Paper:

Introduction

I have to start my paper with an apology. I will not answer all questions mentioned in the program. I will put the main stress on a related, nevertheless somehow different topic. My focus is not on explicitly feminist activists or feminism, but on gendered political agencies in another sense of the word. My paper centers on women, not only feminists, who are involved in parties and parliaments. Considering the changes of female parliamentary participation in the last 20 years, it is important to find gendered agencies also inside the political institutions.

And indeed: As women became increasingly involved, and as women’s studies expanded further into new subject areas, female politicians, once scientifically neglected, get more and more research attention. Some of these research projects are looking not only for patterns of discrimination but also for innovations brought by women and for strategies to increase their representation. These are also the topics of this paper.

First, I will describe and discuss an innovative potential of female politicians, normally considered as an obstacle: the multiple orientation in life (The term will be explained in the next paragraph). In the second part, I will look at how this innovation can be supported by increasing the number of women and evaluate one approach used by several German parties: quota rules. In the third part I discuss common arguments about quota rules. The paper ends in summarizing conclusions.

The following results and conclusions are based on interviews I conducted with 30 female local politicians in Germany. Furthermore, they also reflect most relevant German studies about women in politics.

Alleged obstacle as innovative Change: Multiple Orientation

My findings and the results of other research projects prove, that most German female politicians - of course not all, but as a trend more often than male politicians - show multiple orientations in their lives (Benzler u.a. 1995, p. 130ff.; Meyer 1997; Schöler-Macher 1994; Schaeffer-Hegel et al. 1995; Meyer 1997). Multiple orientation means to put more equal emphasis on different parts of life - private, non-political professions and politics -, instead of focusing on politics as an all-consuming career.

This multiple orientation is usually seen as only a burden and a barrier. Female politicians must be able to juggle several balls, running in a hurdle race. The schedules and organizations in the world of work, the circumstances around family and private life, the parties, and parliaments do not correspond with their wishes to combine all their areas of live. In spite of this hurdle race, some female politicians prefer a multiple orientation, because they regard it as liberation, as release from the compulsion to devote oneself entirely to only one area of life (Meyer 1995, p. 174; Schaeffer-Hegel et al. 1995, p. 18ff., p. 27). Two of the interviewees illustrated this concept by the picture of a three - legged stool, which is sturdy and solid, when the legs — family, friends, job, life in the political arena — are well balanced.

This concept of living multiple orientations, especially the orientation towards private life, contrasts sharply with classical political theories based on the political participation in the ancient Greek polis. In the Greek polis influence and power was held by people not involved in and free from banal housework and daily family responsibilities (Benhabib 1989, p. 463; Arendt 1997, p. 22ff.; Honig 1994, p. 52). The freedom to act in public political life was assumed to be possible only for those who are not required to care about the ordinary domestic arrangements, but could force other people to take over this work  (Hannah Arendt 1993, p. 38f.). In the former Greek polis slaves and women, not allowed to take part in the political process, were responsible for this drudgery and grind. The possibility to be free from domestic toils of the day was one of the main characteristics of the people who were politically involved. Only the "head of the household" was supposed to be able and to have enough time to deliberate and make political decisions (Habermas 1965, p. 13). These ideas still determine the image of an ideal politician.

It is furthermore presumed, as Holland-Cunz (1997) found out analyzing other classic political theories like Rousseau, Hobbes or Locke, that a politician is not only free from the burden of the dull, daily housework, but also free from relationships. In the political life of today of course you need relationships, but only those that further your career. Politicians are supposed not to be bound up with time-consuming personal, non-professional ties. This can be illustrated by an example. A former female senator from Berlin, Anke Martiny, announced her desire to reserve one evening a week for private or family activities. The press and the politicians of the opposition party claimed her statement was proof of her lack of capacity to be a senator. If someone needs or wants one free evening during the week, he or she, in their eyes, is not competent and qualified enough to have a high-ranked political position (Lukoschat 1995, p. 265ff.).

But according to Hannah Arendt, a life spent only in the public sphere leads inevitably to a – and this is a German term – "Verflachung", which means becoming superficial and one-dimensional, “shallow" (Arendt 1997, p. 87). Corresponding to this idea, mental balance and integrity can be maintained only when people are rooted in all parts of life (ibid., p. 86). In what follows -- based on my interviews -- I discuss Hanna Arendt`s thoughts in a different way than she did or would do herself.

The interviewees describe some of their colleagues, especially their male colleagues, as "verflacht", shallow and one-dimensional, because they only focus on politics. One interviewee spoke of a male politician who "puts his kids into a garbage can, because they are in his way, and is involved in youth politics". The interviewees point out, that "Verflachung" (becoming shallow) follows when the daily care for children, spouse, friends and so on is neglected in favor of an unbalanced and one-sided orientation to politics, and when relationships have no meaning in themselves but are seen only as instruments to pursue a political career.[1]

On the other hand the interviewees report also a certain kind of "Verflachung" (being one-dimensional), when they talk about the time in their life not being politically involved. At that time they had lived "in their own little world", as one of the interviewees remarked. Refering again to Hanna Arendt as well as to my interviewees one part of living as a human being is to deliberate about political topics and to take part in the political decision making. Excluding the political aspect of life, as women in our society were (or are?) supposed to do, prevents them from living out all parts of a human existence.

To summarize: The multiple orientation of many female politicians is not only a barrier and an obstacle, but also contains innovative potential. Multiple orientation enables new approaches to linking the private and the public sphere (Becker-Schmidt 1995, p. 240).

