same tools available to women seeking power in other fields (persuasion,

offering alternatives, monitoring, informal networking, etc.). Trying
to change norms from the top requires coordination across a series of
offices (especially because resistance is guaranteed), coordination that is
exceeding difficult to achieve. A single ‘leader’ or ‘decisionmaker’ will
have a hard time, in bureaucratic systems, in making dramatic changes
from the top without the support of many others at various levels in the
bureaucracy. This is why Lindblom insisted on calling bureaucratic lead-
ers ‘functionaries’ rather than decision makers.66
Calling institutional leaders functionaries probably overstates the case
for the most senior positions. Bureaucratic systems provide those who
occupy the various positions with varying degrees of discretion, and in
most senior positions, there is a considerable degree of discretion and
ability to set direction. Such a position also provides insight into all the
possible ways that influence can be exerted: the openings and vulnera-
bilities of an organisation. This is the main place where someone who
wanted to advocate for change could make a difference: through the
small, mostly invisible, discretionary issues that arise every day, and by
advising allies about opportunities and challenges ahead and how to
negotiate them. This is also where descriptive representation makes the
most difference—not in setting the large policy agenda for the organisa-
tion, but rather in addressing the day-to-day issues that arise.67
Discretionary decisions establish rules and norms that reflect the per-
spectives, and often the form of life, of those who occupy these offices,
namely privileged men. These norms then become ossified and difficult
to challenge. This builds the form of life of the privileged male office
holder into the very operation of the institution, creating a persistent
institutional bias that can last for decades. Absence of women from these
top functionary positions, then, over time, cumulates in a way that cre-
ates an institutional bias that keeps women out of these positions. One
way of putting this might be to note that the cumulation of male domi-
nation in these positions creates informal institutions that advantage men
and the masculine, and devalue and disadvantage women and the femi-
nine.68 Putting more women in these positions makes these biases more
visible, prevents the reproduction of bias to some degree, and creates the
opportunity for a different use of that discretionary power, one that is
less exclusionary and biased against women.
Apart from the institutional bias created by the persistent and sus-
tained absence of women from these positions of influence, there are a
series of other problems that stem from this absence of women at the
top. Some have been covered well elsewhere: fairness, legitimacy and
trust are all undermined when historically marginalised groups are
excluded from positions of leadership in any organisation, but particu-
larly in democratic ones.69 Including women in public office improves
legitimacy and trust.70 The introduction of gender quotas, for example,
means that fewer under-qualified, mediocre men are elected and more
qualified women are elected, which is fairer and produces higher quality,
overall, in our legislators.71
Democracy, Diversity and Muddling Through:

The Pragmatist Case for Women
This feminist approach to power suggests new ways to make democracies
more effective systems of government, which may be critical for main-
taining or expanding support for democracy.72 Democracy is a radically
decentralised problem-solving system. The effectiveness of this system
depends on bringing people from different viewpoints together to delib-
erate about what the most important problems are and what a political
community should do, collectively, to address those problems.73 A tradi-
tional pragmatist understanding of democracy, however, may understate
the role of power in structuring these deliberations.74
We are increasingly coming to understand how systemic exclusion
from our deliberative processes in general, and especially our leader-
ship teams, is undercutting a core advantage of democratic systems. A
wide-ranging set of studies demonstrate that greater diversity on teams,
from scientific collaborations to corporate boards, leads to greater suc-
cess—more innovation and creativity, better problem-solving and bet-
ter performance overall.75 Scott E. Page’s canonical work shows how
diverse teams outperform teams assembled using more traditional assess-
ments of merit in a wide range of complex tasks. Cedric Herring and
Loren Henderson show that corporations with more diverse boards tend
to be more profitable.76
It is likely that excluding women or any other historically marginal-
ised group from positions of leadership not only deprives the country
80 S. L. WELDON
of talented leaders on an individual basis, but also undercuts legitimacy,

trust in government, and better government performance. This means that
we need more women in leadership positions in government, not just
because it is fairer and will improve perceived performance, but because
it is likely to improve actual government performance. Indeed, a simple
correlational analysis suggests a small but statistically significant, positive
association between the proportion of women in government and gov-
ernment effectiveness (Table 4.2). Including women in top leadership
positions addresses these problems of democracy. It improves trust, legit-
imacy and improves the quality of both legislators in elective office and
the quality of governance over all.
Women Legislators and ‘Women-Friendly’ Policy

Note that this is better performance in general, and not necessarily bet-
ter performance in relation to women’s rights. Having women in elective
office certainly improves descriptive representation, and it may have some
impact on substantive policy issues in some specific areas as well, but this
approach suggests that we should not expect revolutionary change in
democratic agendas just from changing the bodies at the top of the pyr-
amid. Women as institutional leaders will not be able to change institu-
tional and policy agendas, even if they happen to be strongly committed
to doing so, unless they occupy those offices as part of a broader process
of transformation. For institutional leaders to be able to build support
for major policy changes, they require broader political support, say, the
kind of support associated with the growing power of a social movement.
Empowering women institutional leaders, then, depends on a broader
climate of contestation that creates political pressure to increase insti-
tutional openness to change. In such circumstances, leaders can hope
to build the coalitions and support to mount changes. This suggests that
institutional power is conditional on soft power, and not vice versa.
This is especially true for women leaders who will come under greater
scrutiny in relation to questions of whether they represent the constit-
uencies they ‘stand for’. Is this candidate only representing women? Is
this candidate overly focused on these questions of diversity and women
and neglecting the bread and butter issues to which they are expected
to attend? These are not issues that confront men, even when they do
address ‘women’s issues’.
Great Expectations for Women

in Political ‘Leadership’?
What do we learn, then, about the likely consequences of excluding

women and other marginalised groups from politics (and from social sci-
ence teams seeking to study politics)? What will be the consequences of
including women? Leadership teams that exclude women are depriving
themselves of the benefit of the talents and experience of half the popu-
lation. So it should not surprise us that these teams will not do as good
a job of anticipating problems or solving them. On the other hand, we
should expect that leadership teams that include women will be more
innovative and effective.
Including women, or members of other marginalised groups, how-
ever, on its own, should not be expected to be all that is needed to
change institutional agendas to adequately reflect the positions or inter-
ests of those groups. It is not a panacea when it comes to representa-
tion, something that scholars of representation who have emphasised the
importance of understanding representation as a relationship and pro-
cess have long emphasised. A broader transformation at the grass roots,
led by organisations of women, will magnify the effect of any efforts to
diversify political leadership.
Conclusion: New Insights into Power,

Representation and Democracy
In conclusion, a feminist approach to power helps us to see the
ubiquity of power and to understand how power works. Paying attention
to ways women organise to determine the conditions of their own lives
alerts the social scientists to new forms of power (such as soft power)
and new arenas in which social transformation can be catalysed, such as
civil society.77 This suggests lessons for other marginalised, dispossessed
and excluded groups. It shows the power of attending to the reality of
women’s lives, instead of assuming that all the important work in society,
politics and economy is done by men.
This approach gives us a deeper understanding of power in all fields
as well as a better sense of prospects for change.78 This improved under-
standing of power makes our discipline of political science less a tool
of the powerful and more constructive in helping those who are trying
to make the world a better place. It also serves as an example of how
82 S. L. WELDON
incorporating a broader set of ideas and perspectives in the discipline

improves the study of politics as scientific teams draw on a broader set of
ideas and become more innovative and better problem-solvers.
Notes
1. Some traditional definitions of politics have also focused on the relation-
ship of the activity to the state; politics, narrowly construed, is the activity
of government or governing. Indeed, for Aristotle, the word politics or
political (politikos) meant for or pertaining to the state (polis). In some
ways, this is another way of saying that politics is about governing, or
authoritative power, and so is not so different from the broader defini-
tions of politics discussed above (Robert Dahl [1984] Modern Political
Analysis, Upper-Saddle River: Prentice Hall, pp. 9–10).
2. See, respectively, Harold Dwight Lasswell (1936) Politics: Who Gets What,
When, How, New York: Whittlesey House; David Easton (1953) The
Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science, New
York: Alfred A. Knopf.
3. Iris Marion Young (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton: 
Princeton University Press.
4. Kate Millett  (1970)  Sexual Politics, Champaign: University of Illinois
Press.
5. For an excellent review of feminist approaches to power see Moya Lloyd
(2013) ‘Power, Politics, Domination, and Oppression’, in Waylen et al.
(eds.) Oxford Handbook of Politics and Gender, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
6. Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz (1962) ‘Two Faces of Power’,
American Political Science Review 5: 947–952.
7. Steven Lukes  (2005)  Power: A Radical View, 2, New York: Palgrave
Macmillan and the British Sociological Association.
8. Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference; Lloyd, ‘Power, Politics,
Domination, and Oppression’.
9. Michel Foucault  (1980)  Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other
Writings 1972–1977, New York: Random House; Bob Jessop (2012)
‘Marxist Approaches to Power’, in Edwin Amenta, Kate Nash, and Alan
Scott (eds.) The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology, Oxford:
Blackwell, pp. 3–14.
10. Millett, Sexual Politics.
11. Lloyd, ‘Power, Politics, Domination, and Oppression’, p. 125.
12. Sanjeev  Khagram, James  V. Riker, and Kathryn Sikkink
(2002) Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements,
Networks, and Norms, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
13. Cynthia Enloe (1996) ‘Margins, Silences, and Bottom-Rungs: How

to Overcome the the Underestimation of Power in the Study of
International Relations’, in Steve Smith, Ken Booth, and Marysia
Zalewski (eds.) International Theory: Positivism and Beyond, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 186–202.
14. Some argue the effects of the protests are still being felt more than
10 years later, see Mark Engler and Paul Engler (2016) ‘The Massive
Immigrant-Rights Protests of 2006 are Still Changing Politics’, Los
Angeles Times. Available at: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/
la-oe-0306-engler-immigration-protests-2006-20160306-story.html;
Oscar Avila and Olivo Antonio (2006) ‘A Show of Strength: Thousands
March to Loop for Immigrants Rights’, Chicago Tribune. Available at:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-03-11/news/0603110130_1_
immigration-debate-pro-immigrant-illegal-immigrants; Teresa Watanabe
and Hector Becerra (2006) ‘500,000 Pack Streets to Protest Immigration
Bills’, Los Angeles Times. Available at: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/
mar/26/local/me-immig26.
15. For example, Millett, Sexual Politics; Susan Moller Okin (1991) Justice,
Gender and the Family, New York: Basic Books. In the area of sports, see
Jules Boykoff and Matthew Yasuoka (2015) ‘Gender and Politics at the
2012 Olympics: Media Coverage and Its Implications’, Sport in Society
18(2): 219–233; on health care, see Veloshnee Govender and Loveday
Penn-Kekana (2007) Gender Biases and Discrimination: A Review of
Health Care Interpersonal Interactions, Background Paper; Women and
Gender Equity Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on Social
Determinants of Health; on gender bias in neuroscience see Cliodhna
O’Connor and Helene Joffe (2014) ‘Gender on the Brain: A Case Study
of Science Communication in the New Media Environment’, PLoS One
9(10): e110830.
16. Sidney Tarrow (1998) Power in Movement: Social Movements and
Contentious Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17. Karen Beckwith (2000) ‘Beyond Compare? Women’s Movements in
Comparative Perspective’, European Journal of Political Research 37(4):
431–468; Kumari Jayawardena (1986) Feminism and Nationalism in
the Third World, London: Zed Books; Amrita Basu (2010) Women’s
Movements in the Global Era: The Power of Local Feminisms, Boulder:
Westview Press.
18. Dorothy Stetson and Amy Mazur (eds.) (1995) Comparative State
Feminism, Thousand Oaks: Sage; S. Laurel Weldon (2006) ‘Women’s
Movements, Identity Politics and Policy Impact: A Study of Policies
on Violence Against Women in the 50 US States’, Political Research
Quarterly 59(1): 111–122; S. Laurel Weldon (2011) When Protest Makes
84 S. L. WELDON
Policy: How Social Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups, Ann

Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
19. Mary Katzenstein (1999) Faithful and Fearless: Moving Feminist Protest
Inside the Church and Military, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
20. Denise Horn (2010) Women, Civil Society and the Geopolitics of
Democratization, New York: Routledge.
21. Denise Horn (2013) Democratic Governance and Social Entrepreneurship:
Civic Participation and the Future of Democracy (Routledge Studies in
Governance and Public Policy), New York: Routledge.
22. Jane Mansbridge (1995) ‘What Is the Feminist Movement?’, in Myra
Marx Ferree and Patricia Yancey Martin (eds.) Feminist Organizations:
Harvest of the New Women’s Movement, Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, pp. 27–34; Mary Fainsod Katzenstein (1995) ‘Discursive Politics
and Feminist Activism in the Catholic Church’, in Myra Marx Ferree and
Patricia Yancey Martin (eds.) Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the New
Women’s Movement, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pp. 35–52.
23. Jane Mansbridge (2001) ‘The Making of Oppositional Consciousness’, in
Jane Mansbridge and Aldon Morris (eds.) Oppositional Consciousness: The
Subjective Roots of Social Protest, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
pp. 1–19.
24. Franz Fanon (2005) The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Press.
25. Lloyd, ‘Power, Politics, Domination, and Oppression’.
26. Valentine M. Moghadam and Lucie Senftova (2005) ‘Measuring Women’s
Empowerment: Participation and Rights in Civil, Political, Social,
Economic, and Cultural Domains’, International Social Science Journal
57: 389–412.
27. Bonnie Keller and Dorcas Chilila Mbwewe (1991) ‘Policy and Planning
for the Empowerment of Zambia’s Women Farmers’, Canadian Journal
of Development Studies 12(1): 75–88.
28. Iris Marion Young (1997) Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender,
Political Philosophy, and Policy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
29. Enloe, ‘Margins, Silences, and Bottom-Rungs’.
30. S. Laurel Weldon (2004) ‘The Dimensions and Policy Impact of Feminist
Civil Society: Democratic Policymaking on Violence Against Women in
the Fifty US States’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 6(1): 1–28.
31. Khagram et  al., Restructuring World Politics; Horn, Women, Civil Society
and the Geopolitics of Democratization; Horn, Democratic Governance
and Social Entrepreneurship.
32. Birgit Locher and Elisabeth Prügl (2001) ‘Feminism and Constructivism:
Worlds Apart or Sharing the Middle Ground?’, International Studies
Quarterly 45: 111–129.
33. Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy; Leigh Raymond, S. Laurel Weldon,

Daniel Kelly, Ximena B. Arriaga, and Ann Marie Clark (2013) ‘Making
Change: Norm-Based Strategies for Institutional Change to Address
Intractable Problems’, Political Research Quarterly 67(1): 197–211.
34. Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy.
35. S. Laurel Weldon (2002) Protest, Policy and the Problem of Violence
Against Women: A Cross-National Comparison, Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press; Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy; Amy G. Mazur
(2002) Theorizing Feminist Policy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
36. See Weldon, Protest, Policy and the Problem of Violence Against Women;
Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy; Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon
(2012) ‘The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change: Combating
Violence Against Women in Global Perspective, 1975–2005’, American
Political Science Review 106(3): 548–569; S. Laurel Weldon and Jose
Kaire (2015) ‘When Progressives Prevail: A Global Analysis of the Role of
Movements, Left Parties and Religion in Shaping Women’s Reproductive
Rights’, Paper Presented at the Midwest Political Science Association
Conference, Chicago; Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon (2015)
‘Religious Power, the State, Women’s Rights, and Family Law’, Politics
and Gender 11(3): 451–477.
37. Parts of this section draw on S. Laurel Weldon and Leigh Raymond
(2013) Women’s Human Rights and Informal Institutions: Informal
Institutions and Intractable Global Problems Policy Brief Series, West
Lafayette, IN: Center for the Environment, Center for Research on
Diversity and Inclusion. Available at: https://www.purdue.edu/discov-
erypark/environment/docs/VAW%20Brief.pdf.
38. Weldon, Protest, Policy and the Problem of Violence Against Women; Htun
and Weldon, ‘The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change’.
39. US Department of Justice (2010) Violence Against Women Office:
Biennial Report to Congress. Available at http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/
docs/2010-biennial-report-to-congress.pdf; US Department of Justice
(2011) Roundtable on Sexual Violence. Available at: http://www.ovw.
usdoj.gov/sexual-violence-report-march.pdf.
40. R. Amy Elman (2007) Sexual Equality in an Integrated Europe: Virtual
Equality (Europe in Transition: The NYU European Studies Series),
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
41. Htun and Weldon, ‘The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change’; Lori
Heise, Mary Ellsberg, and Megan Gottemoeller (1999) ‘Ending Violence
Against Women’, Population Reports (Series L, No. 11), Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University School of Public Health, Population Information
Program.
86 S. L. WELDON
42. Weldon, Protest, Policy and the Problem of Violence Against Women;

Weldon, ‘Women’s Movements, Identity Politics and Policy Impact’;
Htun and Weldon, ‘The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change’.
43. Ron Wilkins (2016) ‘Williamsport Victim’s Life Revolved Around
Her Kids’, Journal and Courier. Available at: http://www.jconline.
com/story/news/crime/2016/09/29/victims-life-revolved-around-
her-kids/91202550/.
44. See Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety
(ANROWS) (2016) Violence Against Women: Key Statistics. Available at:
http://media.aomx.com/anrows.org.au/s3fs-public/Key%20statistics%20
-%20all.pdf; Kate McInturff (2013) The Gap in the Gender Gap: Violence
Against Women in Canada, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Available at: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/
publications/National%20Office/2013/07/Gap_in_Gender_Gap_VAW.
pdf; Shannan Catalano, Erica Smith, Howard Snyder, and Michael Rand
(2009) Female Victims of Violence, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Available at:
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvv.pdf.
45. Weldon, Protest, Policy and the Problem of Violence Against Women.
46. S. Laurel Weldon (2006) ‘Inclusion and Understanding: A Collective
Feminist Methodology for International Relations’, in Brooke
Ackerly, Maria Stern, and Jacqui True (eds.) Feminist Methodologies for
International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
48. Dorothy McBride Stetson (1998) Women’s Rights in the USA: Policy
Debates and Gender Roles, 2nd edn, New York: Garland; for a discussion
of current issues of martial rape in the USA, see Samantha Allen (2015)
‘Marital Rape Is Semi-Legal-in-8-States’, Slate. Available at: http://www.
thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/09/marital-rape-is-semi-legal-in-8-
states.html.
49. Office on Violence Against Women (2015) FY 2016 Congressional Budget
Submission. Available at: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/
jmd/pages/attachments/2015/02/02/30._office_on_violence_against_
women_ovw.pdf.
50. McInturff, The Gap in the Gender Gap.
Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy; Htun and Weldon, ‘The Civic
Origins of Progressive Policy Change’.
Weldon, ‘Women’s Movements, Identity Politics and Policy Impact’;
Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy; Htun and Weldon, ‘The Civic
Origins of Progressive Policy Change’.
53. See, for example, Enloe, ‘Margins, Silences, and Bottom-Rungs’.
54. This section draws on Weldon and Raymond, Women’s Human Rights

and Informal Institutions, and Raymond et al., ‘Making Change’.
55. Katzenstein, ‘Discursive Politics and Feminist Activism in the Catholic
Church’; Vivien Schmidt (2008) ‘Discursive Institutionalism: The
Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse’, Annual Review of Political
Science 11: 303–326.
56. Nancy A. Crowell and Ann W. Burgess (eds.) (1996) Understanding
Violence Against Women (Panel on Research on VAW, Committee on
Law and Justice, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and
Education, National Research Council), Washington, DC: National
Academy Press; Nicola Graham-Kevan and John Archer (2003) ‘Intimate
Terrorism and Common Couple Violence—A Test of Johnson’s
Predictions in Four British Samples’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence
18(11): 1247–1270; Heise et al., ‘Ending Violence Against Women’;
World Health Organization/London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine (2010), Preventing Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence
Against Women: Taking Action and Generating Evidence, Geneva: World
Health Organization.
57. David Levinson (1989) Family Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective,
Newbury Park: Sage; Heise et al., ‘Ending Violence Against Women’;
Peggy Reeves Sanday (1981) Female Power and Male Dominance: On the
Origins of Sexual Inequality, New York: Cambridge University Press.
58. Roxanna Carillo, Melissa Connor, Susana Fried, Joanne Sandler, and
Lee Waldorf, Not a Minute More: Ending Violence Against Women, New
York: UNIFEM; Council of Europe (2006) Combating Violence Against
Women: Stocktaking Study on the Measures and Actions Taken in Council
of Europe Member States, Germany: University of Osnabrück. Available
at: http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/equality/03themes/
violence-against-women/CDEG(2006)3_en.pdf; Crowell and Burgess,
Understanding Violence Against Women; Heise et al., ‘Ending Violence
Against Women’; World Health Organization/London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Preventing Intimate Partner and Sexual
Violence Against Women.
59. Jill Becker and Janet K. Swim (2011) ‘Seeing the Unseen: Attention
to Daily Encounters with Sexism as a Way to Reduce Sexists Beliefs’,
Psychology of Women Quarterly 35: 227–242.
60. Louise Chappell (2016) The Politics of Gender Justice at the International
Criminal Court: Legacies and Legitimacy, New York: Oxford University
Press.
61. European Commission (2010) Eurobarometer Survey. Available at http://
ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm.
62. Horn, Women, Civil Society and the Geopolitics of Democratization.
88 S. L. WELDON
63. Celeste Montoya (2009) ‘International Initiative and Domestic Reforms:

European Union Efforts to Combat Violence Against Women’, Politics &
Gender 5(3): 325–348; Olga Avdeyeva (2007) ‘When Do States Comply
with International Treaties? Policies on Violence Against Women in Post-
communist Countries’, International Studies Quarterly 51(4): 877–900.
64. Some critics, however, have argued that these campaigns to reconfigure
masculinity create new problems by reinforcing ideas about ‘real men’.
66. Charles Edward Lindblom and Edward J. Woodhouse (1993) The Policy
Making Process, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
67. Jane Mansbridge (1999) ‘Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women
Represent Women? A Contingent “Yes”’, The Journal of Politics 61(3):
628–657.
68. Lee Ann Banaczak and S. Laurel Weldon (2011) ‘Informal Institutions,
Protest, and Change in Gendered Federal Systems’, Politics &
Gender 7(2): 262–273; Louise Chappell (2006) ‘Comparing Political
Institutions: Revealing the Gendered “Logic of Appropriateness”’,
Politics and Gender 2(2): 223–234; Louise Chappell (2011) ‘Nested
Newness and Institutional Innovation: Expanding Gender Justice in
the International Criminal Court’, in Mona Lena Krook and Fiona
Mackay (eds.) Gender, Politics and Institutions: Towards a Feminist
Institutionalism, London: Springer, pp. 163–180; Fiona MacKay (2014)
‘Nested Newness, Institutional Innovation and the Gendered Limits
of Change’, Politics & Gender 10(4): 549–571; Fiona Mackay, Meryl
Kenny, and Louise Chappell (2010), ‘New Institutionalism Through
a Gender Lens: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism?’, International
Political Science Review 31(5): 573–588.
69. Mansbridge, ‘Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent
Women?’; Anne Phillips (1995) The Politics of Presence, Oxford:
Clarendon; Melissa Williams (1998) Voice, Trust and Memory:
Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation,
Princeton: Princeton University Press; Iris Marion Young (2002)
Inclusion and Democracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
70. Miki Caul Kittilson and Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer (2012) The Gendered
Effects of Electoral Institutions: Political Engagement and Participation,
Oxford: Oxford University Press; Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer and William
Mishler (2005) ‘An Integrated Model of Women’s Representation’, The
Journal of Politics 67(2): 407–428.
71. Susan Franceschet, Mona Lena Krook, and Jennifer Piscopo (eds.) (2012)
The Impact of Gender Quotas, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
72. For developing criticism of the ineffectiveness of democratic govern-
ment, see Sören Holmberg and Bo Rothstein (2011) ‘Correlates of
Democracy’, Working Paper Series 2011: 10, QOG The Quality of

Government Institute, Department of Political Science, University of
Gothenburg, Sweden; Sören Holmberg, Bo Rothstein, and Naghmeh
Nasiritousi (2009) ‘Quality of Government: What You Get’, Annual
Review of Political Science 12(1): 135–161.
73. John Dewey (1939) Freedom and Culture, New York: GP Putnam and
Sons; Lindblom and Woodhouse, The Policy Making Process.
74. Molly Cochran (1999) Normative Theory in International Relations: A
Pragmatic Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
75. Cedric Herring and Loren Henderson (2014) Diversity in Organizations:
A Critical Examination, New Jersey: Routledge; Scott E. Page (2007)
The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms,
Schools, and Societies, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
76. Herring and Henderson, Diversity in Organizations.
78. Enloe, ‘Margins, Silences, and Bottom-Rungs’; Raymond et al., ‘Making
Change’.
CHAPTER 5
Uncovering the Gendered Effects

of Voting Systems: A Few Thoughts
About Representation of Women
and of LGBT People
Manon Tremblay
There is no need to be a keen observer to realise that straight people,

most of them men, have an uncontested near-monopoly on legisla-
tive representation around the world. In 2016, women held less than a
quarter of legislative seats worldwide, and the LGBTQ Representation
& Rights Research Initiative developed by Andrew Reynolds identified
180 ‘out’ lesbian, gay, bisexual and Trans* (LGBT) parliamentarians
in 42 countries. Although very few studies are available on the politi-
cal representation of LGBT people, this is not the case for women’s
representation.
Before Wilma Rule wrote her pioneering works in the 1980s and
1990s, the effects of voting systems1 on the level of feminisation of par-
liaments received (at best) superficial attention from researchers. Since
then, however, a plethora of studies have appeared on the gendered
M. Tremblay (*) 
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
e-mail: mtrembla@uottawa.ca

92 M. TREMBLAY
effects of voting systems. Among the explanations that have been pro-
posed for the sustained low level of feminisation in politics, the voting
system is put forward as a primary cause. There are three main types2
of electoral systems: plurality/majority (such as the first-past-the-post
[FPTP] voting system and the alternative vote) whose basic goal is to
produce (majority) governments; proportional representation (includ-
ing list voting systems) whose chief objective is to reflect within parlia-
mentary representation the sociopolitical forces present in civil society;
and mixed-member (parallel and proportional) which, to paraphrase the
title of an important book on the subject, try to achieve the best of both
worlds.3 Thanks to research conducted mainly in the 2000s by feminist
(mostly female) political scientists, we are now well aware of the det-
rimental effects of the FPTP voting system and the positive impact of
proportional representation (PR) on the election of female candidates.
Further research is still needed to better understand how electoral insti-
tutions have mediated the legislative representation of LGBT people.
My general objective in this chapter is to think critically about the
gendered effects of voting systems. More specifically, I focus on how
these gendered effects are detrimental to the political representation of
women and how, in so doing, they make gender. I define voting sys-
tems as the mechanisms by which votes cast by electors in an election are
translated into parliamentary representation—that is, seats in the legisla-
ture. My overall argument is that if classic works on voting systems paid
only lip service to women/gender,4 more recent works by feminists/
women on electoral systems have replicated this intellectual shallowness
by being silent on the sexuality side of gender. Notably, they have failed
to take into account the impact of sexuality on representation in general
and LGBT representation in particular. To put it bluntly, recent analy-
sis of relationships between electoral systems and women/gender has
assumed that women, as electors and politicians, are heterosexuals and
that voting systems and sexuality do not interact. I contend that to gain a
fuller picture, a gendered-inspired approach to the study of electoral sys-
tems must take sexualities into account.
This chapter is organised as follows. After arguing that women/gen-
der concerns have mostly been absent in classic works of electoral stud-
ies, I will reflect both on how disciplinary knowledge has been inhibited
by inattention to gender (which includes sexualities) and how feminist
research on electoral systems has enriched political science as a whole.
I will then turn my attention to LGBT representation—notably to
5 UNCOVERING THE GENDERED EFFECTS OF VOTING SYSTEMS 93
whether the main lessons drawn from studies on women/gender and

voting systems can be extrapolated to the political representation of
LGBT people. Most importantly, I will clarify how I understand gender
as inclusive of sexuality.
Gender
Gender is ‘a complex process that involves the social construction of
men’s and women’s identities in relation to each other’.5 This definition
tells us that gender is a process (a social construction), a relationship (a
relational process between women and men) and a result (women’s and
men’s genders). What it does not clearly tell us is that sexuality (notably
heterosexuality) is a key and inescapable component of gender, a feature
that Judith Butler called the heterosexual matrix:
that grid of cultural intelligibility through which bodies, genders, and

desires are naturalized. … A hegemonic discursive/epistemic model of
gender intelligibility that assumes that for bodies to cohere and make sense
there must be a stable sex expressed through a stable gender (masculine
expresses male, feminine expresses female) that is oppositionally and hierar-
chically defined through the compulsory practice of heterosexuality.6
Butler’s heterosexual matrix suggests that gender is bicategorical: one

is either woman or man and cannot be both or neither. Gender is also
hierarchical: women are dominated, and their domination makes their
(woman) gender. Similarly, as American cultural anthropologist Gayle
Rubin points out, heterosexuality and homosexuality are hierarchised—
that is heterosexuality dominates the spectrum of sexualities:
Sexuality that is ‘good’, ‘normal’, and ‘natural’ should ideally be heterosex-

ual, marital, monogamous, reproductive, and non-commercial. It should
be coupled, relational, within the same generation, and occur at home
… Any sex that violates these rules is ‘bad’, ‘abnormal’, or ‘unnatural’.
Bad sex may be homosexual, unmarried, promiscuous, non-procreative,
or commercial.7
Rubin’s usage of descriptors such as ‘ideally’ and ‘rules’ suggests that

gender is a hegemonic sociocultural structure of discipline and control.
It is not generally imposed on people through coercion or state violence
94 M. TREMBLAY
but through discourse, persuasion and acceptance of what is recognised

as ‘good’, ‘normal’ and ‘natural’. It is encompassed in and disseminated
by state and civil society institutions such as family and kinship, school
and religious systems, labour and leisure markets, the media, the con-
sumption regime and election and governance, among other things.
That men dominate politics and women stand in the background is
illustrative of both gender as a result (a woman is a category of human
being that is underrepresented in politics) and gender as a regime (the
institutional apparatus, with its culture, symbols, history, memories, val-
ues, norms and rules, roles and practices and so on, which manufactures
intelligible genders—women and men—in a given society).
Thus, because sexuality (notably heterosexuality) lies at the heart of
gender, and because gender and sexuality are intertwined, constitutive of
each other, and fuel the gender regime together, in this chapter I will
consider gender as inclusive of sexuality. In my view, there is no such
thing as gender on one side and sexuality on the other; as a consequence,
analysis of electoral systems in the light of gender must take into account
sexuality (what I call the ‘gendered-sexualised’ effects of voting systems).
Classic Works on Electoral Systems: Failing to Think

Women/Gender
It will not be necessary to write at length to raise awareness of the fact
that women/gender issues have not been a significant concern in clas-
sic works on electoral systems. As a general rule, two scenarios emerge:
absence of these issues from the core argument and partial visibility as
either a kind of case study or a footnote. These scenarios may cohabit in
a single work. Indeed, not only did early studies fail to provide substan-
tial analysis of the impact of electoral design on women’s representation,
but a review of their indexes reveals that they did not mention (or men-
tioned only very superficially) women or gender concerns. For instance,
Douglas W. Rae’s The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws,8 one of
the first and, for a long time, the most authoritative study of electoral
systems, does not say a word about women or about the impact of
electoral laws and voting systems on their (non-)representation in poli-
tics. It is true that Rae’s book is also silent on the representation of other
(social, ethnic/racial and so on) minorities.
Although the collection published by Bernard Grofman and Arend

Lijphart in 1986, Electoral Laws and their Political Consequences,9 con-
tains several references to ethnic representation, only a single six-line
paragraph mentions the political consequences of electoral systems on
the election of women. It should be mentioned that this book, which
contains 19 chapters, has only one female contributor, who wrote the
aforementioned paragraph on women. The book’s index provides some
telling evidence that electoral system experts at the time simply did not
think of women as political actors. First, under the letter ‘O’ appears the
headword ‘One man, one vote’; second, under the letter ‘F’ appears the
headword ‘Females’, but there is no headword ‘Males’ under the let-
ter ‘M’, which suggests that men embody the universal, the citizen by
default, whereas women are a specific case, a kind of subspecies. A sim-
ilar observation can be made with regard to the absence or partial visi-
bility of women/gender in Arend Lijphart’s authoritative book Electoral
Systems and Party Systems.10
A more generous version of the partial visibility scenario appears in
the form of ghettoisation: women/gender is not a perspective per-
meating the entire analysis but is addressed in limited spaces (such
as footnotes or a chapter). Vernon Bogdanor’s What Is Proportional
Representation?, written in 1984, illustrates this pattern; Bogdanor
devotes a chapter to women and ethnic minorities that begins as follows:
‘The title of this chapter [‘Women and Ethnic Minorities’] may appear
surprising. There does not, at first sight, seem to be any connection
between a country’s electoral system and the number of women or mem-
bers of ethnic minorities able to gain election to its Parliament. It is the
purpose of this chapter, however, to show that there is a close relation-
ship between the two’11 (emphasis in original). It should be recognised
that Bogdanor was ahead of his time because he was paying attention to
a relationship that few political scientists considered to be of interest.12
However, the focus of his argument for explaining the low proportion
of women in politics is less on voting systems per se than on party selec-
torates that may be reluctant to select a woman when they can choose
only one candidate. In his rationale, the electoral system intervenes as a
contextual factor constraining more or less the choice of party selection
committee members:
In what way might the representation of women be affected by the elec-

toral system? It seems plausible to suppose that whereas a selection
96 M. TREMBLAY
committee may hesitate to choose a woman as a candidate in a sin-

gle-member constituency, a committee choosing a party list will be con-
cerned to secure a ‘balanced ticket’… For whereas under a single-member
constituency system it is the presence of a candidate who deviates from the
identikit norm (whether female or black) that is noticed, in a party list
system it is the absence of a woman or minority candidate, the failure to
present a balanced ticket, that will be commented upon and resented.13
(emphasis in original)
Bogdanor’s analysis is still valid today. However, it is deprived of a gen-

dered perspective, which might suggest that women are victims of party
selectorates’ prejudices and their machinations to gain state power. A
gendered perspective sheds light on social processes, including struc-
tural relations of privilege and disadvantage, that manufacture women
and men in relation to each other. Is it possible that party selection com-
mittee members hesitate to select a female candidate in single-member
constituencies because of their gender-inspired sexist (and probably
also heterosexist) assumptions about women (for instance, that fem-
ininity and politics are incompatible), or because they prefer to hold
the spot for one of their own (a male)? Is it possible that party selec-
torates snub women who aspire to be politicians because they perceive
them as strangers to their homosocial culture,14 even as ‘invaders’15 of
‘their’ political spaces? Writing at about the same time as Bogdanor,
Elina Haavio-Mannila and her colleagues showed—in a book the telling
title of which poses the underrepresentation of women in Nordic politics
in terms of unfinished democracy—that women are not passive puppets
manipulated by party elites but social movement actors who strategically
interpret voting systems to pressure parties for representation.16
This new gendered view of women and electoral politics gained
strength in subsequent years.17 More specifically, studies have gradu-
ally come to explore, and give credibility to the idea that far from being
gender-neutral, some electoral arrangements are more women-friendly
than others. Moreover, this is an outcome that is by no means automatic
but follows from feminist electoral activism within and outside of state
institutions. Two studies published in the second part of the 1980s illus-
trate this point. In their extensively quoted book Women, Elections, and
Representation, Robert Darcy, Susan Welch and Janet Clark contend that
‘[s]trong evidence from Europe that multimember election systems are
more conducive to the election of women than single-member district
systems is confirmed in the United States’.18 However, this conducive-

ness cannot occur without women’s mobilisations. Joyce Gelb was
among the first feminist academics to eloquently document this point
in her comparative analysis of feminist political activism in Britain, the
USA and Sweden from the 1960s to the mid-1980s.19 While state insti-
tutions (including voting systems) play a vital role in women’s political
representation, the feminist movement can influence and alter political
processes and outcomes through its activism within and outside of state
institutions. In other words, used strategically by the feminist move-
ment, the voting system may advance women’s electoral representation.
However, knowing the ins and outs of electoral systems is essential to
this end, an intellectual resource that works by Wilma Rule greatly con-
tributed to.
The Advent of Women/Gender in Electoral Studies

The fall of the Berlin Wall swelled the third wave of democratisation that
had been underway since the mid-1970s, triggering research on rep-
resentation, democratic process and electoral systems. This conjuncture
fostered research on women and voting systems undertaken from a gen-
dered perspective. This was especially the case because democratisation
in the countries of the former Soviet bloc led to the sad spectacle of a
decline in women’s legislative representation. It should also be noted
that from the second half of the 1980s onwards, ideas associated with the
women’s movement and feminism achieved greater presence and some
degree of legitimacy in universities. As I will argue here, knowledge of
the electoral system, long inhibited by inattention to gender, has been
enriched by gender-focused approaches.
The publication in the 1980s and 1990s of Wilma Rule’s seminal
works on women and electoral systems initiated a new generation of
understanding of how electoral systems affect women’s presence in pol-
itics. Rule analysed details of voting systems to gauge the consequences
for women’s electoral success, but she also took into account contextual
factors hitherto neglected by research, such as women’s movement activ-
ism. For instance, in her article published in 1987, Rule asserted that
‘[t]ype of electoral system is still the most significant predictor [of wom-
en’s parliamentary representation]. The party list/proportional rep-
resentation system provides the most political opportunity for women’.20
Yet, following the observations by Haavio-Mannila and her colleagues
98 M. TREMBLAY
as well as Gelb, Rule enriched her analysis by underlining the impact of

women’s activism on their electoral fortunes: ‘Women’s political activ-
ity is very important for increasing women’s recruitment in parliament
in various electoral systems. Negative electoral system features have been
overcome by women’s political mobilization’.21 The collections that she
edited with Joseph F. Zimmerman in 1992 and 1994 are imbued with
the same gendered analytical approach aimed both at dissecting electoral
systems in order to shed light on the gendered effects that their features
have on women’s electability and at taking into account a broader gen-
dered cultural, socioeconomic and political context that impedes wom-
en’s opportunities to be elected.22
Since then, a plethora of studies have appeared on the gendered
effects of voting systems. In 2008, I edited a book, Women and
Legislative Representation: Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Sex
Quotas,23 which had the aim of examining ‘the effects of voting systems
on the proportion of women in national parliaments, while also taking
into account the roles of other variables (cultural, socioeconomic, and
political)’.24 To this end, I used Gallagher and Mitchell’s analysis grid to
evaluate the impact of voting systems on women’s election in the light of
six dimensions: proportionality, district magnitude, level at which seats
are allocated, number of votes cast and ballot structure.25 Below, I will
revisit this material in order to shed light on how gender has enriched
our understanding of the effects of electoral systems on women’s politi-
cal representation.
Proportionality
This refers to the correspondence between the proportion of valid votes
that the electorate casts for various political parties on election day and
the proportion of seats (or parliamentary representation) that each party
receives as a consequence. Proportionality varies according to the voting
system: plurality/majority voting systems have a higher level of dispro-
portionality than do PR voting systems.26 As Rule and several researchers
after her have shown, the latter offer women better electoral opportuni-
ties than do the former, although it is illusory to think that a voting sys-
tem is automatically gender equitable.27 In addition, PR voting systems
are not equal regarding the proportionality of votes to seats; for instance,
the average disproportionality of the d’Hondt formula is more than
double that of the Hare formula (4.96 versus 2.13).28 Rule therefore
reasoned, ‘[a]s women often are candidates of small parties, the Hare-
Niemeyer formula will allow them a greater chance of election to parlia-
ment than will the d’Hondt rule, which slightly overrepresents the larger
party’.29 A gendered perspective raises the question of why women are
more likely to be candidates for small parties. The answer is that under
the gender regime, men are used to getting the best electoral opportu-
nities. Indeed, the Hare formula may benefit small parties, but because
they are less competitive, they offer weaker opportunities for electoral
success. This fact may deter men who are unwilling to run for a lost
cause, or to temporarily forsake their professional career for an election
campaign, or simply to allow themselves to be publicly seen as electoral
losers. Apparently, women do not worry about these pitfalls!
District Magnitude
This feature of the electoral system describes the number of seats per
electoral area. Very low district magnitude (such as the single-member
constituencies used in most FPTP voting systems) definitely impedes
women’s legislative representation. As Bogdanor explains in the above
quotation, in the past, party selection committees were reluctant to
select a woman as candidate when only one electoral position was avail-
able. On the other hand, parties were more willing to select female can-
didates in multi-member constituencies. In fact, as Bogdanor suggests,
the presence of women on the list of candidates was (and is) an electoral
marketing strategy used by political parties to make themselves more
appealing to the electorate.30 Yet, as mentioned above, researchers using
a gendered perspective soon noted the footprint of the gender regime on
the parties’ process of selecting candidates for elections: Why was it more
likely that women would be elected when their presence was hidden
among a list of candidates? Why were women perceived as less-valuable
or more-risky candidates and men as safe-value candidates? Who had the
power to discursively and practically frame women candidates in such a
negative way (and men in positive terms)? Who benefited from this fram-
ing, and how? How could women resist these practices that sidelined
their electoral ambitions?
That said, Matland has shown that party magnitude (i.e. the number
of seats a party can expect to win in a given constituency) has a greater
influence on women’s access to parliament than does district magni-
tude.31 A high party magnitude delivers seats to candidates further down
100 M. TREMBLAY
the party’s list, reaching the middle or end, where women are frequently
listed. Yet, a gendered viewpoint raises similar questions to those asked
above: Why are women’s names not found at the top of their party list?
What structural relations of privilege and disadvantage explain women’s
relegation to uncompetitive list positions? It is important to underline
the fact that when electoral quotas have been adopted to counteract such
discriminatory and sexist practices, it is to a large extent thanks to wom-
en’s movement activism. Yet, these quotas have been discursively framed
by their opponents as discriminatory and unfair to men and even as
insulting to women.32
Levels at Which Seats Are Allocated

Parliamentary seats may be allocated at different levels: local (as in FPTP
systems), regional (such as states in the Australian Senate) and national
(as in Israel and the Netherlands). Based on the idea that higher district
magnitude favours women’s access to legislative representation, nation-
al-based seat allocation should be more conducive to women’s election
than regional allocation, which, in turn, should be more open to wom-
en’s representation than local allocation.33 The case studies in Women
and Legislative Representation do not confirm this reasoning, as some-
times the regional level is more welcoming to women’s representation.
Far from being a disappointment, this observation constitutes an
invitation to ask a wide variety of questions in the light of the gender
regime. Although higher district magnitude is seen as favourable to
women, is it possible that in some countries national-level seat allocation
is discursively gender framed by party elites as less suitable for women
than are the regional and local levels, which are framed as more fami-
ly-friendly or better fitting ‘women’s interests and competencies’? Is it
possible that national seats are more prestigious, thus more competi-
tive, and thus less accessible to women? What resources are available to
women for mobilising at the national, intermediary (regions, provinces,
states and so on) and local levels of seat allocation to ensure their access
to legislative representation? In any event, the uncertainty regarding the
role that the level of seat allocation plays in women’s political representa-
tion is a call to conduct further gender-inspired research on this issue.
Number of Votes Cast

How many votes (one, two or more) can each elector cast? In some
countries, each voter has only one vote, which not only limits considera-
bly the scope of voters’ choice and the influence of the electorate on leg-
islative representation, but may create dilemmas. For instance, to address
the problem of women’s underrepresentation, is it preferable for a female
elector to support, say, a descriptive representation solution by voting
for a female candidate or a substantive representation solution by vot-
ing for a male candidate whose party’s platform is women-friendly? With
two votes, there would be no such dilemma (or, at least, the dilemma
might be less salient). Schmidt explains how in Peru, where each elec-
tor has two preferential votes, electors can serve women’s representation
without antagonising men: “Rather than campaigning for women and
against men, proponents of female representation can ask Peruvians to
split their two preferential votes equitably between the sexes. Many vot-
ers have adhered to the slogan of feminist NGOs, ‘Of your two pref-
erential votes, cast one for a woman’.”34 Schmidt, and before him
Haavio-Mannila et al. and Rule,35 reminds us that electoral systems
are not neutral and that they can serve (or harm) women’s political
representation.
Further research needs to be done from a gendered perspective
to better understand how the number of votes to which each voter is
entitled interacts with the political representation of women. Are voters
more likely to vote for women when they can cast several votes? In this
case, are women candidates more likely than their male counterparts to
receive the second instead of the first preference? Do women and men
voters cast their first and second preferences in a similar manner, or are
women more likely than men to cast their first (and perhaps their sec-
ond) preference for a female candidate? What strategies can the women’s
movement deploy to convince the electorate of both genders to cast at
least half of their multiple votes for women candidates? What influence
do variables such as gender/feminist consciousness, party identification
and cultural and socioeconomic profile have on the decision to vote (or
not) for female candidates, when each voter has two or more votes? Last
but not least, when each voter has several votes, what are the reasons for
refusing to cast even one vote for a female candidate?
102 M. TREMBLAY
Ballot Structure
Gallagher and Mitchell identify three types of ballot structure.36 A
nominal vote limits the voter’s choice to one option: one candidate
(as is the case in FPTP) or one list (as in Israel). In the rank-ordering
ballot structure, voters must rank candidates’ names in order of prefer-
ence. Examples are the alternative vote used for the Australian House
of Representatives and the single transferable vote used in Ireland and
Malta and for the Australian Senate. The ‘dividual’ vote allows voters to
cast their votes for several parties, whether within one tier or two tiers; in
Germany, Hungary and New Zealand, for instance, voters can cast their
votes for one party in the majoritarian tier and another party in the PR
tier.
How ballot structure influences the election of women has been stud-
ied mostly through the nature—closed or open—of the list. For a long
time, it was thought that closed lists better served the election of women
because women and the women’s movement can put pressure on parties
to ensure that they place female candidates in electable positions on the
list.37 However, more recent research has shown that open lists may also
contribute to women’s electoral success.38 In the end, the question of
which type of list—closed or open—better contributes to women’s access
to political representation depends on the specific national conjuncture:
Is it easier to convince the electorate to vote for women (and thus to opt
for open lists) or for party elites to locate female candidates in electable
positions on their lists (thus to adopt closed lists)? In any case, a gen-
dered look at ballot structure raises the more fundamental question of
why female candidates seem to be of less value than male ones for both
the electorate and party elites. Is there any country in the world where
voters and party selectorates need to be convinced to support male
candidates?
The open or closed nature of the list of candidates is not the only
mechanism driving the gender regime; the dividual vote is another
one. Several studies have shown that women’s descriptive representa-
tion is higher in the proportional than the majoritarian tiers of mixed-
member voting systems.39 One reason is that parties are more willing to
run female candidates in the proportional tier, which is seen as suitable
for ‘diversity’ representation, whereas the majoritarian tier is seen as the
space for local representation by well-established and networked politi-
cians. Yet, such expectations are clearly gendered: men are not part of
the ‘diversity’ mosaic, as they embody the basic yardstick from which var-
ious types of ‘diversity’ emerge. In addition, men enjoy a wide array of
resources (in terms of civil status, money, time, public mobility and vis-
ibility, membership in civil society groups, and others), making it easier
for them to develop the public notability needed to run successfully in a
single-member constituency.
***
In sum, my concern in this section was to reflect on how the scope
of voting systems knowledge has been limited by ignoring women/
gender concerns and how taking gender into account has enriched this
field of political science. Gender is a hegemonic sociocultural structure
of discipline and control that manufactures women and men in relation
to each other, endowing some with power and privileges while impover-
ishing others. Voting systems contribute to the making of gender: to be
a woman is to be underrepresented in politics (in the same way as it is to
be the person primarily responsible for children and housework, the main
target of violence committed within the family, the person earning about
25% less than a man for the same work and so on). The deficit of wom-
en’s representation in politics is due in part to voting systems, but mostly
to how electoral actors (party selectorates, voters, candidates and others)
interpret and manipulate electoral rules to match their gendered concep-
tion of women and men. If party selectorates and voters consider that
politics is not a women’s matter, the former either will not select women
to be candidates in single-member constituencies or will rank them in
ineligible positions on lists, and the latter will turn their backs on them.
Thus, for instance, if the electoral formula favours large parties (such as
d’Hondt and Sainte-Laguë) and if women appear in the middle or at
the bottom of their party’s list, chances are high that they will not be
elected. Similarly, if their party wins, say, three seats in a 10-seat constitu-
ency, if no woman occupies one of the first three positions on the party’s
closed list, no woman will win a seat. If the more prestigious political
positions are at the national level, gendered views of ‘what a woman is’
may mean that women will be allocated not national seats but local ones,
which are seen as more ‘suitable for women’.40 When the ballot structure
is nominal, voting is a zero-sum game from a gender point of view—
one votes for either a female or a male candidate. However, when the
ballot structure is rank-ordering or dividual, voters may express much
more subtle and complex voting preferences—for instance, in the major-
itarian alternative voting system, giving the first preferences to female
104 M. TREMBLAY
candidates; in PR open list systems, ranking female candidates at the top

of the list, thus improving their chances to be elected; in mixed-member
systems, voting for a woman at the national level but a man at the
local level. These are all examples of the gendered effects of electoral
systems—that is how voting systems influence the electability of women
and, at a second level of analysis, how voting systems make gender.
Although the notion of gender has greatly enriched knowledge about
women’s political representation and electoral institutions, unfortunately
the same cannot be said about LGBT people’s representation. I will now
turn my attention to this point.
LGBT People’s Representation: Is a ‘Cut and Paste’

Research Approach Possible?
My objective in this final section is to reflect briefly on the gendered—
notably sexualised—effects of voting systems on the representation of
LGBT people. This question is truly new, and there are hardly any stud-
ies of it. Although there is now a substantial body of knowledge on the
gendered effects of electoral systems, these works focus essentially on
women. Indeed, although sexuality is central to gender (sexuality and
gender are mutually constitutive, even), studies on the gendered effects of
electoral design have ignored the role of sexuality on the representation of
LGBT people. In other words, works on the gendered impacts of voting
systems are incomplete because they fail to take into account the sexu-
ality component of gender and its impact on representation. That said,
the wide range of knowledge accumulated on the political representa-
tion of women can certainly contribute to reflections on representation
of LGBT people. Using the electoral system dimensions discussed above
(proportionality, district magnitude, levels at which seats are allocated,
number of votes cast and ballot structure), plus that of the parties’ can-
didate-selection committees, my analysis will highlight that although
studies of the gendered effects of voting systems on women’s political
representation tell us much about LGBT people’s representation, it is
unsatisfactory to apply a cut and paste research approach to the latter
based on the lessons drawn from the former. There is every reason to
believe that electoral systems have specific ‘gendered-sexualised’ effects
on LGBT people’s representation.
Parties’ Candidate-Selection Committees

