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Quotas: Changing the Way Things Lookwithout Changing the Way Things Are

L O U I S E V I N C E N T

This paper argues that while quotas can quite easily be used rapidly to address theproblem of insufficient numbers of women in representative political institutions, effec-tive representation requires us to pay attention to far more than merely the numbers of

women present. This article suggests that, in particular, we need to look at which kindsof women are made present by quotas, how these women gain office and what they doonce they are there. Using the South African example as a case in point, the papersuggests that where women become representatives through mechanisms controlledby party political hierarchies rather than by way of more broad-based political pro-cesses reflecting real social change, quotas can act to legitimate and perpetuatewomens actual absence of power rather than being an effective remedy.

Women continue to be under-represented in the political elites of representa-tive democracies around the world. In response, a strategy which is much in

vogue is that of the use of quotas to redress imbalances. This paper argues

that despite their much-heralded successes, and here the South African

example is a case in point, quotas are a blunt instrument. Quotas are essentially

about numbers. They are concerned with how many people belonging to a

certain category are present but they mean little in the absence of being

able to answer three further questions which are here referred to as: what

questions (what do these people do once they are present?), which questions

(which women exactly are present?) and how questions (how do they cometo be present in the first instance?). Using the South African example, the

paper tries to show why these further questions are important, what they

reveal and why the achievements and successes of quotas can sometimes

obscure the answers to these further questions.

Despite the many difficulties faced by women in South Africa, quotas

appear to be very much the key campaign of the moment, as in many other

parts of the world. South Africas Gender Advocacy Project and its

Commission on Gender Equality have both identified as their central focus

Louise Vincent is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at Rhodes University,South Africa.

The Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol.10, No.1, Spring 2004, pp.7196ISSN 1357-2334 print=1743-9337 onlineDOI: 10.1080=1357233042000318882# 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd.


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what is known as the FiftyFifty campaign, which aims to increase womens

representation in parliament to 50 per cent. The ruling ANC, for its part,

through Essop Pahad, the minister responsible for gender issues in the

Presidents Office, has expressed an interest in opening a debate on introdu-

cing a legislated quota for women in parliament (the ANCs current 30 per

cent quota is a voluntary step taken by the party and is not a policy of any of

the other parliamentary parties). Responding to opposition from other parties

in the legislature to the zebra principle, Pahad has commented: I am quite

convinced that it is in the national interest to move in this direction.1 In contrast

to the view expressed by Pahad, the present article argues that while the sym-

bolic arguments for quotas which have to do with providing role models and

ensuring greater legitimacy in a polity can be sustained, more substantive

policy outcomes are contingent on the presence of other enabling factors.

QUOTAS

Quotas for women entail that women must constitute a certain number or

percentage of the members of a body, whether it is a candidate list, a par-

liamentary assembly, a committee, or a government. The quota system

places the burden of recruitment not on the individual woman, but on

those who control the recruitment process. The core idea behind this

system is to recruit women in to political positions and to ensure that

women are not isolated in political life. . .

[Q]uota systems aim at ensuring

that women constitute at least a critical minority of 30 or 40 per cent.2

There are many different arguments for quotas and numerous ways of categor-

ising these arguments.3 For our purposes, a reasonable overview would be to

say that these arguments are of three possible types: normative, consequen-

tialist and symbolic. The aim of the present study is to do two things

simultaneously: the first is to suggest that there are theoretical difficulties

with sustaining logically any of the arguments for quotas, particularly if one

accepts the critique of essentialism. The paper argues that the one argumentthat has some veracity, namely the symbolic argument, is not frequently

invoked as the most important reason for adopting the quota by the advocates

of the latter and has political implications which are much less far-reaching

than would be the case if either of the other two arguments could be sustained.

The second aim of this article is to say that even if the essentialist critique is

overlooked, empirical observation does not yield the evidence that is needed if

the consequentialist claims are to be upheld.

The Normative Argument/The Argument from Justice

The first argument offered by some proponents of a quota for women is norma-

tive: fairness and equality require that women be present in decision-making

72 T H E J O U RN A L O F L E G I S L A T I V E S T U D I E S


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structures; gender parity is simply a matter of justice.4 The fact that the make-up

of political elites is distorted in gendered ways points us to the likely existence

of some form of injustice or discrimination in society. This is something upon

which we might all quite easily agree. However, if this is the ailment, the

remedy of changing the composition of representative bodies through direct

political intervention, while politically seductive, appears ill-placed. Such inter-

vention would seem to be an effective way of simply masking more effectively

the injustice which is rendered more transparent by distorted patterns of rep-

resentation. It is, in other words, window-dressing. If there is an argument to

be made for it then the argument must rest on the assumption that presence

leads to other changes and whether or not it does is then open to empirical inves-

tigation. Precisely those features of society which lead to the distortion in the

first place make it impossible for the presence of women, in the absence ofother far-reaching measures, to make much difference at all.

The Consequentialist Arguments

The second set of arguments offered by the advocates of quota systems are

based on the consequences that will follow from having a larger number of

women present, say in a national parliament. This second argument takes

various forms, for example, quotas will mean that more women are inpower and this will result in different policy outcomes to reflect womens con-

cerns better. Or in another form it is said that women have different interests to

men and these can only be represented in the political process if women are

present. Or women are said to be more likely to vote for other women and

so a quota will have the consequence of greater popularity for a party

among female voters.

The immediate problem with any of these arguments is their underlying

essentialism. To say that a particular woman or even several women are

present is not to say that rural women or lesbian women or illiterate womenare present and there is nothing about women that simply by being women

makes them aware of what it means to be these other kinds of women. It is

genuinely impossible to find any substantive common ground in the way in

which middle-class white South African women and rural African women

experience childbirth, for example. The difficulty, moreover, is not just with

the fact that there are all kinds of women but with the fact that the kinds of

women who tend to be present in political elites are frequently drawn from

a very narrow layer of women. In Africa, the vast majority of women are

not educated beyond primary level, if indeed they are educated at all. Yet

female representatives tend to be educated to tertiary level. Moreover, most

are from quite a small number of elite political families.

Q U O T A S 73


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A different kind of consequentialist argument is that women have a differ-

ent approach to politics so that their presence will lead to positive changes in

the political culture.