This conclusion leads to my next questions: How can the number of women be increased, so that this innovation gets a chance?[2]

I will evaluate one approach used by several German parties: quota rules.

The impacts of quota rules

This passage starts with some short remarks about the German electoral system, the proportional representation, because not all Americans are familiar with it.[3]  Proportional representation means that the number of candidates a party sends to parliament mirrors the percentage of the total vote going to that party. If for example 30 % of the people vote for a party, it gets approximately 30 per cent seats in parliament.

The people the party sends in this way come from a list previously drawn up by the party. This list is what I wish to draw your attention to. Nothing like this exists in the USA. The German parties develop a list by selecting the candidates and putting them on the list in numerical order. The voters can mostly only vote for the party list, not for a certain candidate. Thus the party influences who is more likely to get a seat and who less.[4]  If for example the party gets 30% of the votes and let us pretend the parliament consists of 100 people, the first 30 people on the list of this party win a seat.

Quota rule means that an approximately equal number of men and women are represented on the party lists in an egalitarian order, for example in the order: one women, one man, one women one man and so on.[5]

In Germany several parties introduced gender quotas to improve the participation of women. The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) decreed quota rules in 1988 demanding 40 percent of each sex in every candidate list from the beginning of the 1990, and the Green Party has a fifty-fifty-rule since its inception. The Christian Democratic Party (CDU) introduced very soft rules a few years ago. As my empirical research was completed by 1995 changes in the Christian Democratic Party were not taken into account.
In the following I describe the impacts of the quota rules on female party members in Germany by summing up the most important results.
 

• Parties with quota rules encourage and support women. The majority of the interviewees joined a party because relatives, friends or partners supported their entrance. They initially had no ambitions and did not plan to run for a political position. They just wanted to be ordinary party members. After joining the party, they were welcomed, promoted, and mobilized to become politically engaged. To quote one of my interviewees: Ms. Smith: "I had the feeling they were glad that I joined the party. Of course they were looking for women. ... So I was eased in and got more and more involved." 

• Parties with quota rules offer opportunities to women 

• Parties with quota rules help inexperienced women develop political competence

To sum up, the German parties with quota rules offer women, and not only privileged women, the possibility to participate and to stand successfully for political positions. The findings confirm the thesis of Carol Pateman (1974): A greater supply of participation creates a greater demand for it. 

Arguments about Quota Rules

Quota rules are very controversial and the discussion arouses different hopes and fears. The main arguments circle around the fear expressed in the saying "quota rules hinder quality" or the hope expressed in the motto "quota rules improve quality". I want to introduce both positions debated in Germany.

First the critics: The introduction of quota rules led to a wave of voices, which predicted a lack of quality. Quota rules would undermine performance as criterion for advancement. Selective groups, and political parties among these, often try to create the illusion that their criteria for selection are objective and concerned about the common good. But which competencies are really demanded in German politics? By what criteria are the candidates selected? The interviewees as well as a lot of other studies pointed out that speaking ability, the ability to present themselves well in mass media, the capability to use tactics and instruments of power proved to be indispensable in political life (Geißel 1999; Landfried 1994, p. 212). Furthermore you find in Germany different formal and informal quotas established over decades. Candidates are selected according to their membership in the following groups: Catholic/Protestant, North/South, East/West, employer/trade union, or in the case of coalitions, membership in certain parties.[7]  But are people who fulfill all the above-mentioned criteria really qualified for the real tasks of politics – which, not only from my point of view, is the ability to lead society in favor of the common good? Obviously the saying "quota rules hinder quality", which by the way is only used in the context of gender quotas[8] , is based on wrong assumptions.

Let us now talk about the proponents of quota rules. They hope, quota rules would lead to more quality in politics. Several years ago some feminists were euphoric especially about presumed female styles and attitudes. Female politicians were expected to act less hirarchical, to be more people-oriented and cooperative (Meyer 1992, p. 11f.; Hagemann-White 1987, p. 87). These assumptions could not be proved, the results of empirical studies are inconsistent (Geißel 1999, p. 192ff.) Most of the interviewees in my study as well as female politicians in some other studies did not notice any of the presumed women-specific political styles. 

One of the few also internationally consistent results is that women – more often then their male colleagues – put topics related to the lives of women and children on the political agenda (s.a. Meyer 1998). In several countries especially female representatives successfully campaigned for better employment opportunities, better pay and working conditions for women, for fairer divorce laws and changes in the law to punish rape in marriage. 

Furthermore female politicians may change the structure of politics because of their multiple orientation as discussed before. 

To sum up: It can be assumed, that quota rules probably won’t improve the political style, but may change the political agenda including some outcomes as well as the structures of politics now based on the expected one-sided, shallow politician.

Conclusion:

In this paper I described that Female politicians show more often a multiple orientation towards family, friends, job and politics than male politicians. I argued that this multiple orientation is not an obstacle, but provides innovations in politics by hindering the "Verflachung", the becoming one-sided and shallow. The ability to integrate private and public spheres in life is an important advantage, not a deficiency. 

The increase in numbers of female politicians will help to support the implementation of these innovations. In a political system like the German one, the quota rule is the most important instrument for increasing the numbers of women. Quota rules make sure that women get a certain kind of support which for decades was offered to men and very few, very privileged women. Female members of parties with quota rules often develop political ambitions and increased feelings of competence. My study shows that these parties are more often inclined to support also average women. Thus, parties with quota rules come closer to fulfilling the democratic ideal that political decision-making should not be a privilege of a certain group.
 

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