Party women’s organizations may be on the wane; and they may historically have been more about what women can do for the party rather than what the party can do for women. But in some cases they look to have played key roles in feminizing party politics. This paper identifies what makes a party’s women organization a good site of women’s substantive representation. According to extant frameworks, a feminist political party is one that is responsive to feminization claims on both dimensions: the inclusion of women within the party, and the inclusion of women’s concerns. Consequently, a party women’s organizations would need to be fully integrated into the party proper, rather than constituting a ‘ladies auxillary’. In analysing party women’s organizations this contribution draws explicitly on feminist readings of the intra-party democracy (IPD) and party regulation literatures.
