Abstract

Women’s gendered responsibilities of caring for children and the home is persistently identified as a barrier to gender-equal representation in political office. Rather than solely seeking to help women overcome what are often insurmountable barriers, we argue that we also need to align our strategies with women’s culturally specific life-courses, and the socio-historical conditions of particular cohorts. Drawing upon the experiences of women political actors in Dehradun, North India, we identify post-active motherhood – the stage of life after children are independent but prior to old-age – as an under-recognised moment of political possibility. While women in middle-age have the motivation, time and experience to contest elections (supply-side dynamics), the political environment remains hostile to their political advancement (demand-side dynamics). Further, the socio-historical conditions of the next cohort of women political actors, now approaching post-active motherhood are indicative of limited opportunities for political apprenticeship compared to their seniors. We argue for a far-sighted approach to research and practice aimed at increasing women’s political leadership that analyses and works with culturally and historically specific life-courses for each incoming generation of women political actors.

摘要

妇女在照顾孩子和家庭方面的性别责任一直被认为是政治职位中性别平等代表的障碍。与其仅仅寻求帮助女性克服通常无法克服的障碍，我们还认为我们还需要使我们的策略与女性特定的文化生活过程以及特定群体的社会历史条件保持一致。借鉴印度北部德拉敦女性政治人物的经验，我们将活跃期后的母亲——孩子独立之后但在老年之前的生活阶段——确定为一个未被充分认识到的政治可能性时刻。虽然中年妇女有动力、时间和经验来参加选举（供应方动态），政治环境仍然不利于他们的政治进步（需求方动态）。此外，下一批女性政治演员的社会历史条件，现在接近活跃后的母亲，表明与前辈相比，政治学徒的机会有限。我们主张采用一种有远见的研究和实践方法，旨在提高女性的政治领导力，分析和处理每一代女性政治行为者的文化和历史特定的生命历程。