It has been said that party selectorates may be reluctant to select a
woman as a candidate because they may perceive her as failing to meet
what they consider to be the electorate’s expectations with respect to
how a representative should look. This challenge, associated with party
selectorates’ prejudices against women, certainly holds true for LGBT
people: chances are high that party selectorates refrain from selecting a
LGBT person as a candidate for fear of shocking some electors and los-
ing their votes. In the most in-depth study conducted to date on the
involvement of LGBT people in electoral politics in the USA, Haider-
Merkel supports this reasoning and adds that LGBT people are not pas-
sive victims of LGBT-phobia but strategic actors: ‘a core of about 25%
of adults are unlikely to support a gay or lesbian candidate for state or
national office … LGBT state legislative candidates are strategic in their
pursuit of office … and they appear to typically run in districts where
voters are less likely to oppose an openly gay candidate’.41 That said,
party selectorates’ hesitancies about choosing a woman or an LGBT
person depend in part on the social ecology of a constituency and, as
concerns this chapter, proportionality and district magnitude of voting
systems.
Proportionality and District Magnitude

Proportionality concerns the balance between party representation in
parliament and party support in the electorate as expressed by votes cast
on election day. Several tools are available to achieve this balance, includ-
ing the electoral formula and the number of seats per electoral area.
Research suggests that party selectorates’ reluctance to select a woman
as a candidate rises as the number of seats to fill drops. This is particu-
larly true in single-seat constituencies, an electoral feature associated
mostly with plurality/majority voting systems,42 in which the selection
process is based on a zero-sum-game rationale: selecting a woman means
not selecting a man, selecting a lesbian means not selecting a gay man
and so on. Yet, research also shows that district-based electoral systems
can promote the representation of minorities (including LGBT people)
when they are geographically concentrated.43 For instance, Reynolds
concludes that ‘LGBT MPs are now almost as likely to be elected in
single member districts as they are in party list (proportional systems)’.44
106 M. TREMBLAY
Unlike women, who are geographically quite evenly dispersed, LGBT

people are unevenly distributed. For instance, their proportion is higher
in large cities than in rural areas, and some are concentrated in ‘LGBT
ghettos’. In this kind of constituency, not only does LGBT-phobia have
no reason to exist in party selectorates, but to be an openly LGBT per-
son can be an asset in the selection of candidates. Rosenblum argues,
‘In a district-based electoral system, only geographically defined lesbian
and gay communities have the opportunity to elect officials who repre-
sent their interests’.45 Indeed, this geographical concentration was an
argument put forward to support drawing electoral boundaries so as
to permit representation of LGBT people in Los Angeles, New York,
Philadelphia and San Francisco.46 Put this way, plurality/majority elec-
toral systems with single-member constituencies may sometimes be less
detrimental to the representation of LGBT people than they are to the
representation of women, and may even contribute to their election.
Acknowledged benefits of multi-member constituencies for the elec-
tion of women should also apply to LGBT people: that is, to maximise
its electoral appeal, a party has a clear incentive to offer the electorate a
diverse slate of candidates. When a party can expect to win several seats
in a multi-member constituency, LGBT (and female) candidates of this
party may hope to enter parliament. This general reasoning warrants
some caution. First, it remains to be demonstrated that LGBT people
offer the same ‘electoral appeal’ as do women. In an American Gallup
poll conducted in June 2012, 95% of respondents stated that they would
vote for a woman presidential candidate; 68%, if the candidate is lesbian
or gay.47 Second, it is unclear which criteria are used to formulate the
list of candidates and especially how the rankings of different minorities
are negotiated—which ultimately concerns who will inherit a legislative
seat. For instance, why would a woman candidate appear higher on the
list than a gay candidate, who appears higher than an Aboriginal woman?
Third, should LGBT candidates even be included on lists in a mul-
ti-member constituency in which LGBT communities are not a signifi-
cant electoral constituency? Fourth, it is likely that, like women, LGBT
candidates run for small parties whose parliamentary representation
depends on the electoral formula used; as a consequence, for LGBT can-
didates to be elected, the electoral formula must be favourable to small
parties.
Levels at Which Seats Are Allocated

It has been said that the process by which seats are allocated at vari-
ous (local, regional, national) levels is gendered: the local level may be
seen as more convenient to women, and the national level to men. It is
unclear how this feature of electoral systems is ‘gendered-sexualised’, but
it is possible that it is favourable to lesbians. Indeed, Doan and Haider-
Merkel48 have suggested that gender and sexual orientation intersect in
such a way that the electorate may evaluate out lesbian politicians (who
are often stereotyped as masculine) as more competent than gay men
(often depicted as effeminate) to represent military issues or other top-
ics traditionally defined as masculine (such as finance and foreign affairs)
and that are usually the responsibility of the government located at the
national level. It is also possible that a time-consuming career in national
politics is perceived as less appropriate for a straight mother than for a
lesbian based on the assumption that the latter does not have a family.
This kind of research remains to be done.
Ballot Structure and Number of Votes Cast

As two features of electoral systems, ballot structure and number of votes
cast are intimately linked because they both concern how electors vote:
Do they choose one candidate or list, order candidates by rank, or both,
and how many votes does each voter have? Whether closed or open lists
better promote the election of women depends on women’s activism
within or outside of political parties. It is not certain that the same is
true for LGBT people; rather, it is likely that closed lists would be more
efficient than open lists for electing LGBT candidates. Closed lists pro-
tect vulnerable candidacies because they do not allow LGBT-phobic vot-
ers the option to move an LGBT candidate down the list. Comparing
preferential voting in Latvia and Norway, Matland and Lilliefeldt have
observed that when the electorate does not want women, it simply ‘cor-
rects’ party lists.49 Not only is there no reason to think that LGBT can-
didates are free from such ‘corrective’ and discriminatory practices, there
is every reason to believe that they do experience them due to preva-
lent attitudes towards LGBT people. In addition, closed lists provide the
opportunity for politically mobilised groups within parties to influence
the drawing up of the list of candidates—and there exist several examples
108 M. TREMBLAY
of LGBT activism within parties that have been beneficial to LGBT peo-
ple’s representation.50 This hypothesis needs to be substantiated.
The number of votes an elector can cast certainly may have ‘gen-
dered-sexualised’ effects. Schmidt writes that in Peru supporters of wom-
en’s representation developed the slogan ‘Of your two preferential votes,
cast one for a woman’.51 It is doubtful that the LGBT movement can
market a similar slogan: ‘Of your two preferential votes, cast one for a
lesbian’! The Peruvian message enjoyed the legitimacy of heteronorma-
tivity: a woman and a man, the two components of humanity—as the
parity movement in France has argued. This discursive resource is simply
not available to the LGBT movement.
Conclusion
It is now well known that electoral systems have gendered effects and
that these gendered effects negatively affect the election of women. It is
a little more original to suggest that these gendered effects make gender.
The voting system is one of the numerous devices of the gender regime
that, like the family, school, media, the workplace, leisure, the fashion
industry, drinks and foods and others, contribute to manufacturing what
a woman is: in electoral politics, to be a woman means to occupy a sub-
ordinate position in comparison with men. I would like to suggest that
further research explore this fruitful idea: voting systems have gendered
effects, of course, but these gendered effects go well beyond voting sys-
tems by contributing to a long-term sociopolitical undertaking, the man-
ufacture of gender.
I have also suggested that the gendered effects of voting systems
are sexualised—what I called ‘gendered-sexualised’ effects. Although
research on women in politics provides a rich pool of knowledge that
is very helpful for studying LGBT people’s political representation, this
field needs to develop its own research agenda and its own theories and
concepts. For instance, the French concept of parité not only is deeply
heterosexist but also contradicts ideas and practices associated with the
LGBT movement—that the human being cannot be reduced to two
sexes, two genders, two sexualities. Things are much more complex.
Another example: although the negative effects of the FPTP voting sys-
tem on the election of women are clear, how it impacts the election of
LGBT candidates needs to be clarified. Indeed, in urban settings where
LGBT people are geographically concentrated (such as ‘gay ghettos’),
FPTP may assist the election of LGBT candidates.52 But what hap-
pens to the vast majority of LGBT people who live outside of LGBT-
identified areas? These questions sustain my argument that, in order to
deliver all its promises, a gendered-inspired approach to voting systems
must take sexualities into account. There remains a great deal of work to
do!
Notes
1. In this essay, the terms ‘voting system’ and ‘electoral system’ are used
interchangeably.
2. For more details, see Pippa Norris (2004) Electoral Engineering: Voting
Rules and Political Behavior, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 39–65.
3. Matthew Soberg Shugart and Martin P. Wattenberg (eds.) (2001) Mixed-
Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
4. At some point in the 1990s, feminist/women political scientists began
to use the term ‘gender’, whether alone, concomitantly with ‘women’
or synonymously with it. That is why, depending on the context, some-
times I will use ‘women’, sometimes ‘gender’ and sometimes ‘women/
gender’ (in accordance with how these notions appear in time). I also
want to make clear the two dimensions of the gender regime analysed:
their effects on women (‘women/gender’) and on LGBT people (‘gen-
dered-sexualised’ effects).
5. Amy G. Mazur and Gary Goertz (2008) ‘Introduction’, in Gary Goertz
and Amy G. Mazur (eds.) Politics, Gender, and Concepts: Theory and
Methodology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1.
6. Judith Butler (1999) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity, 2nd edn, Abingdon: Routledge, p. 194.
7. Gayle Rubin (1984) ‘Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the
Politics of Sexuality’, in Carole S. Vance (ed.) Pleasure and Danger:
Exploring Female Sexuality, London: Pandora, pp. 280–281.
8. Douglas W. Rae (1971 [1967]) The Political Consequences of Electoral
Laws, New Haven: Yale University Press.
9. Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart (eds.) (1986) Electoral Laws and
their Political Consequences, New York: Agathon Press.
10. Arend Lijphart (1994) Electoral Systems and Party Systems, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
11. Vernon Bogdanor (1984) What Is Proportional Representation? A Guide
to the Issues, Oxford: Martin Robertson, p. 111.
110 M. TREMBLAY
12. The same could be said of Maurice Duverger’s, The Political Role of
Women, published in 1955 (Paris: UNESCO). In addition, Duverger
considers party selection committees as having some responsibility for the
underrepresentation of women in politics (see pp. 87–89).
13. Bogdanor, What Is Proportional Representation?, p. 115.
14. Elin Bjarnegård (2013) Gender, Informal Institutions and Political
Recruitment: Explaining Male Dominance in Parliamentary
Representation, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
pp. 1–51.
15. Nirmal Puwar (2004) Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of
Place, Oxford: Berg.
16. Elina Haavio-Mannila et al. (eds.) (1985) Unfinished Democracy: Women
in Nordic Politics, Oxford: Pergamon Press, pp. 40–48.
17. Of course, some articles appeared on women and electoral politics in the
1980s and 1990s, but they focused less on the gendered effects of vot-
ing systems than on other dimensions of the election process: including
the electorate’s reactions to female candidates—for instance, Jonathan
Kelley and Ian McAllister (1983) ‘The Electoral Consequences of
Gender in Australia’, British Journal of Political Science 13(3): 365–377;
women as candidates—for instance, Elizabeth Vallance (1988) ‘Two
Cheers for Equality: Women Candidates in the 1987 General Elections’,
Parliamentary Affairs 41(1): 86–91; and the opinions and behaviours of
women elected officials—for instance, Susan G. Mezey (1978) ‘Does Sex
Make a Difference? A Case Study of Women in Politics’, Western Political
Quarterly 31(4): 492–501; Enid Lakeman’s (1982) Power to Elect: The
Case for Proportional Representation (London: Heinemann) should also
be mentioned, even though her work addresses women’s representation
only partially.
18. Robert Darcy, Susan Welch, and Janet Clark (1987) Women, Elections,
and Representation, New York: Longman, p. 125.
19. Joyce Gelb (1989) Feminism and Politics. A Comparative Perspective,
Berkeley: University of California Press.
20. Wilma Rule (1987) ‘Electoral Systems, Contextual Factors and Women’s
Opportunity for Election to Parliament in Twenty-Three Democracies’,
Western Political Quarterly 40(3): 477–498, 494.
21. Rule, ‘Electoral Systems’, pp. 494–495.
22. Wilma Rule and Joseph F. Zimmerman (eds.) (1992) United States
Electoral Systems: Their Impact on Women and Minorities, New York:
Praeger; Wilma Rule and Joseph F. Zimmerman (eds.) (1994) Electoral
Systems in Comparative Perspective: Their Impact on Women and
Minorities, Westport: Greenwood Press.
23. Manon Tremblay (ed.) (2008) Women and Legislative Representation:

Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Sex Quotas, New York: Palgrave
Macmillan. A revised and updated edition appeared in 2012.
24. Manon Tremblay (2012) ‘Introduction’, in Tremblay (ed.) Women and
Legislative Representation, p. 1.
25. Michael Gallagher and Paul Mitchell (2005) ‘Introduction to Electoral
Systems’, in Gallagher and Mitchell (eds.) The Politics of Electoral Systems,
pp. 5–17. Gallagher and Mitchell have a sixth criterion: parties’ candi-
date-selection committees. I will not discuss this dimension because it is
discussed in the section ‘Classic Works on Electoral Systems: Failing to
Think Women/Gender’.
26. David M. Farrell (1997) Comparing Electoral Systems, London: Prentice
Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, p. 161.
27. Shahra Razavi (2001) ‘Women in Contemporary Democratization’,
International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 15(1): 201–224.
28. Farrell, Comparing Electoral Systems, p. 161.
29. Wilma Rule (1992) ‘Parliaments of, by, and for the People: Except
for Women?’, in Rule and Zimmerman (eds.) Electoral Systems in
Comparative Perspective, p. 18.
30. According to this reasoning, gender justice is less important than electoral
victory.
31. Richard E. Matland (2006) ‘Electoral Quotas: Frequency and
Effectiveness’, in Drude Dahlerup (ed.) Women, Quotas and Politics,
London: Routledge, pp. 275–292.
32. Carol Bacchi (2006) ‘Arguing for and Against Quotas: Theoretical
Issues’, in Dahlerup (ed.) Women, Quotas and Politics, pp. 32–51.
33. This reasoning is based on the assumption that the national tier has more
seats than the regional tier, which, in turn, has more than the local tier.
This is not always true, because sometimes the higher tiers (national or
regional) are divided into smaller electoral areas for the purpose of allo-
cating seats.
34. Gregory D. Schmidt (2012) ‘Success Under Open List PR: The Election
of Women to Congress’, in Tremblay (ed.) Women and Legislative
Representation, pp. 172–173.
35. Haavio-Mannila, Unfinished Democracy; Rule, ‘Electoral Systems’.
36. Gallagher and Mitchell, ‘Introduction to Electoral Systems’, pp. 7–10.
37. Among others, Miki Caul (1999) ‘Women’s Representation in Parliament:
The Role of Political Parties’, Party Politics 5(1): 79–98; Richard E. Matland
and Kathleen A. Montgomery (2003) ‘Recruiting Women to National
Legislatures: A General Framework with Applications to Post-communist
Democracies’, in Richard E. Matland and Kathleen A. Montgomery (eds.)
112 M. TREMBLAY
Women’s Access to Political Power in Post-communist Europe, Oxford: Oxford

University Press, pp. 19–42.
38.
Sheri Kunovich (2012) ‘Unexpected Winners: The Significance of an
Open-List System on Women’s Representation in Poland’, Politics &
Gender 8(2): 153–177; Matland, ‘Electoral Quotas’; Richard E. Matland
and Emelie Lilliefeldt (2014) ‘The Effect of Preferential Voting on
Women’s Representation’, in Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon and Michelle
M. Taylor-Robinson (eds.) Representation: The Case of Women, New York:
Oxford University Press, pp. 79–102; Melody Ellis Valdini (2012) ‘A
Deterrent to Diversity: The Conditional Effect of Electoral Rules on the
Nomination of Women Candidates’, Electoral Studies 31(4): 740–749.
39. As a general rule, a mixed-member voting system combines nominal
(or majoritarian) and list (or proportional) tiers. When a compensa-
tion mechanism between tiers exists, the mixed-member voting system
is called ‘proportional’ (MMP); in the absence of such a linkage, the
mixed-member system is said to be ‘majoritarian’. Examples of studies
showing better women’s representation on the proportional tier of the
MMP are: Fiona Barker, Jonathan Boston, Stephen Levine, Elizabeth
McLeay, and Nigel S. Roberts (2001) ‘An Initial Assessment of the
Consequences of MMP in New Zealand’, in Shugart and Wattenberg
(eds.) Mixed-Member Electoral Systems, pp. 297–322; Grigorii V. Golosov
(2014) ‘Interdependence Effects in Mixed-Superposition Electoral
Systems: An Empirical Test on Women’s Participation in Sub-national
Elections’, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 24(4):
434–454; Elizabeth McLeay (2006) ‘Climbing On: Rules, Values and
Women’s Representation in the New Zealand Parliament’, in Marian
Sawer, Manon Tremblay, and Linda Trimble (eds.) Representing Women
in Parliament: A Comparative Study, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 67–82.
40. Studies have shown that women’s representation is not higher at
the local than national level. See, among others: Ulrik Kjær (2010)
‘Women in Politics—The Local-National Gender Gap in Comparative
Perspective’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Sonderhefte 44: 334–351;
Erin Tolley (2011) ‘Do Women “Do Better” in Municipal Politics?
Electoral Representation Across Three Levels of Government’, Canadian
Journal of Political Science 44(3): 573–594. More generally, see con-
tributions in Barbara Pini and Paula McDonald (eds.) (2011) Women
and Representation in Local Government: International Case Studies,
Abingdon: Routledge.
41. Donald P. Haider-Markel (2010) Out and Running: Gay and Lesbian
Candidates, Elections, and Policy Representation, Washington:
Georgetown University Press, pp. 63, 64. See also Jennifer Merolla,
Jean Reith Schroedel, and Scott Waller (2011) ‘Evangelical Strength and
the Political Representation of Women and Gays’, in Steven Brint and
Jean Reith Schroedel (eds.) Evangelicals and Democracy in America, New
York: Russel Sage Foundation, pp. 159–186.
42. There are exceptions—for example the block vote system.
43. See James W. Button, Kenneth D. Wald, and Barbara A. Rienzo (1999)
‘The Election of Openly Gay Public Officials in American Communities’,
Urban Affairs Review 35(2): 188–209; Darren Rosenblum (1996)
‘Geographically Sexual? Advancing Lesbian and Gay Interests Through
Proportional Representation’, Harvard Civil Right-Civil Liberties Law
Review 31: 119–154.
44. Andrew Reynolds (2013) Out in Office. LGBT Legislators and LGBT
Rights Around the World, p. 5. Available at: https://lgbtqrightsrep.files.
wordpress.com/2015/08/annual-report_may20finalversion.pdf.
45. Rosenblum, ‘Geographically Sexual?’, p. 121. When Rosenblum writes ‘to
elect officials who represent their interests’, what he means is unclear: he
could mean an openly LGBT representative, but he could also mean a
strong heterosexual ally. The case of Svend Robinson in Canada is illus-
trative of this. In the 2006 general election, Robinson (the first out
member of Parliament in Canada) ran in Vancouver Centre against the
incumbent MP, Hedy Fry, a strong (straight) advocate for LGBT com-
munities. According to Truelove, many LGBT people ‘resented Robinson
for forcing them to choose between the two [Fry and Robinson] instead
of running in another riding against an incumbent who had been less
supportive of their cause’ (Graeme Truelove [2013] Svend Robinson: A
Life in Politics, Vancouver: New Star Books, p. 287).
46. Mark Hertzog (1996) The Lavender Vote: Lesbians, Gay Men, and
Bisexuals in American Electoral Politics, New York: New York University
Press, p. 12.
47. Jeffrey M. Jones (2012) Atheists, Muslims See Most Bias as Presidential
Candidates. Available at: http://www.gallup.com/poll/155285/Atheists-
Muslims-Bias-Presidential-Candidates.aspx?utm_source=tagrss&utm_
medium=rss&utm_campaign=syndication.
48. Alesha E. Doan and Donald P. Haider-Markel (2010) ‘The Role of
Intersectional Stereotypes on Evaluations of Gay and Lesbian Political
Candidates’, Politics & Gender 6(1): 63–91.
49. Matland and Lilliefeldt, ‘The Effect of Preferential Voting on Women’s
Representation’.
50. See for example, Rafael de la Dehesa (2010) Queering the Public Sphere
in Mexico and Brazil: Sexual Rights Movements in Emerging Democracies,
Durham: Duke University Press; Juan P. Marsiaj (2006) ‘Social
Movements and Political Parties: Gays, Lesbians, and Travestis and the
114 M. TREMBLAY
Struggle for Inclusion in Brazil’, Canadian Journal of Latin American

and Caribbean Studies 31(62): 167–196; Blair Williams and Marian
Sawer (2018) ‘Rainbow Labor and a Purple Policy Launch: Gender and
Sexuality Issues in the 2016 Federal Election’, in Anika Gauja, Peter
Chen, Jennifer Curtin, and Juliet Pietsch (eds.) Double Disillusion: The
2016 Australian Federal Election, Canberra: ANU Press, pp. 641–659.
51. Schmidt, ‘Success Under Open List PR’, pp. 172–173.
52. See Hertzog, The Lavender Vote, p. 12; Rosenblum, ‘Geographically
Sexual?’
CHAPTER 6
Feminist Innovations
and New Institutionalism
Jennifer Curtin
The renowned scholar Paul Pierson begins his book Politics in Time with
a conversation between a chef and the reader about an impending meal.
The chef says that what matters most are the ingredients (the variables)
and the measurement (devices), suggesting that what is produced is the
result of perfect ingredients and perfect measurement. The process and
sequence involved in putting the meal together does not matter. Pierson
concludes few would patronise a restaurant with such a philosophy and
notes it is unfortunate that most social scientists work in a ‘kitchen’ that
overlooks the significance of process.1
The character who ignores processes, sequence and time in Pierson’s
story is female. It is unlikely that Pierson meant anything by positioning
the female subject in this way, and we know that feminist political scien-
tists engaging in the study of institutions find his works useful. Yet we
might consider taking his analogy further. Feminist scholarship has dis-
rupted understandings of social processes and of political institutions—
how they have changed, or remained resistant to change, over time. This
is also true with respect to the discipline of political science itself, if we
J. Curtin (*) 
University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
e-mail: j.curtin@auckland.ac.nz

116 J. CURTIN
accept that disciplines are themselves institutional forms with rules and
norms. However, it remains rare to see mainstream political scientists
‘patronising’ feminist knowledge spaces, despite our attention to, and
revelations of, the significance of gendered ‘historical turns’ in the evolu-
tion of institutions. Nevertheless, if temporally grounded mechanisms are
important to institutional explanations of human action and interaction,
then gender, whether it is conceived of as structural, constructed and/or
discursive, is also important to institutional explanations. Gender neces-
sarily impacts on how we conceive of, and operationalise, path depend-
ence, critical junctures, logics of appropriateness, standard operating
procedures, unintended consequences and the process of locking in or
embedding new institutions.2
Theorising the gendered co-constitutive effects of political institutions
has circled, and engaged with, mainstream institutionalist scholarship
for some decades now. The desire to bring the state back into political
analysis reflects arguments made by feminist political scientists about the
unavoidability of engaging with institutions of the state in order to pro-
gress gender equality and to understand when and why women’s claims
are successful. This scholarship has been innovative in its discussions
of how gendered power relations in politics are reinforced over time.3
Similarly, the sequencing of feminist ‘milestones’, whether they be wins
and/or irreversible losses, works differently across countries.4 Moreover,
changes in gendered outcomes have resulted sometimes from disjointed,
incremental change, or at other times from a significant critical juncture
moment.5 The presence of feminist actors, inside or outside formal
political institutions, including feminist entrepreneurs, has also been
‘critical’ in many of the policy ‘success’ stories.6
Institutions are a core part of these feminist analyses, and over time,
scholars have begun to build a tradition of their own, theoretically, and
empirically through their use of in-depth case studies, enriching dis-
ciplinary knowledge of the places, processes and sequences required to
advance gender equality in politics and policy. The innovations have
developed and built on each other over time, from early considerations
of how best to conceptualise the connection between gender and insti-
tutionalism to the more recent emergence of feminist institutionalism,
which seeks to find a common vocabulary for further theorising. In
this way, the latter seeks to provide an organising frame for the former,
by examining how gender norms operate within institutions and how
institutional processes construct and maintain gender power dynamics,
6 FEMINIST INNOVATIONS AND NEW INSTITUTIONALISM 117
with a focus on how the formal and informal rules that underpin political
institutions are gendered in terms of process and outcomes. In this way,
feminist institutionalism both draws on and builds on earlier feminist
political science engagement with new institutionalism.
This chapter tracks the development of this gendered new institu-
tionalist turn, from which feminist institutionalism emerges. As such,
the remainder of this chapter revisits some of the key foundational ele-
ments of new institutionalism that have prompted feminist engagement
and (re)theorising. I then trace some of the feminist intellectual innova-
tions that have emerged over time, and identify how, by applying gender
analyses, these have disrupted and destabilised traditional institutional
analysis in political science. Initially, feminist political science engaged
in diverse ways with the ideas of institutionalists, but more recently has
begun to develop a feminist institutionalist framework that works to pro-
vide more cohesive analytic purchase on understanding why institutions
replicate or resist gendered rules, norms and outcomes. The newness of
this work is considered in the final section of the chapter, and I conclude
with a discussion of how this theoretical and empirical project might
continue to grow; intersectionality, indigeneity and perspectives from the
Global South offer interesting and critical challenges to the future devel-
opment of gendered and feminist institutionalist approaches.
Institutions and Political Science

It is commonplace for introductions to ‘new’ institutionalism to
acknowledge that institutions have been ‘a focus of political science since
its inception’.7 This is unsurprising since institutions are simply rules;
some are formal and some are informal but both serve to structure pol-
itics.8 Institutionalists then, old and new, are interested in understanding
how institutions shape political behaviour and outcomes. There has been
a tendency to distinguish between the two generations, by defining the
former as limited to formal-legal analysis. However, Rhodes contests this
boundary, reminding us that old institutionalism remains a defining starting
point in the study of political institutions, because early scholars attended
to the processes associated with institutionalisation such as the creation and
embedding of values, rituals, ideologies and informal norms.9
For March and Olsen, the label ‘new’ involves an acknowledgement
of the ‘old’ and evokes a reminder that ideas are often cyclical, with
new institutionalism bringing us back, after a period of behavioural
118 J. CURTIN
dominance, to a (re)consideration of the enduring connectedness and

independence of social and political institutions.10 The focus of the ‘new’
adds to the ‘old’ by virtue of going beyond the idea of the state as lim-
ited to a reflection of, or a neutral arena for, individual calculations and/
or social forces. Instead, institutions frustrate or enable particular kinds
of politics, policy and outcomes. As rules and norms that provide log-
ics and meanings and produce collections of standard operating proce-
dures and structures, they are political actors in their own right.11 Thus,
institutions from this perspective can explain, justify and legitimate
certain kinds of political behaviour. They are ‘carriers of identities and
roles and they are markers of a polity’s character, history, and visions’.12
Institutions are not fixed, but are adjusted or reformulated in response to
internal impulses or external shocks.13
Such theorising, now seen as signalling the advent of new institution-
alism, was in part a response to an intellectual discontent with a focus
on individual preferences as decontextualised rational choices made by
self-interested individuals, unrelated to structures and rules. Over time,
social, political and economic institutions have become larger, more
complex and more important to political and social life.14 A focus on
rational choice did not disappear with new institutionalism but the two
became connected, with a continuing commitment to deductive model-
ling and a scientific focus, while introducing new concepts to understand
and predict institutional change. The idea of punctuated equilibrium,
borrowed from evolutionary biology, suggested that institutions are for
the most part stable, with change coming only with externally induced
shocks. Endogenous, evolutionary shifts instigated (intentionally or oth-
erwise) by political actors working within and between institutions were
less likely to ‘count’ as significant, at least in early analyses.15
Historical institutionalists took up the challenge to move beyond sci-
entific models and seek out more nuanced understandings of real-world
political outcomes.16 For these scholars, accounting for variations in
political or policy outcomes across countries or over time was considered
impossible without an investigation of how political institutions shaped
or structured the political process.17 Of course, historical institutionalists
did not argue that institutions were the only variables that mattered, nor
did they deny that dramatic shocks to the system could induce change.
But they did maintain that incrementalism also mattered, that institu-
tions were embedded over time, and evolved in a co-constitutive rela-
tionship with those inside and outside their boundaries. As institutions
change, actors’ modes of engagement also change. Methodologically,

historical institutionalists focused on qualitative methods and path analy-
sis and/or process tracing. They sought to understand how and why cer-
tain institutions emerge and change, why some flourish in some contexts
and/or why some die out in others.18
As a result, analyses of which political institutions matter, in which
spheres and how, have grown in number over time. There is now a
recognition of the need to study sub-national systems (and the impact
of federalism and devolution for example), as well as inter- and supra-
national institutional arrangements, in order to understand the complex
interactions between actors, organisations, contexts and institutions,
and how these continue to structure power relations of import.19 The
importance of informal institutions or internalised rules has also been
recognised with recent work seeking to specify more clearly why informal
institutions exist, how they impact on social, political and institutional
change, and when this might occur.20
This ‘institutional turn’ has been important to political science gen-
erally and to feminist political science in particular. Yet while existing
power relations are given attention, few new institutionalist analyses con-
sider institutions as being constituted by or producing gendered power
relations. This is the significant conceptual labour that has been taken
up by gender scholars who have theorised how gender influences insti-
tutional stasis and change, how institutions are themselves gendered,
and what elements of new institutionalism can contribute scaffolding for
innovative feminist interventions.21
Gendering Institutional Analysis

Feminist scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds have long
attended to the gendered nature and interconnectedness of all social
institutions. Emphasis was given to gendered patterns of social interac-
tion developed in the family and reinforced by norms in education, the
labour market, politics and policy.22 Alongside this, feminist sociologists
sought to explain the persistence of masculine cultures within organisa-
tions despite women’s presence while feminist economists challenged the
dominance of the male norm in (new) institutionalist economics.23
One might be forgiven for not knowing this; the Oxford Handbook of
Political Institutions comprises 38 chapters, but not one is dedicated to
the gendered nature of institutions (and while one of the three editors is
120 J. CURTIN
female, only four chapters are authored by women). Eleven pages of the
780 page volume are listed in the appendix as addressing gender or fem-
inism.24 But if we accept Acker’s point that ‘theories that are silent about
gender are fundamentally flawed’ then there is much that is missing from
earlier analyses. For Acker, the concept of ‘gendered institutions’ recog-
nises that gender is present in institutional processes, practices, ideologies
and distributions of power. She argues that institutions historically have
been developed by men, remain dominated by men, and are symbolically
interpreted from the standpoint of men.25 As such, political institutions
have been defined by the absence of women. Pierson and other histori-
cal institutionalists maintain that institutions build legacies, and are path
dependent; if this is the case, and the evidence is persuasive, then the
historical and continuing absence of women has enabled a normalisation
of this absence.
There has been no shortage of feminist political science scholarship
to challenge the institutional barriers faced by women within and out-
side formal political institutions. When March and Olsen were expound-
ing the value of new institutionalism to theorising political change, Jill
Vickers was reiterating what numerous feminist scholars had said before
her about the need to take a woman-centred approach, both theoreti-
cally and methodologically, to the study of political institutions. Such
analyses start ‘from where women are’ but in a way that accounts for
differences between women (race, class, region, nation and ethnicity) as
well as similarities. Alongside this, Vickers maps out the political sites, or
arenas, where women can and should be ‘seen’ by researchers, in order
to write women’s experiences into political analyses.26
In this vein, feminist scholars have redefined what counts as political
action, revealing the gender dimensions of all social contexts, and
thereby reinterpreting which processes and preferences are analysed, and
how this should be undertaken, to ensure gender (and more recently
intersectionality) is central to theory building and empirical evaluation.27
Feminist political scientists have sought to transform the variants of new
institutionalism by expanding the intellectual connections between what
counts as an institution, what provokes or prevents institutional order or
change, and what this means for gender power relations.28
Acker’s work also alludes to the hidden life of institutions; she
argues that processes and practices are sometimes open and obvious,
but at other times are deeply embedded and invisible, a point taken
up and expanded on by recent feminist scholars.29 As such, hegemonic
masculinity continues to pervade many of the institutional arenas of

politics and public policy. As pointed out by a number of feminist schol-
ars, the gendered rules, norms and practices of these institutions are
obscured when conceptualised and theorised in gender-neutral terms.30
Feminist studies of women and politics have sought to correct these
previous biases and oversights. Lovenduski highlights the extent to
which gendered intellectual innovations, both theoretical and empiri-
cal, grew in number and reach from the mid-1970s.31 From this time, a
feminist research agenda emerged, critiquing the extent to which politics
was both practised and studied. Feminists called out ‘bad science’ and
revealed how ‘evidence’ was flawed when assuming a male political (or
social) universe. Specifically, Lovenduski reminds us of the long tradition
of feminist scholarship dedicated to explaining how institutions induce
gendered outcomes.32 Alongside this, we see a shift in the focus of fem-
inist political science scholars from sex as a variable to a consideration of
how gender matters. Here, critical consideration is given to which cul-
tural codes of masculinity and femininity are accentuated and deemed
appropriate, thereby ordering behaviour and attitudes in relation to the
accepted rules of the game.33
Thus, feminist political science scholars have long since addressed the
call from March and Olsen for more theorising and for more empirical
case studies. As part of this, feminists have argued for the importance of
conceptualising the state not as a single political institutional arena but
as a wide-ranging set of spaces ranging from party systems, parliaments,
cabinets, and executive leadership to the bureaucracy, the judiciary,
the military and the structured relationships that exist between state,
labour and employers.34 Each arena has a different relation to women
meaning, as Chappell succinctly puts it, each has their individual gen-
dered codes and processes. There are interactive effects between these,
just as there are co-constitutive effects between (state) institutions and
individuals.35
Feminist scholars have taken up the challenge of viewing these differ-
ent institutions as sites of study. Early empirical research examined the
study of voting behaviour, the secret garden of candidate selection and
the entry to political elites more generally and found them to be inher-
ently biased against women.36 Feminist questions have been directed
at understanding masculine resilience over time, and gendered political
histories reveal how institutional change, including winning the right
to vote, the right for women to stand for election, and (s)election to
122 J. CURTIN
executive office, was sometimes as much an unintended consequence as

it was a result of women’s activism.37
Alongside this, feminist writing on gender, professional life and
bureaucratic institutions demonstrated how cultural codes and institu-
tional norms of masculinity have become an embedded feature of our
public institutions. Feminist critiques have focused on the intractability
and path dependence of informal rules within the bureaucracy and the
way they privilege masculinity and hamper any consideration of merit as
a gendered construct. Research on femocrats may have only implicitly
engaged with the institutionalist approach, but it reveals the permeabil-
ity of rules, norms and operating procedures. Predating the intellectual
interrogation of gender mainstreaming by European scholars, the fem-
ocrat strategy in Australia was found to be innovative in the way it dis-
rupted bureaucratic norms.38 Femocrat agencies were resisted, and not
sufficiently embedded to stand the test of time, but there was a relatively
long period when gendered codes associated with the machinery of gov-
ernment were challenged sufficiently to enable less biased effects in pol-
icy outcomes. Scholarship on Australasian femocrat initiatives reveals the
connections between critical actors, separate spaces and the potential for
incremental institutional change, as well as the stickiness of entrenched
norms and legacies.39
Feminist institution building was also occurring in other countries and
from the 1990s included, but was not limited to, the concept of gen-
der mainstreaming.40 Feminist political scientists took up the challenge
to study these initiatives and their implementation and outcomes both at
a macro-comparative level and at the micro-process level. Recent scholar-
ship on gender mainstreaming offers a more explicit institutionalist focus
on attempts to reshape political institutions.41 Fiona Mackay’s work picks
up this theme, arguing that new rules and procedures enable feminist
engagement but old practices and gendered institutional legacies are nec-
essarily sticky, having sufficient history and capital to reassert themselves
and close off avenues for doing policy differently.42
This feminist research has focused on formal political rules, such as
constitution building in new states, new institutional arrangements in
devolved states, the absence or presence of federalism, and the feminisa-
tion of legislatures and executives.43 However, feminist arguments have
also examined the way in which historical conventions and norms mat-
ter. Specifically, the informal institutions that are less codified and often
related to culture, colonisation and clientelism (and sometimes feminism
has been complicit in these practices) derive their longevity from societal
institutions with significant cultural capital.44 Indeed, gendered, and
more recently intersectional, analyses have revealed and continue to
reveal that formal institutional change may come to naught if informal
norms remain resistant and impermeable.45 Thus, incorporating gender
dynamics in our analysis of informal rules and norms is critical to reveal-
ing the extent to which new formal rules may result in complex, contra-
dictory and unintended outcomes.46
In summary, Krook and Mackay argue that feminist thinking about
institutions offers three key developments. It has expanded the definition
of politics to include both formal political institutions and the informal
spheres of civil society and interpersonal relations (and the interaction
between the formal and informal). Second, it has gone beyond seeing sex
as a ‘variable’ to incorporating gender as a relational concept and analytic
category. Third, it has informed the pursuit of political change and the
transformation of gender relations both inside and outside the state.47
As such, feminist intellectual engagement with various new institu-
tionalism approaches has been significant in revealing the ways institu-
tions work to produce and reproduce gendered power relations, while
simultaneously enabling and constraining possibilities for feminist insti-
tution building, entrepreneurship and engagement with the state in
ways that have the potential to disrupt embedded norms and logics and
develop more equitable policy outcomes. Most recently, feminist schol-
ars have developed a new organising frame for the work that has gone
before, in order to systematise findings and build models that account
for resistances and newness, continuity and change. Feminist institution-
alism provides a framework by which the gendered patterning of institu-
tional rules and norms can be identified to discern the gendered ‘nature
and interplay of formal and informal institutions and the differential
effect they have on the men and women operating within these environ-
ments as well as the products – the norms, rules, policies and laws – these
institutions produce’.48
Feminist Institutionalism
In 2009, Politics & Gender published a set of Critical Perspectives essays
on feminist institutionalism. Edited by Fiona Mackay and Georgina
Waylen, the objective of the essays was to interrogate the extent to
which the various new institutionalist approaches might offer additional
124 J. CURTIN
theoretical and analytical tools for feminist political scientists interested

in gender and institutions. There were two additional aspirations: to
explore the extent to which it might be possible to draw together pre-
viously disparate but significant feminist scholarship on the gender-
ing effects of political institutions over time and space, to build a more
connected conceptual framework that ensured complex gender dynam-
ics were central to new institutional analyses of continuity, stasis and
change.49
The call for an intellectual conversation between feminist political sci-
ence and new institutionalism provoked by these authors has not gone
unheeded.50 For example, in just two years (between 2011 and 2013)
four new books written by feminist scholars emerged, seeking to concep-
tually refine and empirically test the capacity of a feminist institutionalist
framework to advance our understanding of how and why institutions
are gendered and how this affects gendered outcomes in politics and pol-
icy.51 None adhere to a single variant or definition of feminist institution-
alism, nor do they preclude the broader feminist objective of integrating
gendered innovation into all institutional research.
In their introduction to Gender Politics and Institutions: Towards
a Feminist Institutionalism, Krook and Mackay argue that theorising
the gendered dimensions of institutional stability and change requires
renewed thinking about methods, frameworks and research directions,
with a focus on how gender informs both formal and informal institu-
tions.52 There is a recognition that a plurality of definitions and oper-
ationalisations is a strength, although historical institutionalism is the
approach most commonly taken up. The various cases give analytical
space to context, complex causality and the embedded nature of gen-
dered legacies, and how historically gendered rules and processes impact
on both political change and public policy.
There are several exceptions to this dominance of historical institu-
tionalism. Freidenvall and Krook employ a feminist discursive institu-
tionalist framework to explain variation in the implementation of gender
quotas in Sweden and France and, in doing so, reveal the significance
of pre-existing institutional configurations for the impact of claims for
political representation.53 Hana Hašková and Steven Saxonberg apply a
feminist-informed sociological institutionalism framework, emphasising
how social contexts inform and shape norms and attitudes. They reveal
how numerous critical junctures leading up to the collapse of com-
munism produced an incremental institutional layering that has failed
to unravel the conservative, normalised and ‘defamiliarised’ gendered

legacies of communist family policy.54
The potential opportunities to disrupt rules and norms through the
creation of new institutions have been taken up by two authors in the
Krook and Mackay volume. Kenny reveals a number of gendered dimen-
sions that undermine the institutional opportunities initially offered by
the ‘new’ politics of devolution in Scotland. Centralised rules aimed
at promoting the selection of women sit at odds with localised prefer-
ences and historically informed practices.55 Similarly, in her work on
the International Criminal Court (ICC), Louise Chappell argues that
the ‘new’ designs are influenced by, and connected to, past institutional
remains and contemporary parallel institutions.56 To understand why this
is the case, Chappell draws on Mackay’s concept of ‘nested newness’.57
Mackay’s understanding of nested newness is invaluable in that it
reminds scholars of the significance of the temporal and sequencing ele-
ments of institutional change. The formal creation of a new institution is
an important first step, but ‘what follows is a longer process of transition –
marked by instability and uncertainty’ and no guarantee of success.58
Why gender reforms should appear so vulnerable to regress, even in new
institutional contexts is Mackay’s key question, and the ‘nestedness’ of
new institutions is part of her explanation. That is, new institutions are
not created in a vacuum but are connected to gendered institutional leg-
acies and historical cultural practices that have yet to be superseded or
transformed. Moreover, institution building can also be vulnerable to new
ideological currents. For example, in the Anglo-American countries, the
rise of neoliberalism brought with it the dilution of gender mainstream-
ing and the demise of gender budgeting, while the introduction of com-
petitive tendering for services undermined a number of feminist women’s
services.59
Feminist institutionalists have increasingly focused their attention on
dissecting informal norms and political practices that constrain or ena-
ble changes to formal rules and embedded institutions. Their insights
help to explain why institutional change may not lead to gender equality
outcomes despite actors’ good intentions or careful design. In a recent
volume edited by Georgina Waylen, feminist institutionalists utilise
concepts of stickiness, resistance and adaptability to understand the resil-
ience of hidden practices. They draw extensively on the theoretical work
of Helmke and Levitsky to identify and analyse the interaction effects
of formal and informal institutions, and the multifaceted ability for
126 J. CURTIN
pre-existing or new informal institutions to ‘subvert and compete’ with,

but also complement and adapt to fit, formal institutions.60 The extent
to which informal institutions are gendered, how this is measured, and
why this matters to institutional reform or the lack thereof is taken up by
contributors. The focus is on traditional political domains, primarily can-
didate selection, as well as some consideration of executive politics and
clientelism, while the critical importance of networks to the maintenance
of gendered practices is a connecting theme throughout the volume.
Here, we see feminist institutionalism undertaking complex theorising
about what informality looks like and how it can be identified or meas-
ured in ways that are systematic, repeatable and capable of driving new
research agendas.
Throughout, feminist institutionalists remind us of the co-constitutive
effects of structures and actors. As such, this approach facilitates a more
nuanced understanding of the gendered codes underpinning the practice
and processes of political institutions. It enables both the recognition
and the interrogation of the gendered character of institutions and the
gendering effects of institutions.61
Institutions, Intersectionality
and Intellectual Inclusion
It is evident that feminist political scientists have asked new, and hard,
questions of what ‘new’ institutionalism offers when a gender lens is
applied to its foundational concepts. These scholars have produced inno-
vative tools and empirical blueprints to understand the interactive effects
of gender and institutions and institutional change. To date, no consen-
sus has emerged on whether there is, or can be, a singular feminist insti-
tutionalist approach and key methodological differences remain. This
pluralism is a strength, and it is not necessarily desirable that all gendered
analysis of institutions be subsumed as part of a feminist institutionalist
project.
We know that feminist scholars see institutions as important in shap-
ing intersectional practices. Specifically, European scholars have exam-
ined the way in which multiple inequalities and the interaction between
them are addressed in political and institutional strategies and struggles.
For example, the authors in Kriznan, Skjeie and Squires’ volume engage
with the way in which the state empowers, institutionalises and acts on
particular inequality categories such as gender, race, ethnicity, religion,
age, disability and sexual orientation.62 Their collective findings reinforce

the ‘power’ of formal rules embedded within the European Union to
shape anti-discrimination law and policy that articulates an intersectional
perspective. However, implementation and compliance remain influ-
enced by localised norms and practices, while the impact of international
instruments is significant to institutionalising intersectional practices.63
This analysis emphasises the continued importance of going beyond a
single lens of inequality, individual sites and intra-country practices, to
increase the conceptual reach of feminist institutional analysis to include
multiple interactive effects.
Applying a gender lens to the study of institutions has been a critical
innovation in political science since the 1980s and is not limited to those
explicitly identifying as feminist institutionalists. Rather, as this chapter
demonstrates, gender scholars were circling new institutionalism long
before the feminist institutionalist project came into being. This earlier
scholarship is geographically and institutionally wide ranging, and its
totality is not done justice here. Gender scholars, from political science as
well as parallel disciplines such as history, sociology, anthropology, gen-
der and indigenous studies, have long since asked innovative questions
of both formal institutions and informal cultural norms associated with
the state, church and family. These have included asking what counts as
women’s ‘interests’, what methods empower women as subjects and ena-
ble diverse voices to be represented, and how feminist claims have been
shaped by corporatist or pluralist policy making environments. Alongside
recognition of the influence of traditional institutional arrangements
associated with consensus or Westminster democratic ‘systems’, critical
race and gender scholars have asked questions about rules and norms
that are both gendered and colonially imposed or constitutionally over-
laid on Indigenous or enslaved peoples.
All these studies have set the foundations for what has culminated in
new theoretical and methodological questions posed by feminist insti-
tutionalist scholars. The significance of the latter focuses importantly,
and explicitly, on both formal institutional rules and informal norms
and practices, how these are connected, and how gendered power rela-
tions shape, and are shaped by, institutional stability, change, and ero-
sion and reconstruction. There are no doubt more innovations to come.
Feminist institutionalism will need to take on the intellectual challenges
associated with intersectionality, diversity and decolonising method-
ologies. This may mean going beyond the concepts provided by the
128 J. CURTIN
new institutionalism within political science and seeking out feminist

companions from cognate ‘disciplines’. As we have seen elsewhere in
this book, feminist scholarship often challenges disciplinary boundaries
and opportunities for boundary crossing reinforce the inbuilt innovative
impulses of feminist institutionalism.
Notes
1. Paul Pierson (2004) Politics in Time, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, pp. 1–2.
2. I am indebted to Marian Sawer and Kerryn Baker for their constructive
insights. Thanks also to Kemi Agagu and Kirsten Locke for indulging
my discussions of the arguments addressed here, and to the reviewers for
their helpful comments.
3. Raewyn W. Connell (2002) Gender, Cambridge: Polity Press; Johanna
Kantola (2006) Feminists Theorize the State, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan; Joni Lovenduski (2005) Feminizing Politics, Cambridge: Polity.
4. Drude Dahlerup and Monique Leijenaar (2013) Breaking Male Dominance
in Old Democracies, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Dorothy E.
McBride and Amy G. Mazur (2010) The Politics of State Feminism:
Innovation in Comparative Research, Philadelphia: Temple University
Press; Fiona Mackay (2014) ‘Nested Newness, Institutional Innovation,
and the Gendered Limits of Change’, Politics & Gender 10(4): 549–571.
5. Georgina Waylen (2007) Engendering Transitions: Women’s Mobilization,
Institutions and Gender Outcomes, Oxford: Oxford University Press;
Georgina Waylen (ed.) (2017) Gender and Informal Institutions,
Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
6. Sarah Childs and Mona Lena Krook (2009) ‘Analysing Women’s
Substantive Representation: From Critical Mass to Critical Actors’,
Government and Opposition 44(2): 125–145; Jennifer Curtin and
Katherine Teghtsoonian (2010) ‘Analysing Institutional Persistence: The
Case of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Aotearoa/New Zealand’,
Politics & Gender 6(4): 545–572; Marian Sawer (1990) Sisters in Suits:
Women and Public Policy in Australia, Sydney: Allen and Unwin; Marian
Sawer (2003) The Ethical State? Social Liberalism in Australia, Carlton,
VIC: University of Melbourne Press; S. Laurel Weldon (2002) Protest,
Policy and the Problem of Violence Against Women, Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press.
7. James G. March and Johan P. Olsen (1984) ‘The New Institutionalism:
Organizational Factors in Political Life’, American Political Science
Review 78(3): 735.
8. Sven Steinmo (2001) ‘The New Institutionalism’, in Barry Clark and

Joe Foweraker (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought, London:
Routledge.
9. R. A. W. Rhodes (2011) ‘Old Institutionalisms: An Overview’, in Robert
E. Goodin (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Political Science, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
10. March and Olsen, ‘The New Institutionalism’, p. 738.
11. Peter Hall (1986) Governing the Economy, New York: Oxford University
Press, pp. 19–20.
12. James G. March and Johan P. Olsen (2011) ‘Elaborating the “New
Institutionalism”’, in Goodin (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Political
Science.
13. Robert Goodin (1996) ‘Institutions and Their Design’, in Robert E.
Goodin (ed.) The Theory of Institutional Design, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 24–25.
14. Ellen M. Immergut (1998) ‘The Theoretical Core of the New
Institutionalism’, Politics & Society 26: 5–34.
15. Steinmo ‘The New Institutionalism’; Kenneth Schepsle (1986)
‘Institutional Equilibrium and Equilibrium Institutions’, in H. Weisberg
(ed.) Political Science: The Science of Politics, New York: Agathon;
Kenneth Schepsle (2008) ‘Rational Choice Institutionalism’, in Sarah A.
Binder, R. A. W. Rhodes, and Bert A. Rockman (eds.) Oxford Handbook
of Political Institutions, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
16. Steinmo ‘The New Institutionalism’.
17. Sven Steinmo and Kathleen Thelen (1992) ‘Historical Institutionalism
in Comparative Politics’, in Sven Steinmo and Kathleen Thelen (eds.)
Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis,
New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–33.
18. Steinmo, ‘The New Institutionalism’, p. 465.
19. Vivien Lowndes (2014) ‘How Are Things Done Around Here?
Uncovering Institutional Rules and their Gendered Effects’, Politics &
Gender 10(4): 685–691.
20. Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky (2004) ‘Informal Institutions and
Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda’, Perspectives on Politics 2(4):
725–740; James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen (2010) ‘A Theory of
Gradual Institutional Change’, in James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen
(eds.) Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen
Thelen (2005) ‘Introduction: Institutional Changes in Advanced Political
Economies’, in Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen (eds.) Beyond
Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–39.
130 J. CURTIN
21. Emanuela Lombardo and Petra Meier (2016) The Symbolic Representation

of Gender: A Discursive Approach, London and New York: Routledge;
Fiona Mackay, Meryl Kenny, and Louise Chappell (2010) ‘New
Institutionalism Through a Gender Lens: Towards a Feminist
Institutionalism?’, International Political Science Review 31(5): 573–588.
22. Moira Gatens and Alison Mackinnon (eds.) (1998) Gender and Institutions.
Welfare, Work and Citizenship, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press,
p. xiii.
23. Joan Acker (1992) ‘From Sex Roles to Gendered Institutions’,
Contemporary Sociology 21(5): 565–569; William Waller and Ann
Jennings (1991) ‘A Feminist Institutionalist Reconsideration of Karl
Polanyi’, Journal of Economic Issues 25(2): 485–497.
24. Binder, Rhodes, and Rockman, Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions.
25. Acker, ‘From Sex Roles to Gendered Institutions’, pp. 565, 567.
26. Jill Vickers (1997) Reinventing Political Science: A Feminist Approach,
Halifax, Canada: Fernwood Publishing, p. 48.
27. Karen Beckwith (2005) ‘A Common Language of Gender’, Politics &
Gender 1(1): 128–137.
28. Louise Chappell (2002) Gendering Government: Feminist Engagement
with the State in Australia and Canada, Vancouver: University of British
Columbia Press.
29. Acker, ‘From Sex Roles to Gendered Institutions’, p. 567; Elin Bjarnegård
(2013) Gender, Informal Institutions and Political Recruitment: Explaining
Male Dominance in Parliamentary Representation, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan; Waylen, Gender and Informal Institutions.
30. Connell, ‘Gender’; Georgia Duerst-Lahti and Rita Mae Kelly (1995)
Gender Power, Leadership, and Governance, Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press; Georgina Waylen, Karen Celis, Johanna Kantola, and
S. Laurel Weldon (eds.) (2013) The Oxford Handbook of Gender and
Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
31. Joni Lovenduski (1998) ‘Gendering Research in Political Science’,
Annual Review of Political Science 1: 333–356.
32. Lovenduski, Feminizing Politics; Joni Lovenduski (2011) ‘Foreword’,
in Mona Lena Krook and Fiona Mackay (eds.) Gender, Politics and
Institutions: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
33. Lovenduski, ‘Foreword’, p. vii; Lombardo and Meier, The Symbolic
Representation of Gender.
34. Jennifer Curtin (1999) Women and Trade Unions. A Comparative
Perspective, Aldershot: Ashgate; Jennifer Curtin (2011) ‘Ne’er the Twain
Shall Meet? Reflections on the Future of Feminism and Unionism’,
in Valentine M. Moghadam, Suzanne Franzway, and Mary Margaret

