substantiating women's political participation
- Categories
- Article/Artikel
- Magazine Title
- Journal of International Women's Studies
- Magazine Year
- 2005
- Magazine Number
- 2
- Creator
- Vissandjee, Bilkis
- Creator
- Apale, Alisha
- Creator
- Wieringa, Saskia
- Creator
- [et al.]
- Thesaurus
- politieke participatie, empowerment, emancipatie, loopbanen, professionalisering, macht, overheid, India, onderzoek
- Description
- Gender functions as a construct of evolving aspects of women's identities and is a medium through which expectations are prescribed, social norms are formed and power relations are negiotiated. Gender constructs that hinder women's access to the public spheres of society lessen the possibility for equitable and empowering life conditions. Facilitating women's entry into political bodies across the world is also compromised by persistent obstacles in women's opportunities in both political and private spheres of life. This paper engages female and male panchayat members in rural Gujarat, India. The main goal is to understand how being a woman affects access to political office, experiences therein, negotiation procedures and decision taken. Facilitating female representation in local governmental structures (a panchayat) through a quota represents one of many routes toward empowerment and one potential means of improving health and household welfare. When empowerment is examined within India's panchayat quota, dimensions such as gender and corresponding perceptions, norms and conditions evidence the middle of gender as a persistent fault-line in number-based initiatives. The panchayat mirrors gendered social realities, demonstrating how complex the processes of substantial democratic political participation and women's empowerment are, in India and elsewhere.