The representation of women in politics: From quotas to parity in elections

International and Comparative Law Quarterly

Volumn 50, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 217-247

  Lenoir, Noëlle ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84937345530     PISSN: 00205893     EISSN: 14716895     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/iclq/50.2.217     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. William Guéraiche, Les Femmes et la République. Paris: Editions de l'Atelier/Editions Ouvrières, 1999 (p.39).
2. See in particular, with regard to the United States, Sarah M. Evans's work, A History of Women in America, Free Press Paperbacks, 1997.
3. See in particular, with regard to the United Kingdom, the publications of the Fabian Society, and in particular “The Long March to Equality”, available on the Society's web site at
4. Theodore Zeldin, Histoire des passions françaises de 1848 à 1945. Paris: Le Seuil, Coll Point Histoire, 1980 (Volume I, p.399).
5. See Jane Kramer, “Letter from Europe, Liberty, Equality, Sorority, French women get a revolution of their own”, in The New Yorker, 29 May 2000.
6. It would be wrong to believe that women have the right to vote everywhere in the world. Thus, a British newspaper reports that the High Court of Justice of Kuwait rejected the call by an association of women pleading that the refusal to grant this right to women was unconstitutional (The Economist, 8 July 2000).
7. Catherine Larrère, “Le sexe ou le rang? La condition des femmes selon la philosophie des Lumières”, in Encyclopédie politique and et historique des femmes, Ch. Fauré ed., 1st ed. Paris: PUF, Mar. 1997.
8. Book V of the “Recueil de réflexions et d'observations” entitled “L'Emile ou de l'Education”, published in 1762, is an edifying example of the prejudices of the time. For Rousseau, for example, “… woman is made especially to please man; if man must please her in his turn, this is less directly necessary, his merit lies in his power; he pleases simply by being strong …” Paris: Editions Coll Gallimard, La Pléiade, 1969, p.693).
9. See Gustavo Zagrebelski, “Le Droit en douceur”, Aix-Marseilles: PUF, Economica, 2000.
10. Comments on the report of the Constitutional Committee, 2 Oct. 1789, quoted by Michel Troper “La notion de citoyen sous la Révolution française”, in La Constitution de Van III ou l'ordre républicain, Burgundy University publications, Editions Universitaires de Dijon, Oct. 1998.
11. La Constitution de Van III ou l'ordre républicain.
12. Text 19, “pour legalité politique des hommes et des femmes”, 1790, in Complete Works, volume X (published at the time in the “Journal de la Société de 1789”).
13. See Jacques Guilhaumou and Martine Lapied, “L'action politique des femmes sous la Revolution française” in Encyclopédie politique and et historique des femmes, Encyclopédie politique and et historique des femmes, “Journal de la Société de 1789”.
14. See Olympe de Gouges, Oeuvres. Paris: Editions Mercure de France, 1986.
15. Tocqueville further affirms in “Democracy in America” that “democratic people must preserve virile manners …” Paris, 1842 (Volume IV, p.346).
16. “L'action des femmes sous la Révolution américaine”, in Christiane Fauré, “Democracy in America” “democratic people must preserve virile manners …”.
17. See Linda K. Kerber, No constitutional right to be ladies. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.
18. See Sarah Evans, No constitutional right to be ladies, Chapter 7.
19. See the very interesting work of Sarah Evans, No constitutional right to be ladies. The author mentions in particular President Wilson's arrival in 1916 at a meeting of one of the principal female organisations: the “National Woman Suffrage Association”. “I have not come to ask you to be patient, because you have been, but I have come to congratulate you that there has been a force behind you that will beyond any peradventure be triumphant and for which you can afford a little while to wait”, he said to reassure members on the future success of their demands. (When the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920 was passed, 11 States had already granted women the right to vote.) It should be noted that in New Zealand, another common law country, women acquired the right to vote in 1893.
20. “George Sand's illustration had the main purpose of gaining recognition for the fact that France had an excessive number of superior women” after considering it regrettable that “this sentimental leprosy spoiled many women who, without their claim to genius, would have been charming”, in La Muse du Département, Paris, 1843.
21. “De l'Allemagne”, Paris, 1815.
22. In “La Voix des Femmes”, Eugénie Niboyet published a letter calling readers to vote for George Sand, thinking that she would be “accepted by men”. Quoted in the work devoted to G. Sand by Michelle Perrot, Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1997, p.531.
23. Michelle Perrot reproduced a text published posthumously which enlightens us on the positions of G. Sand, showing that she intended to plead for equality in marriage, while seeking to dissuade women from standing as candidates, “as they might be taken seriously” (p.542).
24. “as they might be taken seriously”, pp.36 ff.
25. In Cass. 6 Apr. 1914, Delle Halbwachs, S. 1915.1.64, the Cour de cassation held that “the exercise of civil rights is independent of the quality of citizen, which confers solely political rights … the Constitution of 4 Nov. 1848, by substituting the universal suffrage for the restricted or electoral-tax-based suffrage, from which women were excluded, never extended to non-male citizens … the right to elect the representatives of the country to the various electoral offices … this is clear, not only from the text of the Constitution of 1848 and of the electoral laws which followed it, but more still from their spirit, attested by the legislative history, and also by the fact that it has been applied without interruption since the universal suffrage was introduced”.
