Legislating who gets elected in France

[Ken & Karla]

Or they might try changing to a proportional representation election
system, as Sweden has ...
=================
Boost to equality in French politics 
 A bill to give women the same chances in elections clears its biggest
hurdle - the male senate 

By Jon Henley in Paris 
The Guardian, Saturday March 6, 1999 

Powerful behind the scenes but scandalously under-represented in public
life, French women scored a major victory yesterday when the senate
passed a controversial motion calling for a constitutional amendment to
boost sexual equality in parliament. 

Under the motion, which goes to the combined houses of parliament for
approval later this year, article three of the constitution will be
changed to include a phrase stating:  "The law will encourage equal
access for women and men to political life and elected posts."  The
content of the new laws will be determined later.

The so-called parity bill is the brainchild of Sylviane Agacinski, the
philosopher wife of the Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, who
believes sexism is so deep-rooted in France that legislation is the only
way to achieve reform.  It has divided politicians and women's rights
campaigners alike.

The debate between those who see compulsion as the only way to feminise
French politics and those who feel that lasting change can only come
about through grassroots pressure has been so fierce that it prompted
even Bernadette Chirac, the normally reserved wife of President Jacques
Chirac, to speak out against her husband for giving the motion his
backing.

"I am of course in favour of women having their place in politics, and
at present their place is totally unsatisfactory," she told Le Figaro in
a rare interview.  "But I cannot accept the idea that room should be
made for women on the basis of their sex alone.  It should be up to the
political parties to ensure change comes about.  I do not approve of
fixing percentages, of imposing quotas."

In a country once led by the 15th-century warrior Joan of Arc, women
occupy just 10.4 per cent of the seats in the 577-member national
assembly - the worst record of any European Union country except Greece
- and a mere 5.9 per cent in the senate.

While 31 per cent of Mr Jospin's cabinet posts are held by women,
including such high profile portfolios as social affairs and justice,
employment, culture and the environment, the country has had only one
female prime minister, Edith Cresson, who lasted barely 10 months before
resigning in 1992 with a popularity rating that set a record low for any
French leader.

Women hold a scant 10 per cent of senior civil service jobs, although
they make up 57 per cent of the workforce, and also trail in business:
the heads of the country's 200 biggest firms are men. 

Yet in contrast to their lack of power overall, some women have become
icons - from the Nobel prize-winning scientist Marie Curie, who
discovered radium, to the thinker and writer Simone de Beauvoir.

Women only got the vote after the country's liberation from the Nazis in
1944, decades after many other European countries.  The 19th century
Napoleonic legal code, drawn up by a man who once said that women
"should belong to men as trees belong to their gardeners", gave husbands
sweeping powers over their wives that lasted well into the 20th century.

But many feminists fear that legislating for women MPs, far from
encouraging equality, will create a category apart.  Elisabeth Badinter,
a sociologist and the wife of a former Socialist justice minister, has
won the backing of leading women writers, lawyers and scientists by
insisting that the question is at root a philosophical and social one,
not a political one. 

She has pointed out that France is alone in trying to use the
constitution to achieve parity between the sexes in public life, and
that the better path was that taken by Sweden, where growing pressure
from women - including the threat to set up an all-women party - led to
gradual change, with the result that women now hold 40 per cent of seats
in the Stockholm parliament.

After initially rejecting the wording of the motion, the senate - under
heavy pressure from President Chirac, who is apparently convinced that
fighting the change will make him appear old-fashioned - finally adopted
it by an overwhelming 289 votes to eight.

"I don't want a republic with quotas," said one die-hard opponent, the
conservative senator Emmanuel Hammel.  "Long live women, but down, down
with quotas!"

========( appended articles )========

What they do in other countries

Britain
There are record numbers of women at Westminster, but 101 out of 120
women MPs, plus the speaker, Betty Boothroyd - belong to one party. 

Labour's all-women shortlists helped to double the number of women MPs
to almost one-fifth of the total, though the policy was ruled illegal
and will not be repeated.  The Tories, standing firm against positive
discrimination, have just 14 female MPs, and the Liberal Democrats
three.

Thanks to Labour's policy of "twinning" constituencies to ensure that
one in two fields a female candidate, the Scottish parliament should be
about one-third female.  The proportion in the Welsh assembly is likely
to be smaller.

For May's EU elections the Lib Dems and Labour have alternated men and
women on party lists.

Germany
When Chancellor Gerhard Schröder unveiled his coalition cabinet last
October, the number of women had increased 100 per cent - to four from
the two contained in his predecessor's centre-right cabinet.  That
leaves 13 seats in the Social Democrat-Green cabinet held by men. 

All the big German parties run gender quotas.  The Greens have a 50-50
system and they now have more women than men in the Bundestag, as do the
PDS, the reformed communists of eastern Germany.

Mr Schröder's Social Democrats reserve 40 per cent of party posts and
nominations for women, while the conservative Christian Democrats
stipulate 30 per cent.  Almost one-third of MPs in the lower house in
Bonn are women, 207 of 669. - Ian Traynor

Russia
Russia's all female party, Women of Russia, failed to win a seat at the
last election, leaving the country's lower house, the Duma, 92 per cent
male.  The upper house has only one female member. 

The idea of introducing quotas to ensure greater female representation
has little support because politics is seen as a man's business.  Last
year's Mafia-style murder of Galina Staravoitova, an MP and human rights
activist, confirmed this prejudice. 

Quotas have also been discredited by their use in the composition of
unimportant Soviet organs which had to have visible women, peasants,
ethnic minorities and workers. 

Women who have reached power have been confined to "feminine" areas such
as social affairs, education and culture. - Tom Whitehouse.

Sweden
In politics at least, Sweden has gone further than any other Western
country towards achieving sexual equality.  A campaign by women's groups
that began early in the 1970s and the support of enlightened politicians
has seen the percentage of female MPs increase without legislative
enforcement to 40 per cent. 

But campaigners are far from satisfied.  They say the workplace is a
different story: average salaries for women are only 80 per cent of
those of men in comparable jobs, and 99.6 per cent of the managers of
listed companies are men.

"We were among the last to legislate for equal rights in the workplace
because it went against our ideal of consensus," says Kristina Persson,
president of the National Commission on Parity. - Jon Henley.

USA
The number of women in the US Senate and the House of Representatives is
dismally low. 

Only 56 are members of the 435-strong House, a meagre 12.9 per cent. 
The California delegation alone consists of 13 women - 12 Democrat, one
Republican.  Women are even more under-represented in the Senate: there
are only nine female senators of 100.

The figures might sound feeble, but they are more than double the
numbers of a decade ago.  Most gains were made in 1992, when women
rushed into the political fray, furious at the treatment of Anita Hill
in her sexual harassment claim against Clarence Thomas.

Women's groups are optimistic the situation will improve in 2000, as
Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Dole prepare to run for high office. -
Mark Tran.