Legislative committees are often the epicenter of parliamentary influence, so their composition matters. Men are widely overrepresented in prestigious, influential committees, with women concentrated in low-status committees. These gender gaps have repercussions for power, visibility, careers, and policy outcomes. Yet the puzzle of why committees are gendered remains unsolved. Combining insights from quantitative and qualitative methods, we offer two major advances. We develop the literature on committee allocations, providing the first comprehensive gendered analysis. And we show how gender permeates all aspects of political careers from socialization to the political summit, leading to deep-rooted inequalities of power, influence, and opportunity.
More than 10 years after the strategic alliance in 1996 between women politicians on the right and left around publication of the 'Manifeste pour la Parite´,' a qualitative survey of French party officials and NGO leaders at the local and national levels shows pragmatic consensus on the necessity of using legislative means to promote gender equality in political representation. Most literature on the subject either analyzes the genesis of France's so-called parity laws or quantitatively assesses their effects, saying little about how the laws call into question France's traditional political norms. This study focuses on the rhetorical strategies used by party and NGO officials to render the laws consistent with their own, diverse ideological positions. This 'ideological tinkering' has a political dimension; it also reflects the importance of nation-centered rhetoric and a low degree of awareness of prior European-level actions in favor of parity in political representation.
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