It is often suggested, for example, that women will be less competitive,more co-operative, more prepared to listen to others; that women bring

with them a different, and more generous, scale of values; that women

raise the moral tenor of politics. These arguments are always associated

with womens role as caring for others, and often more specifically with

their role as mothers.5

In order to escape the obvious essentialism in this sort of account, advocates

frequently invoke a social pattern in which women happen, frequently, to find

themselves in roles of care and this in turn creates in the majority of women aparticular set of dispositions.6 The difficulty with this is that many women

who enter politics are able to do so precisely because either they are not

overburdened with care or their attitude to and experience of the kinds of

caring roles which are supposed uniquely to equip them to make a difference

are not ideal-typical. In South Africa, female professionals typically have

other women performing their care responsibilities rather there being any

widespread challenge of the fact that these are seen as their responsibilities

in the first place. So whereas the ethic of care supposedly emerges from the

experience of being fully responsible over long periods of time for youngchildren, and from the intimacy and empathy that derives from such relation-

ships, and which purportedly produces in those who perform these roles a

particular approach to politics, female politicians are often precisely those

people who through circumstances or attitude have not had these experiences,

or at least have not had them in quite the way that is suggested by many of the

essentialist and idealised portrayals of how women mother and subsequently

participate in politics.

The Symbolic ArgumentsThe third argument is symbolic: quotas are a public demonstration of a

societys commitment to equality, they place women in positions of power

and this makes other women feel that they have role models, that they are

not excluded, that the political process is legitimate. In this view, quotas are

not so much about representing interests as about giving people (in this

case, women) the feeling that they are present on the political scene

through the representatives personal characteristics.7 This too is open to

empirical investigation (do people in fact have this feeling as a result of the

presence of women?) but of a different kind.

Jane Mansbridge makes a stronger argument for the purely symbolic

aspect of descriptive representation, namely its capacity to increase legitimacy



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in contexts of past discrimination: in contexts of low de facto legitimacy,

constitutional designers and individual voters have a reason to institute

policies that promote descriptive representation, even when such implemen-

tation involves some losses in the implementation of other valued ideals.8

This is a powerful argument not least because it is contextual the point

made is that in certain contexts, namely where there has been a history

of discrimination and exclusion, it is important to shift perceptions both on

the part of members of an excluded group and on the part of the advantaged

groups and having members of the disadvantaged present in representative

structures can help to do this. But applied in the South African context the

argument raises difficult questions. Clearly there is a history of discrimination

against, and exclusion of, women. For the first 40 years of white womens

enfranchisement in South Africa, only a total of 15 women were elected toparliament. However, despite this glaring reality, racial discrimination was

always what defined South Africa under apartheid and continues to do so.

For this reason, the ANC as the party of liberation commands enormous

(almost exclusive) legitimacy among the black majority and in the minds of

most of the black electorate what is important is being represented by a

member of the party, and in particular by a black person. Few black

women, particularly poorer women, cite gender as being important in their

voting decision-making. Indeed, the party list electoral system leaves most

voters entirely in the dark about the race, class or gender identity of thosefor whom they vote since voters make their mark next to the name and

symbol of a party rather than a list of candidates. Campaigning in this

system is along the lines of party alone, giving scant opportunity for a politics

of identity to play a significant role in electioneering.

In South Africa, a peculiar set of circumstances has led to the national par-

liament having a greater number of women present than most in the world.

However, this achievement is not mirrored in the social, private or economic

spheres, in local or provincial government, or in political party hierarchies.

Whether or not the presence of women, achieved through the mechanism ofquotas, can make a real difference in society and politics is contingent on a

number of further factors which are here delineated as how, which and

what questions in other words, we need to look at how women come to

be present in greater numbers, which women are present and what they do

once they are present.

THE HOW QUESTIONS

In South Africa, the idea of using a quota system to improve the representation

of women in political structures began to be mooted during the 1980s in ANC

Q U O T A S 75


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structures (while the movement was in exile) as well as in United Democratic

Front (UDF the ANCs then internal legal equivalent) circles as a result of

unhappiness on the part of women in the liberation movement about their

limited presence in leadership positions. Consequently, an agreement in prin-

ciple was reached in the movement over a 30 per cent quota for women in

ANC structures. When the country began to move towards negotiations for

democratisation from the early 1990s, the issue was again raised by the

ANCs Womens League which demanded 30 per cent womens represen-

tation in elected positions within the ANC. However, when the Leagues res-

olution was brought to the ANCs conference in 1991 it was withdrawn before

being put to the vote. Debate on the matter was heated and the leadership

feared that it would not succeed if taken to the vote. The quota was later

pushed through by the ANCs National Executive Committee just prior tothe first democratic elections in 1994.

One might think at first glance that this story of the way in which the ruling

partys electoral quota for women was won is a good example of the benefits

of a powerful centralised party, combined with the added power accorded that

party to determine candidates in a proportional representation, party list, elec-

toral system. However, it reflects also the core weakness of quotas, namely

that they can be introduced in a way that is, firstly, totally controlled by the

party leadership and, secondly, does not reflect anything about changed

attitudes either within the party or in society more broadly.How the quota comes into being and how it is implemented are crucial

questions which will play a large role in determining the exact dimensions

and shape of the political space that is opened up for women as the result of

quota measures. This point has been alluded to in some of the quota literature

but its implications have not been thoroughly addressed. Drude Dahlerup cites

the Spanish MP Anna Balletbo as follows:

Quotas are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they oblige men

to think about including women in decision-making, since men mustcreate spaces for women. On the other hand, since it is men who are

opening up these spaces, they will seek out women who they will be

able to manage women who will more easily accept the hegemony

of men.9

The point is made again a little differently in an editors note later in the

chapter:

It is worthwhile noting that some governments, in some Arab countries

for example, actually use the quota system for their own purposes. By

getting more of their especially chosen women on board (the queens

of the political arena, as the Speaker of the Swedish Parliament referred



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to them during an International IDEA conference), governments can

achieve two objectives: get the token controllable women, while

claiming they are in favour of promoting womens participation.10

As Christine Pintat, Inter-Parliamentary Union, Switzerland, puts it, In some

ways, quotas are a remedy to a disease, but in some cases they can lead to

another disease. As we have seen in Central and Eastern European countries,

quotas have led to a ceiling. They have led countries to not develop a political

culture whereby women are integrated into the political system.11

Yet aside from citing these views Dahlerup does not herself explore or

examine at all, at least in the article cited, what the overall implications of

these empirical observations might be for the strategy of quotas. Dahlerup

lists the pros and cons of quotas,

12

but under cons includes only the sort ofargument that would be made in principle against any measure to increase

the number of women (quotas are undemocratic; quotas are against the prin-

ciple of equal opportunity) rather than exploring the potentially damaging

effect of quotas from the perspective of those who would wish to advance

womens rights and representation. Instead, the focus for Dahlerup as for

most other proponents of quotas, is on problems of implementation, namely

recruitment and finding vacant, winnable seats for women who are recruited.

Dahlerup does make the point that a quota system cannot remove the

obstacles of combining job, family and political activity a significantissue for women and a bigger problem for women than for men13 but

without real comment or consideration of the far-reaching implications this

observation has for the efficacy of the strategy of quotas itself. That is to

say, people who do what most women do, namely take primary responsibility

for families, are unlikely to benefit from quotas. So what we then have is that

qualities, traits, roles and experiences associated with the feminine, mother-

ing, and so on, continue to be estranged from public life and the women who

are present are atypical, but more importantly the feminine is not present.