Fonow (eds.) Making Globalization Work for Women: The Role of Social
Rights and Trade Union Leadership, New York: State University of New
York Press; Marian Sawer, Manon Tremblay, and Linda Trimble (eds.)
(2006) Representing Women in Parliament: A Comparative Study,
Abingdon and New York: Routledge; Sophie Watson (ed.) (1990)
Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions, London: Verso.
35. Chappell, Gendering Government, p. 11.
36. Murray Goot and Elizabeth Reid (1975) Women and Voting
Studies: Mindless Matrons or Sexist Scientism, Professional Papers in
Contemporary Political Sociology, Number 06–008, London: Sage;
Meryl Kenny (2013) Gender and Political Recruitment: Theorising
Institutional Change, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Mona Lena
Krook (2009) Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate
Selection Worldwide, New York: Oxford University Press.
37. Farida Jalalzai (2013) Shattered, Cracked, Or Firmly Intact? Women and
the Executive Glass Ceiling Worldwide, Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press; Torild Skard (2014) Women of Power: Half a Century of
Female Presidents and Prime Ministers Worldwide, Bristol: Policy Press.
38. Petra Meier and Emanuela Lombardo (2013) ‘Gender Quotas, Gender
Mainstreaming and Gender Relations in Politics’, Political Science 65(1):
46–62; Judith Squires (2007) The New Politics of Gender Equality,
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Mieke Verloo (2005) ‘Mainstreaming
Gender Equality in Europe: A Critical Frame Analysis Approach’, Greek
Review of Social Research 117: 11–34.
39. Chappell, Gendering Government; Jennifer Curtin and Marian Sawer
(1996) ‘Gender Equality in the Shrinking State: Women and the Great
Experiment’, in Francis G. Castles, Rolf Gerritsen, and Jack Vowles (eds.)
The Great Experiment: Labour Parties and Public Policy Transformation
in Australia and New Zealand, Auckland: Auckland University Press,
pp. 149–169; Curtin and Teghtsoonian, ‘Analysing Institutional
Persistence’; Sawer, Sisters in Suits; Sawer, The Ethical State?; Marian Sawer
(2007) ‘Australia: The Fall of the Femocrat’, in Joyce Outshoorn and
Johanna Kantola (eds.) Changing State Feminism, Houndmills, Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan; Katherine Teghtsoonian and Louise A. Chappell
(2008) ‘The Rise and Decline of Women’s Policy Machinery in British
Colombia and New South Wales: A Cautionary Tale’, International Political
Science Review 29(1): 29–51.
40. Alexandra Dobrowolsky (2003) ‘Shifting “States”: States, Strategies
and Identities: Women’s Constitutional Organizing Across Space and
Time’, in Karen Beckwith, Lee Ann Banaszak, and Dieter Rucht (eds.)
Women’s Movements Facing the Reconfigured State, Cambridge: Cambridge
132 J. CURTIN
University Press; Fiona Mackay (2006) ‘Descriptive and Substantive

Representation in New Parliamentary Spaces: The Case of Scotland’, in
Sawer, Tremblay, and Trimble (eds.) Representing Women in Parliament,
pp. 171–187; Waylen, Engendering Transitions.
41. Heather MacRae and Elaine Weiner (2017) Towards Gendering
Institutionalism: Equality in Europe, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
42. Fiona Mackay (2011) ‘Conclusion: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism?’,
in Krook and Mackay (eds.) Gender, Politics and Institutions, pp. 181–196.
43. Gretchen Bauer and Manon Tremblay (eds.) Women in Executive Power:
A Global Overview, Abingdon: Routledge; Melissa Haussman, Marian
Sawer, and Jill Vickers (eds.) (2010) Federalism, Feminism and Multilevel
Governance, Aldershot: Ashgate; Manon Tremblay (ed.) (2012) Women
and Legislative Representation: Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Sex
Quotas, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
44. Bjarnegård, Gender, Informal Institutions and Political Recruitment.
45. Andrea Krizsan, Hege Skjeie, and Judith Squires (eds.) (2012)
Institutionalizing Intersectionality: The Changing Nature of European
Equality Regimes, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Lisa Rolandsen
Agustín (2013) Gender Equality, Intersectionality, and Diversity in Europe,
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Waylen, ‘Informal Institutions, Institutional
Change and Gender Equality’, Political Research Quarterly 67(1): 212–223.
46. Waylen, Gender and Informal Institutions.
47. Krook and Mackay, Gender, Politics and Institutions.
48. Mackay, Kenny, and Chappell, ‘New Institutionalism Through a Gender
Lens’, p. 582.
49. Fiona Mackay and Georgina Waylen (eds.) (2009) ‘Critical Perspectives
on Feminist Institutionalism’, Politics & Gender 5(2): 237–280.
50. Merrindahl Andrew (2010) ‘Women’s Movement Institutionalization: The
Need for New Approaches’, Politics & Gender 6(4): 609–616; Mackay,
Kenny, and Chappell, ‘New Institutionalism Through a Gender Lens’.
51. Jennifer Curtin (2014) ‘Contemporary and Future Directions in Feminist
Institutionalism’, Politics & Gender 10(4): 698–708.
52. Krook and Mackay, Gender, Politics and Institutions.
53. Lenita Freidenvall and Mona Lena Krook (2011) ‘Discursive Strategies
for Institutional Reform: Gender Quotas in Sweden and France’, in
Krook and Mackay (eds.) Gender, Politics and Institutions.
54. Hana Hašková and Steven Saxonberg (2011) ‘The Institutional Roots
of Post-Communist Family Policy: Comparing the Czech and Slovak
Republics’, in Krook and Mackay (eds.) Gender, Politics and Institutions.
55. Meryl Kenny (2011) ‘Gender and Institutions of Political Recruitment:
Candidate Selection in Post-Devolution Scotland’, in Krook and Mackay
(eds.) Gender, Politics and Institutions.
56. Louise Chappell (2011) ‘Nested Newness and Institutional Innovation:

Expanding Gender Justice in the International Criminal Court’, in Krook
and Mackay (eds.) Gender, Politics and Institutions.
57. Fiona Mackay (2009) ‘Institutionalising “New Politics” in Post-
Devolution Scotland’.
58. Fiona Mackay (2014) ‘Nested Newness, Institutional Innovation, and the
Gendered Limits of Change’, Politics & Gender 10(4): 550.
59. Sawer, The Ethical State?
60. Waylen, Gender and Informal Institutions, p. 11; Helmke and Levitsky,
‘Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics’.
61. Louise Chappell (2006) ‘Comparing Institutions: Revealing the
“Gendered Logic of Appropriateness”’, Politics & Gender 2(2): 223–235;
Mackay, ‘Conclusion’, p. 181.
62. Krizsan et al., ‘Institutionalizing Intersectionality’, p. 19.
63. Krizsan et al., ‘Institutionalizing Intersectionality’, p. 237.
CHAPTER 7
Gender Research and the Study

of Institutional Transfer
and Norm Transmission
Jacqui True
The investigation of ‘transnational networks’ by gender-focused

researchers represents a major theoretical and methodological contri-
bution to the understanding of institutional transfer and norm diffu-
sion. Feminist political scientists and international relations scholars
have highlighted the role of transnational feminist networks across the
twentieth century in the diffusion of the suffrage, gender quotas, gen-
der mainstreaming institutions and violence against women (VAW) law
and policy. By contrast with conventional analysis of institutional trans-
fer and norm diffusion, they have analysed the diffusion of norms and
policies as a dynamic and contested process involving the ongoing trans-
formation of the networks disseminating these norms and policies as
well. Transnational activist networks, like the norms they seek to diffuse,
are processes or ‘works in progress’ that are not linear or fixed. Such
networks do not merely serve as transmission belts to spread norms.
They are mechanisms of norm emergence, contestation, transformation
J. True (*) 
Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
e-mail: jacqui.true@monash.edu

136 J. TRUE
and impact as well as diffusion. Feminists and gender researchers have

addressed the practical challenges in researching these networks with
innovative methodological approaches in order to conceptualise these
networks, evaluate their impact and operationalise their influence on
institutional outcomes.
The chapter consists of three main parts. The first part reviews the
international relations constructivist research agenda that brought
the analysis of norm diffusion and transnational networks to the fore-
front of theoretical debate in the 1990s. The second part analyses fem-
inist and postcolonial contributions to this scholarly debate advocating
more dynamic accounts of diffusion and of networks. The third and final
part of the chapter explores how feminist researchers have forged new
methods for studying transnational networks not merely as agenda set-
ters but as mechanisms of norm emergence, evolution, localisation and
impact. In this chapter, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda
established at the United Nations Security Council in 2000 serves as a
contemporary example to illustrate how transnational feminist networks
work in highly dynamic ways, shaping and contesting the very content of
international norms.
Norms and Policy Transfer:

A Non-normative Agenda
Social constructivist scholars in the field of international relations,
including gender and postcolonial scholars, argue that norms constitute
structures that shape state identities, redefining their interests and their
interstate interactions.1 Such an approach challenges conventional real-
ist and liberal approaches to international relations, which explain state
behaviour with respect to a fixed set of national interests based on the
distribution of material capabilities and power and/or the presence of
regimes and institutions. Despite this constructivist theoretical contribu-
tion, international relations scholarship on norms has evolved as a mostly
empirical research agenda. Norms are seen to originate in the initiatives
of purposive state or non-state actors that seek normative change and
moral progress. Constructivist scholars proposed that state behaviour
was influenced less by power than by a ‘logic of appropriateness’ guid-
ing social interactions with other states, where states engage in norm-
compliant behaviour based on particular state identities and to ensure
mutual recognition by other states.
7 GENDER RESEARCH AND THE STUDY OF INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFER … 137
It is 20 years since Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink published

their article ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political Change’, a
milestone in the international relations study of norms. That article put
forward a model for studying how norms catch on and spread within and
across states. Scholars at the time sought to explain how and why norms
share similar basic characteristics across countries and time and have their
intended effects. In Finnemore and Sikkink’s analysis, norm life cycles
consist of three main stages.2 The first stage, norm emergence, is char-
acterised by agenda-setting activity where norm entrepreneurs, often
civil society leaders or organisations, aim to persuade a critical mass
of states to adopt the norm. The second stage, norm cascade, occurs
when more and more states adopt the norm imitating and socialising
each other. The third and final stage involves a process of norm inter-
nalisation, when the implementation and institutionalisation of the norm
result in compliant behaviour that is taken for granted and no longer a
matter for contentious public debate.
The complexity of the diffusion process has led scholars to theorise
three other types of dynamics, in addition to Finnemore and Sikkink’s
theory of tipping points and norm cascades.3 These include moves
towards a shared modern world culture4; boomerang effects facilitated
by transnational advocacy networks5; and spiral models of domestic
change and resistance.6 In this first generation of norms research during
the 1990s, it was innovative to demonstrate the role of non-state actors
in affecting international change in the field of international relations
dominated by state-centric theories. Finnemore and Sikkink explain:
‘Norms do not appear out of thin air: They are actively built by agents’,7
notably by transnational advocacy networks.8 Keck and Sikkink’s ‘boo-
merang model’ illustrated how advocacy networks of human rights
groups promote the international diffusion of norms. They enable local
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other actors to influence
state behaviour when domestic political avenues are blocked through
their connections with NGOs and non-state actors in sympathetic states
willing to advocate on their behalf at the international level. As a result
of this scholarship, there has been an explosion of both conceptual and
empirical research on norms.
Significantly, the theory of norm diffusion in international relations
was first developed on the basis of ‘gender’ cases. Subsequently, other
scholars have used the norm life cycle model to explain the diffusion of
a range of norms. Finnemore and Sikkink applied the norm life cycle
138 J. TRUE
model to explain the diffusion of women’s equal right to vote that

expanded the suffrage to half the world’s population as well as to the
laws of war.9 In the case of the suffrage, they showed how an interna-
tional norm—which often came into conflict with tightly held domestic
norms—was adopted even where there was no obvious state interest in
doing so. Moreover, in Activists Beyond Borders, Keck and Sikkink ana-
lysed the emergence of a transnational advocacy network to promote
the norm opposed to VAW.10 They argue that the recognition of vio-
lations of physical bodily integrity as wrong was key to the success of
the advocacy campaign, but do not explore the VAW concept in-depth
in terms of its conceptualisation, contested content and local meaning
in use. Rather, case studies of this norm and related norms concerning
foot-binding and female genital mutilation are also explored to illus-
trate the dynamic of diffusion and the agency of non-state actors in this
process.
Towards a Dynamic Account of Diffusion

Following the first decade of scholarship on international norms, gender
and postcolonial international relations scholars have been critical in tak-
ing forward Keck and Sikkink11 and Finnemore and Sikkink’s12 initial
focus on gender equality norms. These scholars challenged the linear-
ity and determinism of the norm life cycle, advocating a more dynamic
theory of normative change wherein norms are conceived as ‘works in
progress’ or ‘processes’ rather than ‘things’ or ‘finished products’. Mona
Lena Krook and Jacqui True argued that the international norms liter-
ature was characterised by a key tension: ‘a relatively static depiction of
norm content, juxtaposed against a comparatively dynamic account of
norm creation, diffusion and socialization’.13 To redress this problem,
Antje Wiener led the way eschewing the notion of fixed norms and intro-
ducing the concept of the meaning of a norm ‘in use’ which can be read-
ily traced through empirical study.14
Exploring two different international norms and their reception in
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Amitav Acharya
argued that while norm diffusion may begin with entrepreneurs in
the Global North, the adoption and diffusion of a norm is dependent
upon how local actors adapt the meaning of a norm to fit with prior
norms and identities, in ways not always visible to outsiders.15 Feminist
research has contributed to a ‘rethinking of norm life cycle theory’.
It has provided a key reference point in international relations construc-

tivist understandings about the dynamic character of norm diffusion and,
more significantly, norm content. Introducing an approach that focuses
on the discursive construction of meaning, Krook and True demon-
strated how norms in this area assumed various meanings after they were
first articulated by the United Nations (UN).16 Norms are anchored in
language and revealed by repeated speech acts, leading to a semblance
rather than the reality of permanence or institutionalisation. This discur-
sive understanding of norms was based on an analysis of significant shifts
and transformations in the evolution of gender equality norms in inter-
state agreements and forums over half a century.17 As Nuket Kardam ear-
lier exposed with respect to the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the life cycle of the
global gender equality regime has been a ‘story of debate, contestation
and dissent in norm development’.18 Susanne Zwingel further argues
that the impact of the CEDAW convention is ultimately the result of
the practical ability of diverse women’s rights actors around the world
to build connections between their specific domestic contexts and val-
ues, and the international instrument.19 Given this practice, the four
models of norm diffusion discussed above appear linear and deterministic
by contrast with how gender equality norms such as quotas and gender
mainstreaming have evolved over a century, subject to ongoing internal
and external contestation.
Zwingel20 as well as Krook and True21 suggest that rather than think-
ing of women’s rights exclusively as fixed normative content, it is bet-
ter to see them as ‘in process’. With this feminist conception of norms
as discursive processes, the sources of dynamism behind norm definition
and development are both internal and external: (1) those ‘internal’ to
norms, generated by continuing debates, especially among transna-
tional activists and experts, over their exact definitions and meanings,
and (2) those ‘external’ to norms, stemming from changes in broader
normative environments, consisting of other norms that are themselves
‘works in progress’. For instance, in the former, debates surrounding
one set of norms may give rise to new norms while in the latter, align-
ment with other norms may facilitate their broader resonance. ‘Norm
internalisation by its very nature requires silencing, as meaning is made
precisely by demarcating that which is outside the limits of discourse’,
and this silencing may engender further normative debate and contes-
tation.22 At the same time, the broader normative environment may
140 J. TRUE
inspire alternative interpretations, as supporters and opponents struggle

to flesh out the content of a given norm. In other words, dynamism is
a double-edged sword: it promotes the creation of new norms, but also
increases possibilities for advocates to ‘lose control’ over meanings and,
in turn, over how new norms are implemented. Krook and True23 pro-
pose that focusing on the fluid meaning of a norm offers a way of gain-
ing greater analytical leverage for explaining why norms—such as gender
equality norms—emerge and appear to diffuse rapidly, at the same time
that they rarely achieve their intended aims or have disappointing ‘con-
crete effects’.
Research on the UN Security Council’s WPS normative agenda illus-
trates the contribution of gender scholarship to a more dynamic under-
standing of international norms and norm diffusion. WPS is an example
of a relatively broad and non-binding UN normative framework that has
changed as it has diffused in the international system.24 The ambiguity
and vagueness in the normative agenda explains both its success and its
limitations with respect to actual implementation, validating the dynamic
theory of ‘norms as processes’.
Resolution 1325 is the founding UN Security Council resolution that
established the WPS agenda. The resolution was the outcome of large-
scale and sustained activism by WPS advocates around the world, inside
and outside of the UN. It formally recognises that women’s experiences
of conflict are different from men’s experiences, that women have been
largely excluded from peace and security decision-making and therefore,
that a gender perspective on peace and security and conflict prevention
is essential.25 Over the course of a decade, 1325 has been interpreted as
having four main pillars: protection against sexual and gender-based vio-
lence; promoting women’s participation in peace and security processes;
supporting women’s roles as peace builders in the prevention of conflict;
and addressing gender equality issues in relief and recovery.26 The crea-
tion of the pillar framework and uneven reference to and development of
the different pillars has facilitated shifts and modifications in the content
of the WPS agenda over time, leading to varying meanings and imple-
mentation in practice across almost two decades.
The WPS agenda is fraught with contestation and reversals as state
and non-state actors compete to identify, define and implement it.
Although the WPS four pillars and their implementation were intended
to be interconnected, different aspects of the agenda have taken prece-
dence and been promoted over others. Moreover, although many types
of states across different global regions have implemented WPS national

action plans (NAPs), the majority are still northern and/or developed
nations.27 NAP adopters generally share a high degree of democratisa-
tion, normative commitments to women’s rights as indicated by their
unreserved ratification of the UN CEDAW treaty and the presence of
higher levels of representation of women in power.28
With respect to internal sources of dynamism and contestation, con-
flict-related sexual violence has become a disproportionate focus in WPS
UN Security Council resolutions and UN or member state policies by
contrast with the period between 2000 and 2008, which was marked
by relative silence on the WPS in the Security Council and wider inter-
national community. Between 2008 and 2016, there were five resolu-
tions and 14 presidential statements adopted with specific reference to
action required of the UN Security Council to hear reports on situations
where sexual violence is occurring.29 A sixth resolution was introduced in
March 2016 on addressing and reporting sexual exploitation and abuse
by UN peacekeepers.30 Non-state actors represented by the 1325 NGO
Working Group have argued that the focus on protection against sexual
violence highlights the victimisation rather than the agency of women in
peace and security. As such normative contestation over the prioritisation
of protection over participation in the WPS agenda has been a continual
theme since 2008.31
Contestation of the WPS norm has also challenged the binary concep-
tion of male sex and female sex, which are to be found at the heart of the
1325 and later resolutions. WPS resolutions over nearly two decades have
progressively recognised greater diversity and intersectionality in the cate-
gory of woman (girls/youth, minority status/ethnicity, disability) as well
as recognising the category of men and boys (gender rather than sex) par-
ticularly as victims of sexual and gender-based violence. This has not simply
added to the normative content of the WPS norm by expanding it to other
groups but altered it by changing the meaning of gender as it has been
understood in the peace and security realm and implemented in practice.
At the same time, internal dynamism in the WPS norm can be seen
across global regions, as domestic actors may reject dominant ‘protec-
tion’ frames using different frames as they adapt WPS for their own
context. This can be seen in African states, where the ‘development’
frame is predominantly used to localise WPS as a women’s empower-
ment issue in the context of conflicts fuelled and affected by poverty and
underdevelopment.32
142 J. TRUE
With respect to external sources of dynamism, the WPS norm has

had to accommodate issues of terrorism, violent extremism, migra-
tion and displacement as well as armed conflict threats to security and
to gender equality. As such, the WPS norm and its focus on women’s
roles in prevention of violence as well on protection from conflict-re-
lated sexual violence have been rethought and applied to a different set
of issues. Further, the increased influence of norms of gender balance in
political representation and economic governance following the global
financial crisis have also influenced the broader normative environ-
ment for WPS. As a result, women’s equal inclusion in peace processes
including at negotiation tables has been progressively promoted similar
to the advocacy for gender representation on corporate board and the
use of evidence on the investment returns from women’s presence in
decision-making.
While the discussion of women’s representation in peace processes
is in many respects an advance in the global WPS normative agenda in
progress, the fixation on quantifiable nature of the number of women
with a seat at the peace table appears to have become an end in itself.
As a result, in recent UN member state debates and policies the focus
has been on adding women rather than transforming gender relations.33
To date only the Colombian peace process ‘has addressed gender con-
cerns (including sexual violence) in a systematic manner that exempli-
fies the aims of the Security Council resolutions 1325 (2000) and 1820
(2008)’.34 The Syrian peace talks hardly involve any women who do not
represent armed groups and this is the same for the ongoing Myanmar
peace talks involving multiple ethnic armed groups. The normative issue
of which women? and what agendas do they bring? has been largely side-
lined by states. Yet this is the discussion that women’s rights activists and
scholars want to have. Following from gender quota debates in the realm
of domestic politics, current WPS debate contests the focus on count-
ing women at the peace table, highlighting the importance of making
women’s participation count in substantive peace agendas. NGO advo-
cates campaign for ‘meaningful’ women’s participation, asking how can
societies be rebuilt in ways that ensure the sustainability of peace and rec-
ognise the agency of women?35 The language of meaningful participation
is echoed in the most recent UN Security Council resolutions.
As I argue in the next section, the impact of the external norm envi-
ronment on the normative content of ‘WPS’ is inseparable from the
evolution of transnational feminist networks that include advocates,
gender experts, NGOs and states that are friends and allies of WPS 
as they seek to change the gendered norms and agents of peace and
security.
Innovative Approaches to Studying Networks

In addition to offering more dynamic theories of norms and norm diffu-
sion, gender researchers have forged new approaches to conceptualising
and studying transnational networks. They have contributed to meth-
odological innovation in this field in two ways. First, they have argued
that transnational networks rather than individual norm entrepreneurs
are agents of norms as dynamic, discursive processes beyond the agenda-
setting stage through the evolution, localisation and impact of a norm.
In focusing on the ‘norm’ rather than the dynamic process, conventional
scholarship misses an important part of diffusion—the transformation of
the content both of norms and of the transnational networks that dis-
seminate them. Second, they have broken new ground in the empirical
study of transnational networks, developing methods to trace and map
networks within and across state and non-state actors.
The growing literature on the role of transnational feminist networks
in the diffusion of gender-related norms such as suffrage, gender quo-
tas, gender mainstreaming institutions and VAW law and policy shows
how networks are mechanisms of norm diffusion.36 These networks
work across jurisdictions negotiating and localising international norms
to bring about social change as well as normative change. Much of this
work is premised on generations of advocacy at local and national lev-
els to frame ideas, build coalitions and open windows of opportunity.37
Going global may be intended to generate further support and shatter
national and international roadblocks to change but the act of linking
causes across spaces also transforms the activism and the norms struggled
for. That is to say, transnational networks are mechanisms of norm emer-
gence, contestation, transformation and impact rather than diffusion
understood as a linear, one-way process.
Networks are viewed as agents of norms ‘in progress’ in gender
scholarship, not as norm entrepreneurs as theorised in the international
relations constructivist literature on international norms. If norms are
unfinished, dynamic processes, then networks may over time alter or even
radically transform their content as well as their meanings. Networks
work in highly dynamic ways, shaping and contesting the content and
144 J. TRUE
meaning of international norms. They frequently play an important and

increasing role beyond the emergence of a new norm as the norm in pro-
cess attains a level of international recognition and as the networks them-
selves become more professionalised and expert, and closely connected
with governments and international organisations. By contrast, the norm
entrepreneur is typically understood as an individual leader or group—
rather than a loosely connected network that actively shapes a work in
progress norm in unintended ways as a product of its own changing
form.38
Some international relations scholars have argued that norms research
is overly ‘agent-focused’ or that norms have virtually attained the status
of structures in constructivism. Feminist research is both structure and
agent focused: in recognising the ongoing constitution of norms, this
research confers an active role to agents in identifying and interpreting
policy problems.39 Theorising advocacy networks as dynamic, with chang-
ing membership and political agendas, mediates the tension between
analysing agency versus structure. As Susanne Zwingel argues, transna-
tional networks ‘have their own political agendas and are not automati-
cally supporters of international norms’.40 They engage in ‘trial and error
processes in the nexus between theory and practice’ to see what works in
translating ‘abstract norms into more concrete policy goals’.41
Transnational feminist networks engage in critical knowledge build-
ing to solve problems. They are not necessarily in agreement but engage
in dialogue, critique and contestation, and reflexivity, as discussed above
with respect to the protection and participation pillars of the WPS
agenda. Rather than promoting a fixed norm with core content there-
fore, they aim at a process to keep building the norm and dialogue about
the norm. This commitment to process makes women’s rights activists
cross-cultural theorists of norm diffusion: networks of women’s rights
activists provide practical methodologies for developing a ‘norm in
process’ typically within highly politicised contexts.42 This makes femi-
nist and gender research essentially pragmatist. A feminist pragmatist
approach implies that agents such as transnational networks can be criti-
cised for constructing more or less useful ‘meanings in use’ of a norm.43
For instance, Krook and True argue that certain meanings of the mega
gender equality norm empower technocrats and gender experts rather
than grass-roots women.44 This raises questions of the normativity of the
norm as well as the diffusion processes.
As documented in much of feminist political science and international
relations scholarship on institutional transfer and norm diffusion, what a
norm means theoretically and how it should be applied is effectively sorted

out in practice. Ambiguity and/or multiple meanings of the WPS nor-
mative agenda have over time led to the reformulation of the norm and
the network that promotes it. For instance, the priority given to increas-
ing women’s participation in peace and security has required new alliances
with national militaries and international organisations such as the North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Organisation for Security
and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Such alliances would not have
been envisioned or supported when the norm was being created. Thus,
the transnational network advocating for WPS has expanded and altered
over time, lessening the influence of non-state civil society peace organi-
sations in the definition and ‘meaning in use’ of the norm.45 This is just
one example; the gradual recognition of greater diversity in the category of
women and intersectionality with age and minority status discussed above
is another foundational shift in the core content of the WPS norm pro-
moted by the growth in the transnational network engaged with it.
The second innovation of feminist and gender research on institu-
tional transfer and norm diffusion is empirical rather than theoretical.
Here, gender researchers have developed concrete ways to study and
measure the effects of transnational networks, thus addressing some of
the practical challenges in the broader field of research.
They have conceptualised these networks and how they work as insider-
outsider support structures46; cutting across our nation state units of
analysis by sharing networking strategies and policy learning across often
diffuse agendas. They have sought to measure the influence of civil soci-
ety actors transnationally on key policy outcomes such as the rise of new
laws to reduce and end VAW.47 Gender researchers have also sought to
operationalise the concept of transnational networks as a variable in sta-
tistical analysis and assess how they affect institutional outcomes such
as gender mainstreaming institutions and gender quotas in democratic
electoral systems.48 They have shown how networks play a critical role
in the adoption of new institutions promoting gender equality but that
they do not work as a unified movement. For instance, Hughes, Krook
and Paxton find that women’s transnational organising is constituted by
diverse and often confronting agendas that may work against the adoption
of gender quotas despite the international support for them.49
The innovation in this scholarship consists not merely in the research
findings but in the creation of new knowledge through global databases
that collect data on relevant women’s organisations, pro-gender equal-
ity laws, quotas and institutions. In all the research cited here, feminist
146 J. TRUE
scholars could not rely on existing knowledge or databases but had to

methodically and often laboriously construct their own from the ground
up, enlisting the assistance of key partners in policy and justice institu-
tions and civil society. These databases are used by non-gender research-
ers to address their own research questions, which may not be focused
on gender and politics, but where it is now possible to see whether
gender plays a role.
Studying the impact of transnational networks on the spread and
localisation of the WPS normative agenda is still at an incipient stage.
Fifteen years after the adoption of 1325, the Security Council has stated
deep concerns about the ‘persistent obstacles and challenges to women’s
participation and full involvement’ in peace and security and ‘the neg-
ative impact this has on durable peace, security and reconciliation’.50
Transnational networks of advocates are engaged in ongoing norm
creation and help shape WPS global policy discourse. The latter itself
emerges through ongoing debate and contestation, notably through the
annual Open Debate at the UN Security Council.51 They are key actors
in the localisation of WPS norms in peace operations where women’s
organisations often work closely on the ground with UN peace-building
missions.52 The dynamics of practical implementation are a crucial part
of international norm contestation and introduce varied opportunities
for transformation of the WPS norm through alignment and cooperation
in external norm environments. Transnational feminist networks help to
evolve and align the norm with these external environments by making
connections between WPS and other cross-cutting agendas—such as
children and armed conflict, human rights protection, disarmament and
arms control, countering violent extremism, disaster-preparedness and
so on.53 The activism of networks ensures that WPS is not co-opted by
security apparatuses and state interests for instrumental purposes alone
and that the normative goals of gender equality and non-violent peace
are sustained as the goals against which all WPS operational achieve-
ments in peace and security realms can be assessed.
Conclusion
This chapter has explored feminist and gender research approaches to
international norm diffusion that highlight the dynamism and provisional
nature of norms especially gender equality-type norms, which are neces-
sarily ‘works in progress’. Transnational feminist networks are analysed
as mechanisms of norm dynamism and contestation as well as highly

dynamic and shifting agents themselves. While highlighting scholarship
on a range of gender equality norms, the chapter applied the ‘norm as
process’ approach to the contemporary spread and localisation of the
WPS normative agenda. I argue that the theoretical and empirical explo-
ration of transnational feminist networks represents a major contribu-
tion of feminist scholarship to the understanding of institutional transfer
and norm diffusion. These transnational networks do not merely serve
as transmission belts to spread norms. They are mechanisms of norm
emergence, contestation, transformation, localisation and impact as well
as diffusion. The case of the WPS agenda established at the UN Security
Council in 2000 reveals how these networks work in highly dynamic
ways, shaping and contesting the very content of new and existing
norms. They push back on the instrumentalisation of the norm as it is
captured by more professionalised and expert knowledge within govern-
ments and international organisations.
Scholars have rightly revised our understanding of norms, so they are
seen as dynamic and contested rather than fixed entities. More atten-
tion now needs to be focused on the changing nature of these networks,
which are agents of international diffusion as well as to the content of
the norms themselves as they spread. Studies of diffusion should seek
to understand where norms come from and how content of norms
changes over time and across jurisdictions through dynamic contes-
tation promoted by transnational networks that are also contested and
ever-changing. As shown here, a feminist or gender-informed approach
is attentive to these discursive origins and trajectories of both agents and
structures. Feminist research is both structure and agent focused, and
looks beyond the moment of norm creation and agenda setting. Feminist
theorising and empirical study of norm diffusion has influenced theories
and modelling of norms beyond cases related to gender relations. It has
encouraged other scholars to carefully study the strategies and actions of
transnational networks and examine their effects inter alia on sustainabil-
ity norms in the World Bank, conditional cash transfers in the Americas
and on local climate strategies in European cities.54 At the same time, a
feminist-informed approach to norms as ‘works in progress’ has inspired
research on ambivalent localisation of the ‘responsibility to protect’ norm
in South-East Asia and on the incomplete rise of the ‘inclusivity’ norm in
peace-building and state-building.55 In these cases, the scholarship has
significant policy implications for activist and policy networks and, like
148 J. TRUE
feminist scholarship, demonstrates attentiveness to this social context as

well as to the impact of norms research on actual processes of interna-
tional diffusion.
Notes
1. Birgit Locher and Elisabeth Prügl (2001) ‘Feminism and Constructivism:
Worlds Apart or Sharing the Middle Ground?’, International Studies
2. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) ‘International Norm
Dynamics and Political Change’, International Organization 52(4): 887–
917, p. 895.
3. Finnemore and Sikkink, ‘International Norm Dynamics and Political
Change’.
4. John W. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez
(1997) ‘World Society and the Nation-State’, American Journal of
Sociology 103(1): 144–181.
5. Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) Advocacy Beyond Borders:
Transnational Activist Networks in International Politics, Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
6. Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.) The Power of
Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Change’, p. 888.
8. Keck and Sikkink, Advocacy Beyond Borders.
Change’.
Change’.
13. Jacqui True and Mona Lena Krook (2012) ‘Rethinking the Life Cycles
of International Norms: The United Nations and the Global Promotion
of Gender Equality’, European Journal of International Relations 18(1):
103–127, p. 104.
14. Antje Wiener (2004) ‘Contested Compliance: Interventions on the
Normative Structure of World Politics’, European Journal of International
Relations 10: 189–234; Antje Wiener (2009) ‘Enacting Meaning-in-Use:
Qualitative Research on Norms and International Relations’, Review
of International Studies 35: 175–193; Antje Wiener (2014) A Theory
of Contestation, Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer. In her most recent
contribution to the literature, her empirical cases include gender equality

norms (see Antje Wiener [2018] Constitution and Contestation of Norms
in Global International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), in particular the prohibition norm against the use of sexual vio-
lence in conflict, drawing on (among others) Sarah Davies and Jacqui
True (2017) ‘Norm Entrepreneurship in International Politics: William
Hague and the Prevention of Sexual Violence in Conflict’, Foreign Policy
Analysis 13(3): 701–772; and Torunn L. Tryggestad (2009) ‘Trick or
Treat? The UN and Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325
on Women, Peace and Security’, Global Governance 15: 539–557.
15. Amitav Acharya (2004) ‘How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter?
Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism’,
International Organization 58: 239–275.
16. Krook and True, ‘Rethinking the Life Cycles of International Norms’.
17. See also Charlotte Epstein (2012) ‘Stop Telling Us How to Behave:
Socialization or Infantilization?’, International Studies Perspectives 13:
135–145.
18. Nüket Kardam (2004) ‘The Emerging Global Gender Equality Regime
from Neoliberal and Constructivist Perspectives in International
Relations’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 6(1): 85–109, p. 91.
19. Susanne Zwingel (2012) ‘How Do Norms Travel?’, International
Studies Quarterly 56(1): 115–129; Susanne Zwingel (2015) Translating
International Women’s Rights: CEDAW in Context, London: Palgrave.
20. Susanne Zwingel (2013) ‘Translating International Women’s Rights
Norms’, in Gülay Caglar, Elisabeth Prügl, and Susanne Zwingel (eds.)
Feminist Strategies in International Governance, New York: Routledge,
pp. 110–126; Zwingel, Translating International Women’s Rights.
22. Krook and True, ‘Rethinking the Life Cycles of International Norms’,
p. 108.
24. Security Council resolutions are only binding on UN member states if
they are adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. However, the
WPS resolutions are adopted under Chapter VI, so they are non-binding.
25. Felicity Hill, Mikele Aboitiz, and Sara Poehlman-Doumbouya (2003)
‘Nongovernmental Organisations’ Role in the Buildup and Implementation
of Security Council Resolution 1325’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture
and Society 28(4): 1255–1269.
26. The four WPS pillars are stated in the UN Strategic Results Framework
for WPS implementation 2011–2020. See United Nations (2011) UN
Strategic Results Framework on Women, Peace and Security: 2011–2020.
Available at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/ianwge/taskforces/wps/
Strategic_Framework_2011-2020.pdf.
150 J. TRUE
27. Jutta M. Joachim and Andrea Schneiker (2012) ‘Changing Discourses,

Changing Practices?’, Comparative European Politics 10(5): 528–563;
Annika Bjorkdahl and J. M. Selimovic (2015) ‘Translating UNSCR
1325 from the Global to the National: Protection, Representation and
Participation in the National Action Plans of Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Rwanda’, Conflict, Security and Development 15(4): 311–335.
28. Jacqui True (2016) ‘Explaining the Global Diffusion of the Women,
Peace and Security Agenda’, International Political Science Review 37(3):
307–323.
29. Davies and True, ‘Norm Entrepreneurship in International Politics’, p. 703.
30. Resolutions 1888 (2008), 1889 (2009), 1920 (2013), 2122 (2014),
2242 (2015), and Security Council resolution 2272 (2016) March 11,
2016, S/RES/2272.
31. See Maria Jansson and Maud Eduards (2016) ‘The Politics of Gender in
the UN Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security’,
International Feminist Journal of Politics 18(4): 590–604; Anne-Kathrin
Kreft (2016) ‘The Gender Mainstreaming Gap: Security Council Resolution
1325 and UN Peacekeeping Mandates’, International Peacekeeping 24(1):
132–158; Laura J. Shepherd and Paul Kirby (2016) ‘The Futures Past of
Women, Peace and Security’, International Affairs 92(2): 373–392.
32. Carrie Reiling (2017) ‘Incorporating Development into the Women,
Peace, and Security Agenda’, Paper Presented at the International Studies
Association Conference, Baltimore.
33. Laurel Stone (2015) ‘Quantitative Analysis of Women’s Participation in
Peace Processes’, in Reimagining Peacemaking: Women’s Roles in Peace
Processes, Washington, DC: Institute for International Peace.
34. UN Secretary-General (2016) Report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence,
S/2016/361, 22 June, p. 1 (5/34).
35. See Thania Paffenholz, Nicholas Ross, Stephen Dixon, A. L. Schluchter,
and Jacqui True (2016) Making Women Count—Not Just Counting
Women, New York: Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative and
UN Women; Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
(2017) Obstacles to Women’s Meaningful Participation in Peace
Efforts in Ukraine: Impact of Austerity Measures and Stigmatisation of
Organisations Working for Dialogue Universal Periodic Review of Ukraine
Joint submission to the UPR Working Group 28th Session.
36. Melanie M. Hughes, Mona Lena Krook, and Pamela Paxton (2015)
‘Transnational Women’s Activism and the Global Diffusion of Gender
Quotas’, International Studies Quarterly 59(2): 359–372; Mala Htun
and S. Laurel Weldon (2012) ‘The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy
Change: Combating Violence Against Women in Global Perspective,
1975–2005’, American Political Science Review 106(3): 548–569;
Pamela Paxton, Melanie Hughes, and Jennifer Green (2006) ‘The

International Women’s Movement and Women’s Political Representation
1893–2003’, American Sociological Review 71: 893–920; Jacqui True
and Michael Mintrom (2001) ‘Transnational Networks and Policy
Diffusion’, International Studies Quarterly 45(1): 27–57.
37. Jutta M. Joachim (2008) Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs. Gender
Violence and Reproductive Rights, Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press; Zwingel, Translating International Women’s Rights.
38. Ethan A. Nadelmann (1990) ‘Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution
of Norms in International Society’, International Organization 44:
479–526.
39. Carol Lee Bacchi (1999) Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of
Policy Problems, London: Sage.
40. Zwingel, ‘Translating International Women’s Rights Norms’, p. 113.
41. Krook and True, ‘Rethinking the Life Cycles of International Norms’, p. 117.
42. See Brooke A. Ackerly (2003) ‘Women’s Human Rights Activists as
Cross-Cultural Theorists’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 3(3):
311–346.
43. See J. Ann Tickner and Jacqui True (2018) ‘A Century of International
Relations Feminism: From World War One Women’s Peace Pragmatism
to the Women, Peace and Security Agenda’, International Studies
Quarterly, forthcoming.
45. See Sarah Hewitt (2017) ‘Gender, Peace and Security in the Australian
Defence Force: In conversation with Captain Jennifer Wittwer, CSM,
RAN’, International Feminist Journal of Politics 19(1): 104–111; Louise
Olsson and Theodora-Ismene Gizelis (eds.) (2015) Gender, Peace and
Security, New York: Routledge.
46. Marian Sawer and Sandra L. Grey (eds.) (2009) Women’s Movements:
Flourishing or in Abeyance? New York: Routledge.
47. Htun and Weldon, ‘The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change’.
48. On gender mainstreaming institutions, see True and Mintrom,
‘Transnational Networks and Policy Diffusion’; on gender quotas, see
Hughes, Krook, and Paxton, ‘Transnational Women’s Activism and the
Global Diffusion of Gender Quotas’.
49. Hughes, Krook, and Paxton, ‘Transnational Women’s Activism and the
Global Diffusion of Gender Quotas’.
50. See UNSCR 1820 (2008) preamble and UNSCR 1889 (2009) preamble.
51. Samantha Cook (2016) ‘The ‘Women in Conflict’ at the UN Security
Council’, International Affairs 92(2): 353–372.
52. See Hannah Donges and Janosch Kullenberg (2018) ‘What Works in
Protection? Revisiting POC and WPS Practices from MONUSCO to
152 J. TRUE
UNMISS’, in Sara E. Davies and Jacqui True (eds.) The Oxford Handbook
on Women, Peace and Security, New York: Oxford University Press.
53. See, for example, Ray Acheson and Maria Butler (2018) ‘Women, Peace
and Security and the Arms Trade Treaty’, in Davies and True (eds.) The
Oxford Handbook on Women, Peace and Security.
54. Susan Park (2005) ‘Norm Diffusion Within International Organizations:
A Case Study of the World Bank’, Journal of International Relations
and Development 8(2): 111–141; Natasha Borges Sugiyama (2011)
‘The Diffusion of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in the Americas’,
Global Social Policy 11(2–3): 250–278; Lukas Hakelberg (2014)
‘Governance by Diffusion: Transnational Municipal Networks and the
Spread of Local Climate Strategies in Europe’, Global Environmental
Politics 14(1): 107–129.
55. David Capie (2012) ‘The Responsibility to Protect Norm in Southeast
Asia: Framing, Resistance and the Localization Myth’, The Pacific
Review 25(1): 75–93; Timothy Donais and Erin McCandless (2017)
‘International Peace Building and the Emerging Inclusivity Norm’, Third
World Quarterly 38(2): 291–310.
CHAPTER 8
Gender Research in International

Relations
J. Ann Tickner
International politics has been a world of male policymakers, soldiers and

diplomats. Although this is changing, when women first entered govern-
ment they tended to be located in ministries that dealt with social ser-
vices and education rather than foreign policy. It is hardly surprising,
therefore, that the discipline that studies international politics tends to
be heavily male. Making this masculine character even more pronounced
is the fact that international relations (IR) has, until recently, been dom-
inated by security studies. For example, in a review article marking the
100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, only eight out of sev-
enty three references were authored by women and six of the eight were
authored by the same woman.1 Of all the subfields of political science,
IR has been the most resistant to adopting a gender perspective.
Since the end of the Cold War, the field has broadened considerably
to include issues of human rights, global economic justice and the envi-
ronment, fields to which women and feminists tend to be contributors.
And, in the last ten years, a thriving field of feminist security studies
has also emerged. However, most IR feminist research has tended to
J. A. Tickner (*) 
American University, Washington, DC, USA
e-mail: tickner@usc.edu

154 J. A. TICKNER
adopt critical or ‘post positivist’ methodologies. In this chapter, I shall

first introduce some classic works in the field to illustrate IR’s masculine
bias. In the second part, I will survey some of the very rich literature that
has entered the field since feminist IR began in the late 1980s includ-
ing a discussion of some of the methodological issues that feminists have
raised. Finally, I will discuss some of the ways in which IR feminist litera-
ture has contributed to shaping and influencing the policy environment.
International Relations: A Masculine Discipline

In The Twenty Years Crisis 1919–1934, published in 1964, historian and
IR scholar E. H. Carr claimed that it was the devastating events of World
War I that motivated the founding of the discipline of IR.2 According
to Carr, the initial focus of this new discipline was the desire to pre-
vent another war. But when a war of even greater devastation broke
out in 1939, the disillusionment with what was seen as mistaken ideal-
ism, embodied in the pacifist policies of democratic states in the 1930s,
moved certain scholars towards what they termed a more ‘realistic’
approach to international politics. The central concern of realism, the
dominant IR approach up until the end of the Cold War, was with issues
of war and national security. Realists take as their basic assumption a dan-
gerous world devoid of an overarching authority to keep the peace. In
this ‘anarchical’ world, realists prescribe the accumulation of power and
military strength to assure state survival. Since many of these post–World
War II scholars were European Jews whose lives had been disrupted by
the ideologies of totalitarian regimes of the 1930s, realism strove for an
objectivist methodology that could offer universalistic explanations for
the behaviour of states across time and space.
Hans Morgenthau, a German Jew fleeing from Nazi persecution and
often labelled as the ‘founding father’ of realism, was determined to
put IR on a more scientific footing in order to overcome what he saw
as the dangers of Fascist ideology. His famous six principles have been
much cited as guidelines for political realism.3 Morgenthau claimed that
politics is governed by objective laws that are rooted in human nature
which is unchanging and that it is possible to develop rational theo-
ries that reflect these objective laws. The signpost of political realism is
interest defined in terms of power, which he defined as control of man
over man, a concept that he claimed has universal validity. Morgenthau
believed that national interest defined in terms of power would save us
8 GENDER RESEARCH IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 155
from the moral excesses of political folly. In order to develop an auton-

omous theory of political behaviour, political man must be abstracted
from other aspects of human behaviour. Although Morgenthau
developed his theory as a guide for US foreign policy in the Cold
War, Politics Among Nations is a text used widely even in coun-
tries that could never hope to attain the level of power about which
Morgenthau is talking.
In the 1960s, particularly in the USA, classical realism came under
attack, not for its basic assumptions but for its methodology that crit-
ics faulted for failing to live up to the standards of a positivist science.
‘Neorealists’ attempted to develop a positivist methodology with which
to build a truly objective ‘science’ of IR. Neorealists borrowed models
from economics and physics that they claimed offer universal explana-
tions for the behaviour of states in the international system. Positivism
is a methodology which is used by most mainstream IR theorists, not
only realists. It is a theory of science based on four assumptions: that the
same methodologies can apply in the natural and the social worlds; that
there is a distinction between facts and values; that the social world has
regularities like the natural world; and that the way to determine truth is
by appealing to neutral facts or an empiricist methodology. The deper-
sonalisation of the discipline which results when methodologies are bor-
rowed from the natural sciences and statistics was carried to its extreme
in national security studies, which during the Cold War sought to ana-
lyse, through game theory and rational choice, strategies for nuclear
deterrence and war fighting.
Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics published in 1979,
the most cited text in the neorealist tradition, claimed that the behav-
iour of states can best be understood by theories focused at the system
level and that it is possible to determine generalisable laws to understand
the behaviour of states and their propensity for conflict. States are seen
as unitary actors whose internal characteristics are irrelevant to their
international behaviour. Claiming that there are regularities in states’
power-balancing behaviour, Waltz based his theoretical framework on
equilibrium theory of microeconomics.4
Feminists have rightly claimed that Morgenthau’s principles of polit-
ical realism are loaded with terms that we associate with masculin-
ity.5 Political man, whose behaviour is projected onto the behaviour of
states, is clearly abstracted from a partial aspect of male behaviour, and
autonomy and rationality are associated with masculine characteristics.
156 J. A. TICKNER
Power defined in zero-sum terms also associated with masculinity is only

one aspect of power, but it has been central to realist thinking. Feminists
have suggested that power can never be infused with meaning that is uni-
versally valid; writing in the early days of feminist IR, Nancy Hartsock
noted that when women write about power they stress energy and
capacity—more collective forms of power that differ from power as dom-
ination.6 And it is the case that states cooperate on many international
issues and that many conflicts get settled short of violence, issues that are
not stressed in realism. Feminists are also sceptical of Morgenthau’s claim
that is possible to develop a universal and timeless notion of objectivity
as a foundation for knowledge. Many feminists take issue with neoreal-
ism’s reliance on positivist theories and the dominance of rational choice,
which has now taken hold beyond realism, seeing them as a masculine
definition of science, an issue I take up later in this chapter.
Introducing a Gendered Lens into International

