Transcript Transforming politics: how women activists can and should

Women and political activism: how can we help
more women to climb the greasy pole?
Dr Rosie Campbell
[email protected]
Twitter: @Rosiecampb
Do women participate less than men?
Partisan politics
MPs
Councilors
Members
Supporters
Voters
Civic engagement
• Cause oriented activities
• Voluntary work
• Education, child and health
related groups
British Citizenship survey 2007
Figure 1: Voluntary group membership by sex
40
35
Percentage
30
25
20
15
Men
10
women
5
0
N=14087
***Significant at the 0.001 level, **significant at the 0.01 level, *significant at the 0.05 level, Chi2 tests.
Figure 2: Type of unpaid help given to a group, club or organisation by sex
30
Percentage
25
20
15
10
5
0
N=14087
Men
Women
Figure 3: Participation in politics by sex
30
Percentage
25
20
15
Men
10
Women
5
0
Contacted a
Member of
Parliament
N=14087
Signed a
petition*
Attended a
Attended a
public meeting
public
or rally *
demonstration
or protest
Engagement with politics
Political interest
• Women routinely found to
be less interested in formal
politics
• But it depends how you ask:
Less interested in partisan
politics and foreign policy
more interested in local
politics, health and
education
Political knowledge
• Women generally found to be
less knowledgeable
• But it depends how knowledge
is measured (Guessing/risk
taking, useful knowledge,
gendered knowledge)
Political talk
• Women less interested in political talk (Verba et al 1997)
• Women often talk with women and men with men (Huckfeldt and
Sprague 1995)
• Women’s knowledge is often under-estimated (Mendez and Osborn
2010)
• Women sometimes exclude themselves fearing that they will not be
persuasive (Miller et al 1999)
• Focus group research suggests that women more often talk about
politics through a family/community lens rather than an abstract
ideological or national lens.
Figure 4: Average general interest
in politics by sex and age group
Figure 5: Average interest in domestic
politics, by age group and sex
Does it matter?
• Justice alone
• Descriptive and substantive representation of women
The welfare state, domestic violence, childcare, equal pay
• Elite/mass connection in attitudes (Lovenduski and Norris 2003 &
Campbell, Childs and Lovenduski 2010)
http://www.jackyfleming.co.uk/cartoons/?pid=79
Figure 6: Factors scores for hostility to traditional
gender roles by sex and birth cohort, 2001 & 2005
BES
Figure 7: Factors scores for attitudes to the
descriptive representation of women by sex and
birth cohort, 2001 & 2005 BES
Figure 8: Hostility to traditional gender
roles sex and birth cohort, 2001 & 2005
BRS
Figure 9: Attitudes to equality guarantees by birth cohort
and sex, 2001 & 2005 BRS
Figure 10:
Percentage stating
that the NHS is the
most important
issue facing Britain
(British Election
Study Series)
Figure 12: Percentage
stating that education
is the most important
issue facing Britain
(British Election Study
Series)
Figure 13:
Percentage stating
that the economy
is the most
important issue
facing Britain
(British Election
Study Series)
Role models?
• "the more that politicians are made visible by national news coverage,
the more likely adolescent girls are to indicate an intention to be
politically active" 233 (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006).
• “where there are more female members of parliament (MPs), adolescent
girls are more likely to discuss politics with friends and to intend to
participate in politics as adults, and adult women are more likely to
discuss and participate in politics.” (Wolbrecht and Campbell 2007)
• Randomized natural experiment in India- young women’s educational
attainment and career aspirations were raised in districts with a woman
representative(Beaman et al. 2012)
• In US gender gap in political knowledge shrinks to zero when share of
women in the state legislature exceeds 20% (Wolak and McDevitt 2011)
• Wives and mothers sit at the centre of households: their partisanship
influences the partisanship of everyone else, and the others affect
them.(Zuckerman, Dasovic and Fitzgerald 2007)
Barriers
•Parental status
•Income
•Confidence
Figure 14: British MPs’
average number of children
by sex 2013
Fabian Women’s Network Mentoring and
Political Education Scheme
Focus group participants:
“I’m much more open about my ambitions with my friends and family- before it’s
just so embarrassing and now I will tell anybody.”
“[It’s not] just about the relationship with the mentor but with the people around
the table.”
“The fact that we can sit in the Shadow cabinet room and think ‘one day I could do
this’”
“Westminster and Brussels [trips were a] fantastic chance to experience, sitting here
and having ministers giving us their expertise and time, sharing their experiences
and having informal conversations with us.”
“Meeting these women who were already successful made me realise I just needed
to get on and do it. A real shift in terms of how I was approaching everything.”
What can be done?
http://www.jackyfleming.co.uk/cartoons/?pid=89
Politics is a minority past-time for all sectors of society and we should remember that
the differences between men and women are small and diminishing (gender overlap)
But there are some differences (gender gap).
• Which came first the woman politician or the woman activist? (A virtuous circle).
There is some evidence of role model effects - we must use the women we have in
politics and public life to mentor and recruit other women.
• Maintain and create majority women spaces.
• Women are significantly less likely than men to receive political encouragement to run
for office (Fox and Lawless, 2004: 275) and they are less likely to think they are
qualified. So we must ask them!
• Focus (although not exclusively) on the issues and topics that particularly motivate
women (education, healthcare, children, pensions, caring for the elderly).
• More focus on consensus rather than focusing exclusively on conflict
• Build confidence in knowledge and efficacy