This point is made unintentionally, perhaps, in the quote by Indian MPSushma Swaraj: Some men did not want women to come forward, so they

put forward their wives, sisters-in-law and mothers. But talented, educated

women also came forward.14 The implication here is that wives, mothers

and sisters-in-law are not talented and should not be put forward for office.

This brings us right back to the question of why, normatively, do we want

women to be present in the first place? Because we want people there who

are somehow like us? But are wives, mothers, daughters-in-law not like us?

South Africa is an example of a country where the presence of women has

increased dramatically as a result of a quota system adopted by the ruling

party. South Africa has what many commentators have pointed to as the

ideal electoral system and institutional requirements for quotas to be

Q U O T A S 77


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effective: A closed-list system, a placement requirement, large district mag-

nitude and good-faith compliance by political parties are the factors that make

quotas work.15 The quota, along with three other features of the South African

political system, namely the fact that it operates a pure proportional electoral

system (the nationwide party list), its closed list system in which parties

present a rank-ordered list of candidates that cannot be altered by voters,

along with the ruling ANCs overwhelming (two-thirds) electoral dominance,

has resulted in a large number of women, mainly from the ruling party, being

present in parliament. The closed list system means that it is entirely up to the

party to determine whether women are placed high or low on their electoral lists

(sometimes referred to in the literature as the partys placement mandate16)

and thus, based on its estimates of how much electoral support it will garner,

the party is able effectively to determine, how many women are elected. If itestimates that it will receive 60 per cent of the vote then it knows that only

the women candidates placed in the top 60 per cent of its list will be elected.

If it wishes to have 30 women elected then it will place the names of 30

female candidates in the top 60 per cent of names on its list. The number of

women in South Africas national legislature compares very favourably with other

national legislatures around the world. In June 1999, 120 out of South Africas

400 MPs were women (30 per cent compared to a world average of 13 per

cent of women in lower houses or parliament).17 South Africa is placed eighth

in the world in terms of percentage of women MPs in national legislatures.18

In all provincial legislatures and in the national parliament, the majority of

women present are from the ruling ANC19 thanks to the partys policy of a

one-third quota of women on its electoral lists. However, the level of partici-

pation on the part of the ANCs quota of women has not been in proportion to

their numbers. According to the 1996 report to the Speaker, [o]f the few who

do ask questions, the women MPs in the opposition and minority parties have

recorded more questions as individuals than the women MPs in the majority

party.20 The same report found that womens participation in vote debates

had declined compared with 1994. It is the latter who select which womenare promoted within party structures, who determine the partys representa-

tives on committees and who allocate speaking time in the house. The list

system ensures womens quiescence because allegiance is owed to the politi-

cal party which placed the woman high on its list rather than to the voter. The

absence of close links between an MP and a specific constituency to which

the MP is responsible means that women cannot claim to have a power base

independent of the male-dominated party hierarchy. In this system, women

gain power only through access to men: Connections are the name of the

game. And men are the game, they control the game.21 This goes some

way to explaining why South Africas female parliamentarians have not, on

the whole, succeeded in conceiving of themselves or acting as a gender interest



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group. Women across party-political lines privately report that womens issues

are more often than not treated within party caucuses with a degree of patronising

indulgence.22 Women MPs addressing parliament in South Africa have reported

receiving notes from male colleagues commenting on their appearance. This is

just the tip of an iceberg of an overarching set of structural conditions and

dominant attitudes that make agenda-setting by women highly unlikely.

The ANCs centrally dominated character has been implicated in the

spectre of parliamentary brain-drain for the ruling party and centralisation is

reinforced by the party list electoral system. In 2002, Pregs Govender, one

of only a handful of women who had proved an outspoken and independent

spokesperson for women and who had chaired the portfolio committee on

the status of women and children, left parliament for academe. Her departure

followed that of Andrew Feinstein, who had quit his post as the ANCs leadMP on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa). Feinstein left

when he clashed with party bosses over the governments controversial

arms deal. Govender came under pressure for her open support of free

anti-retroviral drugs at the height of the partys Aids denialist phase.23 The

governments policy on HIV is a good example of how the manner in which

women enter parliament is important to what they are able to do once there.

Although there is some evidence to suggest that several female ANC MPs are

less than happy with the Presidents stance on HIV/Aids, particularly its

foot-dragging behaviour on the provision of drugs to prevent mother-to-childtransmission of HIV, the party list system means that they are beholden to the

party rather than to constituencies (where people are ill and dying in large

numbers) and parliament has, as a result, addressed the issue only half-heartedly.

As one of the few ANC MPs who did try to take up HIV/Aids in a concerted

manner, Pregs Govender battled to garner support from fellow ANC MPs for

her committees recommendations on how to mitigate the effects of HIV/Aids

on women and children. Govender resigned from parliament in 2002.24 This

is in contrast to Ugandas constituency-based system, for example where

MPs are leaders in the fight against Aids. As Dr Alex Coutinho, who heads theAids Support Organisation in that country, commented, they know they will

not be re-elected if they dont do anything.25

Intimately related, then, with the question of how the quota comes about in

the first place and how women enter parliament, on the basis of which type of

electoral system and democratic process, is the what question the question

of what they are able or willing to do once they arrive there.

THE WHICH QUESTION

What is more, those women who gain a public voice are typically

privileged, and this generates debate about the different forms of

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inequality when women politicians, for the most part, are white and

middle class.26

While the ANCs electoral quota ensures that many women enter parliament,

the list system has proved to be something of a double-edged sword when it

comes to which women enter parliament and their degree of independence,

power and influence once they are there. The party list electoral system

places control over which women enter parliament in the hands of the party

hierarchy. It ensures that all politicians must remain popular with (mostly

male) party bosses to survive.27 To talk, as Phillips does, of the difference

in interests between women and men, retains the now contested notion of

two genders. Yet many recent commentators28 have argued that it would be

more accurate to talk of many genders and many ways of being gendered. Itis experience, surely, that gives rise to interests and our experiences really

do differ in relation to every example conceivable. We can therefore, at one

level, point out that nine of South Africas 27 cabinet members (excluding

the President and the Deputy President) are women, while seven out of 14

deputy ministers are women. But what are we to infer from the fact that

they are women? Is it not important also to ask who these women are?