Relations
With the end of the Cold War in 1989, the IR discipline began to open
up in terms of its both subject matter and methodologies, some schol-
ars even describing the 1990s as a ‘post positivist era’. Optimistically,
feminism was seen as a one of a number of new approaches that would
enrich and expand a field which had been caught up with explaining the
security behaviour of the great powers and using neopositivist meth-
odologies to do so. It was remarkable how IR feminism got started at
about the same time in many different locations. A 1998 conference at
the London School of Economics resulted in a special issue of the jour-
nal Millennium that was dedicated to introducing feminist scholarship
to the field. Similar conferences were held in the USA one of which, at
Wellesley College in 1990, resulted in Spike Peterson’s edited volume,
Gendered States (1992). And in Australia in 1991, international feminist
legal scholar Hilary Charlesworth and her co-authors published the first
gendered critique of international law. This was followed two years later
by the first feminist article in Australia’s leading IR journal by feminist
IR scholar Jan Jindy Pettman.7
What were feminists doing in those early days? Some were trying
to find women in a field that was so thoroughly gendered that no one
noticed that they had been missing. This involved looking in unconven-
tional places not normally considered within the boundaries of a field
that, as I described earlier, was very state and systems centred, with lit-
tle focus on individuals. Feminists were also attempting to redefine some
of the core concepts of the field, concepts such as security, anarchy and
sovereignty. Spike Peterson described these initial feminist endeavours in
terms of three knowledge projects: first, exposing the extent and effect of
masculine bias; second, attempting to rectify the systematic exclusion of
women by adding women to existing frameworks; and third, and by far
the most radical project, reconstructing theory by recognising gender as
an analytical and structural category.8
Over the last 30 years, IR feminists have produced a rich array of
scholarship that developed from these initial goals, much of it focused
on the third goal, recognising gender as an analytical category. It has
extended beyond its Anglo-American/Australian foundations to include
scholars from all parts of the world. Like feminism more generally it is
paying more attention to the intersectionality of race, class and geograph-
ical location in constructing its theories. Feminism has demonstrated
that IR theory is deeply gendered in both the questions it asks and
how it goes about answering them. Much of the earlier feminist empir-
ical scholarship was concerned with issues related to the global economy
and human rights. Lately, a thriving field of feminist security studies has
arisen. Feminists, most of whom would define themselves as social con-
structivists, have attempted, not always successfully, to engage in dialogue
with the mainstream and broaden its methodological focus. I shall now
examine some IR feminist scholarship in each of these three categories.
Gendering the Global Economy

Following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, IR began
to pay more attention to international political economy (IPE). In one
of IPE’s foundational texts, Robert Gilpin identified three constituting
ideologies of IPE: liberalism, Marxism and nationalism.9 It has certainly
been the case that, in the west, liberalism and its successor neoliberal-
ism have been the dominant approaches. IR feminism has critiqued neo-
liberalism for its state-centric approach, for its focus on cooperation and
conflict in state behaviour and for its rationalist positivist methodolo
gies. It has also critiqued the depiction of ‘rational economic man’ on
which microeconomic theory is based and which neoliberals have
extended to understanding the behaviour of states. Rational economic
man is modelled on the assumed behaviour of self-interested individuals
158 J. A. TICKNER
in the marketplace where each individual is driven by profit maximisa-

tion. Classical laissez-faire liberals believe that this instrumentally rational
market behaviour of individuals and states produces outcomes that are
beneficial for everyone.
Feminists have taken issue with the depiction of rational economic
man used by classical and neoclassical economists to represent the
behaviour of humanity as a whole. Nancy Hartsock claims that rational
economic man, appearing coincidentally with the birth of modern capi-
talism, is a social construct based on the reduction of a variety of human
passions to a desire for economic gain.10 Such behaviour could not be
assumed if women’s experiences were taken as the prototype for human
behaviour. Much of women’s work, such as reproductive and caring
labour and the provision of basic needs, takes place outside the market
in households or in subsistence sectors, particularly in the Global South.
And when women do enter the market, they are disproportionately
located in the caring professions as teachers, social workers and nurses,
professions that are more likely to be chosen by reason of the values and
expectations emphasised in female socialisation rather than on the basis
of profit maximisation. While there are huge differences in the socio-
economic status of women depending on class, race, nationality and geo-
graphic region, women are disproportionately located at the bottom of
the socio-economic scale in just about all societies. Globally, only one
in two women participates in paid work compared to three in four men.
At the same time, women undertake about three times more unpaid
work than men. And the hours spent in this unpaid work come at a cost.
When women do engage in paid labour, they are often in part-time jobs
or have broken work patterns. They perform low-paid work stereotyp-
ically associated with ‘feminine’ skills but are also frequently paid less
than men when they do the same work.11 Caring and reproductive tasks
are often imposing a heavier burden on women because of the effects of
neoliberalism’s scaling back of welfare benefits and social services.12
Feminists have suggested that these disturbing data are due to an
international division of labour that had its origins in seventeenth-
century Europe when definitions of male and female were becoming
polarised in ways suited to the growing division between paid work done
in factories and caring and reproductive unremunerated labour done in
the home. The concept ‘housewife’ began to place women’s work in the
private domestic sphere as opposed to the public world of the market.
Gendered constructs such as ‘breadwinner’ and ‘housewife’, central to
modern Western definitions of masculinity and femininity and capitalism,

have been evoked at various times to support the interests of the state
and the economy. Cynthia Enloe has claimed that a modern global econ-
omy requires traditional ideas about women—ideas that depend on cer-
tain constructions of what is meant by masculinity and femininity.13
Gendering War and Peace

In his book War and Gender, IR scholar Joshua Goldstein asked why we
have not been more curious about the fact that while virtually all socie-
ties throughout history have engaged in war, overwhelmingly wars have
been fought by men; most decision makers charged with constructing
and implementing military strategies have also been men. The Greek
model of the heroic citizen-warrior, which equates manliness with citi-
zenship, has been replicated in many societies since. While Goldstein
concludes that modern warfare is associated with the rise of the state,
rather than men’s inherent aggression, he does claim that the sociali-
sation of boys and girls motivates men’s participation in combat and
women’s exclusion from it.14 While IR scholars have written hundreds
of books on war, Goldstein’s is one of the very few that deals with gen-
der. The conventional field of security studies, largely populated by men,
has been very resistant to introducing gender into its analysis. And main-
stream IR has focused much of its analysis at the level of the system or
the state rather than the individual. IR has generally been concerned
with explaining the causes and analysing the consequences of war rather
than on the insecurities that people suffer as a consequence of war,
both during and after conflict. Mainstream IR has preferred a top-
down strategy when analysing war; IR feminists, however, tend to use
bottom-up approaches that start with the individual. They have been
concerned with what goes on during wars as much as with their causes
and consequences.
IR has typically used a certain threshold of battle deaths to define
war;15 yet in today’s wars, civilians account for a large proportion of
casualties, the majority of them women and children.16 While acknowl-
edging the toll that war takes on all civilians, feminists have investigated
the degree to which women are made insecure during and after war by
virtue of being women. Tasks associated with caring for children, the
wounded, the sick and the elderly go up during war, and it is generally
left to women to fulfill these responsibilities with shrinking resources.
160 J. A. TICKNER
Women struggle to find resources to care for their families long after the
fighting stops. Recent studies have shown the death rate of women is
higher than that of men after the conflict is over.17 Every war generates
large numbers of refugees and women and children make up almost 70%
of the refugee population. Yet refugee camps, frequently run by male
refugees or male humanitarian workers, are often violent places, sexual
violence being a particular problem. And after war is over, women and
children make up more than 80% of the population of refugee camps.18
Feminists have pointed out that when males are defined as ‘heads of
households’ in refugee camps, it inhibits women’s control over distribu-
tion of resources such as food and health services.
IR feminist Laura Sjoberg writing on the wars in Iraq noted the dev-
astation caused by the sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s, a period
defined as the ‘interlude’ between the First and Second Gulf Wars.
Sanctions inevitably impose the greatest hardship on people rather than
the governments at which they are aimed. And economic sanctions have
disproportionately negative effects on women since they are already
more socio-economically and politically vulnerable. In Iraq, it was the
poor, the sick, the elderly and children and the women who cared for
them who suffered.19 Women were also the first to lose their jobs, some-
thing that frequently happens when women’s wages are seen as supple-
mentary to a family wage. In today’s wars, men often disappear or are
killed leaving women as sole family providers.
Feminists have also pointed to the insecurity of women due to the
presence of militaries not engaged in actual warfare. Katherine Moon’s
research on prostitution around US military bases in South Korea in the
1970s demonstrated that clean up of prostitution camps by the Korean
government, aimed at inducing the US military to stay in Korea, became
a matter of high security politics. The health monitoring and policing of
female sex workers became a national security concern, thus sacrificing
these women’s security for the security of the state. Moon’s study suc-
cessfully demonstrates how often individuals’ security is compromised in
the name of national security.20
In spite of the high level of violence and insecurity that women and civil-
ians more generally suffer during and after conflict, the rationale for war
fighting has centred on the myth that wars are fought for the protection
of women, children and vulnerable people more generally. The idea that
(young) males fight wars to protect vulnerable groups particularly ‘wom-
enandchildren’21 has been an important motivator for military recruitment.
As Judith Stiehm has suggested, the concept of the protected is essential to

the legitimation of military violence. Stiehm and other IR feminists have
claimed that exploding the protector/protected myth helps to understand
who are the real victims of violence. Stiehm also reminds us that if we think
of men as protectors, we must remember that they are usually protecting
women from other men. Exposing this myth also helps us to see that
women are not just helpless victims in conflict but persons who are actively
engaged in conflict resolution as well as in the provision of security more
generally.22
Whereas conventional IR has generally defined security in terms of
the security of states, IR feminists have broadened the definition of secu-
rity in multiple ways. Focusing on the security of individuals as well as
states, IR feminists define security as multilevel as well as multidimen-
sional—to include the security of individuals as well as states and free-
dom from structural as well as physical violence.23 Feminist scholars
have emphasised that conceptualising human security in a way that is
truly inclusive must account for gendered insecurities; these stem from
exclusionary practices that perceive women as victims rather than security
providers and the structural inequalities that contribute to women’s eco-
nomic, political and social insecurities. Achieving true security must also
address issues of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and the struc-
tural insecurities that women suffer by virtue of being women. Feminists
believe that real security cannot be achieved without gender justice and
the empowerment of women. It involves exposing the myth of mascu-
line protectors and feminised victims. When feminists speak of ‘peace’,
they tend to equate it with working towards this broad definition of
security. Traditional notions of ‘peace’ have been problematic for femi-
nists because, while men are seen as agents in the provision of national
security, women are often associated with an essentialised notion of peace
that lacks agency.
It has often been claimed that women are more peaceful than men
and less prone to conflict. While there is evidence to suggest that women
have shown less support for men’s wars,24 the relationship between
women and peace has been a contentious one for feminist scholars.
They have suggested that in male-dominated societies, the associa-
tion of women with peace reinforces gender hierarchies and the false
dichotomies that contribute to the devaluation of both women and
peace. However, even though many of the leaders of peace movements
have been men, it has been the case that women have constituted the
162 J. A. TICKNER
majority of peace activists, often forming separate movements that draw

on maternal imagery to make their case. The women who constituted the
Women’s Strike for Peace in the USA in the early 1960s defended their
right as mothers to de-escalate the nuclear arms race, which they claimed,
threatened the family rather than protecting it. And the Women’s Peace
Camp at Greenham Common in the UK in the 1980s, protesting against
the staging of US cruise missiles, focused on the radical feminist princi-
ples of celebrating women’s roles as nurturers and caregivers; this mater-
nal imagery was also used in Argentina by the Mothers of the Plaza de
Mayo protesting the disappearance of their husbands and sons.25
Protests that use maternalism to make their case have been criticised
by IR feminists for celebrating women’s maternal and peaceful roles, a
move that they believe denies women’s agency. And of course, not all
women are mothers and not all women are peaceful. It has often been
the case, however, that rather than essentialising women, feminists have
used maternalism strategically to construct a theory of peace that also
includes gender equality. Sara Ruddick developed a sophisticated the-
ory of maternalism that is careful to avoid essentialism. Ruddick claims
that the idea of maternal peace rests on a myth that mothers are peace-
makers and victims without power, a myth that is easily shattered by
history. Women have supported men’s wars in overwhelming numbers
and some are fighters as well as mothers.26 Nevertheless, she claims that
war is women’s enemy because it disrupts caregiving, a role that has
traditionally been assigned to women although both men and women
bring maternal skills to peace work. Ruddick claims that thinking about
peace arises from the distinctive ways of knowing involved in care work,
work that men are capable of performing also. Like other feminists,
Ruddick is careful not to associate peace with passivity and victimhood.
Peacebuilding and non-violence require courage, struggle and resistance,
and a refusal to accept victimisation, traits we see in women civil society
activists in conflict zones today.
Building on Ruddick’s claim that maternal thinking is relevant
not only to the private sphere but has political significance also, Fiona
Robinson extends an ethics of care to global issues, particularly those
related to structural violence. An ‘ethics of care’ breaks down the dichot-
omy between public and private, a move central to feminist think-
ing, and conceptualises how to build social relations on a global scale.
Responding to issues of poverty and structural violence, an important

aspect of a feminist definition of security, Robinson claims that the erad-
ication of poverty must start from the premise that responding morally
to others is a learned capacity that emerges out of connections. Feminist
theory is particularly useful because its focus is on individuals located in
particular structures of domination and oppression. What she calls a rela-
tional morality should encourage, not economic dependence, but inter-
dependence through the creation of a sense of mutual respect and an
atmosphere of trust among moral agents who respond to each other as
concrete persons.27
Care ethics is one of the tools that Elisabeth Porter uses to build her
feminist approach to peacebuilding. Like Robinson, Porter finds care
ethics useful because it is contextualised, particular and informal. She
contrasts it with a justice approach to ethics that is based on individu-
alised rights and the generalised ‘other’. She claims that a feminist ethic
is particularly useful for peacebuilding since feminist theory has always
been concerned with breaking down dichotomies and the dualist way
of thinking that characterises so much of IR. A dualistic position, one
that sees only right or wrong, friend or enemy, is at the root of vio-
lent insecurity; dialogue, openness to others, typical of feminist knowl-
edge building, is crucial for peacebuilding.28 Porter claims that feminist
ethics rests on three pillars that are useful for peacebuilding. First, its
starting point is women’s lives in all their different manifestations—
women living in war zones, women peace builders, women campaigning
against violence, women in international non-governmental organisa-
tions (INGOs) and in international governmental organisations (IGOs).
Its focus is always on women’s subordination and inequality, however
it manifests itself. Second, a feminist ethic asks how male privilege has
come to define what is security and insecurity. It investigates what are
the necessary conditions for a sustainable peace that includes reducing
structural inequalities between women and men. Third, the alternative
ways of building peace that a feminist ethic proposes are contextual and
emphasise personal experience and nurture, characteristics that echo
Ruddick’s maternal thinking and Robinson’s ethics of care. All these
feminists emphasise the importance of breaking down dualisms, being
open to dialogue and listening to others, as well as allowing room for
compromise positions.
164 J. A. TICKNER
Methodological Engagements
I have provided a few examples of the rich and varied literature that has
constituted the feminist IR field over the last 30 years. Feminists have
broadened the subject matter of the discipline, redefined its core con-
cepts, asked new questions and answered them in new ways. Yet, in spite
of the optimism of the 1990s about an opening to different perspec-
tives, IR feminism has remained on the periphery of the discipline and
engagements with the mainstream have been rare. I believe that femi-
nists’ reluctance to use the kind of scientific methodologies that Hans
Morgenthau called for, and upon which mainstream IR has relied ever
since, has been one of the reasons for this.29 All the IR feminist litera-
ture I have discussed draws on methodologies that would generally be
described as ‘post positivist’.30 Unlike conventional IR which draws on
models from rational choice economics to explain the behaviour of states
in the international system, IR feminists have used sociological analyses
that begin with individuals and the hierarchical social structures within
which their lives are situated. Feminism has emerged from a deep scep-
ticism about knowledge that claims to be universal and objective, such
as Morgenthau’s principles of political realism, but in reality is knowl-
edge based only on men’s lives. Likewise, they are sceptical of theoretical
frameworks that base the behaviour of states on rational choice models
of individuals’ behaviour in the marketplace, behaviour that could not
be assumed if women’s experiences were taken as the norm. While IR
feminists may seek to understand state behaviour, they do so in the con-
text of asking why, in just about all societies, are women disadvantaged—
politically, socially and economically—relative to men, and to what
extent is this due to international politics and the global economy? They
have also investigated why in so many parts of the world women remain
so fundamentally disempowered in matters of foreign and military policy.
These are questions that have rarely been asked in IR; they would prob-
ably be deemed at best tangential to the issues that IR considers ‘impor-
tant’. Depending as they do on understanding issues about the social
construction of gendered identities, they are also questions that are not
adequately answerable within a conventional social scientific framework.
Given their scepticism about the possibility of a ‘neutral’ observer or
‘the view from nowhere’ so central to neopositivist theory, most IR fem-
inists prefer what they term a ‘reflexive attitude’ towards their research
that has developed in reaction to androcentric research with its claim
to value neutrality, a goal that feminists believe is impossible to achieve.

Many feminist researchers reflect on their own positionality within the
research—how their subjectivity influences the research process, as
well as what led them to undertake their projects. This is not deemed
to lessen the validity of the project. Indeed, Sandra Harding claims
that acknowledging the subjective element in one’s own analysis actu-
ally increases the objectivity of the research, resulting in what she calls
‘strong objectivity’.31 For IR feminists, one of the primary goals of this
commitment to experiential and reflexive knowledge building has been
the hope that their research projects might contribute to the improve-
ment of women’s lives. Since feminist do not believe that it is possible to
separate thought from action and knowledge from practice, they claim
that feminist research cannot be separated from the historical movement
for the improvement of women’s lives out of which it emerged.32
Feminists have asked different questions about international poli-
tics, many of which are not answerable in a social scientific framework.
Using a reflexive approach, they have attempted to build knowledge
that is emancipatory, a type of knowledge building that is not consist-
ent with mainstream IR. Even though its origins lay in efforts to advise
policymakers, mainstream IR professes to be ‘objective’, whereas femi-
nism has always been explicitly normative; it has emerged out of social
movements committed to emancipatory projects, namely the betterment
of women’s lives. For this reason, IR feminism has been more compatible
with international women’s movements which began in the 1970s and
which have pushed the international community to take women’s issues
seriously. It is no surprise, therefore, that many feminists consider them-
selves scholar–activists.
Shaping and Influencing the Policy Environment:

From Mexico City to the Women, Peace
and Security Agenda
Women have a long history of organising internationally, going as far

back as the end of the nineteenth century. However, their presence
in formal IGOs such as the League of Nations and its successor the
United Nations (UN) was minimal, although this has improved some-
what since the 1990s. Women have generally made their voices heard
through their active participation in INGOs. Due to pressure from
166 J. A. TICKNER
women’s INGOs, the UN declared a Decade for Women (1976–1985),

to follow on from International Women’s Year in 1975 and the First
World Conference on Women in Mexico City. During the Decade and
due to lobbying efforts of women outside formal governmental struc-
tures and a few who were inside, the UN General Assembly adopted
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) in 1979. While this has been hailed as an
international Bill of Rights for women, Hilary Charlesworth, a feminist
international lawyer who works at the intersection of the academy and
the policy world, argued in 1994 that CEDAW, although a milestone
for women’s rights, was based on a male measure of equality since it
focused on women’s rights in public life, such as in the formal econ-
omy, the law and education, while completely ignoring the private
sphere. In other words, even with the progress being made, the defi-
nition of human still exhibited a male bias.33 A focus on human rights
at the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995 demonstrated an
increasing concern with women’s rights as well as ongoing controversy
about how to define those rights. Non-Western feminists have rightly
questioned the whole notion of rights as being based on Western stand-
ards. Nevertheless, women from all parts of the world share the view
that the language of rights, expressed in various UN Resolutions, gives
them leverage to fight a variety of oppressions.
CEDAW made no explicit reference to violence against women but
in 1993, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women. The Declaration was an impor-
tant step forward as it required the state to regulate behaviour in the pri-
vate sphere. And beginning with the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the
1990s when it was estimated that at least 20,000 women were raped,34
women’s groups succeeded in getting the issue of rape in war and SGBV
more generally onto the international agenda. As feminists have pointed
out, rape is not just an accident of war but frequently part of military
strategy. In ethnic wars, rape is used as a way of undermining the identity
of entire communities.35
Given its association with ‘high politics’, international security, defined
in a narrow sense as being related to matters of war and peace, has been
by far the hardest issue to get on the UN’s agenda. An intense lobbying
effort, led by scholars and activists, as well as foreign and military poli-
cymakers from certain Scandinavian countries, and introduced onto the
UN Security Council (UNSC) agenda by the state of Namibia in 2000,

resulted in the adoption of UNSC Resolution 1325. This was the first
time the UNSC had taken up issues related to women and security. It
was followed by seven further UNSC resolutions that together make
up the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Resolution 1325
provides an international framework for applying a gender perspective
to international peace operations and security policy; it acknowledges
women and men’s different needs and experiences of conflict while also
stressing women’s rights to equal participation in peace negotiations,
conflict resolution and prevention. The seven resolutions that followed
have reaffirmed most of these commitments by calling on states to pro-
tect all civilians, including women and children during and after conflict,
to end the widespread use of SGBV as instruments of conflict and for
increased women’s participation in all peace processes including in peace
negotiations.
In spite of the UNSC Resolution 1325’s call for women to be
involved in all stages of security provision, the record of women’s par-
ticipation in peacekeeping operations and in peace talks and negotia-
tions is extremely poor. Between 1990 and 2011, the UN was involved
in 31 peace processes, but only 2% of chief mediators were women and
only 9% of negotiators at the peace table.36 Since feminist research has
demonstrated that women have a positive impact on peace processes, the
lack of women’s participation has practical implications. Evidence shows
that the presence of women as mediators and/or negotiators makes it
20% more likely that a peace agreement will last at least two years and
35% more likely that it will endure.37 It also shows that when women’s
groups exercise influence on the negotiation process, the chance of a
peace agreement being both reached and implemented is significantly
higher.38
While progress on implementation of WPS has been slow, the joint
work of scholars, activists and policymakers has put women’s human
rights and women’s security at the centre of the international agenda.
Gender mainstreaming has been mandated in all UN agencies and in
some national governments. Sweden has declared that it is following a
feminist foreign policy. And research centres focused on the WPS agenda
have been established at academic institutions in various countries,
including Monash University in Australia, Georgetown University in the
USA and the London School of Economics in the UK.
168 J. A. TICKNER
Conclusion
Since feminist approaches to IR entered the discipline in the 1980s, pub-
lications, courses and research centres that focus on gender and wom-
en’s issues have proliferated. Feminists have made unique contributions
in drawing attention to unequal gendered power structures that impact
negatively on many people’s lives—both women and men. Although
feminists insist that we cannot fully understand IR without a gendered
analysis, the discipline has been slow to recognise this and engagements
with other approaches have been problematic. This is particularly true in
the USA where positivism and quantitative approaches are more preva-
lent. In Australia and the UK where IR has been more receptive to critical
and post-positivist perspectives, there has been more openness to feminist
methodologies; nevertheless, everywhere acceptance is slow. The fact that
the mainstream rarely engages with the epistemological issues that femi-
nists have raised is an indication of the power of hegemonic knowledge
structures. Feminists have long understood that knowledge is power and
whose voices are heard is critical to the way we understand the world.
But, in spite of these difficulties, feminist IR has contributed a great
deal to expanding the theoretical and methodological boundaries of the
field as well as to its subject matter. New issues, such as women’s rights,
SGBV and the international gendered division of labour, are now con-
sidered part of international politics. New questions are being asked and
answered using methodologies that are explicitly feminist. Feminism is
producing research that is useful and accessible to those who work in
the policy and activist domains. Using the language of strategic mater-
nalism and the ethics of care, it has reframed the way we think about
peacebuilding. Peace is not just the absence of war but requires address-
ing gendered direct and structural violence that occur when wars are
‘officially’ over. Feminists have also rethought the meaning of human
rights—to be sensitive to what we mean when we use the word ‘human’.
Even though it lacks in implementation, the WPS agenda has made great
strides in normative change—encouraging the global community to
take women and gender seriously and to pay attention to gender main-
streaming. Given its roots in social activism, it is vital that feminism stays
committed to this course—effecting social change that can benefit all
those—both women and men—who are marginalised by global politics.
Considering issues of gender justice are crucial if IR is to stay commit-
ted to building a more peaceful and just world, a goal that, according to
E. H. Carr, motivated its founders almost a century ago.
Notes
1. John Vasquez (2014) ‘The First World War and International Relations
Theory: A Review of Books on the 100th Anniversary’, International
Studies Review 16(4): 623–644.
2. Recent revisionist history has claimed that race and empire were as much
a part of early IR as war and security. See Brian Schmidt (1998) The
Political Discourse of Anarchy: A Disciplinary History of International
Relations, Albany: State University of New York Press; Robert Vitalis
(2015) White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American
International Relations, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
3. Hans Morgenthau (1973) Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power
and Peace, 5th edn, New York: Alfred Knopf.
4. Kenneth Waltz (1979) Theory of International Relations, Reading:
Addison Wesley.
5. J. Ann Tickner (1988) ‘Hans Morgenthau’s Principles of Political
Realism: A Feminist Reformulation’, Millennium: Journal of
International Studies 17(3): 429–440.
6. Nancy C. M. Hartsock (1983) Money, Sex and Power: Toward a Feminist
Historical Materialism, Boston: Northeastern University Press, p. 210.
7. Jan Jindy Pettman (1993) ‘Gendering International Relations’, Australian
Journal of International Affairs 47: 47–60. Lucian Ashworth claims that
IR feminism can be traced back to the 1920s and 1930s—to certain schol-
ars, such as Emily Balch and Helena Swanwick. See Lucian Ashworth
(2011) ‘Feminism, War and the Prospects for Peace: Helena Swanwick
and the Lost Feminists of Inter-war International Relations’, International
Feminist Journal of Politics 13(1): 24–43. See also J. Ann Tickner and
Jacqui True (2017) ‘A Century of International Relations Feminism:
From World War One Women’s Peace Pragmatism to the Women, Peace
and Security Agenda’, International Studies Quarterly, forthcoming.
8. V. Spike Peterson (2004) ‘Feminist Theories Within, Invisible to, and
Beyond IR’, Brown Journal of World Affairs 35: 37–41.
9. Robert Gilpin (1987) The Political Economy of International Relations,
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
10. Hartsock, Money, Sex and Power, p. 47.
11. United Nations Secretary General’s Report (2016) Leave No One
Behind: A Call to Action for Gender Equality and Women’s Economic
Empowerment, p. 21. Available at: http://www.womenseconomicem-
powerment.org/assets/reports/UNWomen%20Full%20Report.pdf.
12. J. Ann Tickner (2001) Gendering World Politics: Issues and Approaches in
the Post-Cold War Era, New York: Columbia University Press, p. 81.
13. Cynthia Enloe (1989) Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense
of International Politics, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 174.
170 J. A. TICKNER
14. Joshua Goldstein (2001) War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War
System and Vice Versa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
15. Uppsala Conflict Database Program is the most complete account of bat-
tle deaths by country. Available at: http://www.ucdp.uu.se/.
16. Jacqui True (2015) ‘Winning the Battle but Losing the War: A Feminist
Perspective on the Declining Global Violence Thesis’, International
Feminist Journal of Politics 17: 554–572.
17. Kathleen Kuehnast, Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, and Helga Hernes
(eds.) (2011) Women and War: Power and Protection in the Twenty-First
Century, Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, p. 7. See also Jacqui
True (2012) The Political Economy of Violence Against Women, New York:
Oxford University Press, p. 136.
18. True, The Political Economy of Violence, p. 135.
19. Laura Sjoberg (2006) Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq: A Feminist
Reformulation of Just War Theory, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books,
pp. 160–161.
20. Katherine H. S. Moon (1997) Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in
U.S. Korea Relations, New York: Columbia University Press.
21. This term was used by Cynthia Enloe in an article in Village Voice to
remind us how often this phrase is used, in this case the media talking
about the war between the USA and Iraq, to unproblematically lump
these essentialised terms together when we talk about protection.
22. Judith Hicks Stiehm (1983) Women and Men’s Wars, Oxford: Pergamon
Press.
23. The concept structural violence was introduced into the peace research
literature in 1971 by Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung.
Structural violence refers to the types of economic and social insecurities
people face when they do not have adequate food, shelter, health care or
education. This is more compatible with feminists’ definition of insecurity
but peace researchers rarely include gender in their analysis.
24. Tickner, Gendering World Politics, p. 60.
25. Tickner, Gendering World Politics, pp. 58–59.
26. Sara Ruddick (1989) Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace, New
York: Ballantine Books, p. 219.
27. Fiona Robinson (1999) Globalizing Care: Ethics, Feminist Theory and
International Relations, New York: Westview Press, pp. 46–48.
28. Elisabeth Porter (2007) Peacebuilding: Women in International
Perspective, New York: Routledge, pp. 43–46.
29. A symposium published in International Studies Quarterly in 1998
was one of the very few examples of engagement. Writing in response
to J. Ann Tickner (1997) ‘You Just Don’t Understand: Troubled
Engagements Between Feminists and IR Theorists’, International Studies
Quarterly 41(4): 611–632, Robert Keohane challenged feminists to come
up with a research programme that used the scientific method; he claimed

that only then would they be able to ‘convince nonbelievers of the validity
of the message that they are seeking to deliver’ (Robert Keohane [1998]
‘Beyond Dichotomy: Conversations Between International Relations
and Feminist Theory’, International Studies Quarterly 42(1): 193–197,
pp. 196–197). Keohane is supporting my contention that it is methodo-
logical issues that lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication.
30. There is a branch of feminist IR that is quantitative and uses positiv-
ist methodologies. See Mary Caprioli (2004) ‘Feminist IR Theory and
Quantitative Methods: A Critical Analysis’, International Studies Review
6(2): 253–269. For a discussion of the pros and cons of using this type of
methodology for feminist research, see a symposium in Politics and Gender
(2009) 5(2). This type of IR feminist research has been more accepted by
the mainstream and has appeared more often in mainstream IR journals.
31. Sandra Harding (1987) ‘Introduction: Is There a Feminist Method?’, in
Sandra Harding (ed.) Feminism and Methodology, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, p. 9.
32. Maria Mies (1991) ‘Women’s Research or Feminist Research? The Debate
Surrounding Feminist Science and Methodology’, in Mary Margaret
Fonow and Judith Cook (eds.) Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship as
Lived Research, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 64.
33. Hilary Charlesworth (1994) ‘What Are “Women’s International Human
Rights?”’, in Rebecca Cooke (ed.) Human Rights of Women: National
and International Perspectives, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, p. 64.
34. According to an estimate by the Parliamentary Survey of Europe (2009)
‘Sexual Violence Against Women in Armed Conflict’, May. Available at:
http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=
17743&lang=en.
35. Tickner, Gendering World Politics, p. 50; True, ‘Winning the Battle but
Losing the War’.
36. Christine Bell (2015) Text and Context: Evaluating Peace Agreements
for Their Gender Perspective, Edinburgh: Political Settlements Research
Program.
37. Laurel Stone (2015) ‘Study of 156 Peace Agreements, Controlling for Other
Variables, Quantitative Analysis of Women’s Participation in Peace Processes’,
in Reimagining Peacemaking, Annex II, Washington, DC: Institute for
International Peace. See also UN Women (2015) Preventing Conflict,
Transforming Justice, Securing the Peace: A Global Study on the Implementation
of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, New York: UN.
38. Thania Paffenholz, Nicholas Ross, Stephen Dixon, A. L. Schluchter, and
Jacqui True (2016) Making Women Count—Not Just Counting Women,
New York: Inclusive Peace and Transition Initiative and UN Women.
CHAPTER 9
Feminist Institutionalism
and Gender-Sensitive Parliaments:
Relating Theory and Practice
Sonia Palmieri
Since the 1990s, feminist institutional scholars have argued that women
parliamentarians work within the confines of a gendered institution
which impacts on their capacity to reform both parliamentary process
and policy. The parliament is understood as a site of gender contesta-
tion, a place where masculinities and femininities are constructed and
legitimised in the process of normalising rituals, rules and procedures.
Understanding the complex environment in which women might have
‘an impact’—rather than simply asking what ‘difference’ women might
make in parliament—has become a central line of inquiry in feminist
scholarship. With this shift in the primary research question, feminist
institutionalism has enabled political science to advance beyond early
studies of women in parliament. The reconceptualising of parliament as a
gendered space represents a key innovation in legislative studies.
This chapter presents a ‘second phase’ of gender innovation in leg-
islative studies by linking feminist institutionalism to the idea of
S. Palmieri (*) 
Canberra, Australia

174 S. PALMIERI
gender-sensitive parliaments. I write this chapter as an intermediary

between theory and practice myself: an Australian feminist political sci-
entist by training, and international development practitioner by pro-
fession. As the author of the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) 2011
report on Gender-sensitive Parliaments, I am pleased to note that the
concept has become both an area of academic interest and research, and
an area of technical assistance provided by the international commu-
nity under the broad theme of ‘democratic governance’.1 Parliamentary
development practitioners today focus on the ways in which parliaments,
as institutions, can be transformed to promote gender equality, rather
than relying on capacity building initiatives for women alone to make
‘the difference’. With the intention of informing a more robust appreci-
ation of the term, as well as a discovery of the synergies between theory
and practice, this chapter outlines a theoretical understanding of gender-
sensitive parliaments for both academic and practitioner audiences.
The chapter begins by reviewing the assumptions of earlier studies of
women in parliament and then showing how the theory of feminist insti-
tutionalism has contributed to a new understanding of parliaments. Using
this approach, parliaments come to be seen as workplaces with their own
culture, set of rituals and practices, and hours of operations. This alterna-
tive depiction of parliaments represents yet another contribution of gender
innovation to political science, this time in the field of legislative studies.
Refocusing our understanding of women’s experience in, and con-
tribution to, parliaments has practical implications. The chapter out-
lines a ‘theory of change’2 for gender-sensitive parliaments that can be
used in the design and implementation of development assistance pro-
grammes. It argues that refocusing research and praxis on women’s
impact in politics through a gender-sensitive parliaments lens can ensure
that more realistic outcomes will be achieved in the pursuit of gender
equality. As an integral part of the theory of change, the chapter also
presents remaining challenges in the design and implementation of gen-
der-sensitive parliamentary assistance programming, pointing to the need
for stronger collaboration between theorists and practitioners.
Early Expectations of Women’s Impact in Parliament

The second wave of feminism, often noted for its activism and some-
times radicalism, instigated an impressive research agenda into women
in politics by exploring the ‘difference’ women made.3 One of the first
9 FEMINIST INSTITUTIONALISM AND GENDER-SENSITIVE PARLIAMENTS 175
frameworks created to understand the experience of women in politics

was Sue Thomas’ 1994 study, How Women Legislate.4 Her typology of
expectations outlined what difference feminists were looking for: women’s
ability/proclivity to ‘reform’ or ‘adapt’ to political procedures and pub-
lic policy. Thomas hypothesised that reformists were women who, as nur-
turing and caring beings, would not conform to the ‘coarser aspects of
legislative life’ and would therefore reform political procedure and public
policy. Women would ‘concentrate on reaching different goals than those
of primary interest to men’. Women adapters, conversely, would be those
who were ‘politically socialised’ to ‘value success and to learn how to
achieve it’. Thomas argued that these women would not differ from men
in their public policy goals given their desire to ‘go along to get along’.
While revolutionary at the time, this paradigm of expectations eventu-
ally came to be challenged on its underlying assumptions. For Thomas,
women ‘adapters’ were judged on ‘whether they become as powerful
within the system as men have been’. ‘Reformists’ on the other hand
were judged on ‘whether they have [been able to use] their distinctive
life experiences and values to foment widespread change of the status
quo’.5 This assumed that women’s socialisation to, or adoption of, leg-
islative norms would guarantee women’s equal power status to men, and
that women adapted to rules as a matter of choice. Expectations about
women’s ability to reform parliamentary process and output assumed
that women legislators would always work in the interests of other
women, in concert with other women, and with a resolute conviction
that political institutions in fact needed to be reformed. Further, it was
assumed that impact on policy could be gauged only with reference
to issues that were commonly known as ‘women’s issues’.
Feminist Institutionalism and Parliaments

Stronger and more nuanced theoretical frameworks were required to
understand the role of parliaments—as essentially male bastions—and to
appreciate the plurality of women’s experiences within these institutions.
Extending the work of difference feminists, feminist institutionalists
argued that parliaments were in fact institutions saturated in gendered
expectations, norms, rules and practices that traditionally conferred
power on men.6 This power manifested as a form of legitimacy conferred
upon men. The discourse of ‘masculinism’ shaped internal conven-
tions of behaviour within the parliament. Those who embodied those
176 S. PALMIERI
conventions of behaviour—usually, although not exclusively, men—were

considered legitimate actors in the political space.
In making the case for ‘parliaments as gendered institutions’, feminist
institutionalists stressed the need for a more integrated and relational
approach to the study of women in parliament. Specifically, they clari-
fied the inherent connections between gender, power and institutions.
Gender became understood as constituted by social interactions between
men and women, and by the formal and informal institutionalised prac-
tices and processes. Gender is never predetermined or situated outside of
power relations, which are themselves embedded in institutional norms.
Power is evident in the legitimacy (or ‘normality’) accorded to both
micro-level interactions and macro-level discourses within the institution
of parliament—institutionalised in the taken-for-granted rules and narra-
tives that define parliamentary behaviour, language and process.
In this sense, feminist institutionalists argued that the study of impact
should be extended to include an analysis of institutional power—both
formal and informal—and the credibility and legitimacy it confers.
Research into the impact of women in politics needed to consider the
way in which gender was performed and reconstructed in the course
of parliamentary duties; the potential sites, sources of, and pathways to
power; rationales for the allocation of political responsibilities; discourses
of power that perpetuate ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ status; and the nor-
malisation of language, symbols and rules. New lines of inquiry asked
whether women were in the appropriate positions of leadership within
the legislature to make any significant policy difference, and whether
(and how) previously understood conceptualisations of leadership and
institutional norms were in fact inherently masculine.7
Fundamental to this new feminist institutional approach was that under-
standing the gendered nature of parliament required an assessment of both
individual interactions and the culture of the institution.8 Culture, for exam-
ple, is perpetuated through discourses of ‘male advantage’. This includes job
descriptions that value ‘hardness’, ‘single-mindedness’, and a physical pres-
ence of ‘more than a 40hrs/week’.9 It also encompasses practices that
belittle, undermine and ignore women by: (i) robbing them of the right
to be heard by talking over the top of them, shuffling papers, walking out
of the room; (ii) generalising about ‘women’s behaviour’ in a deroga-
tory fashion; (iii) withholding vital information; (iv) condemning women
(but not men) for supposedly neglecting family responsibilities; and
(v) attempting to make women feel responsible for men’s sexism and abuse.10
Gender-Sensitive Parliaments as a Research Agenda

In 2011, the IPU published a global report on gender-sensitive parlia-
ments, reflecting data compiled from hundreds of questionnaires and
interviews with parliamentary authorities and Members of Parliament
(MPs), as well as 17 national case studies from each corner of the globe.
The report coined one of the first definitions of the term, noting that a
gender-sensitive parliament is:
a parliament that responds to the needs and interests of both men and
women in its composition, structures, processes, and outputs. Gender-
sensitive parliaments remove the barriers to women’s full participation and
offer a positive role model to society at large.11
The report was premised on the understanding that parliaments are

workplaces, with defined hours of operation, attendance records,
employee allowances in many cases, office space and other resources. As
such, parliaments had ‘their own institutional culture’. Given broader
demographic changes resulting from women’s increased entry into the
workforce, meaning it could no longer be assumed that parliamentari-
ans had someone at home to look after children, the report argued that
parliaments—as institutions—would also need to adapt their culture and
infrastructure.
Importantly, the report concluded that parliaments themselves must
take a lead if gender equality were ever to be achieved. It was not the
responsibility of women alone to ensure that parliamentary outputs did
not discriminate against women or men, girls or boys. Parliaments would
need to ensure that their operations and resources were used effectively
towards promoting gender equality.
This agenda would be more comprehensively pursued if:
• women were more systematically included in all parliamentary posi-

tions of authority and across all policy areas including the ‘hard’
portfolios of foreign affairs, the economy and finance;
• the parliament had a mandate to promote gender equality, includ-
ing gender equality laws, monitoring and evaluation frameworks,
and gender policies to sanction discriminatory practices;
• specific mechanisms were established to promote and monitor the
rest of the parliament’s contribution to gender equality, such as par-
liamentary committees, caucuses, gender focal points or technical
gender units;
178 S. PALMIERI
• male politicians and political parties assumed their own responsibil-

ity for the advancement of gender equality; and
• the parliamentary culture was one that prioritised respect for
women as both parliamentary staff and MPs.
Translating Research into Practice:

A Theory of Change
Encouraging and promoting women’s contribution to the political sphere
have become a core area of programming for the international develop-
ment community—a community composed of international, regional
and national bodies that include elements of the United Nations (UN)
system, the IPU and similar, region-specific parliamentary associa-
tions such as the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) and
ParlAmericas. While parliamentary assistance has been provided—in vari-
ous forms—for the past 40 years, gender mainstreaming has only recently
become a requisite component of those assistance programmes.12
Parliamentary assistance programmes with a gender component fall
broadly into two camps: the first encourages the ‘full and effective par-
ticipation of women’13 in the parliamentary process; the second works
to ensure that the parliament, as a political institution, is able to pro-
mote gender equality—irrespective of the number of women elected.
While the two camps are not mutually exclusive, the divide reflects the
broader division between ‘gender-targeted’ strategies to achieve gender
equality versus ‘gender mainstreaming’ strategies. Neither is successful
without the other, yet the promotion of women’s numerical presence in
parliament has received a much greater focus in parliamentary assistance
than any comprehensive assessment of the institutional conditions under
which parliaments are able to pursue legislative and policy reforms for
gender equality.
Building on the IPU’s work, this section outlines a theory of
change, based on four long-term goals, which could be used to inform
both a research agenda and a comprehensive programme of parliamen-
tary assistance for gender-sensitive parliaments. For each goal, condi-
tions are outlined that would facilitate its achievement. Parliamentary
assistance programmes that follow such a theory of change would not
simply aim to increase the number of women who participate in par-
liament, but rather take into consideration, at all stages, the weight of
the specific institutional norms and practices of parliament, and the
power and legitimacy automatically conferred on some, but not all, of

our parliaments’ members in advancing gender equality. This is a the-
ory of change to support the overarching goal of parliaments advanc-
ing gender equality across all of the structures, operations and outputs
of their work.
Shared Responsibility for Gender Equality

The first goal of a gender-sensitive parliament must be the sharing of
responsibility for change—and ultimately, parliamentary transformation.
Responsibility for achieving change cannot rest solely on the shoulders of
women when women are considered ‘others’ in the parliamentary envi-
ronment. Three conditions support this goal. First, women’s presence
in the parliament is universally accepted as ‘legitimate’, demonstrated in
their promotion to leadership positions across all decision-making bodies
and portfolios. Women must be in those positions that most influence
policy and legislative decisions. Parliamentary support activities need to
promote women’s allocation to more a diverse range of parliamentary
committees, including as chairs of important committees; to promote
their inclusion as participants in parliamentary debates on all policy mat-
ters; and to promote the frequency with which they are entitled to (and
do) ask questions of the government. Parliaments should be encouraged
to highlight and value the work of women MPs—through, for example,
social media outreach.
The second condition is that male parliamentarians also claim respon-
sibility for pursuing gender equality reforms. While encouraging men to
share this responsibility requires concerted effort and evidence-based rea-
soning, it should also be noted that men are increasingly sympathetic, as
society begins to accept women’s role in public life.14 In the parliamen-
tary environment, programmes should work to cultivate men’s support
for gender equality. Male MPs may have introduced or co-sponsored
gender equality-related legislation. Programmes can support women and
male champions in articulating arguments to convince a larger pool of
men through evidence-based research, or MP engagement with those
personally discriminated against by existing legislation. Parliamentary
rules may be changed to ensure that all positions are shared between a
man and a woman—across all policy areas. Activities can be devised to
require male MPs to work with their constituents and local civil society
organisations on gender equality concerns.
180 S. PALMIERI
A third condition is that political parties also take responsibility—not

only in becoming stronger advocates themselves of gender equality, but
also in allowing their members, both men and women, to advance those
goals without fear of political repercussion. Activities in support of the
gender sensitisation of political parties would, in the first instance,
aim to ensure women are present as both members and leaders in all
decision-making bodies (such as the party’s executive or a gender equal-
ity specialised body such as a women’s wing). Activities would also mon-
itor and evaluate the influence of political parties on women’s and men’s
parliamentary experience, including opportunities to advance gender
equality through legislation and debate. Depending on the level of party
discipline and loyalty expected of members, MPs’ decisions and behav-
iour in parliament can depend very much on the party. Disentangling the
construction of gender relations in parliament from partisan structures
and discourse can be challenging, but is necessary. The role of party pol-
itics must be an ever-present variable in the analysis of gender-sensitive
parliaments.
Policy and Legal Frameworks Advance Gender Equality

A second goal of a gender-sensitive parliament is that a policy and legal
framework to support gender equality is designed, implemented and reg-
ularly reviewed. Gender equality changes do not occur in the absence of
a legal mandate. Effective policies and laws not only provide guidance as
to what to do, but allow for monitoring and evaluation. With respect to
parliaments, there are at least three conditions required in promoting this
legal framework: the institution accepts the need for, and establishes, a
legal mandate to pursue gender equality issues (e.g. through a gender
equality law); the parliament continually reflects on and improves this
mandate, by monitoring and evaluating its own ability to promote gen-
der equality (e.g. by establishing a gender equality policy or strategic plan
for the parliament, as a workplace for MPs and staff); and, finally, the par-
liament actively condemns violence against women in politics through
policies or laws against discrimination, intimidation and harassment.
As of 2017, there were 189 states party to the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
This almost universal coverage means that most countries are account-
able to the CEDAW Committee. Increasingly, governments have cho-
sen to introduce gender equality legislation that typically covers a broad
range of policy areas including women’s health, education, employ-

ment, family and marriage, the prevention of trafficking in women and
children, and family or gender-based violence. Some laws, however,
have not only promoted gender equality as a policy issue, but also pro-
vided a mandate for gender mainstreaming in legislation and budgets.
Parliamentary assistance programming should include activities that sup-
port the review of legislation to ensure it does not discriminate against
men or women and is in compliance with CEDAW, UN Security Council
Resolution 1325 and other international or regional gender equality
obligations.
Activities can also support parliaments in monitoring their institu-
tional progress in achieving gender equality by sharing good practices in
parliamentary gender equality policies that set clear priorities and indi-
cators. While few parliaments have instituted these kinds of policies, at
the very least, raising awareness about gender policies can be useful in
encouraging their promotion.
A clear consequence of women’s entry into the political arena has
been an increase in the violence suffered by those women, whether that
violence be physical, sexual or psychological.15 A 2016 report by the
IPU has revealed that 81.8% of survey participants have experienced
some form of psychological violence. Among them, some 44% said
they had received threats of death, rape, beatings or abduction during
their parliamentary terms, including threats to kidnap or kill their chil-
dren.16 To outlaw and condemn behaviours that ostracise and intimi-
date women, anti-harassment and discrimination policies are important.
Again, these policy frameworks are quite rare, with behaviour instead
being loosely guided by more generalised workplace policies (i.e. not
parliamentary specific). Legal mandates are still rarer, with Bolivia’s 2012
Law against the Harassment of, and Political Violence against, Women17
one of the few exceptions.
Parliamentary assistance programmes can examine more systemat-
ically the extent to which parliaments, as workplaces, address violence,
discrimination, sexism and harassment. This begins with an assessment of
the policies in place (e.g. a code of conduct); how they were developed
(e.g. were gender experts brought in for advice); how effectively the pol-
icies/code are used to monitor behaviour in the parliament’s plenary and
committees; who is responsible for monitoring behaviour; whether there
are any penalties; whether there is a mechanism to address complaints of
harassment and discrimination; and if complaints have been made, how
182 S. PALMIERI
these were resolved. These kinds of ‘mapping’ exercises, however, should

be accompanied with continuous learning through professional develop-
ment for parliamentarians and their staff.
Parliamentary Procedures and Structures Support

Gender Mainstreaming
The third goal of a gender-sensitive parliament involves structural change
to support gender mainstreaming. This goal is at the crux of the trans-
formation agenda requiring the design and implementation of new
processes and a new approach to everyday parliamentary practices. In
essence, gender mainstreaming normalises a gender lens to every aspect
of the parliament’s work: debates, questions, committee work and con-
stituency work. Gender mainstreaming requires that gender equality is
not just an additional issue to consider, but rather, informs an approach
by which all issues are considered.
Parliamentary assistance activities can support the establishment
and running of parliamentary bodies such as dedicated committees
or women’s caucuses responsible for gender equality, or rule changes
that require all committees to consider their work from a gender per-
spective. They can also support parliaments in developing the requisite
technical capacity for gender mainstreaming, including human and finan-
cial resources, and in identifying, and systematically engaging, gender
advocates and experts—including civil society organisations—in the work
of parliament.
Normalising a gender lens in parliament requires procedural change,
to both the parliamentary agenda and the parliament’s organs of work.
Implementing a gender equality approach requires that, at the very least,
a parliamentary body oversees this work. Options here include dedicated
gender equality committees; multi-portfolio committees that include
gender equality as one of their areas of competence; or the rarer model,
where all parliamentary committees are responsible for considering gen-
der equality issues within their respective portfolios.18 Other institutional
mechanisms for gender mainstreaming include women’s parliamentary
caucuses and technical research units. Whatever the form of the mech-
anism, the key aspect here is that there is some form of accountability
for the parliament’s combined work in promoting gender equality. This
body should be in a position to review what the parliament is doing and
make recommendations where there are any gaps in the process.
If parliament’s outputs are to be gender sensitive, so too must be

their processes. Programmes that seek to ensure parliaments dedicate
time in the plenary to debate gender equality concerns, and that writ-
ten and oral questions to government on gender equality issues are well
received by ministers, are good examples of gender mainstreaming par-
liamentary process. A significant reform, however, is mainstreaming a
gender equality approach in the budget oversight process. Programming
needs to encourage gender-sensitive budgetary outcomes. Where gen-
der equality is not a key consideration of budget processes, it is criti-
cal to understand why (e.g. insufficient expertise, lack of political will).
Programs should assist parliaments in developing appropriate, con-
text-specific tools for gender mainstreaming, such as checklists to assess
legislation from a gender perspective, and use sex-disaggregated data to
inform analyses of policies and legislation.
A fundamental condition of these programmes, however, is that they
appreciate and take into account the wider power dynamics of the parlia-
ment and the relationships the gender equality-focussed body forms to
undertake its work—both inside and outside the parliament. This goes to
the heart of the problem of legitimacy. If gender mainstreaming mech-
anisms are marginalised from the ‘mainstream’ work of the parliament,
they cannot be effective. Encouraging close cooperation with executive
bodies of the parliament and ensuring there is no duplication of effort
with other gender equality bodies are important. Working with parlia-
ments to formalise relationships with national women’s machinery, civil
society organisations, the private sector, the media and others ensures
that these bodies are using the latest information and are including rele-
vant sectors of the community in decision-making processes. Legitimacy
is also derived from the powers accorded these bodies and adequate
resources to work effectively (i.e. staff, meeting room, budget).
Parliamentary Culture and Work Environment

