Thursday 28 June 2012

Déjà vu? Gendered membership of French parliamentary committees is a familiar story


The new French parliament has a record number of women deputies, with more than 26% women (compared to 18.5% prior to the election on 17 June 2012).  Has this new feminisation precipitated an end to the traditionally gendered composition of parliamentary committees?  Alas, the answer appears to be no.
The French parliament has eight permanent committees of approximately equal size, with deputies each assigned to one committee.  Some committees are decidedly more prestigious and coveted than others.  For example, finance committee is considered the apogee of power; defence committee has the lowest workload, and is therefore favoured by deputies seeking higher profile in other roles; and foreign affairs committee also carries prestige.  The constitutional affairs committee is second to finance in its power and influence.  Meanwhile, social affairs has a wide remit, making it appealing to people with a range of interests, but it is also renowned for a heavy workload.  Cultural and educational affairs tends to be the most lowly of the eight committees.
It is disappointing, if not surprising, to learn that the more prestigious and powerful committees are also the more male-dominated, with women traditionally concentrated into the committees on social and cultural affairs.  I am currently working on an article that seeks to explain this phenomenon for the previous parliament.  My findings reveal that the myth that the finance committee is reserved for long-serving deputies is false.  This was true to some extent for the foreign affairs committee, but not for any of the others.  Therefore this traditional excuse for the male-domination of this committee does not hold.  First-time deputies are more likely to be found in the cultural affairs and sustainable development committees, whereas social affairs is not a “dumping ground” for new deputies; membership appears to reflect a genuine interest in the committee’s work (a finding confirmed by interviews with deputies).  While experience was more important than sex in explaining the over-representation of men on the foreign affairs committee, it could not explain away the sex gap on the other committees, and neither could other control variables such as prior professional experience or constituency effects.  It appears that at least some of the blame lies with gender stereotyping when allocating committee portfolios.
Fast forward to 2012, and the results look depressingly familiar, as illustrated in the table below.  This table only includes the previous and current parliaments, but my data for the two preceding parliaments (1997-2002, 2002-7) tells much the same story:

Committee
2011*
2012
Men
Women
% women
Men
Women
% women
Defence
63
8
11.3%
58
11
15.9%
Finance
63
9
12.5%
61
12
16.4%
Constitutional affairs
62
8
11.4%
56
17
23.3%
Foreign affairs
64
10
13.5%
57
15
20.8%
Sustainable development
59
10
14.5%
58
14
19.4%
Economic affairs
58
14
19.4%
58
14
19.4%
Social affairs
49
22
31.0%
42
31
42.5%
Cultural affairs
48
28
36.8%
38
33
46.5%
* Until 2009, there were six committees, so the data for 2011 is a better comparator than the data for 2007.  However, there was a significant feminisation of the finance and foreign affairs committees between 2007 and 2011, as women transferred out of their originally assigned committees and into more prestigious ones, so the figures for 2007 were even more gendered.

As we can see, defence and finance remain stubbornly male-dominated.  Although the proportion of women has increased in both these committees, it has done so at a slower rate than the proportional increase in women within parliament as a whole.  Constitutional affairs and foreign affairs have seen bigger increases, but they continue to have below average levels of women.  Sustainable development has been slow to feminise and the proportion of women in economic affairs has stagnated, despite the 50% rise in women within parliament.  Meanwhile, the proportion of women in social and cultural affairs remains excessive, with the latter approaching parity, despite women being fewer than 27% of deputies overall.  Overall, it appears that while there may be more women in parliament, when it comes to committee assignments, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same).
There is one cause for celebration, however.  The powerful role of committee president has been shared relatively equitably, with women being elected to the chair of three committees.  Elisabeth Guigou, former Justice minister and defeated candidate to be the president (Speaker) of parliament, receives the consolation prize of presiding over the foreign affairs committee.  Patricia Adam, former vice-president of the defence committee, now becomes its president.  Similarly, Catherine Lemorton, former vice-president of the social affairs committee, now moves into the top job.  The full executives of each committee (including vice-presidents and secretaries) are detailed in the table below.  While women still remain under-represented within these positions of power, the gender gap is not as stark as in previous years.  There are no longer any committees with an all-male executive, and for the first time, one committee (cultural and educational affairs) has a majority of women at the helm.  While women are more likely to wield influence in the “soft” committees, we can at least take some solace in the fact that they are rising to positions of prominence.

Committee
2011*
2012
President
VPs
Secretaries
Total
President
VPs
Secretaries
Total
Defence
M
1/4
0/4
1/9
F
0/4
1/4
2/9
Finance
M
0/4
0/4
0/10
M
2/4
0/4
2/10
Constitutional affairs
M
0/4
0/3
0/8
M
1/4
1/4
2/9
Foreign affairs
M
1/4
0/3
1/8
F
1/4
1/4
3/9
Sustainable development
M
1/3
1/2
2/6
M
1/4
0/4
1/9
Economic affairs
M
1/4
1/3
2/8
M
1/4
2/4
3/9
Social affairs
M
1/4
1/4
2/9
F
1/4
2/4
4/9

4 comments:

  1. Oh. What a shame you have stopped blogging. I'm a Brit living in France, I often write about French politics, and yours is exactly the kind of blog I like to read.. :(

    I do hope you'll post again...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your message. I'm really pleased that you like the blog, and I will try to start blogging again soon. I have had a distracting few months, but it is motivating to know that people do read what I write, so there's an incentive to resume!

      Delete
    2. I most certainly hope so Rainbow because a Blogger search for 'French politics' came up with a lot of results but there are very few people who consecrate the majority of their posts on that subject. Some don't ever post on it of course, it's just that they're interested in French politics. Fair enough I suppose. And, it's obvious that you are well-read on the subject.

      So I've just put myself on your Followers list and you are now on my Blogs I Like list, all in the hope that you may be tempted to post one of these days. Even a little postlet would do! :)

      Have a good evening...

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  2. Oops, forgot to say incidentally, concerning the issues you raise in your piece, it may also be worth remembering that French governments have a nasty habit of naming as many female ministers as they deem that they can 'safely' do so in order to give the impression that they have fulfilled their 'male/female equality' election promises, only for them to fire, drop, pressure and reshuffle them out as soon as 'decently' possible.

    Just as Sarkozy got rid of his 'parachuted' female ministers over time, Hollande shall eliminate some of his.

    My bottle of good Bordeaux says that there shall be rather less female ministers at the end of this administation than there are now, although I would be only too pleased to be proved wrong...

    ReplyDelete