26. René Viviani was the first Minister of Labour in France (1906–1910).
27. See the report on parity (No. 1240, 2 Dec. 1998, p.11) by Catherine Tasca, then Chair of the Legal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly.
28. J.O. Sénat, Sitting of 7 July 1932, pp.1029 ff.
29. Editions Domat Montchrestien, pp.481 ff.
30. See his treatise referred to above of 1927, in the chapter entitled “National Sovereignty”.
31. Editions Dalloz, pp.312 ff.
32. Joseph Barthélémy, Deputy, had already moved in this direction, in particular in a report to the Chamber of Deputies of 20 Feb. 1923 (No. 5610). He became infamous for serving as Minister for Justice under Marshal Pétain's Vichy régime introduced in France in 1940. His progressive standpoint on women's political rights probably explains that the draft constitution of Pétain (which never succeeded) would have extended the right to vote and stand for election to women as well as to men.
33. It is odd to observe in certain law manuals comments on the “intrinsic” characteristics of the female nature which are alleged to influence their voting patterns, where anti-feminist undertones are scarcely concealed. The same arguments are always used to decry women's lack of political maturity: “… women do not vote for women, a constituency set aside for a woman is a lost constituency, etc”. Gisèle Halimi, in Le Préambule de la Constitution de 1946, un contrat de société, Paris, 1994, Documentation Française, p.39, quotes these prejudices which still appear in law textbooks in 2000, updated to include the parity provisions.
34. See the decision of this Court of 16 July 1971 on freedom of association (CC decision n° 71–44 DC, Rec. p.29
35. J. Bell, French Constitutional Law (Oxford 1992), p.272.).
36. With the almost unique but considerable exception of Jules Laferrière's textbook; in his work referred to above on Constitutional Law, he devotes almost 10 pages to the question of the vote for women, studying it most delicately in terms of comparative law and of political history. Reference can also be made to Professor Robert Pelloux's article on the Preamble to the 1946 Constitution, a locus classicus (Revue de Droit Public, 1947, p.347). The author stresses that the recognition of women's rights “equal to those of man” represents “a considerable extension … owing to the tradition of masculinity strongly anchored in our public law”. But he devotes no more than 15 lines or so to the subject.
37. Of the 35 needed, only 11 responded (see Sarah Evans, Revue de Droit Public.).
38. The new constitutional provisions adopted in Portugal at the revision of 3 Sept. 1997 might enable the law to establish positive discrimination in political life. While Article 9 entrusts to the public authorities the responsibility for “promoting equality between men and women”, article 112, like the French constitutional reform on parity, requires the law to “promote equality in the exercise of civic and political rights”. But no electoral legislation has so far been enacted to give concrete expression to this objective (see Gwenaële Calves, “La parité entre hommes et femmes dans l'accès aux fonctions électives. Faut-il réviser la Constitution?” in CURAPP, Questions sensibles, PUF, 1998).
39. In general, positive discrimination is not provided for only at internal constitutional level but also in international law. The concept of positive discrimination in employment also appears in article 141(4) of the Treaty establishing the European Community, which provides: “With a view to ensuring full equality in practice between men and women in working life, the principle of equal treatment shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or adopting measures providing for specific advantages in order to make it easier for the under-represented sex to pursue a vocational activity or to prevent or compensate for disadvantages in professional careers”. In its decision on the Treaty of Amsterdam (CC decision n° 97–394 DC, 31 Dec. 1997, Rec. p.344), the Conseil Constitutionnel made no comment on these provisions but recognised that they were constitutional.
40. See Noëlle Lenoir “Les aspects juridiques et éthiques de la contraception” in La Contraception, Liberté ou Contrainte, collective work published by Editions Odile Jacob, 1999, Paris (forthcoming in English).
41. Under the Civil Code (Code Napoléon), married women lacked capacity at civil law. Only gradually did a series of Acts (1938, 1945 and 1985, in particular) remove the inferior status of married women.
42. See in particular, Janine Mossuz-Lavau, “Le vote des femmes en France (1945–1993)”, in Revue Française de Sciences Politiques No. 4, Aug. 1993, p.673. The author proceeds on the basis of, in particular, the analyses of electoral sociology of the Political Science professor, Alain Lancelot (subsequently appointed to the French Conseil Constitutionnel).
43. Revue Française de Sciences Politiques.
44. Loi n° 2000–493 of 6 June 2000 to promote equal access of women and men to electoral office (Journal Officiel 7 June 2000, p.8560).
45. The word “parity” is never used. It appears neither in the Constitutional Act nor in the Electoral Act that establish it. But the term is so often used by lawyers and political economists in their comments on the reform that there is no escaping it. See, for example, Janine Mossuz-Lavau, “Femmes/Hommes, pour la Parité”, Editions des Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1998, Paris).