Are Gender Sensitive
The final goal concerns parliaments’ embrace of cultural and workplace
change. Understanding parliaments as workplaces, with conditions of
work, hours of operation, provisions for leave, and rewards and recognition
for good work, allows both researchers and practitioners to identify prac-
tices that continue to discriminate against women and keep them posi-
tioned as ‘outsiders’. Importantly, however, encouraging parliaments to
184 S. PALMIERI
adopt more family-friendly workplace practices does not only advantage

women, but the increasingly younger cohort of men who choose to
balance their personal work and family responsibilities more equitably.
Parliamentary development practitioners can focus on ensuring: first,
members and staff have a strong understanding of gender equality and its
impact on the work of parliament; second, the parliament allows all of its
‘employees’ greater equilibrium between work and family; and third, the
facilities and work opportunities of parliament are equally accessible and
available to men and women.
Parliaments have varying levels of understanding, and acceptance, of
the goal of gender equality. Where there is at least some appreciation of
the goal, language norms of the parliament have been modified. Some
parliaments clearly promote their work on gender equality and make it
publicly available. Gender awareness in parliaments often requires some
form of training, for both MPs and staff. Induction seminars for new
MPs can also be a good opportunity to promote a gender-sensitive cul-
ture. Finally, parliaments can also engage with the media to eliminate dis-
criminatory and derogatory stereotypes about women in politics.
If women are the primary carers of family dependents (children, the
elderly), then they cannot dedicate the same amount of time and energy
to their work as men. Moreover, if parliaments cannot cater to their
members’ (both men and women’s) family responsibilities, then they run
the risk of being antiquated, out-of-touch workplaces that will not attract
a diverse ‘talent pool’. Where parliaments are conscious of the need to
facilitate work/life balance, they have curtailed sitting hours after 6 or
7 pm; ensured that votes are no longer held on Mondays or Fridays to
allow members longer periods of time in their constituencies and there-
fore, at home with their family; ceased the requirement for quorums, so
that members have a flexible work schedule; allowed members a leave of
absence for parenting, or allowed them a proxy vote; and/or established
childcare centres or family rooms in the parliament.
Ensuring equal access to all facilities is a final area of consideration
if a parliament is to be considered a gender-sensitive workspace. This
requires some investigation of the criteria used to determine the allo-
cation of office space and equipment, as well as any benefits provided
to MPs—including travel opportunities such as study tours and parlia-
mentary delegation visits. Is there, for example, an agreement (written
or unwritten) that these should be allocated equitably among men and
women? Are basic facilities such as restrooms easily accessible for both
men and women MPs and staff? Are dining facilities equally open to
men and women? Making the parliamentary building reflective of the
contribution and leadership of women is also important. This might be
manifested in the names of rooms in the building or the artwork com-
missioned for the building.
Supporting Parliaments for Sustainable Progress

Theories of change generally require an assessment of the assumptions
and risks that would mitigate effective implementation of an assistance
programme (and its ‘logic’). A number of challenges must be over-
come if gender-sensitive parliaments are to become ‘the norm’. In the
first instance, the goal itself needs to be more clearly understood and
accepted. Programming is always demand-driven, and the most com-
mon demand from women MPs themselves is to support the goal of
increasing the number of women in parliament rather than the parlia-
ment’s capacity to promote gender equality. Second, in delivering pro-
grammes and running activities to support gendered parliamentary
assistance, there continues to be a reliance on international expertise,
rather than cultivating a sustainable base of local capacity. Related to
this, a third challenge has been the difficulty in identifying champions
of change—both inside and outside the parliament. A fourth challenge
relates to the expectations of donors and the need to quantify pro-
gress—often in short timeframes—for funds to be allocated or renewed.
In many areas, appropriate indicators by which to capture progress have
not been identified—or worse, unrealistic markers of progress are set
which cannot be met. Finally, gender equality continues to be an under-
resourced area of development. These challenges are further outlined
below.
Moving Beyond the Demand for Greater Numbers

Precisely because women only constitute a fifth of the world’s parlia-
mentarians,19 women MPs frequently call on international develop-
ment organisations for assistance in boosting their numbers. In turn, the
response is frequently to raise awareness of the efficacy of electoral gen-
der quotas.20
It may be as a ‘first step’ towards gender mainstreaming, but in many
cases, advocacy of electoral gender quotas assumes that an increase in
186 S. PALMIERI
women’s presence will automatically increase the ability of parliaments

to pursue the goal of gender equality. In effect, this reflects a tendency
among both women MPs and international development agencies to
conflate gender-targeted strategies with gender mainstreaming strategies
in achieving gender equality and a misrepresentation of the definition of
gender equality.21 While there is an almost universal acceptance of gen-
der equality as a legal concept—that men and women are equal before
the law—the second and third premises in the definition of gender equal-
ity—that women’s and men’s roles in society need not be determined
at birth; and that the interests, needs and priorities of both women and
men are taken into consideration in any public or private decision-mak-
ing—are less understood among both parliamentarians and the electorate
at large.
Much greater emphasis is required on the effect of gender norms and
discriminatory stereotypes that continue to see women as unfit for polit-
ical office. Temporary special measures are not designed to, and cannot
by themselves, eradicate the cultural attitudes that prevent women from
participating. Evidence-based advocacy in both parliaments, and in the
electorate, is required to ensure there is social demand for gender equal-
ity, in all its manifestations.
Cultivating Local Sources of Gender Expertise

and Resources
There is an interesting ‘North-South’ divide in the knowledge produc-
tion of gender expertise.22 Tools and resources continue to be devel-
oped, for example, at a ‘headquarters’ level, for subsequent application
at the ‘country office’ level. Ironically, these tools are usually developed
by practitioners from developed countries—contexts in which those tools
are not systematically applied—and expected to be adapted to a develop-
ing country context.
This raises two concerns. First, there is an expensive reliance on inter-
national expertise, rather than cultivating a sustainable base of local
capacity. For the purposes of gender-sensitive parliaments, local gender
expertise needs to be established among parliamentary staff in develop-
ing countries. There is a need to help staff revise the generic tools that
are developed, to ensure they are context appropriate, but also in apply-
ing these tools. In doing so, an expanded pool of gender talent would be
created to ensure legislation never discriminates against women or men,
girls or boys; that questions are always asked about the beneficiaries of
policies; and that a wide range of gender advocates are consulted in par-
liamentary inquiries. Stronger collaboration between international and
local gender specialists should therefore be an important requirement of
parliamentary assistance programmes.
The second concern is with the focus of gender-sensitive parliamen-
tary reform continuously being aimed at developing countries. Perhaps
because development assistance often affords developing parliaments
the opportunity to innovate, in some of the more established parliamen-
tary democracies, there has been a tendency to resist gender-sensitive
reforms. Importantly, however, the universal applicability of the UN’s 17
Sustainable Development Goals—including Goal 16 that aims ‘to pro-
mote effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels’—may
provide the required incentive for all parliaments to review and moni-
tor their gender sensitivity. A useful model discussed in Chapter 2 is the
secondment of Professor Sarah Childs to the UK’s House of Commons,
resulting in a report with 43 recommendations for a more diversity-sensi-
tive parliament.23
Establishing Sustainable Relationships for Gender Equality

Parliamentary pursuit of gender equality requires political will. The polit-
ical ‘gatekeepers’ who manage the daily business of parliament must be
convinced of the benefit in transforming processes to meet this objec-
tive. Finding men and ‘party machine operators’ who not only endorse
gender equality, but who are prepared to implement changes to see its
achievement, is a fundamental challenge.
While the efficacy of global campaigns (e.g. UN Women’s HeforShe)
to mobilise men’s awareness of gender equality remains unclear, there
is a serious challenge in relating the outcomes of high-level forums to
the daily experience of men. In the Pacific region, for example, the con-
cept of ‘male champions’ is increasingly questioned given the high level
of gender-based violence. Men’s understanding and acceptance of gen-
der equality are more likely to take root if it comes from trusted, local
sources. Identifying those sources of gender-sensitive guidance—whether
in faith-based organisations or business associations—is essential.
A related challenge comes in managing the expectations of civil soci-
ety organisations and gender advocates. The election of women to par-
liament can come with great expectations from women’s organisations
188 S. PALMIERI
that may not be met. Women outside parliament see it as an opportu-

nity to make widespread legislative reform, without full knowledge of
the political reality of the women inside. In these situations, facilitating
a dialogue between women in and outside parliament is central. In some
parliaments, this has been aided by formalising the relationship between
women parliamentarians and their external gender advocates through
a caucus or deliberative platform. When gender advocates are able to
engage with women across the political spectrum, a more accurate pic-
ture is evident of the political dynamics in which women MPs work.
Measuring Success
As development assistance programmes are increasingly subject to
intense scrutiny, donors have devised stringent accountability and report-
ing requirements for their implementing partners. To secure funds, pro-
grammes are designed to guarantee objectives can be met. This often
means that programmes are replete with discrete activities that can be
delivered (thus, dispersing the funding) but which may not be innovative
in design or lead to fundamental change. Activities, for example, are usu-
ally in the form of single workshops or training, rather than a continuous
series of interventions that follow up and sustain progress.
Moreover, there is a reliance on simplistic indicators to measure pro-
gress (such as ‘number of women in parliament’ or ‘number of bills
passed’) rather than devising new indicators. An increase in the number
of women in parliament—or the passage of legislation—is unlikely to be
attributed directly to development assistance programmes, but rather to
be a consequence of many different actors and actions. There is a need
to develop more nuanced and complex indicators by which to capture
progress. In addition, longer-term analysis is required, rather than meas-
uring success in the last three-to-five years.
Financing for Gender Equality

Gender equality continues to be an under-resourced area of development.
The UN Secretary General’s 20-year review of the Beijing Platform for
Action found that progress towards gender equality had been stymied
by the broader economic context: the 2007/2008 global financial cri-
sis and subsequent austerity measures that have been adopted in many
countries since 2010 have jeopardised progress towards gender equality.24
OECD-DAC reviews found that only 5% of all aid targeted gender equal-
ity as a principal objective in 2012–2013.25
This under-resourcing is reflected in parliamentary assistance. A
2016 survey of 28 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Country Offices noted that the funding levels attracted by parliamentary
assistance vary considerably. In some countries, projects have attracted
millions of dollars (ranging from 2.8 to 6.3 million), while in others,
parliamentary projects appear to be funded for discrete activities only,
attracting at the most USD 10,000 in a given year.26 Importantly, there is
significant ambiguity about the extent to which these funds serve to pro-
mote gender equality outcomes. It is more often the case that these funds
refer to broader (‘mainstream’) programme of parliamentary assistance.
It is not surprising, then, that financing for gender equality has
become a central component of UN Women’s global work. Sadly, with-
out a financial incentive, most institutions, public or private, will not
address gender equality. Parliaments are no exception. More considera-
tion should be given to the possibilities of partnerships between govern-
ments, universities and civil society for financing this work.
Continuing Dialogues: Conclusion

This chapter has suggested that the IPU’s work on gender-sensitive
parliaments is grounded in the theoretical framework of feminist insti-
tutionalism. Considering the ‘impact’ of women in parliament requires
a broader understanding of parliaments as gendered institutions. These
institutions confer legitimacy and a status of ‘appropriateness’ on some,
but not all members as well as some, but not all, ritualised formal and
informal practices.
The study of parliaments through a feminist institutional lens repre-
sents significant gender innovation within the field of legislative stud-
ies. It extends both mainstream lines of inquiry about the efficacy and
efficiency of parliaments, and earlier lines of feminist inquiry on the dif-
ference women would make in politics. This theoretical framework has
enabled a more nuanced analysis of the effects of parliamentary institu-
tions on the political actors that operate within them, and has facilitated
a new understanding of parliaments as institutional workplaces, marking
yet another important gender innovation.
The study and assessment of a parliament’s gender sensitivity are a
matter of interest to both academic theorists and democratic governance
190 S. PALMIERI
practitioners. Both theory and practice, however, would benefit from a

stronger theoretical base. For practitioners, there is a need to clarify what
might realistically be expected to change following the implementation
of certain activities in each individual parliament. Theories of change are
increasingly used to map out the specific pathways for change expected
from investments. This chapter has noted that a theory of change for
gender-sensitive parliaments would require activities across four sepa-
rate goals. First, greater emphasis is required on the shared responsibility
required to achieve gender equality, both as a policy outcome and as a
process, across the parliament as a whole—its male and female members
and staff—and with the organisations that drive substantial policy devel-
opment, political parties. For women to become legitimate players in the
political game, their contributions and political style—including their
leadership—must be seen as appropriate, and indeed, welcome. Second,
parliaments need to be encouraged to develop overarching policies and
legal frameworks which allow for monitoring and evaluation of their pro-
gress towards gender equality. Third, parliaments need to be supported
in institutionalising a gender mainstreaming approach through plenary
debates, question sessions, committees and caucuses to ensure that all pol-
icy and legislative reviews interrogate any potential discrimination against
women or men, girls or boys. Finally, parliaments need to work on their
institutional culture, to ensure respect for women and the elimination of
any and all forms of discrimination, intimidation, violence and sexism.
For theorists, the dialogue between feminist institutionalism and gen-
der-sensitive parliaments has only just begun. Feminist institutionalism
has been instrumental in emphasising the important role of the institu-
tion in advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. Feminist
institutionalists have now convincingly demonstrated that parliaments
have their own institutional cultures and discourse, and that these
impact on women and men’s ability to promote any policy or procedural
agenda, feminist or otherwise. There is, however, more work to be done
in applying a feminist institutionalist lens to gender-sensitive parliaments.
Specific tenets of feminist institutionalism may prove useful in continuing
to identify under what conditions and with what agents change is likely
including institutional design, informal institutions and cultures of resist-
ance, and the mechanisms and agents of change and continuity. Feminist
institutionalism can help us to frame new questions about the extent to
which formal mandates (institutional design) can effect change especially
if they work in opposition to informal rules.
For practitioners and theorists alike, this is a comprehensive agenda.

Encouraging this level of change requires a great deal of resources
and much greater collaboration between academics and practitioners.
Feminist, evidence-based policy recommendations must underpin the
political will required for change. Ultimately, it will require the commit-
ment of leaders to a new way of organising political debate and process,
for gender-sensitive parliaments to become a global norm.
Notes
1. The 2017 European Conference on Politics and Gender dedicated an
entire session to the concept and study of gender-sensitive parliaments,
including case studies in Finland, Sweden and the UK. The pioneer-
ing work of the IPU on gender-sensitive parliaments is now being rep-
licated by organisations including the UNDP and the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
2. A theory of change is defined as ‘a comprehensive description and illus-
tration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a
particular context. It is focused in particular on mapping out … what
a program or change initiative does (its activities or interventions) and
how these lead to desired goals being achieved. It does this by first iden-
tifying the desired long-term goals and then works back from these to
identify all the conditions (outcomes) that must be in place (and how
these related to one another causally) for the goals to occur’. See Centre
for Theory of Change. Available at: http://www.theoryofchange.org/
what-is-theory-of-change/.
3. Anna Coote and Polly Patullo (1990) Power and Prejudice: Women and
Politics, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; Debra Dodson and Susan
J. Carroll (1991) Reshaping the Agenda: Women in State Legislatures,
New Brunswick: Centre for the American Woman and Politics, Rutgers
University; Beth Reingold (1992) ‘Concepts of Representation Among
Female and Male State Legislators’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 17(4):
509–538; Michelle Saint-Germain (1989) ‘Does Their Difference
Make a Difference? The Impact of Women on Public Policy in the
Arizona Legislature’, Social Science Quarterly 70: 956–968; Sue
Thomas (1994) How Women Legislate, New York: Oxford University
Press; Sue Thomas and Susan Welch (1991) ‘The Impact of Gender
on Activities and Priorities of State Legislators’, Western Political
4. Thomas, How Women Legislate, pp. 10–11.
5. Thomas, How Women Legislate, p. 130.
192 S. PALMIERI
6. Georgia Duerst-Lahti and Rita Mae Kelly (eds.) (1995) Gender, Power,
Leadership and Governance, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press;
Mona Lena Krook and Fiona Mackay (eds.) (2015) Gender, Politics
and Institutions: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism, London: Palgrave
Macmillan.
7. Maryanne Borrelli (1997) ‘Gender, Credibility and Politics: The Senate
Nomination Hearings of Cabinet Secretaries-Designate 1975 to 1993’,
Political Research Quarterly 50(1): 171–197; Noelle Norton (1995)
‘Women, It’s Not Enough to be Elected: Committee Position Makes a
Difference’, in Duerst-Lahti and Kelly (eds.) Gender, Power, Leadership
and Governance; Cindy Rosenthal (2000) ‘Gender Styles in State
Legislative Committees: Raising Their Voices in Resolving Conflict’,
Women and Politics 21(2): 21–45; Judy Wajcman (1998) Managing Like
a Man: Women and Men in Corporate Management, Sydney: Allen &
Unwin.
8. Carol Bacchi (1998) ‘Changing the Sexual Harassment Agenda’, in Moira
Gatens and Alison Mackinnon (eds.) Gender and Institutions: Welfare,
Work and Citizenship, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
9. Cynthia Cockburn (1991) In the Way of Women: Men’s Resistance to
Sex Equality in Organisations, New York: ILR Press; Rosemary Pringle
(1994) ‘Ladies to Women: Women and the Professionals’, in Norma
Grieve and Ailsa Burns (eds.) Australian Women: Contemporary Feminist
Thought, Melbourne: Oxford University Press; Judi Wajcman (1996)
‘Desperately Seeking Differences: Is Management Style Gendered?’
British Journal of Industrial Relations 34(3): 333–349.
10. Joan Eveline (1998) ‘Heavy, Dirty and Limp Stories: Male Advantage
at Work’, in Gatens and Mackinnon (eds.) Gender and Institutions,
pp. 90–106; Vivienne Schultz (1992) ‘Women “Before” the Law: Judicial
Stories about Women, Work and Sex Segregation on the Job’, in Judith
Butler and Joan W. Scott (eds.) Feminists Theorize the Political, New
York: Routledge, pp. 317–321.
11. IPU (2011) Gender-Sensitive Parliaments: A Global Review of Good
Practice, p. 5. Available at: www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/gsp11-e.pdf.
12. In 2016, the UNDP published, for the benefit of its technical advisors,
a Guidance Note on ‘Strategies and good practices in promoting gen-
der equality outcomes in parliaments’. The Guidance Note was based on
findings of a survey of 28 Country Offices in which gender was included
in parliamentary assistance programmes. When respondents were asked to
report the ‘gender marker rating’ over the past five years, it was found
that most projects achieved a ranking of 2, meaning outputs have gender
equality as a ‘significant’ objective. Very few projects have gender equality
as a ‘principal’ objective, and more projects are either not expected to
contribute to gender equality outcomes or expected to do so ‘in some

way’ but ‘not significantly’.
13. The language of ‘full and effective’ is reflected in target 5.5 of the
Sustainable Development Goals that seeks to ‘Ensure women’s full and
effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels
of decision-making in political, economic and public life’.
14. Sonia Palmieri (2013) ‘Sympathetic Advocates: Male Parliamentarians
Sharing Responsibility for Gender Equality’, Gender and Development
21(1): 67–80.
15. Mona Lena Krook (2016) ‘Violence Against Women in Politics: A Rising
Threat to Democracy Worldwide’, paper presented at the International
Political Science Association World Congress, Poznan; Elin Bjarnegård,
Meryl Kenny, and Tania Verge (2016) ‘Gender and Election Violence—
The Case of the Maldives’, paper presented at the International Political
Science Association World Congress, Poznan.
16. IPU (2016) Report on Sexism, Harassment and Violence Against Women
MPs. Available at: http://www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/issuesbrief-e.
pdf.
17. Bolivia, Law 243 Against the Harassment of and Political Violence
Against Women, May 2012. See also UN Women (2013) ‘Bolivia:
Gender-Based Political Violence’, in Advancing Gender Equality:
Promising Practices. Case Studies from the Millennium Development Goals
Achievement Fund. Available at: http://www.unwomen.org/mdgf/
downloads/MDG-F_Bolivia_C.pdf.
18. Marian Sawer, Sonia Palmieri, and Lenita Freidenvall (2013) ‘Playing
Their Part? Parliamentary Institutions and Gender Mainstreaming’,
paper presented at the European Conference on Politics and Gender,
Barcelona.
19. As of October 2017, the IPU calculates women’s worldwide share of seats
in national parliaments at 23.5%. Available at: http://www.ipu.org/
wmn-e/world.htm.
20. In the Pacific alone, a number of activities and publications have
been designed to this end. See, for example UNDP and PIFS (2009)
Utilising Temporary Special Measures to Promote Gender Balance in
Pacific Legislatures. Available at: http://www.pacwip.org/resources/
uploads/attachments/documents/TSM%20Book%20-%20Part%201.
pdf; UNDP, UN Women, and PIFS (2016) Temporary Special Measures
to Increase Women’s Political Participation in the Pacific: Case Studies of
Implementation in the Region. Available at: http://www.forumsec.org/
resources/uploads/attachments/documents/UNDP%20PO%20TSM_
Womens%20Political%20Participation%20(1).pdf.
194 S. PALMIERI
21. Gender equality is defined as ‘the equal rights, responsibilities and opportu-

nities of women and men and girls and boys. It does not mean that women
and men are the same: but rather that women’s and men’s rights, respon-
sibilities and opportunities will not depend on whether they are born male
or female. Gender equality implies that the interests, needs and priorities
of both women and men are taken into consideration, recognizing the
diversity of different groups of women and men. It is not a women’s issue
but concerns and should fully engage men as well as women’. Available at:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/genderstatmanual/Glossary.ashx.
22. María Bustelo, Lucy Ferguson, and Maxime Forest (eds.) (2016) The
Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer: Gender Training and Gender
Expertise, Basingstoke: Palgrave; Laura Shepherd (2015) ‘Constructing
Civil Society: Gender, Power and Legitimacy in United Nations
Peacebuilding Discourse’, European Journal of International Relations
21(4): 887–910.
23. Sarah Childs (2016) The Good Parliament, Bristol: University of Bristol.
Available at: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/news/2016/
july/20%20Jul%20Prof%20Sarah%20Childs%20The%20Good%20
Parliament%20report.pdf.
24. See Isabel Ortiz and Matthew Cummins (2013) ‘The Age of Austerity:
A Review of Public Expenditures and Adjustment Measures in 181
Countries’, Working Paper, New York and Geneva: Initiative for Policy
Dialogue and The South Centre; UN Women (2014) The Global
Economic Crisis and Gender Equality, New York: UN Women.
25. UN Women (2015) ‘Financing: Why It Matters for Women and Girls’.
Available at: www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/financing-for-gender-
equality.
26. UNDP (2016) ‘Guidance Note: Strategies and Good Practices in
Promoting Gender Equality Outcomes in Parliaments’, New York:
UNDP.
CHAPTER 10
Gender Research and Discursive Policy

Framing
Carol Johnson
There is now a significant body of research that deals with the gender
implications of discursive policy framing. This research identifies the
gendered effects of policy frameworks, particularly economic ones, that
are constructed as being either gender neutral or of universal benefit
to both men and women. The gender biases in these frameworks can
also result in an inadequate understanding of how the economy works.
Consequently, analysing discursive framing through a gendered lens can
provide new insights into the influence of such framing on policy design.
Such analyses make a highly innovative contribution to the existing work
applying discursive and interpretive approaches to public policy, as well
as providing new insights into governments’ attempts to address gen-
der inequality. This chapter both draws on existing feminist literature
on policy framing and undertakes new research. It uses examples from
Australian and, to a lesser extent, British political discourse, to analyse
the influence of discursive framing on policies explicitly designed to
tackle gender inequality.1
C. Johnson (*) 
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
e-mail: carol.johnson@adelaide.edu.au

196 C. JOHNSON
Identifying Male-Defined Framing

A variety of approaches, including interpretative policy approaches (e.g.
R. A. W. Rhodes), policy problem analyses (e.g. Carol Bacchi) and cog-
nitive linguistic approaches (e.g. George Lakoff) have emphasised the
linkage between the way issues are conceived and the way in which pol-
icy debates, and policies themselves, are framed. 2 As Ryan and Gamson
have explained: ‘A frame is a thought organizer, highlighting certain
events and facts as important and rendering others invisible’.3
Analysing policy framing from a gendered perspective is particularly
important because women’s historically marginalised position in the pub-
lic sphere of the economy and political life saw citizenship and citizen-
ship entitlements traditionally constructed predominantly in male terms.
So, for example, many state welfare benefits were traditionally con-
structed around the male wage earner head of household with women
largely benefiting at second hand as dependents.4
Employment and wages policies were also frequently constructed
around an implicit assumption that the citizen was male. As Chapter 2
in this volume has already established, rather than challenging such con-
structions, traditional political science often reflected and reinforced such
conceptions, not least by reproducing a division between public and pri-
vate. Women’s primary role was seen as being in the private sphere of the
home, while the public sphere of politics and the economy was seen as
more properly a male sphere.
Framing Gender Equality

However, the need for feminist analyses of framing has not declined as
acceptance of gender equality has increased. Indeed, many feminists have
turned their attention to issues of gender equality policies themselves,
pointing out that issues still remain in the very ways in which such equal-
ity has been constructed.
As Emanuela Lombardo and Petra Meier point out, in their study
of gender policy in the European Union, such framing also has major
implications for outcomes; particular constructions of policy problems
influence conceptions of where the solutions lie.5 Indeed, there is now
a significant body of feminist scholarship which suggests that such pol-
icy framing has major implications for policies addressing gender issues.
10 GENDER RESEARCH AND DISCURSIVE POLICY FRAMING 197
While it is not possible to give a full account of that literature here, it is

possible to provide some key examples.
In particular, Carol Bacchi has drawn attention to the ways in which
policy frames influence policy design (and potentially outcomes), arguing
for feminists ‘to open up the problem representations contained in policy
proposals to critical analysis, teasing out the presuppositions which lodge
there’.6 She has noted the implications for policy design and outcomes
of whether gender equality policy is constructed in terms of the need
for ‘same’ treatment or whether there is recognition that the impact of
gendered power relations may require the need for forms of ‘different
treatment’ in order to address women’s disadvantage.7 For example,
many prominent female Australian conservative politicians argue against
affirmative action quotas on the grounds that true equality lies in not
taking a candidate’s gender into account (same treatment), rather than
in utilising measures that recognise the need to counter ingrained female
disadvantage (and male advantage).8 Bacchi has also noted that ‘the ways
in which groups have been constituted within affirmative action, manag-
ing diversity and class discourses continues to create those who are poor
and oppressed as the problem’.9 By contrast, Bacchi urges that those in
power and indeed everyone in a workplace, organisation and institution
should be seen as part of the issue. She emphasises the need to be aware
of what is unproblematised as well as what is problematised—a point that
has also been made by Judith Squires.10
A related issue is whether policies recognise the different circum-
stances which men and women tend to face in a fundamentally gen-
dered society or whether they are designed around an implicit male
norm. For example, Claire Annesley has analysed how varied and shift-
ing framings of the ‘male breadwinner model’ and the ‘adult worker
model’ have influenced welfare state policies, especially when combined
with sub-frames regarding the problems which women face. In par-
ticular, Annesley points out that it is important that the framing of the
‘adult worker model’ (that is now prevalent) recognises women’s caring
responsibilities and disadvantaged position in the labour market when
policies require women to find employment rather than being dependent
on government benefits—11 though being in the sometimes precarious
and disempowering position of being dependent on a husband’s income
is of somewhat less concern to governments trying to reduce welfare
expenditure.
198 C. JOHNSON
Annesley’s insights are relevant to a number of policy positions in

Australia, including to policies that cut single parents’ benefits (mainly
involving women) on the grounds that this will encourage them to take
up employment by reducing their ‘welfare dependence’. For example,
Gillard government measures resulted in a substantial drop in payments
for around 80,000 single parents, mostly mothers, who were forced off
more generous single-parent benefits and onto unemployment benefits
once their child turned eight on the grounds that overcoming perceived
welfare dependence, developing capabilities, self-reliance and finding jobs
was the key to economic gender equality.12 However, because the policy
framing constructed ‘welfare dependence’ as the major barrier to gen-
der equality that was being addressed in this policy, policy makers didn’t
adequately take another obstacle to gender equality into account, namely
whether sufficient, adequately paid jobs with flexible family-friendly
arrangements were available to enable women to both engage in paid
work and care for older children. As with many related policies, this pol-
icy framing also rendered invisible the loss of non-market household pro-
duction resulting from increased participation in the paid economy. 13
Similarly, Paul Chaney has analysed how the discursive framing of
childcare policies has shifted in British parties’ electoral policies over time
and the major implications that those changes in framing have had for
women, including the increasing emphasis on framing childcare in terms
of support for a return to work.14 As we shall see later, a similar focus
in Australian childcare policy has led to some Australian parents losing
benefits.
The cuts to such benefits reflect a downside of a policy framing that
focuses predominantly on reducing welfare benefits and increasing
female participation in the labour market. As Julie Smith has argued,
drawing on previous feminist work, such a framing increases the ten-
dency of the state to benefit for free from women’s unpaid caring work
in the home.15 Yet such care is crucial not only for humanitarian rea-
sons but because it helps to produce and reproduce the workforce. So,
as feminists have long noted, one of the problems with neoliberal poli-
cies framed in terms of an underlying conception of ‘rational economic
man’ is that they neglect the forms of (unpaid) female labour necessary
for the broader economy to function.16 In short, such a framing not only
disadvantages women, it also provides an inadequate picture of how the
economy operates and the role of (predominantly female) non-paid,
non-market work in its functioning.
Domestic violence is another policy area where feminist scholars

have drawn attention to the fundamental importance of how the issue
is framed. Framing domestic violence in terms of family dysfunction
or problematic individual behaviours results in very different policy
responses than framing it in terms of gender inequality. Feminist schol-
ars have also drawn attention to the crucial role of ongoing activism and
input by civil society actors if gender equality frames are to inform pol-
icy design and implementation.17 Such framing has a major impact on
whether the issue is integrated into broader policies designed to tackle
gender inequality.18
The consequence of framing for policy response has been the subject
of comparative analysis by Nickie Charles and Fiona Mackay. As they
explain, while Scotland framed domestic violence policy predominantly
in terms of gender inequality, Wales framed it predominantly in terms
of crime reduction. The latter led to a number of consequences, includ-
ing the Welsh failure to develop adequate prevention and harm reduction
measures.19 It will be pointed out later that, in Australia, governments
of different political complexions have shared the framing of domestic
violence as related to broader attitudes regarding gender equality, even
when commitment to government cutbacks has undermined policy
responses.
Here as elsewhere, the framing of economic policies that are not spe-
cifically seen as being gendered also comes into play. For example, gov-
ernments have tended to neglect the fact that, because of the gender
segregation of the workforce, increases of government expenditure in
areas such as infrastructure will be more likely to generate jobs for men
than women.20 The situation can be even worse when it comes to under-
standing issues outside the formal market economy. For example, defini-
tions of the economy and what constitutes economic growth may ignore
the contribution of non-market activity such as household production
or its relationship to market activity.21 Measures that focus on increasing
women’s economic participation can also be gender blind when it comes
to recognising women’s non-market participation. If measurement fails
to take into account losses in non-market production, economic gains
will be overestimated. The framing of economic policies may also assume
that household resources are pooled and so it is unnecessary to under-
take gendered analysis of policy impacts. For example, the differential
impact of government cutbacks may be overlooked, despite women’s
greater reliance on the public sector for services, income support and
200 C. JOHNSON
employment. Economic policy framing may stem from a neoliberal

reluctance to interfere in markets to achieve greater equality or from
neoliberal beliefs that at least inequalities arising from the operation of
markets are inevitable rather than unjust. Sawer has also analysed the role
of populist new right arguments, drawing on public choice theory, which
framed feminists arguing for equality agendas as self-serving ‘rent seek-
ers’ trying to achieve better rents from the state than they could through
the market or marriage.22
It is also crucial to reflect on how the concept of gender equality itself
is constructed. A number of contributors focus on how pre-existing
frameworks can influence discursive constructions of gender equality. In
their introduction to an important collection on the subject, Emanuela
Lombardo, Petra Meier and Mieke Verloo emphasise that the very con-
cept of ‘gender equality’ has multiple meanings.23 Consequently, the
concept can ‘lose part of its dynamic when it is fixed to one particular
meaning’, not least because policy makers and analysts can cease being
reflective regarding the construct they are using.24 They point out
that the concept of gender equality can be ‘shrunk’, so for example, it
becomes merely a legal issue of anti-discrimination legislation, or is con-
ceived purely in terms of political underrepresentation of women, or
measures confined to the labour market. Or the concept of gender equal-
ity can be ‘stretched’ to incorporate other forms of equality such as race
or class which could lead either to a beneficial breadth in the intersec-
tional issues being addressed or, alternatively, to issues of gender equal-
ity being so diffused that policy becomes ineffective. Or constructions
of gender equality may be subject to ‘bending’, where issues of gender
equality are basically bent to fit into another agenda such as neoliberal
market-based policy.25 Malin Rönnblom has argued that the neoliberal
focus on the economic can contribute to a focus on market-driven forms
of economic growth that leads to a broader depoliticisation.26 All of
these processes, but perhaps particularly bending, can reflect the power
of hegemonic discourses which influence and constrain the conceptual
possibilities and ‘truths’ available.27 All of these aspects play a major role
in how policy issues are framed, albeit often unintentionally because the
framings originate in a ‘practical consciousness’ that emerges ‘from rou-
tines and rules that are commonly applied in certain contexts without an
awareness that these are indeed rules or routines, or that they could in
fact have been different’.28
An important aspect of challenging such rules or routines, which

relates back to the framing of traditional policy conceptions discussed
earlier in this chapter, is the need to ensure that conceptions of equality
aren’t shaped by a male norm. For example, drawing on Nancy Fraser,
Sylvia Walby has drawn attention to the need to set standards of equality
and justice that are not those set by men but rather involve imagining
new standards, different from those in existing society.29 They can also
be standards that take intersectionality into account, by allowing for dif-
ferent forms of inequality such as class and race and the ways in which
these can intersect with gender inequality.30 The consideration of such
intersectionality also draws attention to the problem of framing gen-
der equality in ‘fixed’ ways, given that the most productive conceptions
might arise from taking conflicting interests into account. It is therefore
important to ‘frame the terms of debate’ to ‘promote deliberative or
co-operative activities amongst groups’, instead of ‘stretching’ it in ways
that foster ‘territorial mechanisms’.31
Framing also needs to take into account the constraining or enabling
nature of perspectives on inequality other than gender that can be priv-
ileged in particular national contexts. For example, Myra Ferree has
pointed out that German perspectives in which gender inequality has
been framed partly in terms derived from issues of class inequality have
facilitated policy framings in which the state is justified in taking an inter-
ventionist role. However, the US framing of equality in terms derived
from a particular understanding of racial inequality, stemming from the
struggle against slavery, has had a number of troubling aspects. These
include a tendency to see ‘natural difference’ as potentially justifying ine-
quality, and inequality as involving issues of dependence and ‘personal
insufficiency’. When combined with the weakness of working-class pol-
itics in the USA, this has undermined arguments for state intervention,
which is often discursively constructed as involving ‘special rights’.32 The
differing attitudes towards state intervention, and differing conceptions
of the relationship between the individual and the state that result, have
a number of consequences. In other work, Ferree and William Gamson
have noted that the debate over abortion rights was framed fundamen-
tally differently in Germany and the USA, being constructed as an issue
of ‘privacy and the rights of an autonomous individual’ in the USA and
as an issue of whether the foetus was ‘a human life subject to the protec-
tion of the state’ in Germany.33
202 C. JOHNSON
Consequently, as the above examples and the following applied anal-

ysis demonstrate, framing has important consequences for discursive
opportunity structures and for outcomes.
Applied Analysis: How Gender Framing Influences

Equality Policy and Outcomes
While it is not possible to cover a broad range of policy areas here,
the following analysis of some key gender policy framings by recent
Australian conservative (Liberal/National Party Coalition) governments
(2013–) will illustrate the innovative insights that analyses of framing can
offer.34 While considerations of length preclude a full comparative study,
brief reference will also be made to British Conservative government pol-
icy framing that indicates the broader relevance of the Australian case
studies. The Liberal Party of Australia is arguably the closest Australian
equivalent to Britain’s Conservative Party, and the parties have tradition-
ally enjoyed a close relationship. Drawing on the previous discussion,
it will be argued that an analysis of those governments’ policy framing
reveals that key issues and questions regarding the gendered nature
of the economy have dropped off the agenda, in an example of policy
‘shrinking’. There are also examples of gender equality policy itself being
‘bent’ to fit into dominant economic perspectives. A number of other
factors are also revealed, including that the focus on the adult worker
model noted by Annesley has seriously restricted access to benefits.
The period of Tony Abbott’s leadership (2009–2015) of the Liberal
Party is commonly associated with his highly gendered attacks on
Labor’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard (2010–2013), and with Gillard’s
trenchant criticism of Abbott’s sexism in response.35 Abbott’s conserv-
ative image remained once he attained the Prime Ministership (2013–
2015). Nonetheless, partly in an attempt to counter Labor criticisms,
Abbott did advocate some policies designed to appeal to women voters.
Indeed, Abbott publicly endorsed ‘complete equality between men and
women’.36 Such explicit support for gender equality, and his genuinely
greater acceptance of women’s role in the workforce, involved a partial
shift from former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard’s frequent priv-
ileging of conventional gender roles and stay-at-home mothers.37 This
shift in framing was also reflected in the views of many of Abbott’s
ministers and was further strengthened under the leadership of Abbott’s

replacement as Liberal Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.
As Minister assisting the Prime Minister (Tony Abbott) for Women,
Senator Michaelia Cash made a number of key statements recognising
that forms of gender inequality are prevalent in Australian society.38 She
stated that:
Our values as Australians are that women and men are equal. However,
disappointingly, this is not borne out by the facts. Barriers still exist that
impact on a woman’s life choices. There is an unacceptable gender pay
gap. Clear differences between the levels of family violence experienced by
women and men …clear differences between men and women’s wealth,
financial status and retirement incomes. On all of these criteria, men do
better than women.39
However, once one applies framing analysis to her statements, one can
see that the concept of gender equality is being constructed in particu-
lar ways. Her conception of equality is closely intertwined with Liberal
conceptions of individual choice. Cash argued elsewhere that equality
should mean that women are able to make ‘the choices in life that they
want’ without unacceptable barriers getting in the way, and that the gov-
ernment would take action to ensure that ‘girls and women are equally
valued and have the same opportunities, choices and recognition, as boys
and men’.40 The focus on individual choice, and the consequent empha-
sis on equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes, is very
similar to that noted by Sarah Childs and Paul Webb in their work on the
British Conservative Party.41 Such framing may place a greater and more
favourable emphasis on gender equality than under the previous Howard
government. However, as we shall see, it also ‘bends’ and ‘shrinks’ that
conception, while precluding a deeper analysis of the gendered nature of
the economy and of government economic policy.
The emphasis on individual identity and ‘choices’ reflects the influ-
ence of a neoliberal ideology that privileges conceptions of the abstract
individual, rather than forms of social liberal or more left-wing ideology
that are arguably more likely to recognise the broader circumstances of
social groups (as well as being more likely to encourage state interven-
tion). Equality policy can therefore be framed as ‘gender blind’ when it
comes to treating individuals just as (abstract) individuals. Furthermore,
given their support for free-market policies, Liberal women such as Cash
204 C. JOHNSON
emphasise that government action to support equality should involve a

cooperative, rather than excessively regulatory or punitive approach, in
which ‘the Government is committed to working alongside business,
families and the community to ensure that gender equality is not just
a pipe dream’.42 As one would expect in a neoliberal framing, there is
strong opposition to forms of state intervention that impinge on employ-
ers’ rights to run their own business.43 Gender equality is therefore
framed as women winning the right to participate in the market, rather
than the right to benefit from what are seen as excessive forms of govern-
ment intervention. It is a form of neoliberal feminism rather than a form
of social liberal feminism.44
The policy implications of these Liberal framings of gender equality
could already be seen in debates over specific pieces of legislation during
the previous Labor government years, in which prominent female Liberal
politicians were amongst those objecting to Labor’s attempts to increase
regulation and gender reporting measures by private firms.45 Once
the Liberals formed a Coalition government, Eric Abetz, as Minister
for Employment, and Cash, as Minister Assisting the Prime Minister
for Women, announced that the full reporting requirements of Labor’s
Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace legislation, due to come
into effect in 2015, would not be introduced. The reason given was that
many employers ‘found the reporting regime overly complex and time
consuming and are not confident it will help them to improve gender
equality within their organisation’.46 The Workplace Gender Equality
Agency reportedly found the news ‘disappointing’.47 Even the chief
executive of the ANZ bank expressed his view that the change could
impact detrimentally on some major companies’ commitment to increas-
ing the number of women in leadership roles.48 The British government
also has a more generalised gender pay reporting regime.49
In short, in both opposition and government, the Liberals have
expressed support for gender equality but have opposed what are
seen as excessive forms of government intervention and regulation
to implement it. So, how do they frame their own policy? Predictably,
given the previous arguments, Liberal equality policy is framed as being
pro-individual achievement, pro-free market and involving changing cul-
tural attitudes. Given their opposition to interventionist approaches, the
Coalition government under both Abbott and Turnbull has placed great
emphasis on mentorship and proactive forms of sponsorship in order to
tackle issues ranging from the low representation of women in private
enterprise leadership ranks to increasing the number of women studying

in non-traditional STEM areas.50 Cash emphasised that the advantage
of such programmes was that they facilitated cooperation from business
rather than miring them in what the Coalition government depicted as
excessive red tape and regulation: ‘Employers want assistance and
information, not over-regulation’.51 She went on to say: ‘True cultural
change in the workplace occurs only when it is driven and embraced by
employers with government playing a supportive role’.52
A neoliberal belief in market-based policy solutions both shaped
and was reflected in such policy framings. For example, Cash argued
that economic self-interest would help to drive change: ‘We are … firm
believers in the ability of industry … to recognise the strong business case
for more diverse leadership, and to take the initiative to create cultural
change within their workplaces’.53 Or as she stated it elsewhere: ‘We
know that there are clear economic benefits of gender equality – busi-
nesses that have a diverse workforce have been shown to perform bet-
ter’.54 She claimed that the national economy was losing over $8 billion
a year because women who had received higher education training were
not entering the workforce. Prime Minister Tony Abbott had said:
‘Women, after all, are our country’s most under-utilised source of skills
and entrepreneurship – if female participation in Australia were six per
cent higher, at Canada’s level, GDP would be higher by $25 billion a
year’.55 In Cash’s view, such arguments demonstrated that gender equal-
ity was ‘no longer’ just a ‘women’s issue’ but ‘an economic issue and one
that must be addressed because gender equality is fundamental to eco-
nomic growth and prosperity’.56 Cash suggested that making such an
economic and business case was essential for bringing about the ‘cultural’
change that she acknowledged was needed in workplaces given that ‘so
many of the barriers to women’s participation are underpinned by deep-
seated cultural norms about gender equality – or inequality as the case
may be’.57 Cultural change driven by employers would be most effec-
tive.58 Similar arguments have been put forward in the British case.59
Nicky Morgan, former Minister for Women and Equalities, stated that:
‘The business case is clear: gender diversity is good for boards, good
for business and good for the economy’.60 David Cameron had pro-
claimed as Prime Minister that ‘we are committing to eliminating the
gender pay gap in a generation. This is not just the right thing to do,
it makes good business sense: supporting women to fulfil their potential
could increase the size of our economy by 35%’.61
206 C. JOHNSON
Such positions are a classic example of the framing analysis mentioned

earlier, where gender equality is subject to ‘bending’. In this case, gen-
der equality has been ‘bent’ to fit into another agenda, namely neoliberal
market-based policy.62 Yet the ‘bending’ can also result in a ‘shrinking’
of policy approaches and concerns. Underlying such framing is a concep-
tion of the economy and the market as being not merely gender neutral
but as gender beneficial. Just as it is believed that free-market forces will
contribute to better economic outcomes for everyone, including work-
ers, via forms of ‘trickle down’, it is believed that they will contribute to
greater gender equality. There is no conception that the economy has
developed historically in ways that are deeply gendered. Rather, in this
framing, gender inequality is conceived as a merely cultural overlay on an
essentially benevolent economic base. Furthermore, it is a cultural over-
lay that will disappear relatively easily once private enterprise understands
that there is a good business case for gender equality.63
Consequently, the Liberal government has not adequately considered
the impact of its own broader economic policies on women, given that
its framing simply assumes that pro-market policy solutions will ben-
efit women. As a National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW)
report on the government’s 2017–2018 Budget pointed out, the failure
to understand the position of women in the economy and society has
led to a failure to understand the differential impacts of economic policy
on women. For example, changes in taxation policy, the medicare health
levy and childcare costs introduced by the government in that budget
were going to impact particularly harshly on low-income women. Yet
there appeared to have been no adequate modelling of these changes,
despite the fact that they could contribute to an effective marginal tax
rate of 100% or more for women in some circumstances (in terms of the
earnings lost to taxes combined with cuts to means-tested government
benefits).64 Such effective marginal tax rates came on top of women’s
greater caring responsibilities for children, the sick and elderly which
could also impact on their ability to work, especially in a time of budget
restraint. In short, while claiming to support freedom of choice and
women’s increased participation in the workforce, the government’s own
economic policies in the 2017–2018 Budget were providing major disin-
centives for that to occur.
The framing of Liberal/National Coalition government economic pri-
orities, particularly the focus on budgetary restraint, had previously led
to the Abbott government failing to go ahead with its own proposals
for a relatively generous (for high-income earners) paid parental leave

scheme that it argued would enhance women’s workforce participa-
tion. Similarly, the government attempted to prevent people accessing
the existing 18-week government parental leave scheme in addition to
employer-funded entitlements, calling it ‘double dipping’. Labor had
intentionally designed the scheme that way so that those accessing paid
parental leave could top up their government entitlements with ones
from their employers.65
In addition, framing of the market as beneficial for women prevents
a deeper exploration of what the broader barriers might be to such cul-
tural change. For example, whether employers profit from paying women
lower wages, or whether particular forms of masculine identity in work-
places, amongst employers, senior managers and employees, might
be challenged by forms of gender equity that potentially undermined
masculine power and self-esteem. Consequently, it is noticeable that
while Cash relied on persuasion and mentoring, there were few legisla-
tive measures proposed to make workplaces more woman friendly or to
tackle broader issues that impact on gender equity, including the gender
division of labour in the home. By contrast, Labor Minister Kate Ellis
cited changes introduced by Labor to workplace legislation and the Sex
Discrimination Act to facilitate flexible work practices for both men and
women and to encourage men to play a more equitable role in caring
and other domestic responsibilities.66
There were also major issues in regard to childcare. Abbott argued
that affordable childcare was more important than paid parental leave
in encouraging women’s workforce participation. However, framing
childcare as predominantly about encouraging workforce participation
also had downsides, as noted in Annesley’s discussion of such framing.
There were estimates that while most families would maintain funding
or benefit financially, one in three or 150,000 families would lose bene-
fits as a result of the work activity test introduced by the government.67
Similar criticisms were made of the British Conservative government’s
attempts to restrict additional childcare provision to (a particularly nar-
row definition of) working families, although the Conservatives’ pledge
of 30 hours free childcare for three- to four-year-olds (even if ques-
tions were raised over underfunding) was particularly generous.68
The Abbott government also attempted to make childcare cheaper by
attempting to restrict pay rises for childcare workers in a case that had
208 C. JOHNSON
broader implications for women’s pay more generally, and significantly

undermined the previous Labor government’s attempts to improve pay
equity.69
In short, the Liberal view on what the role of government should
be in supporting gender equality was severely restricted by their neo-
liberal views on government expenditure and intervention in the econ-
omy. Consequently, the way in which their economic policy was framed
had major and potentially detrimental implications for their framing
of gender equality policy. It should be noted, however, that some of
these issues in regard to framing are not confined to recent conserva-
tive Coalition governments, though those are the governments focused
on here. This chapter has already noted the detrimental impact of the
Gillard government’s focus on employment in framing gender equality
policy, and Labor had delayed the implementation of pay increases for
(predominantly) female childcare workers amongst others for budgetary
reasons while strongly supporting them in the longer term.70 There were
significant differences over issues of government intervention. However,
both governments’ policy focus on employment revealed detrimental
aspects of the ‘adult worker model’ that Annesley has drawn attention
to in her work on policy framing, at the same time as the move away
from the ‘male breadwinner model’ also facilitated arguments for gender
equality in employment.
While this chapter has mainly focused on employment and related
childcare and parental leave policies, it should be noted that the focus
on budgetary restraint and cultural change also had ongoing implica-
tions for areas such as domestic violence policy, together with some
other aspects of the framing of this issue. The Howard and Abbott
governments often framed domestic violence policy in terms of a model
of protective masculinity, in which strong men were meant to protect
women and children in a family situation and not hurt them.71 Abbott
emphasised the male role as a ‘protector’.72 Consequently, traditional
gender power relations were not constructed as potentially contribut-
ing to domestic violence. By contrast, Turnbull argues that: ‘all violence
against women begins with disrespect of women. This is about power, as
we know, this is about exerting power’. Consequently, domestic violence
was framed as an equality issue in which men needed to recognise that
‘men and women are and should be equal’.73 He argued for substantial
cultural change to meet his ‘dream’ of an Australia that was known inter-
nationally for ‘respecting women’.74
Nonetheless, Turnbull is hesitant to recognise broader gendered

power relations that encouraged discriminatory attitudes towards
women, especially in the economy, and consequently to acknowl-
edge that more decisive forms of state intervention may be required.
After all, such a move would require him to reconsider his position in
regard to state intervention, government cutbacks and markets. As we
have seen, Liberal thinking on gender equality, in the current period,
has been strongly influenced by forms of neoliberal economic thought.
The NFAW has drawn attention to the impact of neoliberal federal
government funding cuts in the 2016–2017 Budget on domestic vio-
lence-related services, including in areas such as emergency housing,
compounded by the impact of cuts to legal aid.75 Furthermore, Cash
argued that providing leave for victims of domestic violence in indus-
trial awards might result in a ‘perverse disincentive’ for employers when
it came to hiring women.76 The Liberal reluctance to take action that
could interfere with employers’ powers in the workplace, and that
might have cost implications, continues. In short, while the gender pol-
icy framing of domestic violence shifted under Turnbull compared with
Abbott, the detrimental impacts of economic policy framing on the issue
remained. At the same time, expending some government funds to com-
bat domestic violence was justified not just on humanitarian grounds but
on the grounds that domestic violence had costs for the economy that
were estimated to run into many billions.77
Conclusion
The Australian examples demonstrate that economic policy framings
that are not explicitly seen as being about gender can have clear gender
implications, despite a professed support for gender equality. As Helen
Hodgson has emphasised:
As long as the focus is on Budget Repair, spending on services will be cut.

