100 Questions about Women and Politics by Manon Tremblay

Author:Manon Tremblay [Tremblay, Manon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780773555020
Publisher: MQUP
Published: 2018-01-15T07:00:00+00:00

51What arguments have been advanced to promote parity?

The background argument for debates over parity is the following: the universality of the republican individual means that this individual also represents the universality of the difference between the sexes. This difference, ultimately, is primary and foundational, in that it precedes, intersects with, and marks all other societal cleavages. This reasoning is apropos to the French debate on parity because it reflects the ideology of republicanism – that of a single, indivisible nation, upon which rests the organization of the French state and society. The discourse in favour of parity thus consists of bringing the idea into line with the values of the republic. It could not, in my opinion, be applied elsewhere – for example, in Canada, where multicultural (characterized by multiplicity and diversity) citizenship prevails.

A number of the arguments advanced to promote quotas have also been employed to serve the parity cause (see questions 47, 51, and 53). Here are just a few examples. The principle of equality between women and men justifies women’s access in greater numbers to political institutions, through equality that is not formal (that is, inscribed in law, thus undifferentiated, which has already been achieved) but real (that is, takes into account the differences between the sexes/genders and is far from being achieved, as demonstrated by the low proportions of female politicians). Equality that is sensitive to differences would make it possible to change politics, to stamp it with women’s ways of being, speaking, and doing (see questions 64 and 65). The argument of simple justice also arises in rationales developed to support parity and quotas: it is simply justice for women to be better represented in decision-making bodies because they form half the population; simply justice for them to have the right to be in politics because they are citizens; simply justice for them to participate alongside men in writing laws because they are equally subject to those laws (see question 40). The idea that the low presence of women in politics constitutes a democratic deficit and shows a crisis in representative democracy also feeds into debates on quotas and parity (see questions 33, 34, and 40). The entry of a greater number of women into legislative assemblies would make it possible not only to respond to this malaise but also to improve democracy, even to complete it.

In sum, aside from the argument linked to the republican citizen bearing the universal difference of the sexes, debates on parity have evolved not in a vacuum but in relation to the arguments deployed to justify quotas.

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