46. CC decision n° 82–146 of 18 Nov. 1982, Rec. 66
47. J. Bell, French Constitutional Law, p.349.
48. See his article entitled “Les hommes politiques, les “-sages-” (?) … et les femmes-”, in Droit Social, 1983 p.131.
49. Published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale, First Special Series, No. 39 of 20 Sept. 1995 (Droit Social).
50. See in “Foro Italiano”: I, 3386, 1995
51. quoted by Alessandro Pissorusso in his article “Le principe d'egalité dans la doctrine et dans la jurisprudence italiennes” published in Etudes et Documents du Conseil d'Etat No. 48 on the principle of equality (Paris, Documentation Française, 1996).
52. It was in particular popularised by the book of Françoise Gaspard, Claude Servan-Schreiber and Anne Gall entitled Au pouvoir citoyennes! Liberté, égalité, parité, published in 1992, Editions du Seuil, Paris.
53. A survey done a few years ago by a polling institute on behalf of the National Council of French Women showed that women were almost as likely to stand as non-party independent candidates (See “Parité Infos”, No. 1, Paris, Mar. 1993).
54. See William Guéraiche, “Parité Infos”, p.76.
55. William Guéraiche, “Parité Infos”, p.183.
56. The exception is Strasbourg, where the mayor is Ms Catherine Trautmann, former Minister for Culture and Communication in Lionel Jospin's government. See Bernard Roman's report “Parité Infos”.
57. See the statistics on “Women in Parliament” on the Council of Europe's website http://stars.coe.fr/equality/tableau2.htm.
58. See Janine Mossuz Lavau, “La percée des femmes aux élections législatives de 1997”, in Revue Française de Sciences Politiques, No. 3 and 4, June-Aug. 1997, p.469.
59. Act of 24 May 1994 “to promote balanced distribution of men and women on lists of candidates for election”, published in the Moniteur Belge on 1 July 1994.
60. See Marc Verdussen, “La parité sexuelle sur les listes de candidat(e)s”, in Revue Belge de Droit constitutionnel, 1994, p.33.
61. See the information paper, submitted for the parliamentary delegation for women's rights and equal opportunities between men and women by Odette Casanova, female Deputy. Report of the National Assembly, registered on 12 Jan. 2000, p.12.
62. See Michel Rosenfeld, “Affirmative Action and Justice”, Yale University Press, 1991.
63. See the contribution by Dominique Rousseau on parity in France in the Spanish work “Mujer y Constitución en España”, Centro de Estudios Politicos y Constitucionales, Madrid 2000.
64. Since 1995, political parties have not been allowed to be financed by private-sector companies but only by their members (for a limited amount) and by the State. The State each year gives them assistance in two portions: one is calculated according to the number of seats obtained by the party in the National Assembly; the other is evaluated according to the number of votes cast for them at the general election (loi organique no. 95–62 of 19 Jan. 1995, J.O. p.1005)
65. See for example, Michel Clapié's article, “Parité constitutionnelle et égalité républicaine, à propos de la loi constitutionnelle n° 99–569 du 8 juillet 1999”, in Revue Administrative No. 314, Mar.-Apr. 2000.
66. See the arguments in the articles published in the review “Le Débat” of May-August 1998 and in the press, in particular by Elisabeth Badinter, against parity, and Sylviane Agazincski, for it. Also see the chronicles published in the report of the Conseil d'Etat of 1996 (Revue Administrative)
67. “Des impasses de la parité”, by Evelyne Pisier, and “Parité et principe d'égalité”, by Blandine Kriegel.
68. CC decision n° 2000–429 DC, AJDA 2000, 653, note Jean-Eric Schoettl on the Act to promote equal access of women and men to electoral office.
69. CC decision n° 91–290 DC, Rec. 50 RFDA 1991, 407, note Genevois.
70. CC decision n° 99–412 DC, RDP 1999, 987, obs. Ferdinand Soucramanien. The Treaty had been referred to the Council by the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister before ratification, for constitutional review under Article 54 of the Constitution.
71. See Claude Servan-Schreiber's editorial in Parité Info, No. 1, Mar. 1993).
72. See Françoise Gaspard, “Au pouvoir citoyennes!” (Parité Info), p.36. For Françoise Gaspard, the purpose of parity is to call into question the abstract universalism which is a misleading mask, concealing the sovereignty of men in public life. In opposition to abstract universality, she argues, the principle that “the female citizen is not reducible to the male citizen” has to be posited.
73. See Gwenaële Calves: Parité Info.
74. ECHR case Airey v. Ireland, judgment of 9 Oct. 1979, series A No. 32.
75. ECHR case Marckx v. Belgium, judgment of 13 June 1979, series A No. 31.
76. See C. McCrudden, “The Effectiveness of European Equality law: National Mechanism for Enforcing Gender Equality Law in the light of European Requirements” 1993, 13 JO LS 320.
77. Entered into force with regard to France 13 Jan. 1984, published in the Journal Officiel by decree 84–193 of 12 Mar. 1984.
78. See in this connection Linda K. Kerber, “the meaning of citizenship” in Journal of American History, Dec. 1997.