Women are more reliant on services. As long as revenue growth is stim-
ulated through tax cuts and private investment women will benefit less.
Women are underrepresented in the top quintile by both income and
wealth.78
Such perspectives challenge not only existing gender policy framings,

in terms of both design and outcomes, but also the economic policy
210 C. JOHNSON
framings they so often intersect with. Similarly, British feminist activists

have criticised Theresa May for claiming to be a feminist while endors-
ing neoliberal austerity policies that have a disproportionately negative
impact on women.79 The fact that neoliberal economic policy framings
have particularly negative impacts on gender equality has been empha-
sised throughout this chapter.
However, as the examples given in this chapter have also shown, fem-
inist analyses of policy framing have implications extending far beyond
policies that explicitly focus on gender, including, for example, under-
standings of how the economy functions. Such analyses demonstrate
that gender inequities in the market need to be taken into account in
broader economic, taxation, welfare and employment policy design.
Furthermore, the economics of the private and public sector can only be
fully understood if their underpinnings in the household, in areas such
as domestic labour, production and gendered patterns of care are ade-
quately taken into account. Policy framing that neglects such factors can
therefore result in not only unintended, but actually damaging, policy
outcomes.
Feminist analyses therefore provide striking examples of the impor-
tance of paying attention to how a wide range of policies are framed.
Here, as elsewhere, innovative feminist analyses are continuing to
make broader contributions to the political science and public policy
disciplines.
Notes
1. My thanks to Elyse Chapman and Lauren Varo for their research assis-
tance on this chapter and to the invaluable input of the editors.
2. Rod Rhodes (2007) ‘Understanding Governance: Ten Years on’,
Organization Studies 28: 1243–1264; Carol Bacchi (2009) Analysing
Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to Be?, Sydney: Pearson Education;
Carol Lee Bacchi (1999) Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of
Policy Problems, London: Sage; George Lakoff (2004) Don’t Think of an
Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, Melbourne: Scribe.
3. Charlotte Ryan and William A. Gamson (2006) ‘The Art of Reframing
Political Debates’, Contexts 5(1): 13–18.
4. See, for example, Margaret Stacey and Marion Price (1981) Women, Power
and Politics, London: Tavistock.
5. Emanuela Lombardo and Petra Meier (2008) ‘Framing Gender Equality
in the European Union Political Discourse’, Social Politics 15(1):
101–129, p. 119. Mark Pollack and Emilie Hafner-Burton, in their study

of gender mainstreaming in the European Union, have drawn attention
to the ways in which strategic actors can try to frame gender policy in
ways that are compatible with broader institutional policy framings in
order to influence policy outcomes Mark A. Pollack and Emilie Hafner-
Burton (2000) ‘Mainstreaming Gender in the European Union’, Journal
of European Public Policy 7(3): 432–456, p. 440.
6. Bacchi, Women, Policy and Politics, p. 207.
7. Bacchi, Analysing Policy, pp. 180–203.
8. For arguments opposing quotas in parliamentary representation see Julie
Bishop, Interview with Michael Brissenden. ABC AM, 29 July 2015.
Available at: http://www.juliebishop.com.au/abc-am-program-inter-
view-with-michael-brissenden-6/; Michaelia Cash, ‘The World Today
with Eleanor Hall’, 29 July 2015. Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/
worldtoday/content/2015/s4282980.htm.
9. Bacchi, Women, Policy and Politics, p. 109.
10. Bacchi, Women, Policy and Politics, pp. 197, 207; Judith Squires (2009)
‘Foreword’, in Emanuela Lombardo, Petra Meier, and Mieke Verloo
(eds.) The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality: Stretching, Bending and
Policymaking, London: Routledge, p. xvi.
11. Claire Annesley (2010) ‘Gender, Politics and Policy Change: The Case of
Welfare Reform Under New Labour’, Government and Opposition 45(1):
50–72.
12. Jenny Macklin (2013) ‘Opinion’, The Australian, 2 January.
13. Julie Smith (2017) ‘Paying for Care in Australia’s “Wage Earners’ Welfare
State”: The Case of Child Endowment’, in Miranda Stewart (ed.) Tax,
Social Policy and Gender, Canberra: ANU Press, pp. 168, 181, 187–190.
14. Paul Chaney (2015) ‘“Post-feminist” Era of Social Investment and
Territorial Welfare? Exploring the Issue Salience and Policy Framing of
Child Care in U.K. Elections 1983–2011’, SAGE Open 5(1): 1. https://
doi.org/10.1177/2158244015574299.
15. Smith, ‘Paying for Care’; see also, for example, Marilyn Waring (1988)
Counting for Nothing, Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
16. See, e.g., Marianne A. Ferber and Julie A. Nelson (eds.) (1993) Beyond
Economic Man: Essays in Feminism and Economics, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
17. Andrea Krizsan and Raluca Maria Popa (2014) ‘Frames in Contestation:
Gendering Domestic Violence Policies in Five Central and Eastern
European Countries’, Violence Against Women 20(7): 758–782, p. 778.
18. Conny Roggeband (2012) ‘Shifting Policy Responses to Domestic
Violence in the Netherlands and Spain (1980–2009)’, Violence Against
Women 18(7): 784–806.
212 C. JOHNSON
19. Nicky Charles and Fiona Mackay (2013) ‘Feminist Politics and Framing
Contests: Domestic Violence Policy in Scotland and Wales’, Critical
Social Policy 33(4): 602–605.
20. National Foundation for Australian Women (2017) ‘2017–2018:
Gender Lens on the Budget’, p. 6. Available at: http://www.nfaw.org/
gender-lens-on-the-budget/.
21. Waring, Counting for Nothing.
22. Marian Sawer (2008) ‘Framing Feminists: Market Populism and Its
Impact on Public Policy in Australia and Canada’, in Yasmeen Abu-
Laban (ed.) Gendering the Nation-State: Canadian and Comparative
Perspectives, Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press,
pp. 120–138; Marian Sawer (2006) ‘From Women’s Interests to Special
Interests: Reframing Equality Claims’, in Louise Chappell and Lisa Hill
(eds.) The Politics of Women’s Interests: New Comparative Perspectives,
New York: Routledge, pp. 111–129.
23. Emanuela Lombardo, Petra Meier, and Mieke Verloo (2009) ‘Stretching
and Bending Gender Equality: A Discursive Politics Approach’, in Meier,
Lombardo, and Verloo (eds.) The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality,
p. 1.
24. Meier, Lombardo, and Verloo, ‘Stretching and Bending Gender Equality’,
pp. 3, 4.
25. Meier Lombardo and Verloo, ‘Stretching and Bending Gender Equality’,
pp. 4–5.
26. Malin Rönnblom (2009) ‘Bending Towards Growth: Discursive
Constructions of Gender Equality in an Era of Governance and
Neoliberalism’, in Meier, Lombardo, and Verloo (eds.) The Discursive
Politics of Gender Equality, p. 109.
p. 9.
pp. 9–11, 12.
29. Sylvia Walby (2009) ‘Beyond the Politics of Location: The Power of
Argument in Gender Equality Politics’, in Meier, Lombardo, and Verloo
(eds.) The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality, p. 43.
30. Walby, ‘Beyond the Politics of Location’, p. 70.
31. Emanuela Lombardo and Mieke Verloo (2009) ‘Stretching Gender
Equality to Other Inequalities: Political Intersectionality in European
Gender Equality Policies’, in Meier, Lombardo, and Verloo (eds.) The
Discursive Politics of Gender Equality, p. 81.
32. Myra Ferree (2009) ‘Inequality, Intersectionality and the Politics of
Discourse: Framing Feminist Alliances’, in Meier, Lombardo, and Verloo
(eds.) The Discursive Politics of Gender Equality, pp. 94–95.
33. Myra Marx Ferree and William Gamson (2003) ‘The Gendering of

Governance and the Governance of Gender: Abortion Politics in Germany
and the USA’, in Barbara Hobson (ed.) Recognition Struggles and Social
Movements, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 42, 46.
34. In order to explain Coalition policies it has sometimes been necessary to
take into account policy settings established while in Opposition, as well
as policies influenced by the previous Howard government.
35. Marian Sawer (2013) ‘Misogyny and Misrepresentation: Women in
Australian Parliaments’, Political Science 65(1): 105–117; Carol Johnson
(2015) ‘Playing the Gender Card: The Uses and Abuses of Gender in
Australian Politics’, Politics & Gender 11(2): 291–319.
36. Tony Abbott (2014) Address to the International Women’s Day
Parliamentary Breakfast, 4 March 2014. Available at: https://pmtran-
scripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-23311.
37. In addition to Sawer’s work, cited earlier, see Deborah Brennan, ‘Babies,
Budgets and Birthrates: Work and Family Policy in Australia 1996–2006’,
Gender, State and Society 14(1): 31–57; Carol Johnson (2007) Governing
Change: From Keating to Howard, Perth: Network Books, pp. 73–90.
38. Michaelia Cash became a fully-fledged Cabinet member and Minister for
Women in the subsequent Turnbull Government.
39. Michaelia Cash (2015) ‘Speech, UN Women National Press Club
International Women’s Day Forum’. Available at: https://ministers.
pmc.gov.au/cash/2015/un-women-national-press-club-international-
women’s-day-forum.
40. Cash ‘Speech, UN Women National Press Club International Women’s
Day Forum’.
41. Sarah Childs and Paul Webb (2012), Sex, Gender and the Conservative
Party: From Iron Lady to Kitten Heels, London: Palgrave Macmillan,
p. 117.
42. Michaelia Cash (2014) Tech Girls Are Superheroes Book and
Competition Launch, Canberra, 16 May 2014. Available at: https://
ministers.pmc.gov.au/cash/2014/tech-girls-are-superheroes-book-and-
competition-launch-canberra.
43. Michaelia Cash (2014) Speech, Diversity Council of Australia, Sydney.
Available at: https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/cash/2014/diversity-council-
australia-sydney.
44. See contributions by Yeatman, Sawer, and Johnson to Feminism, Social
Liberalism and Social Democracy in the Neo-Liberal Era, Working Papers
in the Human Rights and Public Life Program No. 1: June 2015, ed.
Anna Yeatman. Available at: https://www.whitlam.org/__data/assets/
pdf_file/0004/906331/TWI5452_Human_Rights_and_Public_Life_
B5_paper_web.pdf.
214 C. JOHNSON
45. See, for example, Bronwyn Bishop, Hansard, Representatives, 18 June

2012, 6678; Michaelia Cash, Hansard, Senate, 13 September 2012,
6862; Sue Boyce, Hansard Senate, 20 November 2012, 9118; Karen
Andrews Hansard, Representatives, 18 June 2012, 6684; Sussan Ley,
Hansard, Representatives, 29 May 2012, 5953; Teresa Gambaro,
Hansard, Representatives, 29 May 2012, 5957 and 61.
46. Eric Abetz and Michaelia Cash (2015) ‘Gender Reporting Must Drive
Cultural Change’, Media Release, 25 February 2015. Available at:
http://ministers.employment.gov.au/abetz/gender-reporting-must-
drive-cultural-change.
47. Judith Ireland (2015) ‘Julia Gillard’s Gender Reporting to be Streamlined
Under Coalition’, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 February 2015. Available
at: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/julia-gillards-
gender-reporting-to-be-streamlined-under-coalition-20150225-13osxc.
html.
48. Nassim Khadem (2015) ‘ANZ Boss Mike Smith Says Watering Down
Gender Reporting Could Reduce Diversity’, Sydney Morning Herald,
3 March. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/business/anz-boss-
mike-smith-says-watering-down-gender-reporting-could-reduce-diversity-
20150302-13sq66.html.
49. Government Equalities Office, UK, Gender Pay Gap Reporting:
Overview. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/gender-pay-gap-
reporting-overview.
50. Michaelia Cash (2014) ‘Launch of the Women in Astronomy 2014
Workshop’, Media Release, 28 August. Available at: https://ministers.
pmc.gov.au/cash/2014/launch-women-astronomy-2014-workshop.
51. Cash, Speech Diversity Council of Australia.
52. Cash, Speech Diversity Council of Australia.
53. Michaelia Cash (2014) ‘Speech to Australian Local Government Women’s
Association (ALGWA) Annual Breakfast’, Canberra, Monday, 16 June
2014. Available at: https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/cash/2014/australi-
an-local-government-women’s-association-algwa-annual-breakfast-canberra.
54. Michaelia Cash (2014) ‘Congratulations to Anne Cross—Telstra’s
Business Women of the Year’, Media Release, 27 November 2014.
Available at: https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/cash/2014/congratulations-
anne-cross-telstra’s-business-women-year.
55. Tony Abbott (2015) ‘Address to the National Press Club of Australia’,
2 February 2015. Available at: https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/
transcript-24163.
56. Michaelia Cash (2015) ‘Opinion: Two Nations, One Goal’, 31 August 2015.
Available at: https://ministers.dpmc.gov.au/cash/2015/two-nations-one-
goal.
57. Michaelia Cash (2015) ‘Speech, CEDA: Women in Leadership Brisbane’,

QLD, 29 July 2015. Available at: https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/
cash/2015/ceda-women-leadership-brisbane-qld-29-july-2015.
58. Cash, ‘CEDA: Women in Leadership’.
59. See Childs and Webb, Sex, Gender and the Conservative Party,
pp. 118–119.
60. Nicky Morgan, Lord Davies Review on Women on Boards, 29 October
2015. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/nicky-
morgan-lord-davies-review-on-women-on-boards.
61. David Cameron (n.d.) ‘Press Release Prime Minister: My One Nation
Government Will Close the Gender Pay Gap’. Available at: https://www.
gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-my-one-nation-government-
will-close-the-gender-pay-gap.
pp. 4–5.
63. Of course, framing gender equality in a way that merely incorporates it
into existing economic frameworks is not a problem that is confined to
Liberals. Although analysis is beyond the scope of this chapter, Labor
has long had its own version, in which gender equality perspectives were
merely incorporated into its economic policy of the day, without ade-
quate analysis of the gendered limitations and outcomes of those policies.
For a historical overview see Carol Johnson (1990) ‘Whose Consensus?
Women and the ALP’, Arena 93: 85–104. However, Labor’s perspectives
had allowed more room for government intervention in the market.
64. National Foundation for Australian Women, ‘2017–2018: Gender Lens
on the Budget’.
65. Scott Morrison (2015) ‘Interview 2GB with Ben Fordham’, 13 May
2015. Available at: https://formerministers.dss.gov.au/15848/2gb-ben-
fordham-3/.
66. Kate Ellis (2011) ‘Women and Leadership Australia’s National 2011
Adelaide Symposium’, 15 July 2011. Available at: http://pandora.nla.
gov.au/pan/123024/20120103-1508/www.kateellis.fahcsia.gov.au/
speeches/Pages/women_leadership_playford_sebel_15072011.html.
67. Julie Doyle (2016) ‘One in Three Families Worse Off Under Planned
Childcare Changes, Modelling Predicts’. Available at: http://www.abc.
net.au/news/2016-03-04/modelling-has-1-in-3-families-worse-off-
under-childcare-changes/7218550.
68. Sally Weale (2015) ‘David Cameron’s Generous Childcare Pledge
Doesn’t Add Up, Experts Warn’, The Guardian, 14 April. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/apr/14/david-cameron-
conservatives-childcare-manifest.
216 C. JOHNSON
69. Application by United Voice and Australian Education Union, Application

by Independent Education Union of Australia (2014) Submissions
for the Commonwealth of Australia in the Fair Work Commission,
24 February 2014. Available at: https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/
sites/caeremuneration/submissions/AGS-CoA-Submissions-24-
Feb-2014.pdf.
70. Julia Gillard, Hansard, Representatives, 23 November 2010: 3429.
71. See Carol Johnson (2013) ‘From Obama to Abbott: Gender Identity and
the Politics of Emotion’, Australian Feminist Studies 28(75): 19–23, for
a broader account of Howard and Abbott’s protective masculinity.
72. Tony Abbott (2014) ‘Remarks at Police Commissioners Stand Together
Against Violence on Women and Children’. Available at: http://pmtran-
scripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-24000.
73. Malcolm Turnbull (2015) Joint Press Conference: Women’s Safety
Package to Stop the Violence, 24 September 2015. Available at: https://
www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/transcript-press-conference-to-an-
nounce-100m-safety-package-to-stop-the-vio. Interestingly, Theresa May
has tended to construct domestic violence more as a criminal issue in
which women are disproportionately victims rather than specifically as a
gender equality issue, see Press release, Prime Minister’s plans to trans-
form the way we tackle domestic violence and abuse, 17 February 2017.
Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-ministers-
plans-to-transform-the-way-we-tackle-domestic-violence-and-abuse.
74. Turnbull, joint press conference: women’s safety package.
75. National Foundation for Australian Women (n.d.) A Gender Lens
Budget 2016–2017. Available at: http://www.nfaw.org/gender-lens-
on-the-budget/. This document also provides an invaluable assessment
of the budget in terms of gender policy more generally. A general analy-
sis of budget implications can be found at Parliamentary Library (2016)
‘Budget Savings: Omnibus Bill 2016’. Available at: http://parlinfo.aph.
gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/billsdgs/4813685/upload_
binary/4813685.pdf;fileType=application/pdf.
76. Noel Towell (2016) ‘Domestic Violence Leave Would Mean Fewer Jobs
for Women: Cash’, Canberra Times, 27 May. Available at: http://www.
canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/domestic-violence-leave-
would-mean-fewer-jobs-for-women-cash-20160527-gp5h1z.html.
77. Susan Harris Rimmer and Marian Sawer (2016) ‘Neoliberalism and
Gender Equality Policy in Australia’, Australian Journal of Political
Science 51(4): 742–758, p. 758.
78. Helen Hodgson (2016) APSA roundtable, Panel 15—Gender Politics:

Roundtable: Gender and Sexuality Issues in the 2016 Federal Election.
Australian Political Studies Association Annual Conference, 26 September
2016.
79. Sian Norris (2017) ‘A Vote for Theresa May Is Not a Vote for Women’,
27 April 2017. Available at: http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analy-
sis/2017/04/27/a-vote-for-theresa-may-is-not-a-vote-for-women. See fur-
ther, Women’s Budget Group, Women and austerity, resources. Available at:
http://wbg.org.uk/resources/women-and-austerity/; House of Commons
Library, Briefing paper Number SN0675816, December 2016, Estimating
the gender impacts of tax and benefits changes. Available at: researchbrief-
ings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06758/SN06758.pdf.
CHAPTER 11
What Feminist Research Has Contributed

to Social Movement Studies: Questions
of Time and Belonging
Merrindahl Andrew
As new forms of political action emerged in the 1960s in North America

and Europe, the dominant social science agendas emanating from these
centres of academic activity became increasingly interested in document-
ing and analysing social movements. Two major bodies of literature have
resulted, one stemming from Europe and focused on collective meanings
and identities and the other originating in North America and focused
on resource mobilisation, opportunity structures and political process
theories (PPT).1 More recently, work on framing, discursive strategies,
cultures and emotions in social movements has sought to combine and
extend these two approaches.2
The academic field of social movement studies sits at the intersec-
tion of sociology and political science. This positioning mirrors the
role that social movements play in bringing to light the links—as well
as the antagonisms—between social and political worlds. Again echoing
the ‘real world’, political science often ignores social movements and
M. Andrew (*) 
Canberra, Australia
e-mail: merrindahl@fastmail.fm

220 M. ANDREW
their scholars, but there are pockets of sympathy—most notably feminist

political scientists.3 Feminist studies of women’s movements, however,
do not neatly fit into social movement studies, whether this is considered
as an enterprise of sociology or political science. With no doubt some
exceptions, studies of women’s movements (including but not limited to
feminist movements) tend to be conducted by feminist scholars who may
be historians, sociologists, political scientists or gender studies scholars,
but who are motivated by their interest in gender equality and/or wom-
en’s liberation as well as by academic and disciplinary concerns. For this
reason, their contribution needs to be assessed not only in terms of the
way they have enriched and extended particular disciplines, but also in
their own terms—as I would describe it, a scholarship for and of wom-
en’s movements.
This chapter maps out the contribution of feminist studies of wom-
en’s movements, focusing on the ways in which these studies have over
come some of the limitations imposed by dominant (often male-centred)
models of political and social movement activity.4 While studies of
women’s movements have been generated as a distinct field within the
‘mainstream’ of social science, the study of social movements generally
has been formed on assumptions reflecting the dominance of men and
certain forms of protest. Feminist studies of women’s movements have
enriched the field of social movement studies, challenging assumptions
about movements’ life-courses, actors, temporal scale, repertoires, insti-
tutionalisation and organisational form.
This chapter highlights how feminist scholarship has both sat apart
from and contributed to the field. Drawing on my work as a scholar of
women’s movements as well as a worker/participant, the chapter pre-
sents a case study of women’s movements against violence in Australia. It
argues for an expansive conception of the shared project(s), in which the
feminist institutions that have been created will be challenged and dis-
comfited as part of a long-term process of questioning and change.
Gendered Assumptions About Social Movements

Before we look more closely at these assumptions and the contribution
of feminist studies to creating a broader conception of social movements,
it is worth noting that the focus here relates to but is not the same as
the study of gender in social movements more generally.5 Clearly, while
women are present in most if not all social movements, not all social
11 WHAT FEMINIST RESEARCH HAS CONTRIBUTED … 221
movements are ‘of’ or ‘for’ women. My focus here is on the latter, while
also acknowledging a degree of overlap or blurriness, and the fact that
an increasing number of studies analyse the gendered aspects of activ-
ism and mobilisations, sometimes from a feminist perspective.6 Although
women’s movements and gender relations between women and men are
important within gender studies, gender studies appropriately encompasses
a broader and more diverse set of concerns about gender, including stud-
ies of masculinity as well as forms of gender that are non-binary. It is also
important to note, as expertly explained by Bereni and Revillard, that the
category of women’s movements is broader than, and includes, the cate-
gory of feminist movements:
Most analysts of the women’s movement believe that it differs from other
movements (in which women may also participate) in that the category of
women, defined as ‘a distinct constituency instead of, within, or against
their other potentially competing allegiances and identities’ (Ferree and
Mueller 2004, 580), is central to its political identity. In a wide variety of
historical and cultural contexts, women have organized as women (based
on typically female roles as mothers, daughters, sisters, or wives) to pur-
sue a vast range of goals, such as the abolition of slavery, the fight against
alcoholism, prostitution, and poverty, promoting peace or nationalism, the
protection of nature, or improvement in women’s status. The very defi-
nition of the category of women is of course one of the issues at stake for
these movements, which maintain varied and often conflicting relations
to this identity referent. The category of feminism is usually distinguished
analytically from the women’s movement. According to U.S. historian
Linda Gordon, feminism can be defined as ‘a critique of male suprem-
acy, formed and offered in the light of a will to change it, which in turn
assumes a conviction that it is changeable’ (Gordon 1986, 29). Regardless
of how its boundaries are delineated, an issue that raises a great deal of
controversy among both women’s movements students and participants,
the feminist movement can be seen as a narrower category than the wom-
en’s movement: it is in part included in it (McBride and Mazur 2010), but
not limited to it.7
As Bereni and Revillard note, studies of women’s movements do not fit

neatly into either of the dominant social movement theories outlined
above (resource mobilisation/PPT and collective identity/culture).8
In part, this is because forms of women’s movements predate the
‘post-materialist’ movements of the 1960s and 1970s, yet do not fit
clearly into the labour and communist movements that dominated
222 M. ANDREW
understandings of progressive popular protest before those decades.9

Likewise over their long histories, they are not exclusively ‘left-wing’, nor
do they adhere to a model of ‘outsider’ politics or forms of social move-
ment organisations (SMOs) that are seen as emblematic of the field.
Extending the Temporal Frame

One of the contributions of feminist scholarship to social movement
studies is attention to the longer temporal frame of social movements.
Social movements are often understood in terms of short periods of
intense activism, as in the spectacle of ‘the 1970s’: visible protests sus-
tained over relatively short amounts of time. As the Evolution of Social
Movements project10 outline states:
The [hypothesis] that there is a naturally short life span for intense social
movement activism and engagement … received an influential form in
Sidney Tarrow’s (1994) life-cycle model of social movements. Social move-
ments become possible within certain historical conjunctures, and by their
nature as non-institutionalised forms of collective action cannot be sus-
tained for very long. Their life cycles are limited by internal factors, which
may relate to the volatility of emotions that drive non-institutionalised pro-
test, such as rage at injustice (Goodwin et al. 2001); and external factors,
which can include the change to a less favourable political and social con-
text where movement activism no longer has discernible returns.11
Questioning the understanding of social movements as necessarily

short term in nature, feminist scholars have highlighted the very long-
term nature of the goals pursued by the women’s movement. Suzanne
Staggenborg and Verta Taylor and, in the Australian context, Marian
Sawer and Marilyn Lake and many others including myself have shown
how women’s movement goals have been sustained (although challenged
and reconfigured) over more than a century.12 Another aspect of the
long-term nature of the goals pursued is the question of how participants
mobilise and organise: how they (we) conceptualise our work in relation
to the scale of the problems and the fact that it will take a very long time.
The most well-developed approach to analysing social movements
is political process theory (PPT), which is focused on ‘disruptive’
demonstrations of dissent instrumentally organised to target the state,
with onlookers as an audience of potential supporters, contrasted with
‘conventional’ tactics of lobbying and influence.13 As many feminist

scholars have now established, this approach to what social movements
do needs to be complemented with a fuller account incorporating what
women’s movements do, including mutual empowerment and individ-
ual advocacy,14 cultural and emotional work,15 direct service provision,16
organisational innovation,17 and work within the state and other institu-
tions as an alternative to seeing these as simply adversaries or targets for
protest.18
From another perspective within social movement studies, the decline
of protest after the 1970s represents the failure of efforts at transforma-
tive change. Michel Wievorka, for example, concluded that:
[In the 1990s] … what remained of the new mobilizations of the 1970s,
had not entirely disappeared but what remained had either been institu-
tionalized and was consequently incapable of rising to the level of historic-
ity to challenge the overall control of the major orientations of collective
life, or else had been radicalized and was prepared, in particular, to take
the form of violence or of ideologies of rupture.19
Wievorka identifies premature institutionalisation of social movements as

one of the ways that they fail to rise to the required ‘level of historic-
ity’.20 While women’s movement scholars have long analysed the risks of
co-option and the pitfalls of institution-building, Wievorka’s assessment
raises the question of what, in fact, it would look like for the women’s
movement to ‘challenge the overall control of the major orientations of
collective life’,21 given the saturation of gender hierarchies throughout
all societies and in myriad dimensions. Perhaps if we consider historic-
ity in a longer scale, and pay attention to the diverse forms of women’s
movement activity, a more positive assessment might be warranted.22
Attention to the long-term and large-scale nature of social movement
goals, and how to deal with both the practical and emotional dimensions
of this challenge, gives another way to complement social movement
studies with richer and more realistic accounts of how social change is
pursued. Mobilisation cannot be reduced to instrumentalist assessments
of resources and opportunities at a single point in time, since partic-
ipants’ sense of ‘self-efficacy’23 does not depend only on these factors,
and can be built or undermined over time.
These more complex accounts of movement mobilisation show
how inappropriate it is to assume that social movements are directed
224 M. ANDREW
‘strategically’, as if by CEOs. As I argue elsewhere, the ‘movement CEO’

viewpoint adopted by many social movement studies assumes rather
than investigates strategising in movement action.24 Instead, we need to
question these assumptions and examine goal formation and delibera-
tion about means in a way that includes the non-instrumental features of
movement action, such as emotion. The ideas generated for and about
the women’s movement in feminist historiography and other feminist
studies have been important sources for enriching social movement stud-
ies in this way.
Collective Identities Over Time

One of the ways in which women’s movement participants are able to
sustain self-efficacy is through identification (often conflicted and not
simple) with the feminist project(s) over the longer term. As Maddison
and Sawer explain, women’s movements are constituted in the mobilis-
ing of a collective identity as women, the sustaining of women-centred
discourses and making claims on behalf of women that challenge the
gender order in some way.25
This form of identification in a community is contrasted with the idea
of the formal SMO which is an important part of resource mobilisation
theory, one of the key theories within social movement studies. In this
theory, a SMO is a hierarchical and clearly structured group that pur-
sues political goals and incorporates a formal membership (and not only
supporters).26
As Bereni and Revillard explain:
It was to overcome this organizational bias that in 1990, Buechler put for-
ward the concept of ‘social movement community,’ defined as ‘informal
networks of politicized individuals with fluid boundaries, flexible lead-
ership structures, and malleable divisions of labor’ (Buechler 1990, 42).
Analyzing the second wave of the American women’s movement, Buechler
showed that the feminist social movement community cannot be reduced
to a set of organizations oriented toward legal reform.27
Whittier28 and Staggenborg and Taylor29 extend this more broadly

beyond the organisational form to cultural and personal spheres in which
the identification with feminism is the unifying principle rather than a
political or activist form of activity. This approach incorporates everyday
life and ‘micro’-acts of feminism as important, since these acts are mani-
festations of a broader identification with feminism.
Collective identity in feminism can also extend to a form of responsi-
bility and accountability to a community, sustained over time. The long
timescales of women’s movements and feminism enable debates and
generational troubles to emerge. These have, in turn, prompted more
sophisticated analysis of what if anything we owe to past iterations of
movements with whom we identify, especially if, as with feminism, the
movement has been animated by racist, colonial, classist and homopho-
bic beliefs as well as progressive efforts towards gender equality. This
kind of responsibility is not necessarily nostalgic (although it can be);
in a more constructive sense, it can emerge from the collective moral
agency of the movement.30 Following Genevieve Lloyd,31 in identifying
ourselves as part of the political collectivity known as feminism, feminists
can experience a kind of responsibility for actions taken in the past in
the name of feminism and the institutional legacies of these actions. This
sense of responsibility becomes especially important in relation to the
challenges of intersectionality, as discussed below, which push feminists
to acknowledge and confront the full range of oppressions embodied
within the movement as well as external to it.
Pragmatism and Partial Success

As noted above, social movements are often assessed in terms of their
success or failure—their survival or death—linked to the short term over
which intense non-institutional collective action can be sustained. This
assumption that a social movement is over once it is no longer as visi-
ble in forms such as street protest has been challenged by studies that
emphasise the many forms of activism that contribute to radical but
long-term feminist goals.
One such contribution that engages with the scale of change but
looks at modes of activity rather than beliefs about prospects is that of
Bice Maiguashca, who studies feminist activism in the global justice
movement.32 Maiguashca finds much in such activism that complicates,
critiques and enriches the dominant social movement studies approach
of PPT. In addition to ‘protest’, Maiguashca and colleagues identify five
forms of action that do not fit neatly into the taxonomy of conventional
vs disruptive. The first of these is advocacy, in which feminist concerns
are pursued through efforts to change policies, practices and laws; the
226 M. ANDREW
second is knowledge production, including the development of original

research and its dissemination; third is service provision, as evidenced in
the creation of women’s health and counselling services; fourth, popu-
lar education in which women develop social and self-knowledge while
gaining practical skills; and finally, movement building, the communica-
tion and organisation needed to build alliances and maintain connections
while developing campaigns and actions.
The overarching approach is identified by Maiguashca as ‘principled
pragmatism’: a form of ‘ethically orientated political labour’ that is as nor-
matively driven in its approach to how change is pursued as it is to why
change is pursued in the first place.33 Other key features of the feminist
activism studied by Maiguashca include a focus on individual women’s
empowerment as a foundation of social change and an eclectic approach
to tactics: ‘Agnostic about the content and form of movement actions,
but highly sensitive to their ethical and political nature’.34 Importantly, the
diversity and multiplicity of these forms of action are driven by the recog-
nition of the vast scale and multidimensional nature of the changes sought,
hence the pursuit ‘of radical social change through incremental steps’.35
As Maiguashca identifies, this activism in the global justice movement
grows out of similar approaches taken by feminists in earlier stages and in
national/local settings. In the Australian feminist movement, this kind of
‘principled pragmatism’ has been widely documented in relation to state
feminism and the ‘femocrat intervention’,36 autonomous institution-
building in the areas of women’s services and non-governmental organisa-
tion (NGO) advocacy,37 and more recently online feminist activity.38 Some
critiques of these forms of feminism have invoked the responsibility to be
‘sensitive to their ethical and political nature’,39 drawing attention to the
colonial and racist power structures that pervade feminism as they do other
movements and institutions.40 Critiques of feminism in terms of class and
from the perspectives of women with disability and lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and queer women have also been important, leading as is dis-
cussed below to some broadening in conceptions of feminism.
A particular set of challenges becomes clear once feminism is
addressed not in terms of ‘failure’ and ‘death’ or alternately ‘resurgence’
and ‘a new wave’, but in terms of partial success and incremental pro-
gress towards a transformative goal: in Susan Magarey’s words, ‘a level
of transformation unimaginable in conjunction with any government
that we know’.41 These challenges relate to institution-building and
institutionalisation, focusing on the dual problem of on the one hand
defending gains and, on the other hand, maintaining an active and open
approach to movement building. The potential conflicts between these
imperatives indicate the complex ethical and political deliberations that
feminists must make.
Institutionalisation and Social Movement Actors

In the study of social movements, institutionalisation has traditionally
been treated as synonymous with the end of the movement or at least
with the end of the phase that is of interest to social movement schol-
ars. As David Meyer has argued, ‘[m]ovements end when they reach
some sort of accommodation with the state and/or are either no
longer interested or able to mount extra-institutional challenges’.42
Institutionalisation, in Meyer and Tarrow’s view, is a combined process
of ‘routinization of collective action, such that challengers and authori-
ties can both adhere to a common script[;] inclusion and marginalisation,
whereby challengers who are willing to adhere to established routines
will be granted access to political exchanges in mainstream institutions,
while those who refuse to accept them can be shut out[; and] coopta-
tion, which means that challengers alter their claims and tactics to ones
that can be pursued without disrupting the normal practice of politics’.43
In defining institutionalisation in this and similar ways, social move-
ment scholars tend to view it in terms of its (negative) effect on the
capacity of the movement to sustain ‘extra-institutional challenges’. Such
definitions, therefore, neglect the more complex and less visible processes
through which movement goals and values are partially adopted and
then reconfigured by other institutions, that is, the kind of partial success
that many women’s movements experience over decades and centuries.
As others have pointed out, it is difficult to imagine movements succeed-
ing without the adoption of the movement’s principles and discourses
by powerful institutions, which itself implies the reconstitution of these
principles into other frames of reference and other ‘logics of appropriate-
ness’.44 This is a complex process that is not adequately captured by the
notion of ‘co-optation’.
A different way to view social movements’ partial success is that, as
they succeed in achieving their aims, they change into something else:
… for example, through opening up new opportunities in the power structure

or in professional careers for those they have mobilised. Movement from the
228 M. ANDREW
streets into the corridors of power may be regarded ‘the long march through
the institutions’ on the one hand or co-option on the other. The transforma-
tion of social movements into ‘something else’ may also create a new con-
stellation of institutions reflecting movement values and perspectives—for
example the institutionalising of women’s movement values in women’s ser-
vices such as domestic violence refuges (Bagguley 2002) or the unobtrusive
mobilization of women within mainstream institutions and vocational bodies
(Katzenstein 1990). The ‘submerged networks’ created by social movements
may sustain cultural change within communities and within daily life.45
Importantly, the complexity of these processes was to some extent

understood and discussed by women’s movement participants even at
the height of extra-institutional activism, through debates about reform
versus revolution. For example, movement theory supporting reform to
gain the ‘preconditions for revolution’, together with an understanding
of the movement as functionally composed of different parts, enabled
many feminists to reconcile their ‘practical’ political action with a vision
of the movement as a broader whole seeking revolutionary social change.
Another problem with Meyer and Tarrow’s widely used definition of
institutionalisation is that it invokes a simplistic and dichotomous view
of ‘authorities’ (defined in terms of state authorities) and ‘challengers’
(social movement activists). Histories of the Australian women’s move-
ment and others, such as the US and Canadian movements,46 clearly
show that this dichotomy is too simple. For a start, the idea of a unitary,
unchanging and monolithic state has long been criticised by political sci-
entists, who see it as unable to capture the complexity and internal con-
flicts of government, as well as the changes that states undergo.47
Women’s liberation activists also began working within the state and
other institutions of authority quite early in the second-wave movement.
With the growing influence of gender equality norms, feminists and gen-
der analysis experts have themselves become authorities in this partially
institutionalised field. While activism may have become less novel and
therefore less visible to the general public, the principles of gender equal-
ity (at least in certain forms) have become more visible to policymakers.
There are certainly passionate discussions among feminists about the
ultimate impact of these changes and to what extent they achieve the
goals of the movement, but there is little doubt that an identifiable con-
tinuity exists between the early claims of women’s movement activists
and current institutional forms of gender equality work. Indeed, if there
was not such continuity, the discussions would not be so passionate.
In the Australian case as discussed further below, the clear losses within
the women’s policy machinery and the difficult recent history of wom-
en’s services are impossible to assess from within the limited idea of a
social movement ending with institutionalisation.
Notions of institutionalisation in social movement studies are too
focused on movements’ interaction with the state and do not pay
enough attention to movement-based efforts to form new institutions,
such as shelters. The state and ‘institutional politics’ are too often seen as
unitary, static and not subject to change—a significant shortcoming inas-
much as one of the main preoccupations of social movements has been
institutional and political change. In defining movements as inherently
and exclusively extra-institutional, social movement studies have failed
to recognise the institutions (broadly conceived) that are present in and
around movements even in their earlier stages.
As discussed above, social movement studies tend to treat SMOs as
the central actors engaging in contestation; yet when SMOs become
more institutionalised, through funding arrangements or other forms
of legitimisation, they tend to be treated as external to the movement.
To give an example, there are important differences between, on the
one hand, women’s organisations funded by the government to under-
take policy advocacy and, on the other hand, small groups of individual
women mobilising on an unfunded basis about feminist issues. However,
we can recognise the commonalities and continuity between these, with-
out neglecting the differences and tensions that may be present between
these different manifestations of the movement(s).
Perhaps most importantly, approaches that treat institutionalisation
as anathema to social movements fail to grapple adequately with the
complex ways in which activists have tried to embed their values and
discourses in existing institutions, create new institutions and take the
opportunities presented by institutional change—and the challenges and
problems involved. Studies of feminist movements have provided some
intellectual resources for a project of reconceptualising social movement
institutionalisation.
The Purpose of Scholarship and Its Connections

to Social Change
As in feminist political science generally,48 feminist scholars of women’s

movements have long tended to question the relationship of their schol-
arship to social change. Fundamentally, feminist scholars wish to ‘make a
230 M. ANDREW
difference’ (however variously and complicatedly this difference might

be conceived). In the field of social movement studies, however, this
kind of troubled reflection is not unique.
Social movements are about political participation and the creation
of issues, political identities and activities that challenge and change
the scope of what politics is. Social movements are often focused on
the edges of politics—the struggles of the disenfranchised and the fail-
ures of the state. By contrast, as McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly argue, the
purpose of social movement research is to ‘identify recurrent large-scale
structures and sequences’ and ‘recurrent smaller-scale causal mecha-
nisms’ so as to build general and comparative knowledge around move-
ment politics.49 From this point of view, it is hard to see how social
science concerns about finding generalisable patterns and facts about
social movements can have common ground with the substantive con-
cerns of feminist (or other) social movement participants. Instead, con-
flicts between the imperatives of scholarship and what is useful for social
movements have been documented.50 These conflicts are particularly
obvious when a structural analysis is used that is attentive to the power
of money, credibility and constructions of knowledge. From this perspec-
tive, there are pervasive, powerful barriers standing in the way of scholar-
activists who wish to operate on or create such a common ground, and
these barriers may be internalised as well as woven into daily practices
and career paths.51
This chapter has focused on the insights that have been generated
from within studies of women’s movements (as well as elsewhere) and
have enriched the study of social movements generally. However, it is
notable that these contributions still fit (or have been made to fit) into
the ‘social scientific’ conception of the purpose of social movement
scholarship. This purpose, as noted above, is generally understood to
be the project of finding generalisable patterns and facts about social
movements. An important question, then, is what if anything these
contributions can give ‘back’ to social movements themselves. It becomes
quickly obvious that, as generations of politically active scholars have
found, there is no simple way of translating back—and in fact the diffi-
culty in doing so demonstrates the ‘extractive’ nature of social movement
scholarship (‘mining’ social movement activities), and the basic conflict of
interests between scholarship and social movement activities.
Despite these apparently intractable problems, feminist scholars of
women’s movements have found ways to align their research in ways that
make it ‘useful’ (although not straightforwardly so) to others working

towards gender equality/women’s liberation. Foremost among these
innovations are research practices that favour collaboration, prefigura-
tive approaches to negotiation, consent and ownership, and an emphasis
on horizontal rather than vertical relationships. These are some of the
contributions that feminist scholars, among others, have made to social
science methodologies52—as with social and political change generally,
these methods and concepts of organising have many mothers.
Another contribution that has relevance to social movement partici-
pants generally is the iterative approach to feminist historiography of the
women’s movement, in which collective identity, generational change
and critical questioning sit alongside each other, providing a way for
movements to tell stories about themselves that both sustain collectiv-
ity and (ideally) open the way for expansion and reflection. Verta Taylor
(in the US context) and Marian Sawer (from Australia) have been major
contributors to this way of both documenting and reflecting on women’s
movement progress.
Movement Building and Issues of Violence in Australia

and Beyond
Women’s movements have tended to operate with an acceptance of a

continuum of radicalism, which both reflects and mediates internal or
factional conflict. Australia is an interesting case study of these dynam-
ics, since studies of the Australian second-wave women’s movement
have highlighted the unusual degree to which feminist goals and pro-
cesses were institutionalised in the Australian state from an early stage.53
More recently, the erosion of Australian women’s policy machinery and
feminist-inspired programs has been recorded.54 Importantly, one of the
factors identified as contributing to this erosion was the gradual disap-
pearance from public view of an autonomous, active and oppositional
women’s movement.55 As Maddison and Sawer note:
Not only did institutional innovation in Australia precede much that

occurred elsewhere, but so has the reconfiguration or ‘mainstreaming’
of those institutions. Forty years after the initial creation of movement-
inspired policy agencies and women’s services, Australia remains well-
positioned to contribute to international scholarship and theory-building
on movements and their institutional impacts.56
232 M. ANDREW
Contrasting the negative picture of erosion and disappearance is the

fact that, over the last ten years in Australia, violence against women has
been increasingly prominent as an issue. Unlike previous ‘law and order’
approaches, and the not-very-nuanced ‘Australia says no’ community
education campaigns of the 1990s and early 2000s, recent policy devel-
opments are somewhat feminist in nature, in that they identify violence
as part of structural gender inequality and accept that the empowerment
of women must be central to efforts to eliminate gender-based vio-
lence. The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their
Children (2010–2022) gives a framework and impetus for this work.57
In addition, recent years have seen the formation of high-level task
forces and agencies and the development of new programs, legisla-
tion and services at both the national and sub-national levels. Royal
Commission inquiries and taskforces at the state level (Queensland and
Victoria) have intensified media engagement and demand for services.
Survivor and advocate Rosie Batty was appointed Australian of the Year
for 2015 and used the platform for a massive public campaign. Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull pointedly stated that violence against women
is a result of gender inequality and we all must foster a culture of respect
for women. A large media campaign has recently targeted the messages
that children and young people receive about gender, including those
that denigrate girls and femininity (‘you throw like a girl’), and excuse
boys’ violence (‘he only does it because he likes you’). Social media and
online forums have burgeoned as a means for communicating women’s
experiences of violence and abuse—but also as a means for people to
direct such abuse at women (and others). At the same time, many gov-
ernments at both the state/territory and national levels have cut funding
to women-run services and managed broader community service systems
in ways that undermine rather than strengthen the distinctive contribu-
tion of feminist services.58 There is therefore a complex picture of sur-
vival, longevity and success, contrasted with instances of backlash, and
a tenuous and under-supported position for feminist services and their
distinctive contribution.59
In Australia as elsewhere, there were great debates about ‘reform vs
revolution’ in the women’s movement of the 1970s and 1980s. These
conflicts were somewhat resolved with the widespread (but not unani-
mous) acceptance of the principle that it is alright to work for reform
as long as by doing so you are strengthening and not undermining the
chances for revolution.60 Many have identified this heterogeneity as one
of the strengths of the movement, but it relies on links between parts.

These links take a concerted effort to sustain with the growing diversity
of groups and structures relating to gender equality. There are also issues
of exclusion and representation that have come to the fore repeatedly,
most recently and most productively via concepts of intersectionality.
In place of the debates about ‘reform vs revolution’, the new tensions
are between expansive and shared vs reductive and ‘owned’ conceptions
of feminism. In order to support productive institutionalisation of fem-
inist principles through structures including women’s services, activists
and scholars have identified that the women’s movement in Australia will
need to continue to grow and be mobilised. For this to occur, an expan-
sive conception of the shared project(s) will be needed. Through this
process, the feminist institutions that have been created and are being
created will be challenged and discomfited.
As Disney and Gelb note, success does not necessarily mean survival
or organisational maintenance.61 It can include public education and the
achievement of policy goals. In terms of achieving policy goals, Htun
and Weldon’s major multi-country study found that the mobilisation
of autonomous women’s movements is the most important factor in
the creation of progressive policy change in relation to ending violence
against women, and that this factor is more influential than leftist parties
in government, national wealth or proportion of women legislators.62
Htun and Weldon argue that their findings are relevant more broadly:
By employing new measures of civil society phenomena such as social

movements, we may uncover a broader set of societal causes of major
political change not just on issues of concern to women but also on issues
contested by social movements more generally, such as environmental pro-
tection, democracy, and human rights…. When it comes to progressive
social policy, the roots of change lie in civil society.63
Of course, while it is possible to analyse ‘a movement’ as ‘an actor’ in

relation to policy, it is not accurate to portray movements as unified or
singular.64 Disney and Gelb found through their analysis of women’s
movement organisations in the USA in the 1990s that those ‘that have
been best able to construct conflict as a strengthening rather than divi-
sive component of discursive input and have chosen to renegotiate deci-
sion-making structures and expand their notions of feminism have been
the most successful in the areas of mobilization and cultural success’.65
234 M. ANDREW
These findings are consistent with Dean and Aune’s assessment of con-
temporary feminist activisms in Europe:
preoccupations around the precise character of the feminist subject have

given way to more diverse conceptions of feminist subjectivity in which the
role of historically excluded constituencies within feminism – queers, les-
bian, gay, bisexual (LGB) and trans* women, black and minority ethnic
women and indeed men – are, in some contexts, more visible.66
In relation specifically to violence against women in the Australian

context, a 2016 conference on violence prevention (‘Prevalent and
Preventable’) focused extensively on what intersectionality might mean
in practice. This conference, co-hosted by Our Watch and Australian
Women Against Violence Alliance also focused on how the some-
times-disparate efforts towards violence prevention might be held
together in a cohesive movement, together with feminist services.67
While ‘primary prevention’ is a model that draws on public health
approaches to social policy, the conference highlighted the political,
community development and social movement roots of policy develop-
ment, and the need to sustain and strengthen those roots, as well as their
connection with policy processes.
A key element of ‘principled pragmatism’ is bringing in what is
silenced or marginalised, to broaden and strengthen the movement.
The Prevalent and Preventable conference focused directly on that task,
which requires activists and practitioners not only to challenge policy
definitions of ‘the problem’, but also our own definitions. In the current
Australian context, the growing understanding and profile of ‘domestic
violence’ (conceived as violence perpetrated by one partner of a married
or de facto couple, usually a man, against the other, usually a woman)
appears to have occurred at the expense of the profile given to other
forms and dimensions of violence. These include the violence inflicted
upon women with disability within carer relationships and other resi-
dential settings, some of which can be considered state-sanctioned vio-
lence. Even sexual violence, which has been a focus of feminist activism
in Australia since the 1970s, has been sidelined in mainstream political
discourse.68 This has negative implications for young women and others
whose intimate relationships may not take the form of domestic cohab-
itation on a couple model and may serve to inadvertently re-stigmatise
people whose sexuality is not confined to this model.
The construction of the domestic couple relationship as the setting in

which violence occurs also obscures the compounding violence to which
many Aboriginal women and other marginalised women are subjected by
police, courts, social security and child protection systems. These restric-
tive conceptualisations of ‘the problem’ echo the earlier struggles by
feminists to establish services for women unaccompanied by children and
women with drug and alcohol dependencies, when ‘innocent women
with children escaping violence’ were easier for conservative institutions
to accept as worthy victims.69 The violence inflicted on people through
the policing, justice and prison system, and in immigration detention, is
another major gap and clearly one with racialised dimensions:
In many cases, resources that are racialized or class-based determine

whether a woman will deal with violence in ‘law-abiding’ ways (for exam-
ple, get a prescription for anti-depressants or other legal pharmaceuticals,
call the police, take out a restraining order, find a new home) or ways
which come into conflict with the criminal justice system (for example, use
illegal substances, be coerced into prostitution or drug dealing, use physi-
cal violence).70
Constructive responses to these and other definitional problems require

more than an additive approach in which ‘new’ issues are added to the
agenda. They require thinking through the overlap and differences
between forms of violence and their underpinning systems. For example,
is all violence gendered in some way? What are the benefits and draw-
backs of a focus on ‘violence against women’ compared with ‘gender-
based violence’ or simply ‘violence’? Is coercion ever acceptable? Under
what circumstances and why? Constructive responses also require the
building of alliances with other movements. For example, if efforts to
stop violence against Aboriginal women are to avoid reinforcing state
violence and discrimination against Aboriginal people generally, then a
lot of groundwork must be done to inform both social movement and
ultimately policy responses.
As discussed above, no-one directs a movement as a whole, so shap-
ing or influencing a movement becomes a matter of acting within a set
of ethics and fostering the activities of others. Research on women’s
movements has thrown into question social movement research that
implies centralised control of strategies and tactics.71 Reflecting on the
2016 Prevalent and Preventable conference on violence against women
236 M. ANDREW
mentioned above, together with findings from Maiguashca’s study of

feminist global justice movements, it seems that from the perspective of
women’s movement participants, some key things to work towards in
relation to violence include: maintaining and creating links across dif-
ferent groups and especially with less powerful groups—sharing space
and power; working against reductive definitions of problems and solu-
tions, jargon and shorthand; questioning for ourselves what it means
when we are relying on shorthand ways to describe groups of people,
or their/our issues; and being reflective about how we might be closing
out and structuring others’ input to us—both how our own processes
are being shaped ‘from above’ and how we are shaping others’ processes.
As well as being movement-strengthening approaches, feminist scholars
will ensure that these kinds of efforts will further contribute to schol-
arly understandings of what social movements are, and how they can best
achieve social change.
Conclusion
This chapter has outlined how feminist studies of women’s movements
have enriched the field of social movement studies, challenging assump-
tions about movements’ life cycles, temporal scale, repertoires, institu-
tionalisation and organisational form. It has highlighted how feminist
scholarship has both sat apart from and contributed to the field, refus-
ing to be subsumed within the field’s established categories but also not
averse to productive dialogue. As women’s movement participants have
rejected instrumentalist approaches in favour of ‘principled pragmatism’,
so have feminist studies of these movements inquired more deeply into
the complex dynamics through which emotion, identity and responsi-
bility influence movements’ actions and their impact. In place of a fixed
life cycle over a short timeframe, feminist scholars have identified con-
tinuity and change over a long temporal scale. Instead of limited rep-
ertoires of protest, women’s movements (and other movements) are
now understood to comprise a range of actions including institution-
building, advocacy, creative expression, services and community educa-
tion. Whereas SMOs have often been seen as the paradigmatic building
blocks of a movement, studies of women’s movements have shown how
collective identity and micro-acts of feminism may be equally influential.
As women’s movements evolve, studies of their evolution will continue
to be crucial to the study of social movements.
Notes
1. For the collective identity approach, see Alberto Melucci (1989) Nomads
of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary
Society, London: Hutchinson Radius; Francesca Polletta and James M.
Jasper (2001), ‘Collective Identity and Social Movements’, Annual
Review of Sociology 27: 283–305. For resource mobilisation and polit-
ical process approaches, see Sidney Tarrow (1994) Power in Movement:
Social Movements, Collective Action, and Politics, Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press; John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald
(1977) ‘Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory’,
American Journal of Sociology 82(6): 1212–1241; David S. Meyer and
Debra C. Minkoff (2004), ‘Conceptualizing Political Opportunity’,
Social Forces 82(4): 1457–1492; Doug McAdam (1982) Political Process
and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970, Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
2. See, for example, Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper, and Francesca Polletta
(eds.) (2001) Passionate Politics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press;
Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow (2000) ‘Framing Processes and
Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment’, Annual Review of
Sociology 26: 611–639.
3. See, for example, Lee Ann Banaszak (2010) The Women’s Movement Inside
and Outside the State, New York: Cambridge University Press; Marian
Sawer (2006) ‘From Women’s Interests to Special Interests: Reframing
Equality Claims’, in Louise Chappell and Lisa Hill (eds.) The Politics
of Women’s Interests, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 111–129;
Marian Sawer (2007) ‘Australia: The Fall of the Femocrat’, in Johanna
Kantola and Joyce Outshoorn (eds.) Changing State Feminism, New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 20–40.
4. The chapter draws on previous work by the author including Merrindahl
Andrew (2016) ‘Insider/Outsider Challenges for Social Movements: The
Contribution of Gender Research’, paper Delivered to Australian Political
Studies Association Workshop: Gender Innovation in Political Science,
10–11 November, Australian National University; Merrindahl Andrew
(2010) ‘Women’s Movement Institutionalization: The Need for New
Approaches’, Politics & Gender 6(4): 609–616.
5. Laure Bereni and Anne Revillard (2012) ‘A Paradigmatic Social
Movement? Women’s Movements and the Definition of Contentious
Politics’, Sociétés contemporaines 1(85): 17–41.
6. Sarah Maddison and Frances Shaw (2012) ‘Feminist Perspectives on
Social Movement Research’, in Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber (ed.)
Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis, Thousand Oaks: Sage,
pp. 413–433.
238 M. ANDREW
7. Bereni and Revillard, ‘A Paradigmatic Social Movement?’, pp. 1–2.

