Gender politics
Gaspard, Francoise
SEGOLENIE ROYAL'S candidacy last spring was without precedent in French politics. For the first time, a woman was the presidential nominee of a major party and thus had a chance of being...
...Forty-six percent of its candidates were women...
...For the first time, a woman was the presidential nominee of a major party and thus had a chance of being elected...
...Some 18.5 percent of those elected were women...
...On the initiative of Sarkozy, a commission of experts has been appointed to draw up a reform of the Constitution...
...There was a small amount of progress in the June 2007 legislative elections...
...It eventually produced a law that was to make the disparity between the sexes in all decision-making bodies visible—in politics, in the administration, in advisory councils and committees, and in public and private companies...
...The party primary campaign thus indicated surprising popular backing for the candidate...
...But these two major political groups most often ran women in constituencies that were hard to win for their respective parties...
...They treated Royal's candidacy with mockery...
...Most of these women were swept in as the result of the unexpected election of two hundred deputies on the left...
...The law passed under the pressure of a campaign by feminist organizations and public opinion, which, polls showed, was very sympathetic to a feminization of politics...
...Royal's candidacy, unprecedented as it was, was one of a series of events that changed the possibilities for women in French politics...
...The battle for the feminization of French public life is thus far from over...
...As of midsummer, twelve men have been named as members, and only one woman...
...Analysis of the results does not seem to show that her defeat was tied to her gender, in any case not diDISSENT I Fall 2007 27 rectly...
...Royal was opposed in the primary of the Socialist party (PS) by the "elephants...
...In 1997, the conservative government of prime minister Alain Juppé, under pressure from the movement for parity, began with 30 percent women, but a reshuffle soon eliminated a majority of them (on grounds of "lack of competence" or "insufficient experience...
...It also ensured near parity in French representation in the European Parliament...
...Royal, for her part, set up a campaign organization distinct from that of the PS...
...In the second round, Royal failed to win a higher percentage of women's than of men's votes (this was particularly true among older women, who largely preferred her opponent...
...When the "elephants" in the party finally grasped that obviously chauvinist attacks were counterproductive, and that she had to be opposed in another register, they began to call her competence into question...
...But the defeat seems to have been more the result of many factors coming together...
...The presidential campaign itself exhibited fervent popularity for her that had rarely been seen in political meetings...
...His party united around him, while the Socialist candidate was chosen late by her party and suffered from a weak organization and the lack of support from a PS in crisis...
...A majority of young people voted for the Socialist candidate, but France has an aging population...
...Another French problem is the fact that a politician can hold more than one elected position...
...What conclusions can be drawn from this candidacy with regard to the place of women in political institutions in France...
...Of course, when a woman is attacked on grounds of her stature she is more vulnerable than a male candidate, and this had an effect...
...It would have been better if she'd stayed home instead of reading her recipe cards," said Strauss-Kahn after one of her broadcasts (he now hopes to become head of the International Monetary Fund, thanks to Sarkozy...
...ROYAL WAS defeated, but despite the outburst of male chauvinism that her candidacy initially provoked, she has certainly helped to legitimate the presence of women on the political stage...
...The parity law passed on June 6, 2000...
...Men still hold most of the key positions in both the PS and the UMP...
...In the electoral realm, sitting candidates have the advantage and are not very willing to surrender their own seats to create more balance...
...Who'll take care of the children...
...In 2007, the Socialist Party came close to respecting parity...
...Despite the mediocre numbers, we are witnessing a slow but growing change in the role of women in French politics...
...Many party leaders did not share this enthusiasm, above all not those who had themselves dreamed of being the presidential candidate...
...From then on she was seen in the polls as less capable than Sarkozy to take on the duties of president...
...Quite the opposite...
...A majority of city dwellers voted for her, including those in traditionally rightwing cities, while rural voters (still numerous) chose her opponent...
...Women make up 49 percent of municipal councilors in towns with more than 3,500 inhabitants, where the law is applied...
...It will be instructive to keep track of the cabinet reshuffles (they are inevitable...
...It requires parties in elections organized according to proportional representation to have as many female as male candidates...
...An architect of France's parity law, she is a former Socialist member of the National Assembly...
