{"id":267002,"date":"2019-03-06T11:30:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T16:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/need-stop-blaming-women-representation\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:25:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:25:59","slug":"need-stop-blaming-women-representation","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/03\/need-stop-blaming-women-representation\/","title":{"rendered":"We need to stop blaming women for their under-representation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women comprise 50 per cent of the population<\/a>, but only 26 percent of members of Parliament (MPs) in Canada<\/a>. Is this under-representation the fault of women? Many people think so, and in so doing, fail to capture how our political ethos \u2013 that is, the beliefs and ideals that guide our politics \u2013 impacts women\u2019s under-representation more than anything to do with the individual.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, She Leads<\/a>. The foundation was launched in June 2018 by Rona Ambrose, former Conservative cabinet minister, and Laureen Harper, wife of former prime minister Stephen Harper, to persuade small-c conservative women to run for office. Women are reluctant to come forward as candidates, Ambrose observed, because they lack self-confidence, struggle to fundraise and often feel ill-equipped to deal with news media interviews or the rough-and-tumble of social media. Men, by contrast, according to Ambrose, \u201cjust jump in with both feet.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

At the other end of the political spectrum, Rachel Notley\u2019s NDP government launched Ready for Her<\/a> ahead of Alberta\u2019s 2017 municipal elections to encourage women to run, offering webinars on how to secure a nomination, launch a campaign, and fundraise.<\/p>\n

The common thread between Ready for Her, She Leads and other campaign schools<\/a> for women is the implication that the root cause of women\u2019s political under-representation is women themselves. In framing the issue and proposing solutions, most of these initiatives imply that there is something \u201cwrong\u201d with women because they are not more ambitious or sufficiently interested in a political career. Since men appear to have little problem becoming candidates, the thinking goes, what \u201cdeficiencies\u201d among women must we address to make them act more like men?<\/p>\n

This narrative of women\u2019s deficiencies is found in political science research, my own included<\/a>. Most projects that investigate a gender gap start by observing that men have something that women \u201clack\u201d and try to explain where women are somehow deficient or responsible for their political under-representation. For example, my own work documents how women in Canada are far more likely than men<\/a> to say \u201cpolitics and government are too complicated for a person like me to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another, ongoing project my colleagues and I are finding that only two per cent of women and five per cent of men are interested in a career in electoral politics. This means that Canadian women are almost as politically ambitious as men. Yet our political ethos focuses on that ambition gap instead of asking why so few Canadians want a political career. It also focuses on the idea that the core problem with women\u2019s under-representation rests with women rather than with something more fundamental to the political system.<\/p>\n

Given this, it\u2019s no surprise that headlines declare how women, especially in Canada, are more ignorant of politics and current affairs than are men<\/a>, or that groups across the ideological spectrum act as though the solution is to boost women\u2019s confidence and skills so they are able to compete head-to-head with the men.<\/p>\n

If women are to blame for their under-representation in Canadian politics, we should be able to solve it by personally training every woman how to campaign or by telling each woman to be more confident. But the reality is that we can\u2019t. Take the gender gap in that question \u201cpolitics is too complicated.\u201d The results are remarkably stable over time in Canada<\/a> (and elsewhere) despite massive increases in the numbers of women with a post-secondary degree<\/a>, a high income<\/a> or a powerful job<\/a>. Of course, these resources matter for women in politics. But they don\u2019t explain why women lack confidence in their political abilities or don\u2019t want to run for office.<\/p>\n

It could help to expand our definition of \u201cpolitical knowledge.\u201d Women perform poorly compared with men only when political knowledge tests<\/a> are based on questions about \u201cwho\u2019s who\u201d in politics. However, in tests that measure practical aspects of political<\/a> knowledge \u2013 what forms are required for certain tax credits, who to contact about suspected child abuse, where Canadian peacekeepers are posted \u2013 women know as much if not more than men. Given this, I argue that women can\u2019t be easily dismissed as politically \u201cignorant.\u201d Instead, it might be that women don\u2019t see themselves in some parts of politics and rationally conclude that politics isn\u2019t for them. Therefore, rather than looking at women\u2019s deficiencies, we need to start looking at the system and its ethos instead.<\/p>\n

Ethos \u2013 that set of values and beliefs that guide our politics \u2013 is key to explaining why women remain so under-represented in Canadian politics. My research using Swedish data<\/a> confirms how raising levels of women\u2019s representation can engage them with politics. Swedish political parties in 1974 implemented a voluntary gender quota to ensure they elected more women. Over time, the proportion of women in Sweden\u2019s national legislature, the Riksdag, rose from about 20 per cent in the 1970s to over 45 per cent today<\/a>. What\u2019s most interesting is that as more women were elected, it sparked greater interest among other women in politics. Sweden differed from Canada in that it took action to get women on par with men in their political institutions. Here, where only 26 per cent of MPs are women, the number is still too small to spark the same increased interest in politics among women.<\/p>\n