8. Bereni and Revillard, ‘A Paradigmatic Social Movement?’, pp. 2–3.
9. Fascist movements represent another form of social movement, which is
less often studied from within the main traditions of social movement
studies. Until relatively recently social movement studies have been
mainly concerned with progressive social movements (movements for
social justice and against various forms of oppression and environmental
degradation).
10. The Evolution of Social Movements project was led by Marian Sawer and
Sarah Maddison and was funded by the Australian Research Council:
Discovery Grant Number DP0878688. The project culminated in the
publication of Sarah Maddison and Marian Sawer (eds.) (2013) The
Women’s Movement in Protest, Institutions and the Internet, Oxon,
UK: Routledge. Further information about the project is available at:
http://politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/research/projects/gender-research/
mapping-australian-womens-movement.
11. ‘Understanding the Evolution of Social Movements’. Available at: http://
politicsir.cass.anu.edu.au/research/projects/gender-research/mawm/
evolution.
12. Suzanne Staggenborg and Verta Taylor (2005) ‘Whatever Happened to
the Women’s Movement?’, Mobilization 10(1): 37–52; Marian Sawer
(2003) The Ethical State? Social Liberalism in Australia, Melbourne:
Melbourne University Press; Marilyn Lake (1999) Getting Equal: The
History of Australian Feminism, Sydney: Allen & Unwin; Merrindahl
Andrew (2008) Social Movements and the Limits of Strategy: How
Australian Feminists Formed Positions on Work and Care, Ph.D. Thesis,
Australian National University. Available at: https://openresearch-reposi-
tory.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/49281.
13. Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani (2006) Social Movements: An
Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing; Doug McAdam, John D.
McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald (1996) ‘Introduction: Opportunities,
Mobilizing Structures, and Framing Processes—Toward a Synthetic,
Comparative Perspective on Social Movements’, in Doug McAdam, John
D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald (eds.) Comparative Perspectives on Social
Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural
Framings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–20.
14. Bice Maiguashca (2011) ‘Looking Beyond the Spectacle: Social
Movement Theory, Feminist Anti-globalization Activism and the Praxis
of Principled Pragmatism’, Globalizations 8(4): 535–549.
15. Verta Taylor and Leila J. Rupp (2002) ‘Loving Internationalism: The
Emotion Culture of Transnational Women’s Organizations, 1888–1945’,
Mobilization 7(2): 141–158.
16. Wendy Weeks (1994) Women Working Together: Lessons from Feminist
Women’s Services, Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.
17. Marian Sawer and Merrindahl Andrew (2014) ‘The Evolution of
Feminist Approaches to Leadership’, in Shurlee Swain and Judith Smart
(eds.) The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century
Australia. Available at: http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/
WLE0437b.htm.
18. Banaszak, The Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State; Mary
Fainsod Katzenstein (1990) ‘Feminism Within American Institutions:
Unobtrusive Mobilization in the 1980s’, Signs 16(1): 27–54.
19. Michel Wieviorka (2005) ‘After New Social Movements’, Social Movement
Studies 4(1): 1–19, p. 8.
20. Wieviorka, ‘After New Social Movements’, pp. 7, 12.
21. Wieviorka, ‘After New Social Movements’, p. 8.
22. See, for example, Maddison and Sawer (eds.) The Women’s Movement in
Protest, Institutions and the Internet.
23. Kate Pride Brown (2016) ‘The Prospectus of Activism: Discerning
and Delimiting Imagined Possibility’, Social Movement Studies 15(6):
547–560.
24. Andrew, ‘Social Movements and the Limits of Strategy’.
25. Marian Sawer (2013) ‘Finding the Women’s Movement’, in Maddison
and Sawer (eds.) The Women’s Movement in Protest, Institutions and the
Internet, p. 2.
26. McCarthy and Zald, ‘Resource Mobilization and Social Movements’.
27. Bereni and Revillard, ‘A Paradigmatic Social Movement?’, p. 10.
28. Nancy Whittier (1995) The Persistence of the Radical Women’s Movement,
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
29. Suzanne Staggenborg and Verta Taylor (2005) ‘Whatever Happened to
the Women’s Movement?’, Mobilization 10(1): 37–52.
30. Andrew, Social Movements and the Limits of Strategy, pp. 52–56.
31. Genevieve Lloyd (2000) ‘Individuals, Responsibility, and Philosophical
Imagination’, in Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar (eds.) Relational
Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self,
New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 112–123.
32. Maiguashca, ‘Looking Beyond the Spectacle’.
33. Maiguashca, ‘Looking Beyond the Spectacle’, p. 541.
34. Maiguashca, ‘Looking Beyond the Spectacle’, p. 543; see also Jonathan
Dean and Kristin Aune (2015) ‘Feminism Resurgent? Mapping
Contemporary Feminist Activisms in Europe’, Social Movement Studies
14(4): 375–395.
35. Maiguashca, ‘Looking Beyond the Spectacle’, p. 547.
240 M. ANDREW
36. Marian Sawer (1990) Sisters in Suits: Women and Public Policy in

Australia, Sydney: Allen & Unwin; Hester Eisenstein (1996) Inside
Agitators: Australian Femocrats and the State, Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
37. Marian Sawer and Merrindahl Andrew (2013) ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’, in
Maddison and Sawer (eds.) The Women’s Movement in Protest, Institutions
and the Internet, pp. 70–86; Weeks, Women Working Together.
38. Frances Shaw (2013) ‘Blogging and the Women’s Movement: New
Feminist Networks’, in Maddison and Sawer (eds.) The Women’s
Movement in Protest, Institutions and the Internet, pp. 118–131; Frances
Shaw (2012) Discursive Politics Online: Political Creativity and Affective
Networking in Australian Feminist Blogs, Ph.D. Thesis, University of
New South Wales.
39. Maiguascha, ‘Looking Beyond the Spectacle’, p. 543.
40. See especially Aileen Moreton-Robinson (2000) Talkin’ Up to the White
Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism, St. Lucia: University of
Queensland Press.
41. Susan Magarey (2014) ‘Women’s Liberation Was a Movement, Not an
Organisation’, Australian Feminist Studies 29(82): 378–390.
42. David S. Meyer (1993) ‘Institutionalizing Dissent: The United States
Structure of Political Opportunity and the End of the Nuclear Freeze
Movement’, Sociological Forum 8(2): 157–179, p. 157.
43. David S. Meyer and Sidney G. Tarrow (1998) ‘A Movement Society:
Contentious Politics for a New Century’, in David S. Meyer and Sidney
G. Tarrow (eds.) The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a
New Century, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, p. 21.
44. Johan P. Olsen (2007) ‘Understanding Institutions and Logics of
Appropriateness: Introductory Essay’, Working Paper No. 13, Arena
Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, August. Available at:
http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/publications/arena-
working-papers/2001-2010/2007/wp07_13.pdf.
45. ‘Understanding the Evolution of Social Movements’.
46. Banaszak, The Women’s Movement Inside and Outside the State; Louise
A. Chappell (2002) Gendering Government: Feminist Engagement with
the State in Australia and Canada, Vancouver: University of British
Columbia Press.
47.
Carol McClurg Mueller and John D. McCarthy (2003) ‘Cultural
Continuity and Structural Change: The Logic of Adaption by Radical,
Liberal, and Socialist Feminists to State Reconfiguration’, in Lee Ann
Banaszak, Karen Beckwith, and Dieter Rucht (eds.) Women’s Movements
Facing the Reconfigured State, New York: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 219–241.
48. See, for example, the contributions in 2005 to a special ‘Critical

Perspectives’ section on ‘Contributions of Women Political Scientists to a
More Just World’, Politics & Gender 1(2): 319–359.
49. Cited in Timothy Luchies (2015) ‘Towards an Insurrectionary Power/
Knowledge: Movement-Relevance, Anti-oppression, Prefiguration’, Social
Movement Studies 14(5): 523–538, p. 527; see also Doug McAdam,
Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly (2001) Dynamics of Contention,
50. Luchies, ‘Towards an Insurrectionary Power/Knowledge’; Douglas
Bevington and Chris Dixon (2005) ‘Movement-Relevant Theory:
Rethinking Social Movement Scholarship and Activism’, Social Movement
Studies 4(3): 185–208; Colin Barker and Laurence Cox (2002) ‘“What
Have the Romans Ever Done for us?” Activist and Academic Forms of
Theorizing’. Available at: http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/428/1/
AFPPVIII.pdf.
51. Luchies, ‘Towards an Insurrectionary Power/Knowledge’.
52. Maddison and Shaw, ‘Feminist Perspectives on Social Movement
Research’.
53. Chappell, Gendering Government.
54. Sarah Maddison and Emma Partridge (2007) How Well Does Australian
Democracy Serve Australian Women? Democratic Audit of Australia,
Audit Report No. 8, Canberra: Australian National University; Katherine
Teghtsoonian and Louise A. Chappell (2008) ‘The Rise and Decline of
Women’s Policy Machinery in British Columbia and New South Wales:
A Cautionary Tale’, International Political Science Review 29(1): 29–51.
55. Maddison and Partridge, How Well Does Australian Democracy Serve
Australian Women?
56. Sarah Maddison and Marian Sawer (2013) ‘Preface’, in Maddison and
Sawer (eds.) The Women’s Movement in Protest, Institutions and the
Internet.
57. Australian Government (2010) National Plan to Reduce Violence
Against Women and Their Children (2010–2022), Canberra: Australian
Government.
58. Merrindahl Andrew and Kirsty McLaren (2014) ‘Radical Institutions and
Routine Protest? Women’s Movement Activism against Male Violence’,
Paper Presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Australian Political
Studies Association, Sydney.
59. Australian Women Against Violence Alliance (AWAVA) (2016) The Role
of Specialist Women’s Services in Australia’s Response to Violence Against
Women and Their Children: Policy Brief. Available at: http://awava.org.
au/2016/04/07/research/role-specialist-womens-services-australias-re-
sponse-violence-women-children.
242 M. ANDREW

61. Jennifer Leigh Disney and Joyce Gelb (2000) ‘Feminist Organizational
“Success”: The State of U.S. Women’s Movement Organizations in the
1990s’, Women & Politics 21(4): 39–76.
62. Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon (2012) ‘The Civic Origins of Progressive
Policy Change: Combating Violence Against Women in Global Perspective,
1975–2005’, American Political Science Review 106(3): 548–569.
63. Htun and Weldon, ‘The Civic Origins of Progressive Policy Change’,
p. 564.
65. Disney and Gelb, ‘Feminist Organizational “Success”’, p. 39.
66. Dean and Aune, ‘Feminism Resurgent?’, p. 375.
67. Our Watch (2016), Conference Reflections: International Conference on
Practice and Policy in the Prevention of Violence Against Women and
Their Children Adelaide, 19–22 September. Available at: https://www.
ourwatch.org.au/getmedia/94d8b4ba-c661-448d-96d2-1d5e00c93256/
PPVAW-Conference-reflections.pdf.aspx. See also Yvonne Lay (2016)
‘Intersectionality: Tackling Privilege, Colonisation, Oppression, and the
Elimination of Violence Against All Women’, Women’s Research Advocacy
and Policy Centre Storify Report. Available at: https://storify.com/
policyforwomen/intersectionality.
68. However, the recent Third Action Plan of the Australian National Plan to
Reduce Violence Against Women and Their Children includes sexual vio-
lence as a priority area, in recognition that this issue has been overshad-
owed by domestic violence.
69. Elena Rosenman (2004) Talking Like a Toora Woman: The Herstory of
Toora Women Inc., Campbell, ACT: Toora Women Inc.
70. Julia Sudbury (2006) ‘Rethinking Antiviolence Strategies: Lessons from
the Black Women’s Movement in Britain’, in Color of Violence: The Incite!
Anthology, Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, South End Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, p. 17.
71. Andrew, ‘Social Movements and the Limits of Strategy’; Magarey,
‘Women’s Liberation Was a Movement, Not an Organisation’.
CHAPTER 12
The Thorny Path to a More Inclusive

Discipline
Monica Costa and Marian Sawer
As we have seen in this book, gender innovation has illuminated almost

every subfield of political science. However, political science is still char-
acterised by hierarchies of knowledge, reinforced by the practices of ‘top’
journals and by research quality frameworks. Although lip service is paid
to the value of interdisciplinary and problem-oriented work and to plu-
ralism in the discipline, what is often rewarded is monodisciplinary quan-
titative or mathematical work published in high-impact journals in the
USA. In this chapter, we explore to what extent gender innovation has
been integrated into the core of the discipline.
We begin by introducing the collective organising of women within
the discipline in the 1970s, which had the aim both of improving the sta-
tus of women in the profession and integrating feminist insights into the
discipline. It is the latter that is the main subject of this chapter. We iden-
tify how the strategies adopted helped consolidate a lively new research
M. Costa 
Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia
M. Sawer (*) 
e-mail: marian.sawer@anu.edu.au

244 M. COSTA AND M. SAWER
specialisation but also contributed to difficulties in mainstreaming

gender perspectives across an increasingly pluralised discipline. We regard
the repeated findings that gender innovation has been additive rather
than transformative as an indicator of what has been achieved and not
achieved through feminist organising within professional associations.
In the chapter, we also present a range of bibliometric data con-
cerning the integration of feminist scholarship into the discipline and
female authorship, including the new data generated by the Gendered
Excellence in the Social Sciences (GESS) project at the Australian
National University. The GESS data compares patterns in political sci-
ence with those in other social science disciplines. We find that one sig-
nificant issue is the lack of fit between the methodological preferences
of the top political science journals and those of many feminist schol-
ars. In addition to providing data on feminist content in political science
journals, we also provide data on authorship and referencing of the most
highly cited political science articles, to see whether women’s scholarship
is becoming a reference point in the discipline. This is a different ques-
tion to that concerning integration of gender perspectives into the disci-
pline but has some relationship to it. While women are significantly more
likely than men to bring gender perspectives to their research, it should
not be assumed that all women political scientists will use gender as an
analytic construct and seek to transform the discipline.1
Feminist Institution-Building in Political Science

As we have seen in Chapter 2, second-wave feminist scholars brought
new perspectives into the discipline as well as the forms of collective
organisation learned in the women’s movement. Within the national
political science associations (PSAs)2 feminist scholars first created wom-
en’s caucuses, followed by research groups on women and politics (later
gender and politics) and, in the larger PSAs, committees on the status of
women in the profession. This institution-building was driven by femi-
nist actors and their networks, drawing on women’s movement organ-
isational styles but also copying what was being done in other PSAs. It
resulted in what organisation scholars call ‘isomorphism’—the replication
of institutional forms cross-nationally and at the transnational level.
The first of such bodies was the American Political Science
Association’s (APSA) Committee on the Status of Women in the
Profession, established early in 1969 in response to a petition.3 Later in
12 THE THORNY PATH TO A MORE INCLUSIVE DISCIPLINE 245
the same year, the APSA Women’s Caucus was founded at a meeting that
introduced women’s movement repertoire such as consciousness-raising
into APSA for the first time.4 Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the
Women’s Caucus collaborated with APSA’s Status of Women Committee
on a number of fronts including campaigning to improve women’s rep-
resentation in the association’s leadership. These efforts were significant
for the election of the first woman president in 1989, Judith N. Shklar.
In 1986, the Women and Politics Research Section of APSA followed
and by 2005 had grown into one of the largest APSA sections, with
more than 600 members.5
In the International Political Science Association (IPSA), an IPSA
Study Group on Sex Roles and Politics established in 1976 soon
became a standing Research Committee as did the IPSA Study Group
on Women, Politics and Developing Nations established in 1988. Like
APSA, IPSA also established a committee to promote the status of
women in the profession (see Table 12.1), initially chaired by Carole
Pateman. In the International Studies Association (ISA), similar institu-
tion-building took place somewhat later. A Feminist Theory and Gender
Studies Section was established in 1990, a Committee on the Status of
Women in 2007 and a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and
Allies Caucus in 2010.
These bodies are making their presence felt with targeted strategies to
increase the number and status of women (and other minorities) in the
profession, support and mentor them, and encourage the recognition of
gender and politics research. They have become some of the largest and
liveliest bodies within political science associations. The creation of the
Standing Group on Politics and Gender of the European Consortium
for Political Research (ECPR) in 1985 helped inspire activism and insti-
tutional transfer across European PSAs. In Spain, an informal standing
group on gender and politics modelled itself on the ECPR Standing
Group and by 2015 had persuaded the Spanish PSA to institutionalise
permanent standing groups along the same lines. Women had become an
increased presence among the leadership of the Spanish PSA, becoming
a majority of the non-director members of the board for the first time in
2009, thanks to the ‘gender lobby’.6
In the UK as well, women including gender specialists were becoming
increasingly prominent in the PSA. In 2005, all the new women elected
to the Executive were active members of the PSA Women and Politics
Specialist Group.7 This group, the largest within the Association, was
Table 12.1 Feminist institution-building in political science associations (PSAs)
Women’s Caucus; C’tee Gender research group

on status of women
American PSA C’tee on the Status of Women and Politics Research Section,
Women in the Profession, 1986
1969
Women’s Caucus, 1969
UK PSA Women’s Caucus, 1977 Women and Politics Specialist Group,
Diversity and Equality 1979
Working Group‚ 2009‚
Equality and Diversity
Sub-C’tee 2017
Canadian PSA Women’s Caucus, 1978 Women and Politics Section‚ 2000
Diversity Taskforce, 2006 Women, Gender and Politics
Reconciliation C’tee‚ Section‚ 2006
2016
Australian PSA Women’s Caucus, 1979
Irish PSA Women and Politics Specialist Group, 1992
Gender and Politics Specialist Group, 2010
New Zealand PSA Women’s Caucus, c. 1986 Gender and Politics Research Network‚
2014
Japanese PSA Working Group on Research C’tee on Gender and Politics,
Women in the Profession‚ 2015
2015
German PSA Women’s Caucus, 1995 Research C’tee on Women and Politics,
1992
Research C’tee on Gender and Politics‚
2010
IPSA C’tee on Women’s Issues, Research C’tee 19: Sex Roles and Politics
1989; becomes C’tee on 1979–2003; renamed Gender Politics and
the Status of Women and Policy’, 2003–
Diversity of Participation; Research C’tee 07: ‘Women, Politics and
later Membership and Developing Nations’ (later ‘Women and
Participation C’tee Politics in the Global South’), 1992–
Research C’tee 52, ‘Gender, Globalization
and Democracy’, 2003–2014
ECPR Standing Group on Women and Politics,
1985 (Gender and Politics from 2007)
ISA Women’s Caucus, 1996; Feminist Theory and Gender Studies
C’tee on the Status of Section, 1990
Women, 2007
also instrumental to the adoption of a ‘no all-male platform policy’ at

the PSA’s annual conference.8 Mainstreaming of an equality and diversity
agenda within the UK PSA has been pursued in part through the intro-
duction of a new requirement for all specialist groups to demonstrate in
their annual funding applications their efforts to address equality and
diversity issues.9
As we have seen in relation to the ECPR, interaction via international
and regional political PSAs has fostered sharing of initiatives to pro-
mote gender equality and diversity within the discipline. Regular mon-
itoring on gender in Germany is said to have been the inspiration for
the systematic survey of national political science associations conducted
by IPSA since 2011.10 The international community of gender politics
has also enabled feminist political scientists to transcend the marginality
they may experience in their national political science communities. For
example, the small community of feminist political scientists from New
Zealand has found comfort and opportunity in the international commu-
nity of gender scholars.11 On the other side of the world in Japan, where
women have been less than 10% of members of either the PSA or of par-
liament, feminist scholars have drawn on their international networks
to help promote debate on gender, diversity and political representa-
tion. A bilingual Research Network on Gender and Diversity in Political
Representation set up in 2014 serves as a channel between Japan and
international expertise and networks.12
Individuals have played an important role in such feminist institution-
building. Among others, Carole Pateman, Drude Dahlerup and Joni
Lovenduski were closely involved in the establishment of gender-focused
bodies within the political science profession, whether at the national
level, the regional or international level and sometimes all three. These
critical actors became convinced early on that collective action and
organisation was necessary if political science was to be persuaded to take
on board the new feminist scholarship.
Feminist institution-building within political science associations
helped ensure some guaranteed disciplinary space for the presentation
of feminist research and gender perspectives. Women’s caucuses and
specialist groups initiated women and politics (later gender and politics)
sections at their association’s annual conferences, as well as prizes and
awards for gender scholarship. But while a place has been won within
the discipline, it is rarely central; indeed, it has been argued that the
existence of specialised gender streams inadvertently contributes to the

failure to mainstream gender perspectives. In Canada, the number of
gender-related conference papers at the Canadian PSA annual conference
remained stable at about 10% between 2000 and 2015 and of these 56%
were presented in the women and politics section.13 Moreover, when
papers addressing gender issues were presented in other sections, they
most often (about two-thirds of the time) appeared in panels together
with other gender-related papers. As Erin Tolley comments, gender
scholars are presenting their research to other gender scholars rather
than to the disciplinary mainstream. While these events create important
spaces for gender research, it is often being communicated within a rel-
atively small community of gender scholars, further sustaining the mar-
ginal status of this work.14
The same conundrum is presented by the biennial European
Conferences on Politics and Gender (ECPG) instituted by the ECPR
Standing Group on Gender and Politics in 2009. While these confer-
ences quickly became the most important showcase for cutting-edge
gender and politics research, attracting up to 500 scholars by 2017,
they arguably did more to consolidate this epistemic community than
they did to mainstream gender perspectives in the discipline. The same
point might be made about the UK PSA’s Women and Politics Specialist
Group’s Women and Politics Conferences initiated in 2004 and now
biennial.
The appearance of regular gender and politics conferences may be
viewed as part of the increased specialisation and fragmentation found
within political science at large, with members of subfields oriented
towards their specialist peer groups and international counterparts.
Contemporary political science has been described as both fragmented
and polycentric, devolving into largely independent fields and subfields
with autonomous networks and reward systems. Such fragmentation,
and the increasingly specialised language and procedures within which
knowledge claims are presented, works against the kind of dialogue
important for mainstreaming feminist scholarship.15 The isolation of sub-
fields from each other certainly makes it more difficult to achieve trans-
formational goals for the whole discipline or even boundary-crossing
innovation.16 Moreover, while polycentrism might be interpreted as
being sustained by a respect for pluralism, this is complicated by continu-
ing hierarchies of knowledge within the discipline.
Communicating and Promoting Recognition

of Gender Research
Apart from the initiation of conference streams and self-standing con-

ferences, another key contribution to the development of an autono-
mous subfield of politics and gender has been the creation of journals
to showcase such research. For example, in 1992 the feminist political
scientists responsible for the creation of the Gender and Politics Research
Committee of the German PSA started a newsletter, which in 1997
became the journal Femina Politica. An earlier example was the journal
Women & Politics (from 2005 Journal of Women, Politics & Policy) estab-
lished in 1980 by feminists from the APSA Women’s Caucus.17 Later the
Women and Politics Research Section of APSA founded another journal
Politics & Gender, which has become the highest ranked journal of fem-
inist political science. Thirteen years later, the ECPR Standing Group on
Gender and Politics launched the first issues of the European Journal of
Politics and Gender. Meanwhile, international relations (IR) scholars led
by Jan Jindy Pettman at the Australian National University founded in
1999 another highly ranked journal, the International Feminist Journal
of Politics.
Less formal communication of gender research occurs through news-
letters and more recently through blogs. Examples include the Women
Talking Politics newsletter begun by the New Zealand PSA Women’s
Caucus in 1988 (revived in 2014 as an annual research magazine) and
the blog established in 2012 by the Women & Politics Specialist Group
of the UK PSA. In 2011, the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies sec-
tion of the ISA also established a blog to showcase research bringing a
gender dimension to international studies. In 2017, this blog gained a
companion—the Gendering World Politics website—highlighting the
activities, interests and activism of the Feminist Theory section and its
close to 500 members.
Social media have provided important informal platforms for fem-
inist political scientists to overcome geographic and academic isola-
tion and share and discuss ideas, academic endeavours and political
activity—a good example is the Facebook page set up in 2012 by the
Women’s Caucus of the Australian PSA. Other Facebook groups have
focused on sharing and exchanging knowledge, resources and news on
specific themes. Examples of these include the Electoral Gender Quotas
Facebook group established by Mona Lena Krook in 2011 and with over
Table 12.2 Selected gender and politics prizes
Association Prizes and date first awarded
American PSA Victoria Shuck book award, 1988

Australian PSA Women and Politics Prize, 1982
Carole Pateman Gender and Politics book prize, 2015
Inclusive Academic Leadership Award, 2015
Canadian PSA Jill Vickers Prize, 2004
UK PSA Undergraduate essay competition, 2004
ECPR Standing Group ECPG Gender and Politics Career Achievement Award, 2009
on Gender and Politics Joni Lovenduski PhD Prize in Gender and Politics, 2013
(ECPG) ECPG Best Paper in Gender and Politics Award, 2015
IPSA Wilma Rule Award, 2000
500 members in 2017. Krook established another important Facebook

group in 2015, this time on Gendered Electoral Violence. Facebook
groups have also been used to showcase hubs of feminist scholarship
such as the Rutgers University Women & Politics Program, which has
been applying a gender lens to politics since 1971.
A further way to promote recognition of gender innovation is
through the creation of prizes for gender scholarship. Such prizes were
established in many of the English-speaking PSAs and by the ECPR
and IPSA and have gained particular momentum in the last decade
(Table 12.2). They were variously for work by undergraduate or gradu-
ate students, doctoral theses, books and articles, or lifetime contribution.
Similar contributions have been celebrated by the Feminist Theory and
Gender Studies Section of the ISA including awards for books, commu-
nity engagement, graduate student papers and eminent scholars.
Apart from such prizes, another strategy to promote recognition of
women’s scholarship is through the naming of ‘mainstream’ prizes. The
UK PSA had been awarding academic prizes for almost 30 years, ‘exclu-
sively named after white men’ before the Elizabeth Wiskemann Prize
was awarded for the first time in 2016 (for best dissertation on equal-
ity and justice).18 In 2017 three more new prizes were launched named
after women: the Shirin M. Rai Prize for best dissertation in international
relations; the Joni Lovenduski Prize for outstanding professional achieve-
ment by mid-career scholar; and the Jo Cox Prize for public service and
active citizenship by an early-career scholar.
Iterative surveys of the integration of gender scholarship into cur-
riculum have also been organised, showing the extent to which such
scholarship is or is not being integrated in teaching and teaching

resources such as textbooks. The surveys have found that while a chapter
in textbooks is often given over to gender perspectives or feminist theory
and a separate lecture may be given in introductory courses, the rest of
the curriculum tends to be unaffected by this feminist scholarship. The
ECPR Standing Group on Gender and Politics has established a ‘syllabus
bank’ of gender and politics courses to assist in the development of such
courses.19 Efforts such as these to consolidate gender curriculum are
hoped to lead to what Amy Atchison has described as a ‘virtuous feed-
back loop’ with the greater visibility of gender in political science educa-
tion encouraging more women to pursue the study of politics and wider
engagement in the discipline.20 However, as always, the issue remains the
lack of integration of gender perspectives into the rest of the curriculum.
It is not only the ‘syllabus bank’ that marks out the innovative role of
the ECPR Standing Group on Gender and Politics. As we have noted,
the biennial ECPG quickly became a pre-eminent meeting place for fem-
inist political scientists whether from Europe or beyond. However, as
Jonathan Dean wrote after the Fourth ECPG Conference in 2015, they
showcase both gender innovation and continuing disquiet over marginal-
isation in the discipline:
Feminist perspectives are being brought to bear on a bewilderingly wide

variety of political phenomena … But … No one could be left in any doubt
that to pursue ‘gender-aware’ political analysis is to engage in often bitter
political struggle against a political science mainstream that remains largely
impervious to feminist critique.21
Maintaining Disciplinary Boundaries

Another observation made by Dean concerning the Fourth ECPG
Conference was that although a feminist perspective was being brought
to bear on a very wide variety of political phenomena, the dominant
theme of presentations was still the application of a gender lens to the
traditional objects of analysis of political science—formal political insti-
tutions. Although the feminist critique outlined in Chapter 2 sought to
broaden the scope of political analysis to the gender order itself, such
work has been more likely to be done in interdisciplinary gender studies
programmes than in political science departments.
While feminist political scientists have helped reveal the gendered log-
ics of political institutions and broadened the analysis of political reper-
toire, they have done relatively little on a subject regarded as a research
priority in the 1970s, the ‘politics of everyday life’.22 Relatively little pro-
gress has been made on extending the study of power to the ‘private’
sphere and of emotion to the public sphere. Nor has there been much
work by feminist political scientists on the women’s movement, except
in terms of interaction with formal political institutions such as women’s
policy agencies, parliamentary bodies and the ‘velvet triangles’ that bring
these actors together. This reflects a more general neglect of social move-
ments by political science, in contrast to sociology. There are high-profile
exceptions such as the work of Donatella della Porta on emotions, power
and democracy in social movements23 and the work of Laurel Weldon
(see Chapter 4 of this volume). One reason for the neglect by political
science may be the more vigorous policing of disciplinary boundaries
in political science than in sociology and the pressure of new forms of
research governance that tend to favour disciplinary ‘cores’.
As a discipline, political science has a more ‘closed’ pattern of citation
than, for example, sociology, which is more open to drawing on other
disciplines. In the top-ranking political science journals, comparatively
few references are made to work outside political science and political
science is more like economics than sociology in this respect.24 It is nota-
ble that much of the quantitative methodology used in political science
was originally borrowed from statistics and econometrics. ‘Closed’ dis-
ciplinary norms militate against the integration of the study of gender
or race into the mainstream of the discipline, because these subjects spill
over disciplinary boundaries. It is the stronger norm of interdisciplinarity
in sociology, as seen in the citation practices of top-ranking journals that
appears to have facilitated the integration of gender innovation.25 In
contrast, studies crossing the more closed boundaries political science has
set for itself may be excluded from the definition of ‘real political sci-
ence’.26 These patterns have been evident in research into the inclusion
of gender in political science in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain
and the UK, which showed that gender and politics courses were ‘scarce
or even absent’ in mainstream political science programmes.27
Strong feminist institution-building within political science associa-
tions, through providing an alternative to interdisciplinary gender stud-
ies centres, may have also contributed to this focus on formal political
institutions. It has certainly been argued in the German context that
before feminist organising within the discipline in the 1990s, politics
researchers interested in gender opted for more interdisciplinary envi-

ronments. Increased visibility within the discipline itself provided an
alternative for gender scholars.28 In Australia and New Zealand, this
alternative may exist but feminist political scientists also move into inter-
disciplinary centres or into disciplines more open to interdisciplinary and
gendered perspectives.29 In the UK, the Women and Politics Specialist
group has promoted interdisciplinarity through collaborating closely
with the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association and with Women in
Philosophy.30 Because work on gender and politics often does cross-dis-
ciplinary and subfield boundaries, it may find interdisciplinary journals
more welcoming than traditional political science journals. The downside
is the perceived career penalty attached to such cross-disciplinary work.31
Feminist scholarship in IR appears to depart further from tradi-
tional disciplinary objects of analysis than does feminist political science.
However, as Ann Tickner has observed, issues such as sexual and gen-
der-based violence are rarely seen as central to the concerns of the IR
discipline and the methodologies employed are not accorded the status
of being ‘scientific’ or even ‘theoretical’.32
Bringing Gender Perspectives

into Political Science Journals
As noted in Chapter 2, one factor militating against the integration of

gender or indeed other diverse perspectives into the discipline is the
anxiety about being scientific and a lack of awareness of the norma-
tive assumptions built into this science. This leads to political science
being ‘ill-equipped’ to address the political and governance issues raised
by gender, race and diversity or the reasons for the frequent failure of
governments to meet the needs of the marginalised.33 In 2017, APSA
published a review of progress made in its own journals in coverage of
gender, race, ethnicity and diversity issues. It found that despite APSA’s
recent emphasis on inclusion and the increase in public discussion of
these topics, the propensity to publish in these areas remained low.34
The lack of awareness of the norms guiding selection of research top-
ics in what is regarded as mainstream political science may lead to the
dismissal of feminist research as lacking objectivity, because of its greater
reflexivity and commitment to addressing inequality. The problem-oriented
nature of feminist and diversity research may also require a detailed knowl-
edge of local politics and institutions and ‘thick description’, which is at a
discount relative to more abstract quantitative or model-building work.35
Journal content became a recurrent concern for the new women’s

caucuses appearing in political science associations. Here, we will com-
pare the effects of such activism on gender content in two national
association journals, those in Australia and Canada. One significant
strategy initiated by women’s caucuses in both countries with posi-
tive results has been the conduct of iterative reviews of journal content.
Institutionalising such reviews, by requiring a gender audit of journal
submissions and published articles as part of editors’ annual report to the
association, has been another significant development.
Comparing the gender content by decade in the Australian Journal
of Political Science and Canadian Journal of Political Science, we can
observe both similarities and differences. Both journals were founded
in the 1960s and had no explicitly gendered content in their first issues.
The Australian journal was quicker to include gender perspectives,
reflecting the way that responsiveness to the changing nature of politics
can shape the discipline. Carol Johnson shows that the Australian journal
was both engaged with and reflective of the development of feminism
and broader changes in women’s participation in public political life.36
Activist or practitioner contributions were less likely to appear in the
Canadian Journal of Political Science, with the result that feminist con-
tent was slower to arrive in its pages. The early pattern of the Canadian
journal was more like that of the prestigious American Political Science
Review, which between the 1970s and 1980s saw only a small increase in
articles relating to feminist or gender research, from three articles in the
1970s to seven in the 1980s.37
By the twenty-first century, however, the Canadian journal had over-
taken its Australian counterpart (Fig. 12.1). Several factors can explain the
change of gears in Canada, including the activism of the Women’s Caucus
of the Canadian PSA and the efforts of feminist editors.38 In both coun-
tries, these two factors seem likely to continue to be significant and to
have some relationship to the methodological pluralism of both journals.39
Current Patterns of Integration of Gender Content

in Leading Political Science Journals
While there has been an overall increase in gender and feminist research,
this needs to be understood within the broader context of academic pro-
duction and differing patterns across the social sciences. The GESS pro-
ject at the Australian National University has compared the integration
35
30
25
20
15
10
0
1960-1969 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2009
Australian Jounal of Political Science Canadian Journal of Political Science
Fig. 12.1 Comparison by decade of number of articles with gender content

in the Australian Journal of Political Science and Canadian Journal of Political
Science
Source Australian Journal of Political Science (previously Politics); Canadian Journal of
Political Science
Data on number of articles with gender perspectives compiled by Monica Costa and
Richard Reid
of gender content across five social sciences, as well as related matters

such as female authorship, citation rates and openness to other disci-
plines. It has found political science to have low levels of gender content
in its highly ranked journals and to be more like economics than sociol-
ogy in this regard. If we look at all articles in ten top-ranking journals in
sociology over the period 1990–2015, we find that around 21% explic-
itly include women, gender relations and/or feminism in their content.
In ten top-tier journals in political science, the pattern is very different,
with gender content only increasing marginally, from 3% of all articles
in 1990 to 5.5% in 2015 (see Fig. 12.2). The GESS findings provide
further evidence of resistance in political science to the integration of
feminist research and gender perspectives into authoritative disciplinary
knowledge.40
Two factors do much to explain the marginalisation of gender research
in political science: the first is that women remain under-represented in
the leading political science publications; the second is that men have not
taken up feminist research.41 There are two intersecting but non-identical
35.0%
30.0%
25.0%
20.0%
15.0%
10.0%
5.0%
0.0%
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Economics 10 Sociology 10 Political Science 10
Fig. 12.2 Proportion of articles addressing gender as a topic in high-ranked jour-

nals, comparison between Economics, Sociology and Political Science (1990–2015)
Note Data was taken from ten of the highest ranked journals in each of the disciplines for the
GESS research project. Included are articles that register ‘gender’, ‘women’ or ‘feminis*’ in
the title, abstract or keywords listed for published articles
Source Analysis undertaken by Rebecca Pearse for the GESS project: http://genderinsti-
tute.anu.edu.au/gess
issues here, the under-representation of women and the under-rep-

resentation of feminist research. A 2007 study of the 400 most cited
scholars in the USA found 40 women among them. While restricted to
the scholars teaching in US political science graduate departments, the
list included the works of prominent feminist political scientists such
as Carole Pateman, Susan Welch and Nancy Fraser.42 Significantly we
found that only 15 of the 40 women included in the list had made sig-
nificant feminist contributions; this is a far higher ratio, however, than to
be found among the most cited male scholars, of whom hardly any had
undertaken feminist or gender research.
When we turn to the representation of female authors in the most
prominent and visible political science publications, rather than the rep-
resentation of gender research, we again find a salient and persistent gen-
der gap—a gender gap that also exists in women’s share of most cited
articles in these journals.43 While there are some positive signs, with
women’s publication rates increasing over time, there are reasons to be
concerned with low likelihood of women being sole or first authors.44

Part of the problem is that female scholars tend not to send their work
to publications that they deem unwelcoming—whether because of their
themes, methods or other informal signals. This means that women sub-
mit at lower rates than men even where they have higher success rates
when they do submit.45
The GESS project has conducted research on female authorship as
well as gender content in ten top-ranking journals in each of the disci-
plines of sociology, economics, philosophy, history, IR and political sci-
ence. Analysis of the 100 most cited articles published between 2001
and 2015 in these high-ranking journals provides striking evidence
of gender imbalance in the social sciences and the extent of the gen-
der gap in political science. A mere 15% and 16% of the 100 most cited
papers in top-ranking journals in political science and IR were authored
by women. Women’s share of the top 100 most cited political science
articles was significantly behind emerging patterns in history and soci-
ology. In history, for example, 28% of the top 100 most cited articles
were authored by women (see Fig. 12.3). The lack of visibility of the
contribution of women political scientists presents a particular chal-
lenge to efforts to make the discipline more inclusive. The implication
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Sociology History Political International Philosophy Economics
Science Relations
Fig. 12.3 Proportion of female authors in 100 most cited papers in 10

top-ranking journals
Source Analysis undertaken by Rebecca Pearse for the GESS project: http://genderinsti-
tute.anu.edu.au/gess
Table 12.3 Proportion of references to women authors in top-cited articles,

2006–2016
Proportion of references Proportion of references to

to women authors in women authors in top-cited
top-cited articles (%) articles by women (%)
Australian Journal of Political Science 38.1 51.8

British Journal of Political Science 21.7 25.4
Canadian Journal of Political Science 37.1 51.7
American Journal of Political Science 17.8 18.1
Source Analysis undertaken by Rebecca Pearse and Monica Costa for the GESS project: http://gender-
institute.anu.edu.au/gess
of such patterns is significant not only for the professional trajectories of

these women but also, as we shall see, for shaping and framing of what is
regarded as knowledge and excellence in the discipline.
In addition to its work on gender content and female authorship,
the GESS project has also undertaken research on the gendered nature
of citation patterns. A comparison of the 10 most cited journal arti-
cles published between 2006 and 2016 in four leading political sci-
ence journals in the USA, Canada, UK and Australia confirms previous
research showing that it is women that tend to cite women authors (see
Table 12.3). Across the board, the proportion of references to women
authors increases when the top-cited articles are by women, but this
is less marked in the more quantitatively oriented British Journal of
Political Science and American Journal of Political Science. The journals
of the Canadian and Australian PSAs not only have significantly more
references to female authors overall, but this rises to over 50% when the
top-cited articles are by women. As we have highlighted in the previous
section, the particular history of these journals and their interaction with
feminist institutions within the PSAs may have helped make them more
open to a diversity of methods and objects of analysis.
Earlier (2005) research into citation patterns in International Studies
Quarterly and International Studies Perspectives found that women were
three times more likely to refer to the work of other female academics
and that less than 10% of all references in articles authored by men were
to work by women. These findings are all the more significant as women
constitute 39% of ISA members.46 In other subfields, women’s work has
been close to invisible. Women’s share of citations in the journal Political
Methodology has been found to be as low as 2.9%.47
This state of affairs has led to action. In 2016, the ‘Women also know
stuff’ initiative, a crowd-sourced website, was launched in the USA, to
improve the visibility of women in political science and ensure that wom-
en’s expertise is included. Within a few weeks, close to 1000 women
political scientists covering more than 80 topical areas added their names
and profiles to the website. The website itself had been visited over
80,000 times by more than 15,000 unique visitors.48
Others have observed that the commitment of editors to publishing
feminist research and the work of women can play a critical role in the vis-
ibility of this work and in encouraging diversity.49 Editors are gatekeepers
determining what are important research questions, appropriate method-
ological tools and worthwhile perspectives.50 A 2010 audit of the women
in editorial positions in the top 50 journals in political science found that
while there is great variation in the presence of women in these posi-
tions, women have been relatively well-represented in editorial positions
and were more likely to be single editors than part of a team of editors.51
This research draws attention to the networks and relationships of edi-
tors, pointing to the importance of having women editors to reach out to
women researchers and to achieve greater diversity in the subfields covered.
Gendered Methodological Differences

and Hierarchies of Knowledge
In addition to questions of editorial commitment, an important element

for understanding patterns of publication in top-ranking political science
journals consists of gendered differences in choice of subfields and meth-
odological approaches. Women political scientists tend to be found in cer-
tain areas of the discipline and in terms of methodology are less likely to
use quantitative or mathematical model-building approaches. Women are
best represented as authors of articles using qualitative methodology or
political theory.52 These gendered differences would not be such a matter
of concern if it were not for the hierarchy of knowledge within political
science and the ‘insularity’ between subfields and methodologies.53
An important study by Dawn Teele and Kathleen Thelen has drawn
attention to the links between methodological predilections of the
most prestigious journals and under-representation of female authors
or of work that women would be interested in (see Fig. 12.4). Their
work shows that American Political Science Review, American Journal
of Political Science and Journal of Politics publish a negligible number
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
AJPS JOP APSR JCR CPS IO WP POP CP
Statistical Methods Qualitative Methods
Fig. 12.4 Statistical and qualitative methods as a share of articles 2000–2004

Note American Journal of Political Science (AJPS), Journal of Politics (JOP), American
Political Science Review (APSR), Journal of Conflict Research (JCR), Comparative Political
Studies (CPS), International Organization (IO), World Politics (WP), Perspectives on
Politics (POP) and Comparative Politics (CP)
Source Teele and Thelen (2017: 441). Reproduced with permission of Cambridge
University Press. Many thanks to Dawn L. Teele and Kathleen Thelen for their assistance
with the reproduction of this figure
of qualitative articles and also publish relatively few female authors. For
example, in 2000–2015 a mere 18% and 23.4% of all authors published
in American Journal of Political Science and American Political Science
Review, respectively, were women. This is relatively lower than the share
of women in tenure track positions in the 20 largest doctorate-granting
departments in the USA, which is estimated at 27%. It suggests that these
journals are publishing women’s work at a rate that is significantly below
the presence of the women in the discipline. These journals with a strong
penchant for quantitative research are also official flagship publications of
APSA or its geographic subsections, raising questions about what defines
quality contributions and how quality is assessed.54 As Teele and Thelen
remind us, these are journals that are officially positioned as open to sub-
missions from all subfields and approaches in the discipline, yet in practice
are privileging a particular type of methodology, namely quantitative.
Other highly ranked journals such as Perspectives on Politics and

