Gendered labour and recognition in politics: women’s inequitable incorporation in electoral democracies

Significant scholarly work has examined the extent of, and reasons for, women’s exclusion from political power, or derived lessons from exemplary cases of women who have achieved it. While important, this focus on ‘exclusion’ and the ‘exceptional’ overlooks the large number of women who devote energy and time to politics, but who do not go on to hold positions of power. This ‘political labour’ is often affective, involving the engendering of emotions such as gratitude, a sense of obligation or outrage that translates into political capital, support for the party or the individual. This labour is also highly gendered, more likely to be rendered invisible, devalued, or reclassified in ways that dispossess women of the political capital they generate. Women’s political underrepresentation is therefore not simply a case of exclusion; they are incorporated into political systems on disadvantageous terms. This paper presents a preliminary analytical framework through which to understand women’s adverse incorporation in electoral democracies. Grounded in comparative ethnographic research in India, Indonesia and Australia, it examines the different kinds of labour women perform, the types of recognition they desire, and how such recognition is (often) denied. Processes of classification (feminisation/masculinization of activities and spaces) and appropriation at all stages of the electoral cycle, serve to deny women political power, or exact barely bearable costs if they are elected. In excavating the commonalities and specificities in local politics across diverse contexts, the ambition is to develop theoretical and conceptual tools that can illuminate enduring questions of male political dominance globally. The project is at a critical juncture; with over six years of fieldwork completed, I seek input and constructive feedback as to the appropriateness, robustness and utility of these tools and analytical framework. The paper also aims to show and explore the potential of anthropology for gender and politics scholarship.