How Sex and Party Interact: Women in the French Right-Wing Majority

This paper examines the complex interaction of sex and ideology using France as a case study. It compares men and women from parties of the left and right to measure the relative importance of sex versus ideology in explaining women’s representation. In particular, it considers how the women in the governing right-wing party, the UMP, assert or reject feminist identities and roles. The paper draws on a variety of data, including quantitative analysis of representative behaviour in parliament (such as parliamentary questions). In particular, the paper draws on data from 53 interviews with members of the French parliament, of both sexes and all parties, including 15 interviews with women deputies from the UMP. This rich data illuminates the different views held on various aspects of representative roles, including whether men and women are perceived to perform representation differently (both in style and substance), whether gender quotas are necessary and desirable, and any difficulties that deputies have encountered in their working lives. The results indicate that, on the whole, deputies on the left are more feminist than those on the right, and women are more feminist than men, resulting in a tension for right-wing women. Although ideologically committed to equal treatment without regard for sex, their own experiences of gender inequality have had an impact on their perceptions, preferences and conduct. Deputies on the left are, on the whole, more comfortable asserting gender difference and advocating measures to guarantee equality of outcome, whereas right-wing deputies are more likely to reject such attitudes as essentialist and patronising. However, right-wing women reject the notion that the left has a monopoly on promoting women’s interests, with differences linked to ideological interpretations of which problems matter and which solutions are acceptable. The data also indicate that neither sex nor party is a perfect predictor of attitudes towards women’s representation, with both advocacy of women’s interests and denial of gender differences being present on all sides. The findings highlight the complexity in predicting, identifying and interpreting instances of the substantive representation of women.