ABSTRACT
From the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s women politicians, feminists, and alternative left and ecology parties made various attempts to increase women’s political representation. Since gaining the right to vote and to stand for election, women’s representation in the national assemblies had barely increased. Their voting turnout, however, was equal to that of male voters. It was suggested that it was not their lack of will which excluded them from political office, but obstacles which stood in their way. It was therefore argued that measures had to be introduced which would either remove these obstacles or enable women to overcome them. Initially the demands were for quotas for women within party hierarchies and on candidate lists. By the 1990s, the efforts of campaigners and the opportunism of politicians made the media-friendly notion of ‘parity’ (numerical equality between men and women) a subject for public debate. In contrast to quotas, which are frequently associated with a feminism portrayed as outdated and misguided, parity is supported by a broad spectrum of politicians, all main parties, European organisations, some feminists and intellectuals and a large majority of public opinion. For some, parity is a potential source of legitimacy at a time when many are suggesting that there is a crisis of representation. Whether or not this is true, support for the idea features in a growing number of pre-election speeches and manifestos.
