Gender and Women in Politics:

Has the impact of Gender on Female Political Leaders changed over time?

Introduction and Background

There are 3.69 billion women living in the world (The World Bank, no date), which is 49.6% 1

of the earth’s total population (ibid.). Yet despite this significant figure they are vastly

underrepresented in politics. In the UK only 26% of parliament is made up of women (IPU,

2017) and in the world’s so-called ‘hegemon’ - the US - the figures are even lower at 21%

(ibid.). The international scene is more drastic with women representing only 7.2% of the

world’s heads of state (UN Women, 2017) and 5.7% of the world’s heads of government

(ibid.). The topic of gender and women in politics is vital to understand the constraints on

women that contribute to these low numbers. For a government to be truly democratic and

‘for the people’ it must be representative of both sexes (Manuh, 2014:41). Women must be

more heavily involved in the decision making for laws and policies that ultimately affect them,

as well as men (p.41). Furthermore, this is supported by the UN as part of their sustainable

development goals, highlighting the significance of the issue (UN, no date).

Literature Review

Gender in International Relations (IR) is a highly contested subject. It is a social structure

that creates power imbalances between masculine and feminine (Enloe, 2000:3; Peterson,

2003:31). Gender is not something natural and biological (Enloe, 2000:3), it is socially

constructed or something ‘learned’ (Peterson, 2003:31), created by the ideologies of society

and then passed on from generation to generation through social reproduction (Bakker,

2007), institutions and practices (Steans, 2013:26). The literature demonstrates that in

politics and IR, masculine stereotypical characteristics such as aggressiveness, rationality

1 49.558% to be precise – as of 2016

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and competitiveness are always favoured over stereotypical feminine characteristics such as

compassion, cooperation and emotion (Huddy and Terkildsen, 1993). The world of IR is split

into two spaces – the public sphere and the private sphere (Pettman, 2002:6-7; Steans,

2013:27). The public sphere is associated with the masculine whereas the private sphere is

associated with the feminine (Tickner and Sjoberg, 2016:180). When we think of the public

sphere, it refers to politics, the economy and states. IR can therefore be seen as highly

masculine. Looking at the private sphere, there is the home, family and care giving (Steans,

2013:27). All of which are associated with the feminine and female. IR is not interested in the

private sphere as it’s seen as something domestic and black boxed. Being confined to the

private sphere and contributing to unacknowledged and unpaid work leaves women

powerless and economically reliant on men (Steans, 2013:27). Whereas being liberated in

the public sphere hands men all the power.

Of course, as Tickner and Sjober (2016) express, not all men and women embody these

typical masculine and feminine characteristics – there is often a mixture of both (p.180).

Gender as a structure therefore is not fixed and there is room to change these unequal

power relations. Over the years we have therefore begun to see this dichotomy between

masculine and feminine/public and private break down as many women realise that they

have the agency and power to make changes that challenge the status quo. Slowly but

surely more women are moving into the public sphere of politics.

The literature reviewed implies that more women tend to be elected into local political

positions rather than national or politically elite positions (Stevens, 2007:78). Whilst the

move into the political realm is encouraging, women are still being impacted by gender

discriminations - Manuh (2014) and Mathur (2014) demonstrate this well in the Global South

– notably Africa and India. Women in domestic politics have reported being ‘shouted down

by male members when assembly matters were being discussed’ (Manuh, 2014:62). They

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are also constrained by violence, (Manuh, 2014:48; Mathur, 2014:212) lack of education and

qualifications (Mathur, 2014:211) and time management between the public sphere (work in

politics) and the private sphere (their families) to name a few (Manuh, 2014:49). Once again

there is the notion that ‘politics belongs to the public arena, best managed by men’ (Manuh,

2014:49). Mavin, Bryans and Cunningham (2010) show that gender inequalities are also

apparent in the Global North. They demonstrate that women in politics are still trivialised,

evident in the nicknaming of ‘Blair’s babes’, ‘Gordon’s gals’ and ‘Cameron’s cuties’ and the

constant media attention to their appearance, rather than their work.

A handful of women have managed to break the glass ceiling over the last few decades to

become international political leaders. However, the current literature suggests that gender

biases may still have an impact on them. Margaret Thatcher, the UK’s first female Prime

Minister has often been seen as ‘one of the boys’ (Hooper, 2000:69) and nicknamed the ‘iron

lady’ for her masculine style leadership (Stevens, 2007:137). Adler (1996) discusses the

effects of having children on female political leaders. Thatcher was turned down and made

to wait until her children were six to campaign for a seat in parliament (p.141). Similarly, the

Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was the only Prime Minister to have given birth in

office and was made to hide her baby’s due date to stop her opponents from using it against

her (ibid.). As Stevens (2007) asserts, there is a sense of a double-edged sword for female

political leaders. It seems that when she takes on a leadership style with masculine

characteristics, she is negatively portrayed as hard, abstract and hostile (Eagly and Karau,

2002:576) yet when she portrays feminine characteristics as a leader, she may be branded

as weak and incompetent (Huddy and Terkildsen, 1993).

