From 'I'm not a feminist, but ...' to 'Call me an old-fashioned feminist ...': conservative women in parliament and feminism, 1979—2017

Author(s):  
David Swift
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisa Gaunder ◽  
Sarah Wiliarty

AbstractDespite many similarities between them, the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have represented women in parliament at different rates. This article argues that differences in party organization, electoral system rules, and left party strength interact to explain the varying levels of representation of conservative women in parliament. The CDU's corporatist structure allowed it to represent diverse interests and successfully respond to challenges for female support from the left. As a result of a weaker left party challenge and a classic catch-all party organization, the LDP's attempts to incorporate women have been less extensive and largely symbolic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3956
Author(s):  
Christina Ergas ◽  
Patrick Trent Greiner ◽  
Julius Alexander McGee ◽  
Matthew Thomas Clement

The carbon intensity of well-being (CIWB) (a ratio measuring the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of life expectancy at birth) is an increasingly popular way to measure the ecological efficiency of nations. Although research demonstrates that economic development typically reduces this efficiency, little research has explored the extent to which social equality improves it. This study uses panel data for 70 nations between 1995 and 2013 to assess how various aspects of gender equality affect the ecological efficiency of nations. We estimate a series of Prais-Winsten regression models with panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) to assess how increases in the percentage of women in parliament, expected years of education for women, and the percentage of women in the labor force independently affect CIWB. Our findings indicate that across all nations, increases in the percentage of women in parliament and expected years of schooling reduce CIWB; however, increases in the percentage of women in the labor force increase CIWB. Our results further show that the relationship between different dimensions of gender equality and CIWB differs between more developed and less developed nations. Finally, we find that increases in the number of women in parliament and women’s education attenuate the relationship between women’s labor force participation and CIWB. We discuss the variation in our results by reviewing relevant eco-gender literatures and feminist economics.


1999 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-572 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Reynolds

This article reports the results of a survey of women in legislatures and executives around the world as they were constituted in 1998 (N = 180). The chief hypotheses regarding the factors hindering or facilitating women's access to political representation were tested by multivariate regression models. The regression models juxtaposed a cocktail of institutional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic variables with the following dependent variables: (1) the percentage of MPs who are women and (2) the percentage of cabinet ministers who are women.A number, although not all, of the cited hypotheses were statistically confirmed and more finely quantified. The socioeconomic development of women in society has an effect on the number of women in parliament but not in the cabinet. A country's length of experience with multipartyism and women's enfranchisement correlates with both the legislative and the executive percentage. Certain electoral systems are more women friendly than others. The ideological nature of the party system affects the number of women elected and chosen for cabinet posts. And last, the state's dominant religion, taken as a proxy for culture, also statistically relates to the number of women who will make it to high political office. However, other long-held hypotheses were not proved. The degree of democracy is not a good indicator of the percentage of women who will make it into the legislature or the cabinet, nor is the dichotomy between a presidential or parliamentary system.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (01) ◽  
pp. 56-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronnee Schreiber

The question of conservative feminism in the United States did not really arise before the 2008 elections; most politically active conservative women leaders did not refer to themselves as feminists. Sarah Palin's vice presidential bid, however, prompted a shift. On a number of well-publicized occasions, Palin called herself a feminist, generating considerable discussion over whether conservative feminism is now a political movement. Using data from in-depth interviews with conservative women leaders, this article asks whether conservative women in the United States identify as feminists. Findings indicate that on the whole they do not, but conservative women are important gender-conscious political actors whose efforts compel questions about ideology and women's activism. Implications for understanding feminist and conservative movement politics more broadly are also explored.


Author(s):  
Michelle M. Nickerson

This chapter examines how women developed forms of antistatist protest in the first half of the twentieth century that posed an oppositional relationship between the family and government. By the 1950s, anticommunism and antistatism became widespread mechanisms of political protest for women on the right much as peace activism and welfare work came to seem natural for women on the left. But unlike the later generation of Cold Warrior women who exerted themselves most forcefully through local politics, conservative women of the early twentieth century made their strongest impact by attacking that national progressive state. They also demonized “internationalism” as the handmaiden to communism, discovering another foe that women's position in the family obliged them to oppose. Consequently, the earliest generation of conservative organizations adopted the habit of calling themselves “patriotic” groups to contrast their own nationalist sentiment with the internationalism of progressives, which they equated with communism. This pattern continued into the post-World War II era.


Author(s):  
Julie V. Gottlieb

Women came into their own in the Conservative Party in the aftermath of suffrage as party workers, as MPs, as local and national leaders, and as part of a notional women’s bloc of voters that Conservatives felt they could rely on at election time. The valuable work performed by Conservative women at grass roots has been acknowledged in the scholarship, as have the strategies developed by the party to mobilise women as both party workers and voters. Much less attention has been conferred on those Conservative women who became virtual national celebrities. By the late 1930s the two women Conservative MPs to achieve this celebrity and notoriety were Lady Nancy Astor, the first woman MP to take her seat, a committed feminist, and hostess of the so-called Cliveden Set, and the Duchess of Atholl, the first woman MP from Scotland, an avowed anti-(non) feminist, and the Chamberlain scourge at the height of appeasement. Both defied stereotypes of Tory femininity with their own personal styles, by taking an abiding interest in international affairs when most Conservative women were expected to be focused on the local and parochial, and by engaging with women across party lines to advance their favoured policies. They are contrasted with Irene Ward MP whose long Parliamentary career offers a different perspective on where a Conservative MP stood on women’s issues.


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