This One’s for the Boys: How Gendered Political Socialization Limits Girls’ Political Ambition and Interest

This article develops and tests a new theoretical framework, gendered political socialization, which offers important insights into how children perceive gender in politics and the consequences of these perceptions on sex differences in political interest and ambition. Based on data from 1,604 children who live in four different regions across the United States, we find that children not only perceive politics to be a male-dominated space, but with age, girls increasingly see political leadership as a “man’s world.” Simultaneously, as children grow older, they internalize gendered expectations, which direct their interests toward professions that embody the gendered traits that fit with their own sex. One result of this mismatch between women and politics is that girls express lower levels of interest and ambition in politics than do boys.

Legislative Diversity and the Rise of Women Lobbyists

Despite a growing body of literature examining the consequences of women’s inclusion among lobbyists, our understanding of the factors that lead to women’s initial emergence in the profession is limited. In this study, we propose that gender diversity among legislative targets incentivizes organized interests to hire women lobbyists, and thus helps to explain when and how women emerge as lobbyists. Using a comprehensive data set of registered lobbyist–client pairings from all American states in 1989 and 2011, we find that legislative diversity influences not only the number of lobby contracts held by women but also the number of former women legislators who become revolving-door lobbyists. This second finding further supports the argument that interests capitalize on the personal characteristics of lobbyists, specifically by hiring women to work in more diverse legislatures. Our findings have implications for women and politics, lobbying, and voice and political equality in the United States.

Women in Chile 50 years after the UP: ‘The revolution will be feminist or nothing at all …’

This article addresses the position of women during the Popular Unity years from the perspective of Chile’s Mayo Feminista (‘Feminist May’) and the estallido social. The article maintains that there was a process of building a political consciousness of women during the Popular Unity that was expressed in various forms of political and social militancy. This was deployed in the participation of women on various fronts of the Chilean path to socialism, in which work, care, health, education and other aspects were seen as fundamental to the project. In this text we address the articulation of women and politics in the processes of construction of social change in the recent history of Chile.

Women in Zimbabwean Politics Post-November 2017

This article analyses the dynamics underpinning formal political institutions in relation to women’s participation in Zimbabwe, with a focus on the post November 2017 context. Patriarchal continuities and not changes characterize the post-November period. Under the “new dispensation”, patriarchy, intertwined with the increase in militarized masculinities, is producing exclusion with limited spaces for women’s participation. Simultaneously, Zimbabwean women at times have been destabilizing political spaces, while also being complicit in reproducing patriarchal practices and violence. The military-assisted transition is significant because of the fall of Grace Mugabe and the broader implications of this for women and politics in Zimbabwe.

Images of Women and Politics of Domination in Helen Fields’ “Perfect Remains”

As feminism evolved and reshaped ideas on womanhood and its politics over the past three centuries, postmodernist writers seem to continuously present discriminated images of women in novels, including spy fiction. Unless it is properly addressed, these misrepresented images of women underlying its gender politics brings about questions on the effectiveness of gender education and its equality. This study problematized images of women in Fields’ Perfect Remains in order to understand the politics of domination between genders that suggest a continuous display of power. The analysis of the novel through the use of Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Framework, enabled the identifying images of women and ways in which dominance is exerted in the discourse. Analysis revealed that postmodern societies through the novelist’s lens continue to remain remote towards women. In a period, which celebrates women’s achievement and freedom of speech, where they are thought to be strong and independent, men continue to ironically exert different methods of power in the strive to maintain their status quo, which is revealed in this research. This study contributes to the existing body of literature in the field of women studies and literature where it identified the presence of male dominance even in this modern era. On another hand, it also explores aspects of domination which appear in the form of intellect as a new field of study.

Women and politics in Mexico and Brazil

Despite advances in recognition of women’s rights, they are still victims of everyday violence. National and international regulations on gender equality and the promotion of female political participation had a low impact on the underrepresentation of this minority. Law produced without a share of citizenship lacks democratic legitimacy. Mexico and Brazil have a similar history of excluding women from the public sphere, but they currently have different strategies to overcome this democratic deficit. The article, with a descriptive methodology, presents the history and the present situation in both countries. We conclude that there are different ways to increase the representation of women in politics, but parity is a demand for justice.