The first observation that can be made is that most are in the older age

bracket with only one of the 16 being younger than 40 while five are

between 40 and 50, five are between 50 and 60 and four are older than 60.Of the 16, only three are non-graduates and of these three, one (Geraldine

Fraser-Moleketi, minister of Public Service and Administration) attended

Harvard on a fellowship and one (Thoko Didiza, minister of Agriculture

and Land Affairs) obtained several diplomas in the fields of journalism,

business and administration. Thoko Didiza is exceptional in another respect

in that she is the only one of the nine female cabinet ministers not to have

spent a large part of her early career and/or academic training outside the

country in exile either in a neighbouring country or further afield, returning

to South Africa only at the time of democratic change. Although it must bepointed out that the minister of Public Works, Stella Sigcau, was a career poli-

tician in the Transkei whose independence from South Africa was nominal. In

stark contrast, all the female deputy ministers cut their teeth in the fraught

environment of opposition politics inside the country under apartheid. All

are black and the vast majority either are married or have been married and

are now widowed or divorced. The vast majority are middle-class, having

enjoyed careers in teaching, the medical profession, academia, the law,

business, NGO management and so on.

At the level of cabinet, then, the women who are present are, as might be

expected, drawn from a very narrow strata of society, which calls into question

the degree to which they can be seen as any more representative of, or attuned



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to, the needs, concerns and interests of the majority of ordinary women. On the

other hand, rank-and-file female MPs who are drawn from a wider cross-

section of society face great difficulties, precisely because of their back-

grounds, in making their presence count. Many of these women report

feeling fearful, overwhelmed and pained by their experience of entering par-

liament.29 Men and women alike whose past life experience did not prepare

them for parliament were, according to the ANCs chief whip, disoriented

and traumatised in their new role as parliamentarians.30 But for women

there were the added typical disadvantages of trying to combine family

responsibilities with parliamentary careers along with the fact that women

experienced parliament as a highly chauvinistic environment.

To some extent, experience does seem to suggest that in the years sub-

sequent to 1994 the mere presence of women in parliament has led to somechanges to its culture and structure, from the introduction of more family-

friendly working hours and a creche, to the fact that male politicians are

reportedly less offensive in their dealings with women MPs which seems

partly attributable simply to being more accustomed to their presence.

However, this does not in itself surely constitute an argument for the quota.

For proponents of the quota, the point of the quota is not to change parliament

but to change what parliament does and in particular what the women present

in parliament do. In this regard the evidence is less reassuring. A 1996 report

concluded that womens participation in parliament was on the decline. Thisand subsequent reports have cited womens lack of professional skills and

administrative back-up as key to their inability to make enough of an

impression in parliament. However, women MPs themselves consistently

point to the domestic as the key to understanding the difficulty that they have:

Women MPs commonly identify the rigours of combining parliamen-

tary work with family responsibilities as a major problem. Many find

the lack of contact with their children unacceptable even if the children

are looked after by their father. Families are often divided between Cape

Town and the home residence, more of a problem for women for whom

it is harder to encourage husbands with jobs and careers to move. Hus-

bands often cannot cope with their wives unspecified working hours,

developing jealous suspicions with which women in turn find it hard

to deal. Other husbands are unable to cope with their wives elevated

public status.31

What this points to again is the key problem with quotas they are a strategy

to change the way things look without changing the way things are.

Moreover, as has been pointed out, simply reciting the race and gender

characteristics of a political representative does not tell us what that

persons policy stances will be. As Gisela Geisler32 writes in a recent

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article, Helen Suzman, a white woman who was the only female member of

the opposition in South Africas Parliament between 1953 and 1974, took it

upon herself to represent partially her constituency (since the electoral

system was constituency-based at that time) but also and, for Suzman more

importantly, the interests and concerns of black people who, because of apart-

heid legislation, could not be present in parliament. Taking this point further,

we can note that, as it happens, Suzman did not see herself particularly as a

representative of women, despite having made her maiden speech on the

subject of the absence of womens rights. She did take some interest in

issues that might be described as womens concerns but her interests were

wide ranging and her particular focus was on racial discrimination. Moreover,

it was Suzmans impression that from the point of view of most of her con-

stituents, the fact that she was a woman was of little importance: no,I think that they thought that I was a competent and conscientious MP

which I really was . . . I was usually working for non-constituents but that

was why I was elected. My constituents mainly felt I should play this

role.33 On this basis, that is, speaking on behalf of black South Africans,

Suzman, a white middle class Jewish woman, won nine elections in her

well-heeled all-white constituency, each with a larger majority than the last.

While one of the key arguments for quotas, as we saw earlier, was the idea

that they would somehow make up for the imbalances created by the social

division of labour,34

it is difficult to see how they achieve this. Instead, in theabsence of doing something about the inequalities in the social division of

labour, what quotas do is put a certain kind of woman into power. This inva-

lidates the background theoretical assumptions of quotas in the first place

we need women there because women have something in common with one

another and are different to men. The point is that the women who land up

there on the basis of quotas have little in common with most other women

because, quotas or no quotas, the persistence of an unequal division of

labour means that most women cannot avail themselves of the opportunities

provided by quotas even if they can achieve the education and so on that isnecessary for them to do so.

Many commentators on identity politics have been willing to recognise the

difficulty of using race as a marker for representation but have been far more

hesitant to do so when it comes to gender, the latter being seen by most as a

simple matter of womens interests versus mens interests while one seldom

hears talk of black interests and white interests, for instance. For

example, in her commentary on race, while Anne Phillips recognises the dif-

ficulty of a simplistic dualism and that this means race is not easily amenable

to a politics of quotas Distinguishing only between whites and the rest

produces a crude and misleading distinction35 she recognises no such

complexity in relation to gender. Gender, for Phillips, is a much simpler



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category.36 It is difficult to understand why precisely the point which Phillips

makes in relation to racial or ethnic identity is not deemed to hold true also for

the reduction of gender identity to a simple binary:

Race or ethnicity can then become a symbolic shorthand which obscuresother areas of difference and erases other aspects of political choice. In

the absence of a clearly defined and shared group interest which any

member would automatically promote, changing the character of the

representatives may then change nothing else.37

THE WHAT QUESTION

The assumption underlying all arguments for quotas, as Judith Squires pointsout,38 is that it matters somehow that there are only a few women or fewer

women than men present in, say, a national parliament. Proponents of

quotas offer a variety of reasons for why it should matter, often citing these

arguments interchangeably or as if they are self-evident. Two of them, the

symbolic argument and the argument from justice, do not rely on any assump-

tions about what women actually do once they enter politics. But the conse-

quentialist arguments do of course rely on assumptions about what women

will do once they enter politics. Simply put, the consequentialist justification

for the quota suggests that the presence of women will change the content ofpolitics. Yet, as Judith Squires points out in her study of British politics, the

research has yet to prove conclusively that the presence of women does make

in itself a significant difference.39

Most normative theorists of democracy as well as empirical political

scientists have summarily dismissed the idea of descriptive representation

the notion that our representatives, in order properly to represent us, must

somehow be like us either in physical identity, or experience. Iris Marion

Young sums up the key point: to say that a representative is in some sense

like a constituent tells us nothing about what that representative will do inpolitics.40 Alexandra Dobrowolsky points to the Canadian case to illustrate

that womens presence in parliament may increase but that this can occur in

a government that ignores or is hostile to womens issues such as with the

Mulroney government of the 1980s and early 1990s.41 Even if we are able

to find support for the idea that female legislators have different policy prefer-

ences than their male counterparts, this says little about whether or not

they are, given the institutional and social environment, to translate these

preferences into action.

