Orthodox political science literature has hardly touched gender and the (substantial) role of women in furthering the transition from autocracy to democracy. Such studies will be flawed until a framework is created for analysing the interplay between gender relations and democratisation.
This article, published in World Politics, addresses four questions, the answers to which are essential if one is to understand both the role played by women in the process of transition and the impact of democratisation on gender relations. Why do women choose to mobilise or not in different contexts? What is the nature of this mobilisation? What “external characteristics” affected their role in the transition? How does democratisation affect the status of women in society?
Much of the failure in studies of political transition to address the gender issues is due to the widespread use of narrow and restricted institutional definitions that ignore actual distribution of power within society. Reasons for this are:
- Democratisation at the institutional level does not necessarily entail a more even distribution of power within society, especially with regard to gender
- “Politics” is defined narrowly to include only the upper institutional echelons of the public sphere, which excludes most women because they are not part of the political elite
- In Latin America the exclusion by military autocrats of all traditional political and civil action created a space in which women could operate in their traditional roles (e.g. mothers, heads of households)
- In Eastern Europe, by comparison, the Communist regimes had adopted the language of gender equality while at the same time banning all non-party based political action, thus making it more difficult for women to mobilise.
A new approach is needed to address the role of women and the way that gender relations have changed as a result of transition. This would illuminate notions of citizenship, democracy and civil society, and the interaction of gender relations and the state.
- Participation in the early stages of transition does not guarantee a role in outcome, and indeed the process may limit women’s abilities to further gender-based ends. Women’s movements are often marginalised as the process progresses
- Women find it hard to convert their activities into political representation once conventional political activity resumes. Few women are active in institutional politics because democratisation is not accompanied by social and economic equality
- The wider changes which accompany democratisation, such as market liberalisation and the assertion of “traditional” values have a disproportionately harsh effect on women, particularly in terms of strategic (feminist) issues such as reproductive rights
- Women’s groups which formed around strategic (feminist) gender issues managed to survive longer and penetrate the post-transition political mainstream more successfully than did groups which organised on an ad hoc basis around practical (female) concerns.