This shows how ethos matters: If women observe how politics remains closed to them, no amount of resources or individual interventions will make them want to participate more in politics. A more effective route is to transform what our politics look like. The Swedish example shows this can be done by changing the collective belief: Women belong in politics.<\/p>\n

If we are serious about changing our political ethos, it\u2019s reasonable to demand that parties nominate as many women as men: Each federal party simply needs to find 169 women \u2013 half of the 338 seats in the House of Commons \u2013 willing to run. This can\u2019t be too difficult: If only one percent of Canada\u2019s 17 million women have political ambitions, potential female candidates still number in the tens of thousands. This approach must extend further to ensuring they are in real positions of power. No women-led party has been competitive for government in federal elections in decades. No women have been elected twice to serve as provincial premier<\/a>. No woman has ever served as federal finance minister. No wonder women are less enthusiastic about politics than are men; you can\u2019t be what you can\u2019t see<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there are people who don\u2019t want the system to change, and it takes guts to stand firm in the face of opponents. When premiers and prime ministers appoint equal numbers of women and men to cabinet, some people cry foul on the grounds that the women don\u2019t \u201cmerit<\/a>\u201d their positions \u2013 an argument many of us don\u2019t find persuasive<\/a>. Research shows that when quotas are meaningfully implemented, merit \u2013 measured in politicians\u2019 credentials \u2013 goes up. This is because in established democracies, quotas typically bring in very highly qualified women, displacing mediocre men<\/a>. It\u2019s clear that women are qualified for politics.<\/p>\n

While I don\u2019t want to diminish how difficult it can be for parties to recruit diverse candidates, the issue is more about parties deciding whether diversity is a priority. They must explicitly choose whether to put in time or effort to recruit women candidates. My work shows this is a problem across the partisan spectrum<\/a>. One soon-to-be-published study demonstrates that parties that successfully nominate more women do two things: First, they take time<\/em> to recruit diverse candidates rather than rushing through the nomination process. Second, they bring women into leadership in their local electoral district associations. When women are presidents of these associations, they are more likely to nominate women candidates<\/a>. Parties that fail to do this restrict voters\u2019 choices to candidates who tend to be older, white men.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t have to be this way.<\/p>\n

In 2018, all parties in Quebec committed to nominate enough women to reach the parity zone<\/a> of between 40 to 60 per cent women candidates. All parties achieved this, and the Quebec National Assembly is now 41 per cent \u00a0women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While some party leaders are on record as saying that consciously making space for women candidates in their parties is a \u201ccondescending approach<\/a>,\u201d this is exactly the work needed. Recent elections across the country, as well as my own work<\/a> on the Conservative Party of Canada, shows that when party leaders decide they want their party to nominate more women, it happens. More condescending than inclusion is suggesting the backgrounds and experiences women and diverse candidates bring as elected representatives<\/a> aren\u2019t worthy of aggressively recruitment.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where the news media can play an important role in informing voters of how committed party leaders are to diversity, by reporting on the number of women each party nominates, as well as how quickly the nomination process moves. Certainly, some voters don\u2019t care about diversity and it won\u2019t affect their choice. But given that groups such as women remain so consistently under-represented in politics, voters who do care about women\u2019s representation must be able to hold parties and their leaders to account.<\/p>\n

This article is part of the\u00a0Changing the way we talk about women in politics<\/a>\u00a0special feature.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0<\/span>Shutterstock by\u00a0WorldStock<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Do you have something to say about the article you just read? Be part of the\u00a0<\/em>Policy Options\u00a0discussion, and send in your own submission.\u00a0Here is a\u00a0<\/em>link<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on how to do it.\u00a0<\/em>|\u00a0Souhaitez-vous r\u00e9agir \u00e0 cet article ?\u00a0<\/em>Joignez-vous aux d\u00e9bats d\u2019<\/em>Options politiques\u00a0et soumettez-nous votre texte en suivant ces\u00a0<\/em>directives<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women comprise 50 per cent of the population, but only 26 percent of members of Parliament (MPs) in Canada. Is this under-representation the fault of women? Many people think so, and in so doing, fail to capture how our political ethos \u2013 that is, the beliefs and ideals that guide our politics \u2013 impacts women\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":275320,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-10-08T02:26:02Z","apple_news_api_id":"18e14c37-ba1c-4d53-9bc6-14ef18727ff8","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-10-08T02:26:02Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AGOFMN7ocTVObxhTvGHJ_-A","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[9358,9372],"tags":[8663,8623,8493],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[4250,4348,4295],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[],"class_list":["post-267002","issues","type-issues","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politique","category-recent-stories-fr","tag-municipal-elections-fr","tag-political-branding-fr","tag-gender-inequality-fr","irpp-category-democratie","irpp-category-egalite-des-genres","irpp-category-politique"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nWe need to stop blaming women for their under-representation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/03\/need-stop-blaming-women-representation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We need to stop blaming women for their under-representation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Women comprise 50 per cent of the population, but only 26 percent of members of Parliament (MPs) in Canada. 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