In her classic study of representation,42 Hannah Pitkin argues that we need

to look not only at who our representatives are but also at what they do. Rather

than making assumptions abut how people will behave purely on the basis of

Q U O T A S 83


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who they are, we need an account of what good representation substantively is.

As most would acknowledge, our representatives are not mere functionaries

carrying out exact mandates. Representatives are involved in active

decision-making and this is precisely the reason why those concerned with

presence care about who these representatives are as a kind of limited guar-

antee against injustice. However, there is simply no evidence to support

the idea that just decision-making is the inevitable or even likely outcome

of changing the composition of the legislature. Much of the evidence in fact

points in the opposite direction. In Africa, as is widely lamented, the

changed racial or ethnic composition of legislatures has not always led to

legislation that benefits the electoral majority. Very often, simply having

members of marginalised groups present when unjust decisions are taken

serves to legitimise these decisions because legitimacy is thought to restnot on what is decided, but on who was present when it was decided.

A member of a marginalised group (or even two or three members) might

speak in a debate, but what really matters is not the act of speaking itself

but how it is received, what influence it has, how it is understood and inter-

preted, what sorts of words, voices, ways of expressing and views themselves

are regarded as irrelevant to the real business of politics. If certain ways

of being, speaking and behaving are regarded as less legitimate than others,

then good representation is not present, even if the assembly resembles a

miniature portrait of the nation.We need, then, an account of good representation and it is this that is

largely absent from a pure politics of presence. The good representative

consciously tries to take decisions in a way that is cognisant of the many per-

spectives and roles in which s/he is immersed. Good representation implies a

reconciling of interests, a process in which some interests will sometimes

predominate but not always; a process in which there will be a conscious

seeking out of the marginalised as a duty of all representatives, as part of

what the very meaning of representation is thought to be. The alternative

would be to see the voicing of the marginalised view as the responsibilityof only the representative(s) of the marginalised.

Proponents of quotas for women have high hopes that women, once they

are present in legislatures, will be vociferous advocates for the interests and

concerns of other women who have hitherto been voiceless. Yet a wide

body of research shows that womens participation in political organisations

and processes has a conditional character.43 It is accepted as long as they

do not express themselves in gendered terms or act to protect gender-based

interests. Women in South Africas first democratic parliament have remarked

on the way in which many were afraid to be identified with gender activism, in

a context where female politicians with a feminist orientation were some-

times referred to by men, to much laughter in party caucuses, as that lot



15/26

who went to Beijing .44 Women were also reportedly wary of going on

about womens issues lest party leadership should become irritated. Far

from being vociferous in their protection of womens interests, survival

instincts triumph. Women back off.45 The overall impression of the majority

of South Africas female MPs participation in parliament is an unwillingness

to be overtly identified with the promotion of womens issues thanks to the

perception that this would result in exclusion from the mainstream of politics

where power and influence is located. Paradoxically, then, women can have

access to power as long as they do not indicate a preference for using it to

promote womens interests in an adversarial manner.

Many will argue that South African women have made great strides since

1994. A national machinery for gender equality has been created, including

the Commission on Gender Equality (CGEan independent statutory bodyestablished in April 1997 as one of six state institutions tasked with supporting

democracy), the Office on the Status of Women (established early in 1997)

and, in parliament, the womens caucus, the Parliamentary Womens Group

and the Womens Empowerment Unit the Committee on Improving the

Quality of Life and Status of Woman was established in August 1996 and,

together with NGOs, created the Womens Budget initiative, which looks at

the impact of the national budget on women and on poor women in particular.

The Bill of Rights in the new Constitution outlaws discrimination on several

grounds, including gender, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation and maritalstatus. New laws passed since 1994 include the Choice on Termination of

Pregnancy Act of 1996 which allows women to have abortions; the Public

Service Act of 1994 removes discriminatory practices such as differential

pension and housing benefits for married and unmarried women and men;

the 1996 White Paper on the Transformation of the Public Service legislates

for transformation units to be included in all national and provincial depart-

ments to ensure that members of disadvantaged groups, including women,

are sufficiently represented at all levels; the Labour Relations Act of 1995

protects workers against unfair discrimination on the basis of sex, race orother grounds; the Employment Equity Bill requires employers to report

regularly to government concerning race, gender and disability equity in

their organisations; the Maintenance Act requires mothers and fathers to

pay fairly towards the raising of their children.

Yet closer investigation reveals a less encouraging picture. In the Commis-

sion on Gender Equalitys first annual report, its first chairperson, Thenjiwe

Mtintso, wrote that the report was presented with a sense of sadness, that

we were denied a better chance to do more.46 Although charged with moni-

toring and evaluating government and the private sector, public education and

information, making recommendations about laws, policies and programmes,

resolving disputes and investigating inequality and commissioning research,

Q U O T A S 85


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the commission consists of only 11 commissioners, of whom half are

part-time. It operates on a tiny budget (according to Commissioner Sheila

Meintjes, it is under-funded by R5 million a year) and despite its supposed inde-

pendence from government, commissioners are appointed by the President.

Financial statements from the 2001/02 financial year show that 57 per cent of

the commissions budget was spent on remuneration while only 27.5 per cent

went to programmes.47

The Office on the Status of Women (OSW) is charged with developing

a national gender policy, promoting affirmative action in government,

supporting government bodies to integrate a gender perspective in all policies

and programmes, organising and coordinating gender training and projects

for government departments. However, like the CGE, the OSW has limited

real power. It is not automatically involved in the drafting of nationalpolicy. Its staff consists of one director and a secretary. At the national

level its funds are limited and at the provincial level many provinces have

not allocated any budget at all for the OSWs, relying instead on donor

funding. South Africa does not have a separate ministry for womens affairs

as many countries do. Instead, the hope is that gender units within government

departments will ensure that each department incorporates a gendered

perspective into its policies and programmes. However, in practice, depart-

ments have taken gender into account in their internal practices but have

not translated this into a gendered perspective in policy-making andimplementation.

The presence of women in parliament has brought about some changes

working hours have been altered to take into account the domestic responsi-

bilities of parliamentarians, a creche has been introduced, there are more

bathroom facilities for women (these had to be specially built with the

sudden influx of women!) and the language used in debate and legislation

must now be non-sexist. However, many women still report finding the

culture of parliament alienating and find the pressure of family responsibilities

debilitating to their parliamentary work.Despite their numbers in parliament, women have not been able to make

any difference to the macroeconomic policy direction initiated by the ANC

government introduced in 1996 and entitled Growth, Employment and Redis-

tribution (GEAR). Replacing the earlier Keynesian direction of the ANCs

policy rhetoric, GEAR took a sharp turn in the direction of neo-liberalism,

stressing export-led growth, reducing the budget deficit, keeping a tight rein

on inflation and government spending and attracting foreign investment.

