How do women are represented in the European legislative assemblies: comparative analysis of the left and populist political parties’ practices

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of gender equality in politics and the representation of women in legislative bodies in Europe. The authors draw attention to the fact that the role of women in the European political landscape is increasing against the background of the crisis of traditional political parties. There is a relationship between the percentage of women involved in the work of legislative bodies and the political orientation of the parties that nominated them. As a hypothesis, the idea is accepted that the countries with the highest gender equality index and strong positions of social democratic parties are main donors for women in politics. Populist parties are mainly supporters of classical European traditionalism, therefore, in countries with strong right-wing populist parties’ women are less represented and there is an uneven distribution of legislative seats in favor of men. By analysing the empirical base (electoral statistics and discourse analysis), the authors come to the conclusion that gender parity has not been achieved in the most European countries. The most effective way to enforce women representation in the European legislative bodies is to implement quotas at the level of national legislation, as well as to use of voluntary party quotas. However, the artificial nomination of weak female candidates who do not find support among voters and thus ensure guaranteed electability for strong male candidates. This is especially true for right-wing populist political parties, furthermore this trend is typical for most European countries. In addition to quotas, the European countries use special educational and social policies to minimise the pressure of gender stereotypes and expand the practice of women's political participation at all levels of government, which has yielded positive results; in today's convocation of the European Parliament, women are represented more than in previous convocations.