Women and political activism: how can we help women to climb the greasy pole? - PowerPoint Presentation

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Women and political activism: how can we help women to climb the greasy pole?

Dr Rosie Campbellr.campbell@bbk.ac.uk Twitter: @RosiecampbSlide2

Do women participate less than men?Partisan politics

Civic engagement Cause oriented activities Voluntary workEducation, child and health related groupsSlide3

British Citizenship survey 2007Figure 1: Voluntary group membership by sexN=14087

***Significant at the 0.001 level, **significant at the 0.01 level, *significant at the 0.05 level, Chi2 tests.Slide4

Figure 2: Type of unpaid help given to a group, club or organisation by sexN=14087Slide5

Figure 3: Participation in politics by sex

N=14087Slide6

Figure 4: Respondents to the European Social Survey 2012 who had contacted a politician by sex

N=44102Slide7

Figure

5: Respondents to the European Social Survey 2012 who had worn a campaign badge or sticker in the last 12 months by sexN=44102Slide8

Engagement with politics Political interest Political knowledge

Women routinely found to be less interested in formal politicsBut it depends how you ask: Less interested in partisan politics and foreign policy more interested in local politics, health and educationWomen generally found to be less knowledgeable But it depends how knowledge is measured (Guessing/risk taking, useful knowledge, gendered knowledge)Slide9

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. Slide10

Figure 6:

Average general interest in politics by sex and age group

Figure

7: Average

interest in domestic politics,

by age group and sexSlide11

Does it matter? Justice aloneDescriptive and substantive representation of womenThe 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=79Slide12

Figure

8: Factors scores for hostility to traditional gender roles by sex and birth cohort, 2001 & 2005 BESFigure

9: Factors scores for attitudes to the descriptive representation of women by sex and birth cohort, 2001 & 2005 BESSlide13

Figure

10: Hostility to traditional gender roles sex and birth cohort, 2001 & 2005 BRSFigure 11:

Attitudes to equality guarantees by birth cohort and sex, 2001 & 2005 BRSSlide14

Figure 12:

Percentage stating that the NHS is the most important issue facing Britain (British Election Study Series)Slide15

Figure 13:

Percentage stating that education is the most important issue facing Britain (British Election Study Series)Slide16

Figure 14:

Percentage stating that the economy is the most important issue facing Britain (British Election Study Series)Slide17

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)Slide18

Barriers Parental statusIncome Confidence

Figure 15: British MPs’ average number of children by sex 2013 Slide19

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.”Slide20

What can be done? 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 conflictBuild confidence in knowledge and efficacy

http://www.jackyfleming.co.uk/cartoons/?pid=89