This has had far-reaching implications for the possibilities of programmes

to redress gender inequality an experience that is mirrored in many other

contexts. Dobrowolsky, for example, commenting on the Canadian case,

points out that



17/26

the neo-liberal state operates as if equality exists, despite a socio-

economic context in which the gap between the rich and the poor is

widening . . . As a result, at a time in Canadian history when there are

more women than ever in prominent political positions, inequalities

are growing rather than subsiding, and thus huge shortfalls in the aggre-

gation and articulation of various womens interests and identities

remain.48

Controls on government expenditure mean less is available to spend on social

services; cuts in public service expenditure have primarily affected women

who are clustered in the teaching and nursing professions; where

government pulls back on services, for example to children and the elderly,

it is women who must fill the gaps; trade liberalisation has meant job lossesfor women in industries such as textiles and clothing; growing unemployment

and the absence of a job creation strategy are implicated in rising levels of

crime, with women and children among the particularly vulnerable.

Similarly, women have not been instrumental in shifting government

policy on HIV despite the stark and obvious effects of the disease on the

countrys female population. Government estimates for the number of HIV-

positive people in South Africa, based on annual surveys of women attending

antenatal clinics, rose to 4.7 million in 2000 from 4.2 million in 1999. The

implication of such figures, according to the Development Bank, is that thecountrys population will start contracting in 2016, when the number of

Aids-related deaths will exceed births. The Medical Research Council

reported in October 2001 that one in four deaths was attributable to Aids,

with nearly 200,000 expected to die as a consequence of Aids in 2001. Life

expectancy at birth, the MRC forecasted, would drop from 54 years in 2001

to 41 in 2010.49 President Thabo Mbeki has become associated with an appar-

ent embracing of dissident doctrine on Aids aetiology. This has meant that

programmes to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus, to distribute

anti-retrovirals to rape victims and other sufferers, and other programmesaimed at substantially tackling the disease have been stalled. In this, two

successive female ministers of Health have been at the forefront of defending

what many regard as a highly lamentable policy which will be directly respon-

sible for the loss of many lives that might otherwise have been saved, making

the point very starkly that there is no necessary link between the gender of a

government minister and the policy preferences of that person.

The governments stalled Nevirapine programme is a particularly

important example of the lack of real power that women have in South

Africa. Nevirapine is administered to HIV-positive expectant mothers.

Trials in Thailand suggest that it can cut mother-to-child-transmission of

HIV by half. Yet despite departmental support for its use, the roll-out of the

Q U O T A S 87


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programme in the countrys nine provinces has been delayed thanks, it would

appear, to a fear of crossing the President, who apparently regards the drug as

a dangerous toxin. Reports suggest that the minister of Health, Manto

Tshabalala Msimang has the support of her entire department for the

Nevirapine programme but has been reluctant to embark on it without

cabinet approval. This context helps to explain why, when asked to cite

some of its achievements, the chairperson of the Improvement of the

Quality of Life and Status of Women Committee, Lulu Xingwana, had to

resort to mentioning an amendment to the Boxing Act which will mean that

women can participate in the sport.50

It is difficult to see what any of the female ministers have done to infuse a

gender perspective or a particular focus on women into the way in which they

deal with their portfolios. The one exception is the former minister ofHousing, Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele who was in the position for seven

years until 2002 and who made serious attempts to advance the role of

women in construction with the launch of the Women for Housing Association

in 2002, which saw a substantial section of the housing budget (R16.4 million)

being allocated to women contractors. Indeed, many face the battle of trying to

erase their gender identity (which is constantly harped on by the media) so that

they might be taken seriously in their portfolios. Minister of Foreign Affairs

Zuma is frequently described as frumpy or badly dressed and as a battle

axe.51

Minister of Agriculture, Thoko Didiza, has been described aslacking inner steel. Does she have the thigh muscles to ride the political

storm? asked one newspaper in relation to the limitation of the power of

traditional leaders on land administration boards.52

Where female ministers have had the opportunity to fight for policies that

might be regarded (by those who wish to retain the notion of womens inter-

ests) as being particularly in the interests of women, they have not done so,

preferring instead to succumb to the dominant party line emerging in particu-

lar from the Office of the President. The minister of Healths role in the failure

to provide anti-retrovirals to HIV-positive expectant mothers is the most strik-ing case, but there have been others as well. Undoubtedly one of the largest

challenges faced by minister of Public Service and Administration, Geraldine

Fraser-Moleketi, in her attempts to restructure the civil service is that of HIV/

Aids. An internal department report indicates that some 250,000 public

servants, many skilled, may die in the next decade. Yet Fraser-Moleketis

department refused to publish the report.

One might ask how it is that a minister of Foreign Affairs or Intelligence

(South Africa has women in both positions) is meant to infuse a gendered or

indeed womens perspective into their approach to their portfolio but this

then only begs the question: why a quota for women in the first place, why

is it regarded as good for women that South Africa has nine women out



19/26

27 cabinet ministers? The only possible answer can be in the form of the

symbolic importance of having women in these positions the fact that

just having them there makes a point about womens ability to take on leader-

ship roles, to be capable in public, to be fit to govern. This was the argument

used by former ANC Deputy Secretary General Thenjiwe Mtintso: The mere

politics of womens presence is important. You need to be able to show at the

most simple level that women can be leaders.53 But this symbolic role is not

noteworthy by most advocates of quotas. Philips, for example, dismisses it out

of hand, moving on to what she regards as more important arguments that have

to do with the representation of interests.

Most importantly, perhaps, it is impossible to make sound generalisations

about what women think based on their gender alone. This is demonstrated

most strikingly by the events in parliament surrounding the 1996 Choice ofTermination of Pregnancy Bill, commonly heralded as one of the most import-

ant achievements of women and for women in the new democratic era. Yet the

evidence suggests that many ANC women in parliament did not support

the bill. The party did not allow a vote of conscience on the matter and one

ANC MP, Jennifer Ferguson, who abstained, faced the wrath of the party

and of its womens rights activists for doing so. Fellow MP Pregs Govender,

for example, argued that Ferguson was remiss in voting according to her own

view because she had been voted into parliament on the assumption that she

would defend the rights of women to choice over abortion. Other femaleMPs whose culture, tradition or religion left them with personal misgivings

about the bill were told by Baleka Kgositsile, Deputy Speaker of Parliament,

that in a party list system MPs have no choice but to take the party line, having

been voted into parliament not as individuals but as members of their party.54

In a particularly stark example, one ANC MP, Sister Ncube, a nun, voted for

the bill against the dictates of her church and presumably of her own con-

science. Were MPs being asked to protect rights of women here and were

female MPs charged with a particular responsibility in this regard? Or were

they simply voting for party policy? Indeed, whether or not the majority ofordinary South African women are in support of abortion has not been

canvassed properly and, given the passionate arguments on both sides of the

abortion debate, along with very high levels of religiosity among South

African women, it is at least plausible that some would argue that abortion

is not in womens interests, least of all in the form in which the policy is

currently being carried out in South Africa where serial abortions are

common but counselling prior to and post-abortion is limited or, most often,

entirely absent. Many health professionals argue that the legislation in its

current form has done little more than place yet another painful burden on

womens shoulders, with male partners seeing abortion as a simple contracep-

tive device which alleviates their responsibility for their actions.