Comparative Politics do publish a larger share of qualitative research and
have relatively larger numbers of female authors. For example, as many
as 33.5% of all authors published in Perspectives on Politics in 2000–2015
were women, suggesting that this journal is publishing the work of
women at a rate that is comparable to their presence in the discipline.
This positive relation between openness to qualitative research and the
share of women authors is a general pattern; a simple measure of this
is that the share of women authors in articles primarily using qualitative
methods, such as case studies, is higher than, for example, the member-
ship of women in APSA.55 However, quantitative methods have become
the most prevalent methodology in many of the top US journals and this
operates both as an obstacle to women’s publication and career aspira-
tions and to the integration of gender perspectives in the discipline.
While sex is employed as a demographic variable in survey research, gen-
der is rarely applied as an analytic concept.56
It is not only in journals that one can observe gendered differences
in research approach and subject areas, but can also be seen in the com-
position of the research groups of national associations. For example,
in 2015 women were significantly over-represented in APSA’s organ-
ised sections devoted to qualitative and multi-method research, such as
comparative government, while being significantly under-represented in
sections strongly associated with quantitative methods, such as political
methodology and international relations. Political methodology is also
the section with the largest gap between men and women, and this is
reflected in political methods conferences, where women typically rep-
resent around 20% of the participants, a proportion that appears to be
unchanged since the mid-1990s.57
There were similarly gendered patterns across research groups in
other political science associations in April 2017, with male dominance
of groups concerned with quantitative methodology but much greater
participation by women in environmental or human rights groups. For
example, in the UK PSA the more quantitatively oriented groups like
the Political Methodology Group and the Elections, Public Opinion and
Parties Group had all-male teams of convenors, while the Environmental
Politics Group had an all-female team of convenors. In the Australian
PSA, the Quantitative Methods Research Group again had an all-male
team of four convenors, while the Environmental Politics and Policy
Group had three female convenors and one man.
Of course, the uneven distribution of male and female political sci-

entists across subfields of the discipline and across disciplinary or inter-
disciplinary approaches would not be a matter of concern if there
were equal respect for different areas and approaches. However, and
as demonstrated above, most of the ‘top’ journals in political science
have been found to have a predisposition towards work using statistical
techniques.58
One of the ways this hegemony of quantitative methodology in the
discipline is made visible is through departmental requirements. Shauna
Shames and Tess Wise have found that 82% of the top 15 political sci-
ence graduate programmes in the USA required doctoral candidates to
take quantitative methods and none applied the same requirement to
qualitative methods.59
Since the shift towards quantitative methodologies in the
1950–1960s, methodology has itself become a field within political sci-
ence, perhaps its most prestigious. Methodologists have in practice
become censors of the discipline and have set the rules and standards
for quality research that informs work done across the discipline.60 The
greater focus on methods, and specifically quantitative methods, rather
than on content and social relevance has been viewed as potentially mov-
ing women away from the discipline.61 Given the grave inequality in
political methodology noted above and its prominent status, it is impor-
tant to confront, as Shauna Shames and Tess Wise put it, the ‘uncom-
fortable possibility that some of our “rules of the game” may embed
biases based on the relative privilege of those making them’.62
Another high-status approach is that of ‘formal theory’ or game the-
ory, and this is the approach least used by women either in the ‘top’
political science journals or in the scholarly literature more generally,
where they constitute only 5% of authors of IR articles with a game-
theoretic approach published in the period 1990–2010.63 The associa-
tion of formal theory and quantitative methods approaches with the
values of quality and expertise creates an obstacle for work using other
approaches, which is disproportionately done by women.64 It also cre-
ates a significant obstacle to the integration of gender scholarship into
the discipline because this is largely done by women, is typically prob-
lem-oriented and uses approaches poorly represented in the most pres-
tigious journals.
These overwhelming patterns are being challenged with initiatives
such as Visions in Methodology (VIM), an annual conference to support
women’s participation in quantitative research methods. This conference

was first held in 2008 as a response to a recommendation from an APSA
workshop on the advancement of women in political science and the
Society for Political Methodology’s Diversity Committee.65 While such
interventions can have a positive impact on women’s academic careers,
in terms of transforming the discipline they are open to the critique of
attempting to dismantle the master’s house by using the master’s tools.
Indeed, Lovenduski has suggested that the perceived need for femi-
nist political scientists to prove themselves by engaging in quantitative
research can be seen as ‘an instance of needing to perform masculinity’.66
The broader notions of excellence and quality research within the dis-
cipline need much closer scrutiny. The GESS analysis of the 10 most-
cited journal articles between 2006 and 2016 in top-ranking British,
Australian, Canadian and American political science journals speaks to
these tensions and places an emphasis on both gender and geography
in framing hierarchies of knowledge and notions of quality in scholar-
ship. The overwhelming predominance of US authors in the top-ranked
political science journals is well known; and even in a journal explicitly
committed to serving the international political science community (the
International Political Science Review), there is a dominance of scholar-
ship from North America and Western Europe.67 Apparent bias against
work from the periphery and gender bias can both be linked to issues of
methodological approach. It should also be noted that work concerned
with the political institutions of the periphery suffers from the small
potential citing audience for such studies and hence can rank lower in the
hierarchy of knowledge if standard bibliometrics are used.68
As we saw in the previous section, in the Australian and Canadian
Journals of Political Science more than a third of references in the ten
top-cited articles had at least one female author (Table 12.3). Further
when women are one of the authors of the ten top-cited articles in
these journals, the proportion of references that include women rises
to over half of all references. Once we move away from the periphery
towards the political science heartland, the picture is very different. In
the top-cited articles of the American Journal of Political Science, even
the articles with female authors tend not to refer to the work of other
women—only 18.1% of their references were to work with female
authors. The strong quantitative emphasis of this journal, like that
of other top-ranking US journals, can, at least in part, explain these
patterns.
There have been calls for political science to embrace diversity, and,
as we have shown, there is a wealth of research that documents gender
difference in areas of study and approach. A study of IR, for example,
brought this diversity to the forefront. Daniel Maliniak and his co-au-
thors analysed the 2006 survey of IR faculty in the USA and found
that women are more likely to position themselves as constructivists,
with attention to ideas and identities. Men are relatively more likely to
position themselves as realists and to deal with the influence of the state’s
military capabilities. Women are also more likely to research on topics
and regions outside the mainstream of the realm of IR.69
The Matilda Effect in Awards

and Prizes in Political Science
Awards and prizes can play a critical role in shaping professional trajec-
tories and enhancing academic status within the political science com-
munity. Awards have also become an important feature in professional
associations, celebrating achievements in the context of regular con-
ferences of PSAs and symbolising excellence and academic success.
Externally, awards are a measure of the value of academic work and a
marker of how science is being construed.70 Feminist scholars have done
important work in challenging existing definitions of research excellence
and showing how gender biases at play have led to the exclusion of gen-
der research from definitions of ‘excellence’ and of women from profes-
sional and research opportunities.71 As we have seen, women’s caucuses
within PSAs have tried to counter such gender bias by establishing a
range of prizes to ensure that gender scholarship is given due recognition
and also by having prizes named after women.
Related research has found that academic endeavours and the achieve-
ments of women are often seen as less important than those of men.
As a result, women’s contributions have been overlooked in awards
and prizes, the ‘Matilda effect’.72 One notable example is the Franklin
L. Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha prize which celebrates the best paper pre-
sented at the previous year’s annual meeting of APSA, the world’s larg-
est and most influential PSA. Women have represented only 12.5% of all
recipients in 2006–2017. Yet since 2005, women have represented over
30% of all paper givers in these annual meetings.73 This suggests that the
rising number of women participating in the annual APSA meeting has
yet to translate into greater recognition of women’s contribution to the

discipline.
The GESS project at the Australian National University has surveyed
recognition of women and gender research across four social sciences via
measures including the award of academic prizes by professional associ-
ations. This analysis is published on the GESS project website.74 While
there is great variability across national professional associations, in broad
terms political science lags well behind sociology in the recognition of
women and of gender research. The gender segmentation within the
discipline, discussed above, is reflected in the distribution of awards and
prizes. For example, in Canada awards in comparative politics, a subfield
seen as more open to methodological pluralism and with a greater focus
on field work,75 show a relatively stronger representation of women.
At the other end of the spectrum, a mere 11.4% of all recipients of the
Donald Smiley Prize for the best book in the area of government and
politics in Canada were women. There are more positive signs, with
women doing better in prizes awarded at more junior levels of the pro-
fession and for dissertations. For example, since its inception in 2006
women represented 66.7% of all recipients of the PhD prize awarded by
Australian PSA. This is well above women’s representation among doc-
toral candidates, estimated at 47% in 2010.76 Other research has found
that women are winning teaching awards at a higher rate than their male
counterparts. This would be something to celebrate if it weren’t for the
fact that teaching is less significant for decisions on tenure and promo-
tion than academic outputs; indeed, teaching excellence is seen as less of
an achievement than equivalent accolades in academic performance.77
The recognition of women’s contribution also benefits when atten-
tion is drawn to persistent gender imbalance. For example, IPSA now
includes data on women’s share of IPSA awards in its gender monitoring
surveys.78 The 2011 and 2013 IPSA audits found that the Karl Deutsch
Award, one of the highest honours in cross-disciplinary research, had
only ever been awarded to men. In 2014, Pippa Norris became the
first woman to receive this award. This sequence of events indicates the
power of tracking and publishing data on the status of women in order
to bring about change.
Related research has shown that awards, and the criteria behind them,
often draw on a set of values and are crafted in language that are typically
associated with men.79 It is not surprising that the UK’s Sir Isaiah Berlin
Prize for lifetime contribution to political studies was not awarded to a

woman until 2013. Since then, in a significant act of historical redress,
it has been awarded to a woman for four years in a row—honouring the
work of Joni Lovenduski, Baroness Onora O’Neill, Anne Phillips and
Pippa Norris. While this reflects recent efforts to bring to light women’s
contribution to the discipline, women’s under-representation in higher
ranks of the profession still limits the pool of potential nominees. But this
is only part of the challenge. Feminist research has shown that men con-
tinue to set the terms for which journals are important and, as we have
shown, significant and persistent gendered difference in citation patterns
and spheres of influence and networks combine to frame what is valued
as expertise and merit.80 One of the important features of these patterns
is the over-emphasis on single authorship, which men have dominated,81
and perceptions that the contribution of women in group pieces, which
remain an important avenue for women, is not as important as that of
men.82 Academic expertise is in and of itself a gendered construct, which
relies on gendered networks and values, and which mobilises masculinity
to claim power to set values and assess competencies.83
Does the Presence of Women Assist the Integration

of Gender Perspectives?
As Jill Vickers has noted, we cannot assume that women who reach lead-
ership positions in the discipline will necessarily employ gender as an ana-
lytic construct.84 While an increase in the number of women at senior
levels in the profession is likely to see an increase in attention to gen-
dered politics, this is not necessarily the case.85 As discussed above, of
the 40 most cited women in the American political science profession in
2002, only 15 were cited for work on gender. Nonetheless, these senior
women were far more likely to have introduced gender perspectives into
the discipline than their highly cited male colleagues.
Further evidence of the relationship between the gender of authors
and gender content is provided by a recent audit of the content of 872
research articles published in International Political Science Review
(IPSR) between 1980 and 2015. It found that over 69% of all arti-
cles that had a gender perspective were authored solely by women and
20.4% by women and men. Articles authored solely by men made up
a mere 10.2% of such articles. However, while women are much more
likely than men to bring gender perspectives to their research, again only
around 26% of the articles by women addressed gender issues.86 This

seems to roughly reflect the proportion of women political scientists giv-
ing ‘woman and politics’ as their primary research interest in an earlier
survey undertaken for the Canadian PSA.87
The fact that not all women political scientists bring feminist perspec-
tives into their research should not be a matter of surprise. Indeed, it is
invidious to expect that women already dealing with gender bias in their
professional careers will necessarily take on the additional responsibility
of transformation of the discipline. Nonetheless, it is women who have
been largely responsible for the introduction of gender innovation into
the discipline.
Conclusion
The last three decades have seen an increase in the organisation of
women in the discipline, initially at least borrowing from the strat-
egies and tools of the women’s movement. The tireless work of femi-
nist political scientists has institutionalised a significant new subfield of
political science concerned with the gendered nature of politics and has
highlighted through a variety of mediums the contribution of women
scholars to the discipline. The research sections established within PSAs
for this subfield are now among the largest and liveliest of the specialist
sections.
However, this new subfield has been nested within a discipline with
long-standing traditions concerning appropriate approaches and the
legitimate object of study, the problem of ‘nested newness’ so well iden-
tified by Fiona Mackay in relation to the devolved political institutions
of Scotland.88 Quite apart from differences over approach and meth-
odology, the focus of feminist research on addressing inequality has
been seen as demonstrating its lack of objectivity. These tensions have
affected the way that politics and gender research has been conducted
as it has sought legitimacy within the discipline. Initial hopes for disci-
plinary transformation through, for example, the dismantling of the
public/private divide have not been realised in the discipline as whole,
or even in the new subfield of politics and gender that has been added
to it. While ‘nested newness’ is one problem, another is the increased
fragmentation of political science into distinct epistemic communi-
ties and rewards systems, making the integration of new norms across
the discipline more difficult. These difficulties are added to by persistent
hierarchies of knowledge, with monodisciplinary quantitative work gain-

ing unparalleled currency in the most prestigious academic journals.
We have seen that feminist scholarship is rarely referenced in the most
influential journals in the discipline. We also found that while women
are more likely than men to reference work by women, this requires the
presence of women authors who are often excluded by the methodologi-
cal predilections of top-tier journals. Another measure of the exclusion of
feminist research and women authors from notions of excellence in the
discipline is the relative neglect of women’s work in awards and prizes.
In this area, recent activism has ushered in some positive changes, yet the
legacy persists.
The lack of general recognition of the extent of gender innovation
occurring in the discipline has serious implications for the ability of polit-
ical science to grapple with the extent of global political change. Such
change is bringing new political repertoire, actors and arenas. A more
inclusive discipline is needed to illuminate the directions being taken by
politics as it spills over the boundaries of what was once regarded as the
public sphere and mobilises new identities and forms of communication.
Feminist political science has contributed strongly to new and evolv-
ing norms and new knowledge concerning the gendered nature of
politics. It has used social media to showcase feminist knowledge to a
wider audience and to engage with the dispersed community of feminist
political scientists and activists and policymakers across the globe. As we
have seen in preceding chapters, these new norms have been taken up
by many international governance institutions as well as integrated into
development assistance policies. They have shaped expectations of new
democracies and provided a measure of democratic quality. However,
while the scholarship underpinning these new norms has had wide-
ranging policy impact, it appears to have had less recognition within
political science itself, at least in the ‘core areas’ of the discipline. And, as
shown in this book, the discipline is poorer for it.
Notes
1. See Jill Vickers (2015) ‘Can We Change How Political Science Thinks?
“Gender Mainstreaming” in a Resistant Discipline, Presidential Address
delivered to the Canadian Political Science Association, Ottawa, 2 June
2015’, Canadian Journal of Political Science 4(4): 747–770.
2. The acronym PSA is here used both for Political Science Associations, as
in the US and Canada, and Political Studies Associations, as in the UK,
Australia, New Zealand and Ireland and for associations with other names,
such as the Spanish Association of Political and Administrative Science.
3. Other ‘status’ committees established by APSA in included that on the
Status of Blacks in the Profession (1969), Latinos y Latinas (1970),
LGBT (1992) and Asian Pacific Americans (2003).
4. Joyce Mitchell (1990) ‘The Women’s Caucus for Political Science: A View
of the “Founding”’, PS: Political Science and Politics 23(2): 204–209;
Sue Tolleson-Rinehart and Susan J. Carroll (2006) ‘“Far From Ideal”:
The Gender Politics of Political Science’, The American Political Science
Review 100(4): 507–513, p. 510.
5. Tolleson-Rinehart and Carroll, ‘Far from Ideal’, pp. 511–512.
6. Arantxa Elizondo (2015) ‘The Status of Women in Spanish Political
Science’, European Political Science 14(2): 96–104; Alba Alonso and
Emanuela Lombardo (2016) ‘Ending Ghettoization? Mainstreaming
Gender in Spanish Political Science Education’, European Political Science
15(3): 292–302.
7. Sarah Childs and Mona Lena Krook (2006) ‘Gender and Politics: The
State of the Art’, Politics 26(1): 18–28.
8. Elizabeth Evans and Fran Amery (2016) ‘Gender and Politics in the UK:
Banished to the Sidelines’, European Political Science 15(3): 314–321. In
2015 the Women and Politics group was awarded the prize for best spe-
cialist group.
9. Anil Awesti, Matt Flinders, and Heather Savigny (2016) ‘Pursuing the
Diversity and Inclusion Agenda: The PSA in the UK’, European Political
Science 15(4): 508–518, p. 513.
10. Stephen Bates and Heather Savigny (2015) ‘Conclusion: The Future
Status of Women in European Political Science’, European Political
Science 14(2): 131–136.
11. Jennifer Curtin (2015) ‘Feminist Contributions to New Zealand Political
Science’, Women’s Studies Journal 29(1): 4–20.
12. Jackie F. Steele (2016) ‘Japanese Political Science at a Crossroads?
Normative and Empirical Preconditions for the Integration of Women
and Diversity into Political Science’, European Political Science 15(4):
536–555; Claire Annesley (2015) Gender and Japanese Political Science,
The Political Studies Association. Available at: https://www.psa.ac.uk/
print/23451.
13. Erin Tolley (2017) ‘Into the Mainstream or Still at the Margins? 50
Years of Gender Research in the Canadian Political Science Association’,
Canadian Journal of Political Science 50(1): 143–161.
14. Tolley, ‘Into the Mainstream or Still at the Margins?’.

15. See Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn (2006) ‘Dividing the Domain of
Political Science: The Fetishism of Subfields’, Polity 38(1): 41–71.
16. Gretchen Ritter and Nicole Mellow (2000) ‘The State of Gender Studies
in Political Science’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science 571: 121–134.
17. Women & Politics was not established by the women’s caucus itself, but its
first two editors had been presidents of the caucus. See Barbara J. Nelson
(1989) ‘Women and Knowledge in Political Science: Texts, Histories, and
Epistemologies’, Women & Politics 9(2): 1–25, p. 23, fn. 5.
18. Meryl Kenny (2017) ‘New PSA Prizes and Awards Framework’. Available at:
https://www.psa.ac.uk/psa/news/new-psa-prizes-and-awards-framework.
19. For other examples see Alonso and Lombardo, ‘Ending Ghettoization?’
and their account of the efforts in Spain to develop a political science
textbook that includes feminist contributions to the discipline.
20. Amy Atchison (2013) ‘The Practical Process of Gender Mainstreaming
in the Political Science Curriculum’, Politics & Gender 9(2): 228–235,
p. 233.
21. Jonathan Dean (2015) ‘Feminising Politics, Politicising Gender’, UK
PSA Women & Politics Specialist Group Blogs & Commentary (17 June).
Available at: https://psawomenpolitics.com/2015/06/17/feminising-
politics-politicising-gender/.
22. Jane S. Jacquette (1976) ‘Political Science’, Signs 2(1): 147–164.
Interestingly the journal in which this call was made was itself an interdis-
ciplinary one.
23. For example, Donatella della Porta and Marco Guigni (2013) ‘Emotions
in Social Movements’, in Donatella della Porta and Dieter Rucht (eds.)
Meeting Democracy: Power and Deliberation in Global Justice Movements’,
24. Rebecca Pearse, James N. Hitchcock and Helen Keane (forthcoming)
‘Gender, Inter/Disciplinarity and Marginality in the Social Sciences
and Humanities: A Comparison of Six Disciplines’, Women’s Studies
International Forum https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2018.05.007. On
the resistance of political science to engagement with other disciplines see
also Ritter and Mellow, ‘The State of Gender Studies in Political Science’.
25. Pearse ‘Gendered Inter/Disciplinarity and Marginality in the Social
Sciences and Humanities’.
26. See Johanna Kantola (2015) ‘Political Science as a Gendered Discipline in
Finland’, European Political Science 14(2): 79–86, p. 83; see also Birgit
Sauer (2016) ‘Austrian Exceptionalism? Insights from a Huge Department
in a Small Country’, European Political Science 15(3): 332–342.
27. Liza Mugge, Elizabeth Evans, and Isabelle Engeli (2016) ‘Introduction:

Gender in European Political Science Education—Taking Stock and
Future Directions’, European Political Science 15(3): 281–296.
28. Gabriele Abels (2016) ‘The Gender Gap in Political Science Education in
Germany’, European Political Science 15(3): 322–331.
29. Marian Sawer and Jennifer Curtin (2016) ‘Organising for a More Diverse
Political Science: Australia and New Zealand’, European Political Science
15(4): 441–456; Mhairi Cowden, Kirsty McLaren, Alison Plumb and
Marian Sawer (2012) The Advancement of Women in Australian Political
Science. Available at: https://www.auspsa.org.au/sites/default/files/
women_s_advancement_in_australian_political_science_report.pdf.
30. Evans and Amery, ‘Gender and Politics in the UK’.
31. Joni Lovenduski (2015) Gendering Politics, Feminising Political Science,
Colchester: ECPR Press, p. 304.
32. J. Ann Tickner (2016) ‘Women in the ISA: Some Reflections on Women
in the International Studies Profession’, Notes prepared following the
Gendered innovation in political science workshop held at the Australian
National University, November.
33. Luis Ricardo Fraga, Terri E. Givens, and Dianne M. Pinderhughes (2011)
Political Science in the 21st Century: Report of the Task Force on Political
Science in the 21st Century, Washington: American Political Science
Association, pp. 18–20.
34. Dianne Pinderhughes and Maryann Kwakwa (2017) ‘A Virtual Review:
Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Diversity in American Political Science
Association Publications’. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/
core/societies/american-political-science-association/a-virtual-re-
view-gender-race-ethnicity-and-diversity-in-american-political-science-as-
sociation-publications.
35. Emma Foster, Peter Kerr, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Byrne, and
Linda Ahall (2013) ‘The Personal Is Not Political: At Least Not in the
UK’s Top Politics and IR Departments’, British Journal of Politics and
International Relations 15(4): 566–585.
36. Carol Johnson (2015) ‘Women, Gender and Feminism in the Australian
Journal of Political Science: A Review’, Australian Journal of Political
Science 50(4): 695–706.
37. Rita Mae Kelly and Kimberly Fisher (1993) ‘An Assessment of Articles
about Women in the “Top 15” Political Science Journals’, PS: Political
Science and Politics 26(3): 544–558, p. 545.
38. See Jane Arscott and Manon Tremblay (1999) ‘Il reste encore des
travaux a faire: Feminism and Political Science in Canada and Quebec’,
Canadian Journal of Political Science 32(1): 125–151.
39. See, for example, Maxime Héroux-Legault, (2017) The Evolution of

Methodological Techniques in the Canadian Journal of Political Science
50(1): 121–142.
40. Ritter and Mellow, ‘The State of Gender Studies in Political Science’;
Marian Sawer (2004) ‘The Impact of Feminist Scholarship on Australian
Political Science’, Australian Journal of Political Science 39(3): 553–566;
Carol Johnson (2014) ‘Hard Heads and Soft Hearts: The Gendering
of Australian Political Science’, Australian Feminist Studies 29(80):
121–136.
41. A. Lanethea Mathews and Kristi Andersen (2001) ‘A Gender Gap in
Publishing? Women’s Representation in Edited Political Science Books’,
PS 34(1): 143–147.
42. Natalie Masuoka, Bernard Grofman, and Scott Feld (2007) ‘The Political
Science 400: A 20-Year Update’, PS 40(1): 133–145.
43. Dawn Langan Teele and Kathleen Thelen (2017) ‘Gender in the
Journals: Publication Patterns in Political Science’, PS 50 (2): 433–477,
p. 442; Helen Williams, Stephen Bates, Laura Jenkins, Darcy Luke, and
Kelly Rogers (2015) ‘Symposium Gender and Journal Authorship: An
Assessment of Articles Published by Women in Three Top British Political
Science and International Relations Journals’, European Political Science
14(2): 116–130.
44. Williams et al., ‘Symposium Gender and Journal Authorship’.
45. Marijke Breuning and Kathryn Sanders (2007) ‘Gender and Journal
Authorship in Eight Prestigious Political Science Journals’, PS 40(2):
347–351; Gudrun Østby, Havard Strand, Ragnhild Nordas, and Nils
Gledditsch (2013) ‘Gender Gap or Gender Bias in Peace Research?
Publication Patterns and Citation Rates for Journal of Peace Research,
1983–2008’, International Studies Perspectives 14(4): 493–506.
46. Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Samantha Lange, and Holly Brus (2013)
‘Gendered Citation Patterns in International Relations Journals’,
International Studies Perspectives 14(4): 485–492.
47. Sara McLaughlin Mitchell (2013) Why it Matters That More Women
Present at Conferences, Monkey Cage, Washington Post, 2 October 2013.
Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/
wp/2013/10/02/why-it-matters-that-more-women-present-at-confer-
ences/?utm_term=.e868934d4bf7.
48. Emily Beaulieu, Amber E. Boydstun, et al. (2017) ‘Women Also Know
Stuff: Meta-Level Mentoring to Battle Gender Bias in Political Science’,
PS 50(3): 779–783.
49. Jennifer Curtin (2013) ‘Women and Political Science in New Zealand’, PS
65(1): 63–83.
50. Mary Stegmaier, Barbara Palmer, and Laura van Assendelft (2011)

‘Getting on the Board: The Presence of Women in Political Science
Journal Editorial Positions’, PS 44(4): 799–804, p. 802.
51. Stegmaier, Palmer and van Assendelft, ‘Getting on the Board’.
52. Teele and Thelen, ‘Gender in the Journals’; see also Childs and Krook,
‘Gender and Politics’, p. 20.
53. Ritter and Mellow, ‘The State of Gender Studies in Political Science’,
p. 132.
54. Teele and Thelen, ‘Gender in the Journals’.
55. Teele and Thelen, ‘Gender in the Journals’; Breunig and Sanders, ‘Gender
and Journal Authorship in Eight Prestigious Political Science Journals’.
56. See Amanda Bittner and Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant (2017) ‘Digging
Deeper into the Gender Gap: Salience as a Moderating Factor in Political
Attitudes’, Canadian Journal of Political Science 50(2): 559–578.
57. Shauna L. Shames and Tess Wise (2017) ‘Gender, Diversity and Methods
in Political Science: A Theory of Selection and Survival Biases’, PS 50(3):
811–823. See also Tiffany Barnes, Emily Beaulieu, and Yanna Krupnikov
(2014) ‘An Assessment of the Visions in Methodology Initiative:
Directions for Increasing Women’s Participation’, Political Methodologist
21(2): 10–16.
58. Teele and Thelen, ‘Gender in the Journals’.
59. Shames and Wise, ‘Gender, Diversity and Methods in Political Science’.
60. Lawrence M. Mead (2010) ‘Scholasticism in Political Science’, Perspectives
on Politics 8(2): 453–464.
62. Shames and Wise, ‘Gender, Diversity and Methods in Political Science’,
p. 811.
63. Teele and Thelen, ‘Gender in the Journals’, p. 440; Jevin D. West and
Jennifer Jacquet (2012) ‘Women as Academic Authors, 1665–2010’,
The Chronicle of Higher Education, Special Report. Available at: http://
chronicle.com/article/Women-as-Academic-Authors/135192/.
65. See Barnes, Beaulieu, and Krupnikov, ‘An Assessment of the Visions in
Methodology Initiative’.
66. Joni Lovenduski (1998) ‘Gendering Research in Political Science’,
Annual Review of Political Science 1998, p. 351.
67. Enzo Lenine, Melina Mörschbächer, and Paulo Peres (2018) ‘Three
Decades of IPSR: A Map of the Methodological Preferences in IPSR
Articles’, IPSR, Online First.
68. Claire Donovan (2007) ‘The Hidden Perils of Citation Counting’,
Australian Journal of Political Science 42(4): 665–678.
69. Daniel Maliniak, Amy Oakes, Susan Peterson, and Michael J. Tierney

(2008) ‘Women in International Relations’, Politics & Gender 4(1):
122–144.
70. Anne E. Lincoln, Stephanie Pincus, Janet Bandows Koster, and Phoebe S.
Leboy (2012) ‘The Matilda Effect in Science: Awards and Prizes in the
US, 1990s and 2000s’, Social Studies of Science 42(2): 307–320.
71. Carol Johnson (2014) ‘Hard Heads and Soft Hearts’.
72. The ‘Matilda effect’ was labelled in Margaret Rossiter (1993) ‘The
Mathew Matilda Effect in Science’, Social Studies of Science 23(2):
325–341. Also see Lincoln et al., ‘The Matilda Effect in Science’.
73. Martin Gruberg (2009) ‘Participation by Women in the 2008 APSA
Annual Meeting’, Political Science & Politics 42(1): 173–174.
74. GESS project, ‘Recognition of Women and of Gender Research’. Available
at: http://genderinstitute.anu.edu.au/gess/recognition-of-women-and-
gender-research.
75. Karen Beckwith (2010) Introduction to the Symposium ‘A Comparative
Politics of Gender’, Perspectives on Politics 8(1): 159–168.
76. Alison Plumb (2011) ‘The Status of Women in Australian Political
Science: A Gender Survey of Departments’, Paper Presented at the
Advancement of Women in Australian Political Science Workshop, ANU,
29 September.
77. Charity Butcher and Timothy Kersey (2015) ‘When Winning is Really
Losing: Teaching Awards and Women Political Science Faculty’, PS
48(1): 138–141.
78. Kia Lindroos, Linda Cardinal, Marian Sawer, and Mathieu St-Laurent
(2014) IPSA Gender Monitoring Report 2013, Montreal: IPSA; Irmina
Matonyte, Marian Sawer, and Mathieu St-Laurent (2012) IPSA—Gender
Monitoring Report 2011, Montreal: IPSA.
79. Molly Carnes, Stacie Geller, Eve Fine, Jennifer Sheridan, and Jo
Handelsman (2005) ‘NIH Director’s Pioneer Awards: Could the
Selection Process Be Biased Against Women? Commentary’, Journal of
Women’s Health 14(8): 684–691.
80. Myra Mark Ferree and Kathrin Zippel (2015) ‘Gender Equality in the Age
of Academic Capitalism: Cassandra and Pollyanna Interpret University
Restructuring’, Social Politics 22(4): 561–584.
81. Teele and Thelen, ‘Gender in the Journals’, shows that 41.1% of all publi-
cations in top political science publications in 2000–2015 were authored
by a single man.
82. This study focused on economics; see Heather Sarsons (2015) ‘Gender
Differences in Recognition of Group Work’, Harvard Economics
Department Working Paper, 3 December.
83. Maria Azocar and Myra Marx Ferree (2015) ‘Gendered Expertise’,

Gender & Society 29(6): 841–862; Ferree and Zippel, ‘Gender Equality
in the Age of Academic Capitalism’, p. 572.
84. See Vickers, ‘Can We Change How Political Science Thinks?’
85. Curtin, ‘Women and Political Science in New Zealand’.
86. Lenine, Morschbacher, and Peres, ‘Three Decades of IPSR’.
87. Diane Lamoureux, Linda Trimble, and Miriam Koene (1997) ‘Report on
the Status of Women in the Discipline’, CPSA/ACSP Bulletin November:
76–83.
88. See Fiona Mackay (2014) ‘Nested Newness, Institutional Innovation and
the Gendered Limits of Change’, Politics & Gender 10(4): 549–571.
Index
A Delegation to the First UN World

Abbott, Tony, 202–209, 213, 214, Conference on Women, 23
216 House of Representatives, 21, 102
abortion, 21, 22, 201. See also repro- Joint Committee on Human
ductive rights Rights, 32
activism, 4, 5, 8, 9, 21, 22, 52, 68, Liberal Party of Australia, 31,
71–73, 84, 87, 96–98, 100, 108, 202–204, 206, 208, 209, 215
122, 135, 138–140, 142–144, National Foundation for Australian
146–148, 150, 151, 162, 165– Women (NFAW), 206, 209
168, 174, 199, 210, 221, 222, National Plan to Reduce Violence
224–226, 228–230, 233, 234, against Women and their
238, 239, 241, 245, 249, 254, Children, 232
268. See also social movements Senate, 100, 102
adult worker model, 197, 202, 208 Violence against women, 28, 68,
anthropology, 127 135, 143, 166, 180, 208,
Ardern, Jacinda, 2 232–235
Argentina Austria, 252
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,
162
Aristotle, 82 B
Australia Ballington, Julie, 27, 37
Abortion law reform, 21 ballot structure, 98, 102–104, 107
Australian Labor Party, 31, 202, Beijing Platform for Action (PFA), 25,
204, 207, 208, 215 188
Australian Political Studies Bolivia, 181
Association, 217, 237, 241 Brown, Alice, 27, 37
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 277

Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75850-3
278 Index
Bureaucracy, 64, 66, 68, 78, 121, 122. Women (CEDAW), 32, 139, 141,
See also femocrat 166, 180, 181
Convention on the Political Rights of
Women, 17
C critical actors, 26, 33, 122, 247
Cameron, David, 205, 215 critical junctures. See new
Canada institutionalism
Canadian Political Science Association, critical mass, 5, 15, 26, 27, 137
248, 250, 254, 268, 269 critical race theory, 6, 127
Liberal Party, 31
New Democratic Party, 31
Standing Committee on the Status D
of Women, 32 Dahlerup, Drude, 23, 26–28, 34, 36,
Cash, Michaelia, 203, 204, 205, 207, 111, 128, 247
209, 211, 213–216 democracy, 1, 2, 7, 15, 16, 17, 24, 25,
Charlesworth, Hilary, 156, 166, 171 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 62, 68, 70,
childcare, 22, 29, 45, 184, 198, 74, 76, 79, 80, 88, 96, 97, 127,
206–208 145, 154, 174, 189, 252, 268
Childs, Sarah, 32, 36, 37, 128, 187, developing countries, 63, 74, 117,
194, 203, 213, 215, 269, 273 186. See also Global South
citation patterns, 252, 258, 266 disability, 15, 127, 141, 226, 234
citizenship, 1, 4, 7, 17, 24, 48, 67, 70, women with disability, 15, 93, 226,
95, 159, 196, 250 234
civil society, 30, 62, 65, 67–70, 73, disciplinary boundaries, 5, 7, 9, 128,
74, 76, 81, 92, 94, 103, 123, 251, 252. See also interdisciplinary
137, 145, 146, 179, 182, 183, discursive framing. See framing
189, 199, 233 diversity, 2, 7, 33, 35, 39, 42–45,
clientelism, 122, 126 51–53, 56, 57, 59, 79, 80, 85,
Clinton, Hillary, 2 89, 102, 106, 112, 117, 127,
Cold War, 8, 153, 155, 156 132, 139, 141, 145, 179, 184,
collective identity, 62, 64–68, 219, 194, 197, 205, 213, 221, 223,
221, 222, 224, 225, 227, 231, 226, 233, 234, 247, 253, 258,
236, 247 259, 263, 264, 269, 271, 273
Colombia, 142 domestic violence, 69, 72, 73, 199,
Committee on the Elimination of 208, 209, 211, 216, 228, 234,
Discrimination against Women 242. See also gender-based
(CEDAW Committee), 26, 180 violence; sexual assault; violence
Commonwealth Parliamentary against women
Association (CPA), 178 donor agencies, 15, 29, 174, 185,
contagion of women candidates, 31 187, 188, 268
Convention of the Elimination of All Duverger, Maurice, 18, 35, 110
Forms of Discrimination against
Index 279
E executive office, 2, 15, 17, 18, 20,

Eastern Europe, 74 21, 23, 69, 106, 121, 122, 126,
economics, 4, 9, 24, 26, 32, 41–48, 141, 245, 270. See also political
50, 51, 53, 64, 66, 67, 71, 74, leadership
81, 98, 101, 118, 119, 153,
155–161, 163, 164, 166, 167,
177, 188, 195, 196, 198–200, F
202, 203, 205, 206, 208–210, family, 1, 2, 16, 18, 20, 24, 28, 29,
215, 255, 257 47, 65, 67, 68, 72, 94, 100, 103,
elections, 2, 10, 22, 27, 31, 38, 92, 107, 108, 125, 127, 160, 162,
94–96, 99, 102, 105–108, 110, 176, 181, 184, 198, 199, 203,
111, 113, 114, 121, 125, 126, 208
187, 193, 253, 261 division of labour, 9, 17, 18, 24,
electoral gender quotas. See quotas 158, 176, 184, 198, 210
electoral studies, 4, 8, 92, 97, 112 family law, 85
electoral systems, 4, 5, 7, 8, 15, 27, family relations, 7, 183
64, 91, 92, 93, 94–99, 101, feminism, 2, 3, 5–9, 13–17, 20–24,
103–109 26–30, 33, 48–50, 52–57, 61–66,
District magnitude, 98–100, 104, 68, 73, 79, 92, 97, 115–117,
105 119–127, 136, 144–147, 153,
First-past-the-post (FPTP), 92 155–158, 160–166, 168, 173–
Proportionality, 98, 104, 105 176, 189, 190, 196, 198, 200,
Proportional representation (PR), 204, 210, 220–222, 224–229,
31, 92, 97 231–234, 236, 244, 247, 249,
empowerment, 62, 65–67, 74, 141, 251–256, 258, 263, 264, 267,
161, 223, 226, 232 268
environmental studies, 152, 153, 233, feminist empiricism, 52, 53, 157
238, 261 feminist institutionalism. See new
epistemic community, 28, 248 institutionalism
ethics of care, 162, 163, 168 feminist institution-building, 7, 8,
ethnicity. See representation 33, 117, 123, 124, 126, 127,
Europe, 28, 69, 73, 96, 131, 145, 173, 174, 176, 189, 190, 220,
158, 171, 219, 251, 263 247
European Conference on Politics and feminist security studies. See security
Gender (ECPG), 37, 38, 191, studies
193 second-wave feminism, 13, 16, 20,
European Consortium for Political 22, 174, 244
Research (ECPR), 22, 245 femocrat, 28, 122, 226
European Union (EU), 28, 37, 88, Finland, 191, 270
127, 196, 210 foreign policy, 74, 153, 155, 167
Daphne Project, 74 framing, 5, 30, 42, 68, 99, 195–199,
everyday politics, 65 201–203, 205–210, 219, 263
280 Index
France. See parité gender relations, 44, 48, 49, 57,

Fraser, Nancy, 4, 201 120, 123, 142, 147, 180, 208,
Freidenvall, Lenita, 27, 28, 36, 37, 221, 255
124, 132, 193 gender-sensitive parliaments, 5, 9,
30, 174, 177, 178, 180, 184,
185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191
G gender studies, 5, 9, 52, 119, 127,
game theory. See political science 220, 221, 247–253
methodology Gendered Excellence in the Social
gender Sciences (GESS) project, 244
gender balance, 25, 29, 142 Germany, 102, 154, 201, 247, 249, 252
gender-based violence, 5, 72, 140– German Political Science
142, 149, 160, 161, 166–168, Association, 247, 249, 252
181, 187, 232, 234, 235, 242, Gillard, Julia, 2, 28, 37, 198, 202,
253. See also domestic violence; 208, 214, 216
sexual assault; violence against Global North, 5, 138
women Global South, 117, 158, 186. See also
gender bias, 2, 30, 65, 195, 264, developing countries
267
gender binary, 8, 45, 141, 221
gender blindness, 41, 44, 199, 203 H
gender budgeting, 9, 29, 32, 122, Haavio-Mannila, Elina, 22, 36, 96, 97,
125, 135, 139, 143, 145, 167, 101, 110, 111
168, 178, 181–187, 189–191 heteronormativity, 96, 108
gender content, 244, 254, 255, hierarchies of knowledge, 6, 10, 243,
257, 258, 266 248, 263, 268
gender difference, 4, 44, 45, 264 history, 5, 9, 25, 42, 48, 53, 118, 127,
gendered methodological differ- 162, 229, 257, 258
ences, 259 Holsinger, Bruce, 20
gender equality, 3, 4, 5, 25, 26, Howard, John, 202, 203, 208, 213,
28–30, 32, 42–47, 51, 56, 57, 216
62, 66, 116, 138–140, 144, human rights, 2, 32, 70, 73, 146, 153,
146, 147, 162, 174, 177–184, 157, 166–168, 261
186–190, 195, 196, 198–206, Hungary, 102
208, 210, 220, 225, 232, 247
gender mainstreaming, 9, 29, 32,
122, 125, 135, 139, 143, 145, I
167, 168, 178, 181, 182, 186, indigeneity, 35, 117, 127, 235
210, 244 informal institutions. See new
gender perspective, 8, 52, 96, 99, institutionalism
101, 140, 153, 182, 183, 196, interdisciplinary, 5, 243, 251, 252, 262
244, 247, 248, 251, 253–255, International Criminal Court (ICC),
261, 266 73, 125
Index 281
International Feminist Journal of K

Politics Conference, 249 Knowles-Carter, Beyoncé, 2
International Institute for Democracy Krook, Mona Lena, 27, 28, 30, 37,
and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), 88, 123–125, 128, 130–133,
27 138–140, 144, 145, 148–151,
international non-governmental 192, 193, 249, 250, 269, 273
organisations (INGOs), 163,
165. See also non-government
organisations L
International Political Science Lane, Robert E., 17, 20, 21, 35
Association (IPSA), 22, 24, 245, Latvia, 107
247, 250, 265 legislative studies, 173, 174, 189
international relations (IR) LGBT. See representation; sexuality
constructivism, 8, 67, 136, 139, logic of appropriateness. See new
143, 157 institutionalism
International Political Economy, 9, Lovenduski, Joni, 3, 26, 34, 121, 128,
157, 159, 164 130, 247, 250, 263, 266, 271, 273
neorealism, 156
realism, 154
security studies, 9, 153, 159 M
International Studies Association Macron, Emmanuel, 2
(ISA), 245, 249 Malaysia, 72
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), 24, male
25, 29, 32, 174, 177, 178, 189 male advantage, 176, 197
intersectionality, 6, 15, 33, 117, 120, male breadwinner model, 197, 208
127, 141, 145, 157, 201, 225, male champions, 179, 187
233, 234 male dominance, 7, 8, 16, 21, 51,
Iraq, 160 54, 55, 66, 71, 78, 94, 161, 261
Ireland Malta, 102
Irish Sub Committee on Human marginalised groups, 67, 68, 76, 79, 81
Rights Relative to Justice and market-based policy, 200, 203–206
Equality Matters, 32 masculinities, 5, 7, 8, 55, 74, 88, 121,
Legislative quota, 31 122, 155, 156, 159, 173, 175,
Israel, 100, 102 208, 216, 221, 263, 266
master’s tools, 6, 21, 263
May, Theresa, 210
J media
Japan social media, 28, 179, 232, 249,
Japanese Political Science 268
Association, 246 methodology. See political science
Parliamentary Group for the methodology
Promotion of Women in Mexico, 23, 166
Politics, 38 Millennium Development Goals, 193
282 Index
Morgan, Nicky, 205, 215 norms

Morgenthau, Hans, 154–156, 164, 169 norm diffusion, 8, 27, 135, 136,
Myanmar, 142 138–140, 143–145, 147
norm entrepreneur, 137, 143, 144
norm evolution, 136, 139
N norm transmission, 135, 147
Namibia, 167 transnational norms, 8, 25
neo-liberalism, 125, 157, 158, 198, Norris, Pippa, 27, 30, 266
200, 203, 204, 206, 209, 210. North America, 219, 263
See also market-based policy North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
nested newness. See new (NATO), 145
institutionalism Norway, 23, 107, 170
Netherlands, the, 100, 252
new institutionalism
critical junctures, 116, 124 O
discursive institutionalism, 87, 124 O’Neill, Baroness Onora, 266
feminist institutionalism, 7, 8, 117, Organisation for Economic
124–127, 173, 175, 189, 190 Cooperation and Development
historical institutionalism, 3, (OECD), 32, 189
118–120, 124 Organisation for Security and
informal institutions, 67, 71, 78, Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
119, 122–125, 190 28
institutional bias, 78, 79
institutional transfer, 27, 135, 144,
145, 147, 245 P
logic of appropriateness, 136, 227 Pacific region, 187, 193, 269
nested newness, 8 parité, 8, 108
path dependence, 116 ParlAmericas, 178
sociological institutionalism, 124 parliament, 2, 5, 6, 9, 13, 15, 18, 20,
stickiness, 3, 122, 125 21, 24, 25, 28–32, 37, 91, 95,
New Zealand 98, 99, 105, 106, 110–113, 121,
Government Administration 173–191, 247
Committee, 32 parliamentary gender equality com-
New Zealand Cabinet, 18 mittees, 29, 32, 179, 182
New Zealand Labour Party, party parliament as a workplace, 28, 29,
quota, 31 174, 177, 181
New Zealand Parliament, 112 Westminster, 127
New Zealand Political Studies Pateman, Carole, 4, 6, 10, 11, 22, 35,
Association, 249 49, 50, 58, 245, 247, 260, 256
non-government organisations path dependence. See new
(NGOs), 28 institutionalism
Nordic Council of Ministers, 23 peace processes, 142, 150, 167, 171
Index 283
Peru, 101, 108 Q

Pettman, Jan Jindy, 156, 169, 249 qualitative methodology. See political
Philippines, the, 72 science methodology
Phillips, Anne, 4, 10, 88, 266 quantitative methodology. See political
philosophy, 59, 84, 115, 253, 257 science methodology
political leadership, 2, 62, 80, 81 quotas, 25, 27–29, 31, 79, 100, 124,
political parties, 13, 15, 18, 22, 25, 135, 139, 142, 143, 145, 185,
27, 28, 30, 31, 34, 38, 64, 197. See also parité
70, 95, 96, 98–100, 102, 103, legislative quotas, 31
105–107, 110, 111, 113, 178, party quotas, 31
180, 187, 190
party quotas. See quotas
political power, 2, 7, 14, 67, 112 R
political recruitment, 34, 110, race, 4, 6, 34, 59, 72, 110, 120, 126,
130–132 157, 158, 162, 169, 200, 201,
political science methodology, 55, 252, 253, 271. See also critical
259, 262. See also gendered meth- race theory
odological differences rape culture, 72
behaviourist, 14, 48, 64, 117 rational choice. See political science
decolonising methodology, 127 methodology
feminist political science, 6, 9, Reid, Elizabeth, 23, 34, 36
126 Rendel, Margherita, 23, 36
game theory, 155 representation
positivist, 43, 47, 154, 155, 157, descriptive representation, 4, 68, 78,
168, 171 80, 101, 102
post-positivist, 43, 47, 168 ethnic representation, 95
qualitative, 5, 119, 259, 262 LGBT people’s representation, 8,
quantitative, 24, 252, 259, 261–263 91, 92, 104–106, 108
rational choice, 155, 164 substantive representation, 4, 11,
political theory, 1, 3, 4, 10, 43, 49, 15, 68, 74, 101, 128, 132
259 women’s representation in peace
political violence, 28, 180, 181, 193 processes, 142
positionality, 165 women’s representation in politics,
postcolonialism, 8, 136, 138 23, 25, 27, 29–31, 33, 96–101,
protest, 64, 65, 73, 83, 85, 86, 88, 103, 104, 110, 185, 188, 200
128, 162, 220, 222, 223, 225, women’s representation in the
236, 238, 239 academy, 25, 30, 52, 256, 259,
public policy, 3, 5, 9, 24, 65, 70, 71, 265, 266
73, 74, 78, 80, 84, 121, 124, reproductive rights, 22, 68, 78, 85,
175, 191, 195, 197, 199, 210, 151. See also abortion
212, 235, 268 research quality frameworks, 243
public/private division, 4, 22, 62, 267 Rule, Wilma, 27, 91, 97, 98, 101,
110, 111
284 Index
S South-East Asia, 147

Scandinavia, 36, 166 Association of Southeast Asian
Science, Technology, Engineering and Nations (ASEAN), 138
Mathematics (STEM), 7, 42, 205 South Korea, 71, 160
Scotland, 27, 125, 132, 199, 212, 267 Spain, 211, 245, 252, 270
Domestic violence policy, 199, 212 Spanish Association of Political and
Scottish Labour Party, 27 Administrative Science, 245
Scottish Parliament, 30, 37 standpoint theory, 52, 53, 59
sexism, 2, 22, 23, 37, 72, 87, 100, suffrage, 1, 6, 7, 16, 25, 135, 138, 143
176, 181, 190, 193, 202 Sustainable Development Goals, 187,
sexual assault, 69, 70. See also domestic 193
violence; gender-based violence; Sweden, 89, 97, 124, 132, 167, 191
violence against women Switzerland, 17
sexuality, 4, 6, 72, 92–94, 104, 234 Syria, 142
Shklar, Judith N., 245
Skard, Torild, 23, 36, 131
Smith, Heather, 69 T
social contract, 49 transnational activist networks, 8,
social movements, 4, 9, 62, 65, 68, 135–138, 142–147, 151
73, 80, 82–84, 96, 113, 165, transnational institutions, 23, 25, 26,
213, 219–225, 227–230, 233, 29
235–242, 252, 270. See also activ- Trudeau, Justin, 2
ism; women’s movements Turnbull, Malcolm, 203, 204, 208,
Global Justice Movement, 225, 226, 209, 213, 216, 232
236 two-person careers, 18, 20, 35
institutionalisation, 223, 227, 229,
236
labour movement, 64 U
organisation, 68, 220, 236 UN Development Programme
peace movement, 161 (UNDP), 189
repertoires, 220, 236 United Kingdom (UK)
temporal scale, 220, 236 Conservative Party, 202, 203
social sciences, 7, 10, 42, 43, 45, 47, UK Labour Party, all-women short-
51, 53, 56, 57, 59, 87, 254, 255, lists, 31
257, 265 UK Political Studies Association,
sociology, 5, 9, 43, 55, 58, 119, 127, 246–250, 261
130, 148, 164, 219, 220, 237, Women and Equality Committee,
252, 255, 257, 265 32, 33
soft power, 64, 67, 80, 81. See also Women’s Peace Camp, 162
norms; soft regulation United Nations (UN), 17, 139, 165,
soft regulation, 29 178
Index 285
United States of America (US) V

American Political Science violence against women (VAW),
Association (APSA), 244, 68–74, 138. See also domestic
245, 249, 253, 260, 261, 263, violence; gender-based violence;
264 sexual assault
‘Day without Immigrants’, 64 voting systems. See electoral systems
House of Representatives, 32
LGBT representation, 106
Marital rape legislation, 70 W
Office on Violence Against Women, Wales, 199
70 Welch, Susan, 96, 256
Professionalisation of political sci- Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1, 49
ence, 16 ‘Women also know stuff’, 259, 272
Representation of women in state Women and Politics Conference, 248
legislatures, 25 Women, Peace and Security (WPS),
Violence Against Women Act, 70 140–143, 145–147, 167, 168
Women’s Strike for Peace, 162 women’s movements, 2, 9, 16, 17,
UN Security Council, 140–142, 146, 21, 22, 27, 29, 65, 67, 75, 97,
147, 167 100, 101, 165, 220–224, 226,
UN Security Council Resolution 228–233, 235, 236, 244, 252,
1325, 140, 141, 146, 149, 150, 267
167, 181 women’s representation. See
UN Women, 26, 29, 166, 187, 189 representation
UN World Conference on Women, 23, World War I, 153, 154
24, 166 World War II, 154

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Gender Innovation

GENDER AND POLITICS

More information about this series at

Gender and Politics

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018938321

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

Cover credit: Media Drum World/Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer

Fig. 1 APSA workshop on gender innovation in political science, ANU, 10

of the chapters. Rebecca Pearse conducted the bibliometric research

1 Introduction: New Norms, New Knowledge 1

2 How the Absence of Women Became a Democratic

3 Gendered Innovation in the Social Sciences 41

4 Inclusion and Exclusion: Contributions of a Feminist

5 Uncovering the Gendered Effects of Voting Systems:

6 Feminist Innovations and New Institutionalism 115

7 Gender Research and the Study of Institutional Transfer

8 Gender Research in International Relations 153

9 Feminist Institutionalism and Gender-Sensitive

10 Gender Research and Discursive Policy Framing 195

11 What Feminist Research Has Contributed to Social

12 The Thorny Path to a More Inclusive Discipline 243

Merrindahl Andrew is Program Manager for the Australian Women

Monica has contributed to leading economics and political science jour-

Australian Parliament. She is the author of groundbreaking reports such

Jacqui True is Professor of Politics and International Relations and

ALP Australian Labor Party

Fig. 1 APSA workshop on gender innovation in political science,

Table 4.1 Women in Lower House of Parliament (%), 1975–2005,

Introduction: New Norms, New Knowledge

© The Author(s) 2019 1

While no chapter is explicitly devoted to gender innovation in this

A number of key themes emerge throughout this volume. Feminist

frameworks generated in the Global North applies to feminist political

minority groups. Tremblay demonstrates how gender innovation in the

to the policy environment. In international political economy, f­eminist

bounds of the discipline, in terms of methodologies, epistemologies and

Represent Women? A Contingent “Yes”’, Journal of Politics 61(3):

How the Absence of Women Became

One of the major contributions of feminist political science has been to

© The Author(s) 2019 13

women as a group were regarded as politically irrelevant. It was not con-

…many of the women and minority scholars, in particular, who entered

Feminist political science began exploring the barriers to women’s pres-

to political institutions, on the grounds that women should have equal

regional norms linking democracy to the equal participation of women in

Assumptions of the Inevitability of Women’s Absence

This research, led by Maurice Duverger, took women’s political partici-

At home, I attend to Parliamentary business and letters arranged for me by

Fig. 2.1 IPSA Executive Committee meeting, Rio de Janeiro, 1978

Fig. 2.2 Queen Elizabeth II and the 1981 New Zealand Cabinet

Like a politician, a political scientist also needed a wife who con-

Finally, but far from least importantly, I must thank my wife…who,

The Emergence of Feminist Critique

As we shall see in Chapter 12, collectivist organisational practices

profession from 1969 onwards. Perhaps inevitably, despite the lasting

Sexism is the artificial ascription of roles, behavior and even personali-

As can be seen from this kind of evidence, feminist political scientists

The Impact of Feminist Scholarship on Democratic

represents 173 national parliaments, also played a central role. Women

Two recent collections honouring the work of feminist political sci-

Research demonstrates that if women’s participation reaches 30 to 35 per

to the understanding of institutional transfer and norm diffusion (see

Fig. 1 APSA workshop on gender innovation in political science, ANU, 10

Fig. 1 APSA workshop on gender innovation in political science,

Table 4.1 Women in Lower House of Parliament (%), 1975–2005,

to the policy environment. In international political economy, feminist

How the Absence of Women Became

Assumptions of the Inevitability of Women’s Absence

Fig. 2.1 IPSA Executive Committee meeting, Rio de Janeiro, 1978

Fig. 2.2 Queen Elizabeth II and the 1981 New Zealand Cabinet

The Emergence of Feminist Critique

The Impact of Feminist Scholarship on Democratic

Fig. 2.3 Women as a percentage of Coalition and Labor MPs in the Australian

2. Drude Dahlerup (2010) ‘The Development of Gender and Politics as a

Gendered Innovation in the Social Sciences

Knowledge and Gender Relations

Gendered Political Theory and Feminist Influence

The Challenges of Changing Social Science

Inclusion and Exclusion: Contributions

Traditional Approaches to Power

A Feminist Approach to Power

The Feminist Contribution to Understanding Power

Contributions of This Approach to the Study

Women Empowered to Act Against Violence

Table 4.1 Women in Lower House of Parliament (%), 1975–2005, and

% Women % Women % Women % Women Change in VAW

Informal Power and Normative Change54

Democracy, Civil Society and Women’s Empowerment

Fig. 4.1 Number of women’s groups and democracy level, 70 countries, 2005

effectiveness even using a simple multivariate model (Table 4.2). The

Table 4.2 Linear regression, 70 countries, 2005

The Absence of Women ‘At the Top’:

Democracy, Diversity and Muddling Through:

Women Legislators and ‘Women-Friendly’ Policy

Great Expectations for Women

Conclusion: New Insights into Power,

13. Cynthia Enloe (1996) ‘Margins, Silences, and Bottom-Rungs: How

33. Weldon, When Protest Makes Policy; Leigh Raymond, S. Laurel Weldon,