To power citizens! Lessons to be learnt from the French parity scheme

In the 1990s in France several parity laws were passed which set up practices to increase the numbers of female political representatives. Parity sets up quotas of 50% male and 50% female candidates on electoral lists. In 1999 Article 3 of the constitution was changed to state that the law favours equal representation between women and men in the sphere of political representation. This was elaborated in 2000 by change to Article 4 which outlined the methods to achieving this: positive discrimination in the form of quotas of women on electoral lists of municipal, regional, senate and legislative elections. Why is it then that in Australia almost two decades later we still have not reached a stage where we can have intelligent, meaningful discussion about the few female representatives that we have?

I want to make it very clear that Australia has a problem regardless of the fact that our head of state is a female.  Just because our Prime Minister Julia Gillard is a woman does not mean that women have achieved equality with men in the realm of political representation. Pakistan and India have both had female leaders and no one is suggesting that the position of women in India and Pakistan is equal to that of men so it is simplistic and incorrect to do so in the Australian context.

In the debates surrounding the adoption of parity in France, the pro-parity movement demonstrated how parity exhibited the perfection of democracy. I want to pre-emptively address the view that affirmative action opens a Pandora’s Box to all sorts of movements for particular claims to schemes allowing their representation. This is false, because women who make up just over half of the population are not a minority requiring a quota of representatives. The relative position of women as compared to that of ethnic minorities is unique in this way. That humanity is firstly divided by sex was strongly argued by the parity movement in France. Gisèle Halimi, a French pro-parity militant and leader has stated on this issue that "women are neither a race, nor a class, nor an ethnicity, nor a category. They are found in different groups which they represent and traverse. The difference of sex thus constitutes the initial category.” Éliane Vogel-Polsky, a French jurist supports this view, stating that since humanity is dual it “cannot be legitimately represented other than under a double form: masculine and feminine”. These arguments legitimising parity schemes have been raised in were at the heart of the adoption of parity in France.

The International Context

France is not alone in having legal mechanisms in place to combat inequality between the sexes in politics, and by all accounts France came to the parity party later than other European countries. The first measure of positive discrimination in the sphere of employment in the European community came 37 years ago in 1976 with a directive sanctioning intentional discrimination in the case where it sought to promote the equality of chances between men and women in employment. The translation of this into French law came in 1983 with the Roudy Law which sought to financially encourage businesses to put in place, professional equality plans to allow women to progress of their professional careers.

In 1996 the Council of Ministers of the Union took the official position in favour of a policy to promote women, recommending that member states adopt a strategy “aimed at promoting the balanced participation of men and women in the processes of decision and of developing or implementing appropriate legislative or regulated measures to achieve this balance”.

Parity schemes are not always demanded by transnational authorities, and in the case of Scandinavian countries the promotion of women in both business and politics has been domestically developed. The Finnish example of the Equality Act 1995 imposed a quota of 40% women on municipal commissions and in Sweden, since the 1980s the majority of political parties have voluntarily put in place quotas of women on electoral lists. The result has been a huge increase of elected female representatives in Sweden, reaching 45% of their legislative council in 2002.

Australia: The Lucky Country?

In the wake of these international examples, is it that Australia is one of the last bastions of institutionalised inequality which does not acknowledge its obvious flaws? I recently took a class on the history of feminism movements whilst I was studying in France and not one of the men in the class argued against positive discrimination upon the basis of any male go-to argument such as meritocracy that is evoked when the issue of positive discrimination arises in a class at Sydney University. In a first year Law subject I argued that we should have positive discrimination in the appointment of judges to ensure that more women become judges in our legal system, and the outcome was 5 of my male classmates verbally criticizing my perceived attack on meritocracy.

Here there are 2 problems, the first being, what is merit? This ambiguous term is flexible and often becomes redefined to include certain male values. On a practical level, Margaret Thornton in her book Dissonance and Distrust, Women in the Legal Profession states that, ‘merit has a mystique, malleability and subjectivity that can be used to justify, criticise or constrain any policy’. As a result, because merit is not a neutral term that can be easily understood and applied merit becomes redefined in male terms by those who wish to critique positive discrimination.

More importantly, we do not live in a meritocracy and continuing to fall back on that argument is detrimental to discussion. Various socio-economic factors operate to exclude meritorious people from achieving their full potential. Why else is Sydney University full of middle class students? It is not because we are smarter than students from less privileged backgrounds, but that we went to high schools that helped us succeed in our final examinations and to gain entry into university. The opportunities available to us determined whether we achieved at high school and got into university rather than being solely based on a perceived ‘level of intelligence’.

In a similar way, factors also operate to prevent women from reaching the same positions of power as men which are not limited to the fact that women who choose to have children are required to take time off work. And in my experience, students at Sydney University feel uncomfortable recognising institutional inequality as a real problem. Male outrage at any female claims for equality may stem from the fact that men do not wish to lose their position of domination that they have occupied for too long and have come to enjoy. The opinion that positions are earned, and if a woman can’t get there on her own, it is because she didn’t earn the position are not limited to male students. Tony Abbott, the leader of the opposition and possibly our next Prime Minister stated when he was “and what if men are, by physiology more adapted to exercising power?”  

I acknowledge that the use of quotas on electoral lists does not translate to parity in our elected representatives, because after all it is the public who votes and parity schemes do not ensure equality in the outcome of elections. However, the statistics from French elections show that after the adoption of the parity laws, there has been a progression towards parity. This may suggest that because there are more opportunities for women to be elected, a shift in attitudes towards elected female representatives has taken place in France and also in other countries such as Sweden.

Even though France has not achieved parity in practice and there are undoubtedly problems that need to be addressed, there are many things that Australia can learn from the French example.  Firstly, in light of the inequality between men and women in political positions, something needs to be done. We are in a crisis situation in the way we describe and critique the few female representatives that we have. Furthermore, arguing that reforms such as parity laws do not achieve wholly their aims and so should be abandoned is like saying that since we can’t catch all criminals, we should let everyone go free.  Finally, fears that parity will undermine the values of our system are premised on incorrect assumptions about our society. Parity schemes have led to improvements in other jurisdictions so it is worth asking whether Australia could also benefit.

Phoebe  Miley-Dyer