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This example is instructive in revealing the heart of the difficulty with

quotas for women what does a policy of quotas say about representation;

which constituency are female MPs supposed to represent, their party consti-

tuency or women and if the latter in any sense at all, what about the problem of

absence of mechanisms of accountability to this constituency? How, in short,

do we know what women want, which women want which things, which

things are in which womens interests, and how do we reconcile the differ-

ences that inevitably exist? We simply cannot. In this case, the ANCs

policy was in favour of abortion on demand and it was this, rather than the

views of individual women MPs or the presence in parliament of a relatively

large number of women, that was decisive in carrying the policy into legis-

lation. To herald the countrys new abortion legislation as a triumph for

women and an outcome of the quota policy as many quota proponents do,then, is disingenuous, if not mischievous. As Peemans-Poullet points out:

History shows us that womens interests are divided at least in the short

term, that feminist organisations are also divided, that women poli-

ticians, even when they are feminists, can all of a sudden support unex-

pected positions, that in any case, they are not the representatives of

women (who, moreover, do not form a homogenous whole) and do

not rely on womens organisations (which, moreover, do not have

similar positions).55

In other contexts, some commentators have presented arguments which

they see as suggesting evidence for the consequentialist position that is,

that having more women present has social policy consequences. Yet closer

examination reveals that the evidence is less than convincing. In Htun and

Jones study of quotas for women in Argentina, for example, the positive con-

sequences they list are, firstly, quotas seem to have led to the adoption of more

quotas at other governmental levels (provincial and municipal); secondly, that

women tend to be over-represented on committees that related to womens

rights or issues of traditional interest to women such as children, families, edu-cation, the environment, health and housing; and, thirdly, that women MPs

were more likely to introduce bills in the areas of womens rights and children

and families.56 The first point, that quotas beget more quotas, can only be seen

as a positive consequence if the argument for quotas can be made in the first

instance. In other words it simply begs the question rather than answering it.

The second can be read as implying that women are relegated to these tra-

ditional areas and tells us little about what they are actually able to achieve

in these committees and to what extent their presence there makes a differ-

ence. The third is at best mixed evidence by the authors own admission:

The data show that 33 per cent of the women legislators presented a third

or more of their bills in the Womens Rights area and 11 per cent in the



21/26

Children and Families area. On the other hand, 58 per cent of the women

legislators presented no bills in Womens Rights and 61 presented no bills

in Children and Families.57 Yet they conclude that quotas, by getting more

women into Congress, have helped to place gender-related issues on the leg-

islative agenda.58 It is difficult to see how their conclusion can be sustained by

the evidence presented. Rather, on this evidence, the Argentine case seems to

support evidence from South Africa which suggests that a few women take a

particular interest in issues that might be termed womens concerns but that

the majority do not, that women risk being ghettoised in parliamentary com-

mittees associated with traditional womens concerns and that their real power

to influence the overall agenda of social policy is as difficult to measure as it is

to discern. What seems to be the case is that really powerful women are pre-

cisely those women who leave behind them their identity as women and anythoughts of representing womanly concerns, and enter the fray in as de-

gendered a form as possible. Htun and Jones, for example, cite one Argentine

congresswoman remarking: Women, in order to be important politically,

cant talk about gender issues.59 Similarly, a Mexican study showed that

gender-related policy changes came about only when they coincided with

party interests.60 This makes it very difficult to determine the actual impact

of the presence of women as opposed to the enactment of policies

that would have been put in place anyway. As Htun and Jones conclude, it

seems to be broad-based alliances of women, not quotas, that are what ittakes to produce legislative action benefiting all women.61

The real question to ask is whether we can attribute the passing of different

(women-friendly) legislation to the presence of a larger number of women.

In this regard the evidence is very mixed. Htun and Jones find, for example,

that Argentine women, in spite of the fact that they make up 28 per cent of

the Congress, have not achieved many more policy changes than women legis-

lators in other countries where the numbers are smaller.62 Moreover, the vast

majority of women who enter politics in Latin America do not campaign on

womens issues (such as domestic violence, child care, equal opportunitiesor reproductive health), nor do they make such issues the central focus of

their legislative careers.63 If this is the case, the argument from consequences

must fail, leaving only the symbolic argument for quotas intact. Yet in Htun

and Jones, as in most other quota literature, the symbolic argument receives

scant attention and is regarded as secondary to the key (consequentialist)

arguments for quotas.

CONCLUSION

Quotas have, in many parts of the world (notably Scandinavia) come about as

a result of sustained pressure on the part of womens groups within parties as

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well as the womens movement in general. Proponents of quotas for women

conclude that successful quota systems lead to active recruitment of women

by political parties, a critical mass of women, rather than a token few who

will be able to influence political norms and culture and give women the

possibility of influencing the decision-making process as individuals or

with specific womens or feminist points of view.64 Where difficulties are

acknowledged, these are usually seen as relating chiefly to problems of

implementation. Opponents of quotas are envisaged as mobilising arguments

to maintain the status quo.65 But by placing the burden of responsibility on

those who control the recruitment process, quotas do several things: they

allow for the most part for only a certain type of woman to enter the political

process; and they give power and control over that woman to the recruiter, and

therefore contribute to a situation in which those who are present as a result ofquotas are not willing or able to do what the proponents of quotas hope they

will do. While some proponents of quotas appear to be aware of these points

and occasionally allude to them, they seem to have little impact on their

overall arguments.

The improved presence of women in South Africas national legislature

due to the ANCs quota has done little more than advance the careers of a

select group of already well-educated, politically highly well-connected

women. In some cases this has been marked by a self-serving arrogance in

which women lay claim to the mantle of legitimacy conferred by the merefact of womanhood without having to take particularly seriously the need to

act in ways that are empathetic or sensitive to the needs of the majority of

women, let alone be accountable to the latter. The focus on presence,

then, is good for those women who are actually present, but not so good for

those who wish to make their voices heard from outside and who do not

find themselves mirrored in any but the most insignificant way by the

women they see in parliament.