Research Question and Objectives

The majority of literature relating to gender and women in politics covers both domestic

politics along with the Global Political Economy. There is a lack of literature covering women

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in the international political arena, one supposes because the quantity of women in global

politics has been very low. There are however an increasing number of women who have

moved into politically elite roles. The influence of gender on these women is lightly touched

upon, for example Stevens (2007), Adler (1996), but not in huge quantities. Furthermore,

there is a knowledge gap when it comes to asking if gender influences on women political

leaders has shifted over time. The primary research question proposed is ‘Has the impact of

Gender on Female Political Leaders changed over time?’ The research will look at four

international female political leaders – Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton and

Theresa May. Ontologically, the research will first look at the influence of gender on these

female political elites and then assess if there has been a change over time. As gender is

socially constructed, the ontological approach will be from a constructivist point-of-view.

The proposed research seeks to contribute to the existing literature on feminism and gender

in IR such as Enloe (2000) but also looks to add something new and different. Its ultimate

goal is to bring the importance of gender inequality at the forefront of both student and

scholars’ minds.

Methodology

The methodology for the research will be undertaken inductively. It will explore the empirical

in detail, after which a hypothesis will be proposed which will seek to answer the above

research question. To start with, the research will explore exactly if gender has had an

impact on female political leaders. From the current literature review it seems that this is

likely but it is important to understand this further, with specific reference to the four female

political leaders cited above because, as explained, there is a lack of overall literature

exploring the effects of gender on female political leaders.

Primary sources, namely autobiographies, will be used to understand the implications of

gender from the female political leaders’ point-of-views. Secondary sources will also be

used, especially where autobiographies are not available (in the case of Merkel and May), to

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explore the impact of gender on the female political leaders from alternative lenses.

Biographies for all four political elites will be studied along with journal articles that touch

upon leadership styles and gender biases. Examples include Campbell (2015) and Ponton

(2010) for Thatcher. Harp, Loke and Bachmann (2016) and Kaufer, Parry-Giles and

Klebanov (2012) for Clinton. Sheeler and Anderson (2014) for Merkel and Allen (2017) for

May. Sources will be approached cautiously, always considering selection and confirmation

bias and ensuring that authors are authentic by assessing who they are and what journals

they are writing for – making sure that all journals are peer reviewed.

Epistemologically, the research will be undertaken with a view that knowledge stems from

other humans and their ideas – it is once again socially constructed. Humans learn a great

deal of knowledge from educational institutions and friends and family. However, the media

also play a huge role in educating, especially when it comes to politics. The second part of

the proposed research therefore would look at a range of newspaper articles from past and

present and using the method(s) of discourse analysis would seek to understand how the

media portray the four political leaders. For each female political leader, an event relating to

IR and therefore stereotypically masculine, will be picked – Thatcher and the Falklands War,

Merkel and her participation in the establishment of the Transatlantic Economic Council,

Clinton and her role in the nuclear sanctions against Iran and May with Brexit negotiations.

As newspapers are biased towards certain political parties, a range of both left and right-

wing papers will be analysed. The Guardian and New York Times and The Telegraph and

Wall Street Journal respectively, will be looked at. Due to the language barrier, only one

German newspaper will be assessed - Spiegel Online. The research will use metaphorical

analysis (Milliken, 1999) across articles in the above papers to look for metaphors and

underlying meanings related to gender, for example ‘and risk being accused of inheriting

Blair’s role as poodle to a loathed American master.’ (Roberts, 2017). From this quote we

can see May being compared to a dog (feminine), and the American President a master

(masculine) once again implying the unequal power distribution between male and female.

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The research will also use the deconstruction method of discourse analysis across the

newspaper articles to see if there are any hidden binaries in the texts, for example ‘the

collapse of talks to form the next coalition government have exposed Angela Merkel’s

diminished authority’ (Oltermann, 2017) implies that someone else’s authority has increased

(the hidden binary). The research method will seek to establish if there are hidden binaries

that suggests gender biases or not.

As the primary research question looks to see if the influence of gender on female political

leaders has changed over time it will use Margaret Thatcher as an example from the past.

Resources such as Pro Quest and the British Library will be used to access archived

newspapers. For Merkel, Clinton and May, media websites will be used to access the

relevant articles. Ultimately, the research seeks to understand from the newspapers if these

women are compared to men or other women, if they are praised for feminine or masculine

characteristics or if they are criticised for decisions made that could be branded masculine or

feminine. From this analysis, one will be able to determine if/or the extent that gender has on

these women and with the comparison of Margaret Thatcher, if the influence of gender has

shifted over time. The research proposed seeks to look at patterns of language across the

media articles along with examining ‘the relationship between language and the social and

cultural contexts in which it is used’ (Paltridge, 2012:2) so therefore the method of discourse

analysis is highly appropriate.

To Conclude

This research proposal has highlighted the importance of the topic of ‘gender and women in

politics’. From the literature review, it has found a knowledge gap and strives to answer the

primary research question ‘Has the impact of Gender on Female Political Leaders changed

over time?’ using four famous political elites – Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, Hillary

Clinton and Theresa May. The proposed methods are: the supplementary studying of

primary and secondary sources to determine if/what the extent of gender on these female

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political leaders are along with discourse analysis on a range of articles from various

newspapers to further understand the impact of gender and to ascertain whether the

influence of gender on female political leaders has changed over time.

2,050 words in total (excluding the bibliography)

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