The Substantive Representation of Women: What to Do with Conservative Claims?
| Author | Sarah Childs,Karen Celis |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00904.x |
| Date | 01 March 2012 |
| Published date | 01 March 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Research Note |
RESEARCH NOTE
The Substantive Representation of Women:
What to Do with Conservative Claims?post_904213..225
Karen Celis Sarah Childs
Vrije Universiteit Brussel University of Bristol
Recent developments in the gender and politics literature suggest that studying the substantive representation of
women is much more complicated than counting the number of women present in a particular political institution
and judging the actions of women representativesagainst a ‘feminist’ shopping list of demands.In br ief,the substantive
representation of women is no longer considered to be restricted to what happens in our parliaments or only by what
women representatives do therein. Furthermore,what constitutes women’s issues and interests – that which is to be
represented – can also no longer be considered straightforwardly‘out there’ to simply be acted upon byrepresentatives;
they are constructed as part of the representative process. Acknowledgement of the diversity and likely contested
nature of claims to act ‘for women’ coincides with an emerging appreciation that the claims for women made by
conservative representatives need to be brought more explicitly into our analytic frameworks and empirical studies.
Together, these points not only undermine any assumption that the substantive representation of women equals the
feminist substantive representation of women;they also raise the possibility of non- and anti-feminist representative
claims and actions ‘for’ women. Against this backdrop, we review recent developments within the sub-field of the
substantive representation of women literature and offer some reflections and suggestions about how to take
conservatism seriously when studying the substantive representation of women both conceptually and empirically.
Keywords: representation; gender; conservatism
Research on women’s substantive representation – and its relationship with women’s
descriptive representation – has dominated gender and politics research over the last decade.
The dominant hypotheses in this research contend that women in politics ‘make a
difference’ by: (1) better representing women’s interests; and (2) by introducing more
feminist policies. Feminist political theory,and especially the ‘politics of presence’literature,
provides the link between descriptive representation (being a woman representative) and
substantive representation (representing women’s issues, interests, needs and wants). Of
course, there is no guarantee, but it is contended that women representatives, sharing
gendered experiences, are more likely to seek to act for women than men representatives
(Dovi, 2002; Mansbridge, 1999; Phillips, 1995). ‘Critical Mass theory’ is sometimes added
into the mix: women’s substantive representation occurs when women’s political presence
constitutes a particular percentage of a legislature, usually said to be somewhere between 15
and 30 per cent (Childs and Krook, 2006). Empir ical researchers investigate, then, what
difference women representatives make ‘for women’. In so doing, they often subjectively
define women’s issues as either those traditionally associated with women (such as childcare
and the family), or those with a‘feminist accent’ (such as abortion or domestic violence) –
with feminism being interpreted sui generis on the left of the political spectrum.1Given the
efforts of feminist activists to secure women’s greater descriptive representation, not only
for the democratic reasons of justice and fair ness, but also to engender the inclusion of
women’s interests and perspectives in political decision making, gender and politics
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00904.x
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2012 VOL 60, 213–225
© 2011The Author.Political Studies © 2011 Political Studies Association
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