Networks of power, role models and mentors who are prepared to guide

newcomers are among the most important resources that tend to be differen-tially available to men and women. Those with first-hand experience of parlia-

ment report that women MPs rarely personally mentor other women in

parliament. This problem appears to be a secondary effect of the overall

lack of value attached to womens issues and the political culture of the

country. Drude Dahlerup, for example, in her studies of women MPs in Scan-

dinavia, found that women politicians worked to recruit other women.66

While Dahlerup imputed the shift in perceptions of women politicians to

the growth in the numbers of women in Scandinavian political life, this has

so far not been borne out by the South African experience where, despite

high numbers, participation specifically in defence of womens interests is

muted or absent. A dimension of South African women MPs vulnerability



23/26

in the post-1994 period (which is no doubt less acute in the Scandinavian case)

is the fact that many are major breadwinners for their families and in a

party political context where defence of womens interests is regarded as

politically illegitimate, divisive or irrelevant, gender activism is seen as a

high-risk activity.

An aspect of this political culture in which the expression of womens

issues is regarded as irrelevant or divisive or of secondary importance to

national priorities is what may be termed the constructive criticism injunc-

tion. Many women have bought into the notion of constructive criticism and

loyalty, which has become the dominant partys line on the form which

opposition to its policies should properly take. In their 1998 needs assessment

of women MPs and MPLs, Bardill and Marks found that party loyalty could

prevent women from speaking up when they would be seen as disagreeingwith male members of their party.67 This appears to be an approach which par-

ticularly characterises the participation of black women. According to one

first-hand account, there remain some things that black women just cannot

do, say or support. While black women offer support in private for an

agenda which aggressively pursues womens interests, when the going gets

tough, the black women get going. They remain silent. Sometimes, rejecting

the very issues they privately supported . . . The white, Indian and coloured

women are left exposed, as if it is they alone who are pursuing the agenda.68

The South African example is potentially instructive in a number of ways.In the first instance, I hope to have shown that we do need to be attentive not

only to presence but also to the (potential non-) consequences of presence.

Secondly, it shows that where improved presence is the result not of

broader societal shifts, but of artificial manipulation of the political process,

its impact is limited. Where presence is embedded in highly oppressive struc-

tures including cultural norms where the dominant view offers little scope for

women to have real influence, then it may serve to legitimise injustice more

than to undermine it. The obvious rejoinder may be that it is precisely presence

that is required to reverse these oppressive structures in the long term. This isopen to empirical investigation but it seems doubtful given that in many

countries the pattern is one of declining rather than increasing presence.

There seems to be no clear linear movement in the direction of progress.

Thirdly, representation in Africa is perhaps the best empirical argument

there is against essentialism in what we regard as fulfilling the requirements

of presence. In Africa, where women are present in political elites they tend

to be drawn from a tiny elite (educated) sub-section of the population of a con-

tinent where girl children continue to have very little access to secondary,

let alone tertiary, education. Moreover, the pattern is overwhelmingly one

of the women who gain access to power being related by marriage or birth

to powerful men. Fourthly, in South Africa, as elsewhere in Africa, research

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has shown that women MPs have often failed to place womens issues (using

the broadest possible definition of what these might be) on national agendas.69

Where political presence does appear to have an impact, this is more an

indication of what has already happened outside parliament than a result of

presence itself. As Phillips notes, the result of the introduction of quotas for

women by all sorts of different political parties across the globe has not had

striking results outside the Nordic countries.70 My point is that it is unlikely

to because the political focus on presence has become an easy campaign to

run and to win precisely because it can be accommodated within the present

structure of politics without challenging anything very much at all and its

results are negligible so no one minds too much giving in to the demand.

Where increased presence is achieved in isolation from other substantive

changes, it can give rise to complacency, place the burden of responsibilityfor change on women and shift the emphasis away from the radical challenge

to existing social, institutional and cultural norms that really is required.

The same can be said of the approval that quota advocates have shown for

party list proportional representation and other systems that appear to make it

easier for more women to be elected. The reason why they do is because they

do not rely on shifting the prejudices or social conditions that make it difficult

for women to be elected in the first place. In a party list system combined with

a quota, all a party has to do is to find sufficient women willing to stand and fill

its quota. It does not have to rely on these women being electable because in aparty list system people vote for the party label and not for the individuals who

make up the list. What fans of the system fail to recognise is its severe limit-

ations, from the point of view of autonomy from party discipline and the risk-

taking potential of individual women MPs. Quotas and the party list system

are a way of putting women in parliament without having to change the

social attitudes and structures which make it quite impossible for the vast

majority of women to consider themselves eligible or be considered eligible

for such a role. They are a way of putting women in parliament but retaining

tight control over the form and content of their participation.

NOTES

1. Push for Zebra Principle in Parliament, Mail and Guardian, 8 Aug. 2003.2. D. Dahlerup, Using Quotas to Increase Womens Political Representation, in A. Karam

(ed.), Women in Parliament Beyond Numbers (Stockholm: IDEA, 1998), p.92.3. See, for example, Decauquier, 1994 , cited in B. Marques-Pereira, Political Representation in

Belgium (Aalborg University, 2000 www.humsamf.auc.dk/gep/), p.26; J. Squires, Quotasfor Women: Fair Representation? in J. Lovenduski and P. Norris (eds.), Women and Politics

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.76; M. Htun and B. Jones, Engendering the Rightto Participate in Decision-Making, in N. Craske and M. Molyneux (eds.), Gender and thePolitics of Rights and Democracy in Latin America (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002), p.35.

4. A. Phillips, The Politics of Presence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p.62.



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52. The 2002 Report Card, Mail and Guardian 20 Dec. 2002.53. Push for Zebra Principle in Parliament, Mail and Guardian 8 Aug. 2003.54. Geisler, Parliament is Another Terrain of Struggle, p.1.55. Cited in Marques-Pereira, Political Representation in Belgium, p.24.56. Htun and Jones, Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision-Making, pp.45 7.57. Htun and Jones, Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision-Making, p.47.58. Htun and Jones, Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision-Making, p.47.59. Htun and Jones, Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision-Making, p.49.60. A.-L. Alatorre, Parties, Gender and Democratization: The Causes and Consequences of

Womens Participation in the Mexican Congress. BA thesis, Harvard University, 1999, p.49.61. Htun and Jones, Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision-Making, p.52.62. Htun and Jones, Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision-Making, p.48.63. Htun and Jones, Engendering the Right to Participate in Decision-Making, p.48.64. Dahlerup, Using Quotas to Increase Womens Political Representation, p.105.65. Marques-Perreira, Political Representation in Belgium, p.29.66. Dahlerup, Using Quotas to Increase Womens Political Representation, p.2.67. Cited in Budlender et al., Participation of Women in the Legislative Process, p.37.68. Vos, Women in Parliament: A Personal Perspective, p.110.69. S. Hassim, From Presence to Power: Womens Citizenship in a New Democracy, Agenda,

40 (1999), p.13.70. Phillips, Politics of Presence, p.59.


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