Gendering the republican system: debates on women's political representation in France

For Women Only? Gender Quotas and Intersectionality in France

“…The constitutional reform introducing a 50% gender quota in French politics, although not as successful as parity advocates had wished originally, especially since the electoral system was not always redesigned to make quotas easily applicable (Baudino 2005;Lépinard 2007a;Murray 2010aMurray , 2010bMurray , 2012Opello 2006), has nevertheless transformed not only political opportunities for women, but also -and important for my argument -French feminism. 2 Indeed, the parity movement was a successful coalition that reunited diverse women's rights organizations, created new alliances, and transformed both the movement and femocrat institutions in France (Baudino 2005;Bereni 2009;Gaspard 2001;Scott 2005).…”

“…2 Indeed, the parity movement was a successful coalition that reunited diverse women's rights organizations, created new alliances, and transformed both the movement and femocrat institutions in France (Baudino 2005;Bereni 2009;Gaspard 2001;Scott 2005). The parity campaign was, arguably, the most visible and important feminist success since the second wave's hard-won victories (i.e., the decriminalization of abortion in 1975 and the criminalization of rape at the beginning of the 1980s).…”

Gender parity thwarted? The effect of electoral reform on Senate and European Parliamentary elections in France, 1999–2011

“…2 The expectations were such that the combination of these legal obligation and financial incentives would lead the parties to nominate more female candidates, and the number of female politicians in France would increase. (For a full description of parity reform in France, see Gaspard, 1998Gaspard, , 2001Baudino, 2000Baudino, , 2005Mazur Amy, 2001Sineau, 2001;Murray, 2004;Scott, 2005;Opello, 2006. ) This gender parity law was first implemented in the municipal elections of March 2001, which resulted in the proportion of women town councilors rising from 25.7 per cent to 47.5 per cent in municipalities with more than 3500 residents (Bird, 2002).…”

“…Much of the previous research on the impact of parity has centered on the 2002 and 2007 elections to the National Assembly (Murray, 2004(Murray, , 2008a(Murray, , b, 2009Baudino, 2005;Southwell and Smith, 2007;Fréchette et al, 2008). In plurality districts, the factors that have also been deemed to have hindered the election of female candidates include: (i) incumbency advantage (Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler, 2005); (ii) the party strategy of nominating female candidates in marginally unsafe districts (Murray, 2008a); and (iii) membership in a center-right party (Norris, 1993;Caul, 2001).…”

Roundtable 3 – State-society relations and republican ideology

“…In studies of French public policy and women's representation (Baudino, 2005;Le´pinard, 2007;Be´re´ni, 2009), it is clear that this is an obstacle to achieving gender equality or more performing policies. However, when this gender-biased universalism is placed in a comparative perspective -that is when France is included in a cross-national study -it is a different story.…”