...It is also worth noting that, in contrast to the recent past, most of these women are strong personalities, appointed not only because they are women, but because they have impressive professional capital and, in several cases, considerable political experience as elected officials or in their party organizations...
...Parties running in legislative elections (in single-member districts) are fined if fewer than 48 percent of their candidates are female...
...Among these is the sociological evolution of France...
...Possibilities" is the key word here because much depends on the ways in which the parity law is enforced and the persistence of women in breaching the walls of politics...
...The right picked up the argument...
...Still, a majority of the executives of territorial assemblies are men...
...They had no chance of reaching the second, determining round of voting, in which the top two candidates face off...
...Young researchers now pay much more attention to the resistance that women encounter when they try to enter the halls of power...
...In the end, they played some role in the defeat of the left...
...The political parties remain the principal brakes on the "feminization" of political life, for several reasons...
...Yet fewer than 10 percent of France's mayors are women, and only one woman, Royal herself, is head of one of the 22 regions that make up continental France...
...Sarkozy now has a cabinet, headed by conservative prime minister Francois Fillon, which is almost a third women...
...Before the turn of the century, there were few French works in political science that took gender into consideration...
...There were several other women candidates running in the first round of the election, but unlike Royal, they represented marginal parties...
...These remarks, widely reprinted in the press, worked against the three men in public opinion, which took them as signs of male chauvinism, and they did not hurt Royal...
...Moreover, many feminists did not support her at first...
...Rather it shows that many factors influence political outcomes, including pressures that can be brought to bear to achieve the levels of parity envisioned by the law of 2000...
...The major political parties chose to lose public financing rather than to put up women candidates...
...Wounded by the attacks, she did not attempt to reduce the tension between her own team and unsympathetic segments of the party leadership...
...The debate also led to a new emphasis on gender studies...
...It made possible a substantial increase in the number of women on municipal and regional councils and in the fraction of the Senate elected by proportional representation...
...They disliked what they considered a kind of proto-feminist "maternalism" in her speeches and only belatedly rallied to her candidacy...
...This is the nickname given to a handful of prominent and longtime party leaders with very impressive résumés and their own political aspirations (such as former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former prime minister Laurent Fabius, and former culture minister Jack Lang...
...Although he became a loyal campaigner for Royal, he has since joined a government commission under conservative victor Nicolas Sarkozy...
...This makes them well known, and parties don't want to take a chance on losing with a less known, new (woman) candidate...
...In the June legislative elections, the PS made efforts to impose women, and in some cases incumbents refused to step aside, with the result that there were dissident candidacies...
...In the 1990s, there was an important debate on "parity," that is, equalizing the number of women playing roles in politics and government...
...Translated from the French by George Holoch...
...Only 12 percent of those actually elected to the National Assembly in 2002 were women...
...This private matter, which has taken on public dimensions, certainly had an impact on the difficult relations between the candidate's campaign organization and the PS...
...Members of the PS, demonstrating a desire to renew the political class and charmed by a female candidate, chose her by an unexpected majority of 60 percent...
...Lang went further: "The presidential election is not a beauty contest...
...Men have long monopolized, or nearly so, elected positions in towns and regions...
...In contrast, the UMP, the main party on the right, put up only 26 percent...
...Yet to be analyzed are the effects of the separation— revealed officially on the night of the electoral defeat—between Royal and her longtime companion and the father of her four children, Francois Hollande, first secretary of the PS...
...Three of them hold major ministries (Interior, Justice, and Finance), and this is progress compared to previous governments...
...asked Fabius when she announced her intention to run...
...FRANCOISE GASPARD is a feminist sociologist and former Socialist mayor of Dreux...
...Her defeat does not signal an end to these possibilities...
...In January and February 2007, when Segolene Royal went through what was dubbed an "air pocket," newspapers that had been supporting her echoed these claims of incompetence and criticized her lack of experience and of "stature...
...Sarkozy had the benefit of a campaign that had been long in preparation...
...We are, of course, still far from parity (although Sarkozy made it a campaign promise), but it has now become difficult not to appoint a substantial number of women to positions of responsibility...
...It will also be worth observing appointments to bodies made at the discretion of the executive...
...You can be a member of the National Assem28 DISSENT / Fall 2007 bly and a mayor at the same time...
Vol. 54 • September 2007 • No. 4
