Constraints on Women’s Political Agency

Abstract

In local politics, women’s behavior is constantly policed due to their day-to-day proximity to the electorate. Women negotiate with the constraints imposed on their female identity by the conservative social order but these negotiations don’t start with their entry into politics. On the contrary, the political field displays important continuities with gendered patterns of socialization which female politicians experienced during childhood. The concrete impact of conservative norms depends on the use political parties make of these norms: some parties enhance them, others defy them. While political party affiliation is key to understanding the constraints on women’s political agency, each local configuration offers different opportunities for female organizing and political action which also need to be taken into account.