ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Green parties' sometimes ambivalent attitude toward gender politics. To some extent, the lack of attention to gender politics within Green parties can also be attributed to what has been observed as the gender-blind nature of mainstream political science, including the sub-field of environmental politics. Green parties are a political phenomenon of the late twentieth century. Growing out of the dissatisfaction of youth in the post-war economic boom period, and harnessing a burgeoning interest in the environment, Green parties have surfed on the wave of post-material expansion. One of the more striking elements in the development of Green parties has been the shift in leadership structures. Whereas most Green parties began with collective, rotational, or multiple-person leadership structures, the move over time has been to dual positions – usually one male and one female co-leader – or even to the more conventional one leader system.
