Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Gender & Symbolic Representation - Coggle Diagram
Gender & Symbolic Representation
Understanding Representation
Hanna Pitkin, 1967
Feminist Democratic Representation
Dated work
Work which became essential reading for feminist and political scholars in 1960s for understanding the conditions under which women are (un)represented
Formal Representation
Refers to those in a political system which may have been authorised for acting in our place or held to account for acting in our place
What they do must count as representation
Leaves un empowered
HOWEVER
Not guarantee they will act in a feminist direction
Descriptive Representation
How we assess representation
Who is being included in our categories
Considers the percentage of those in a general population and those as political representatives
In case of poor composition, what is getting in the way?
Can you hold someone to account for who they are, while you hold them to account for what they do?
E.g. acting against their own interest
Symbolic Representation
There isn't really a relationship between the symbol and what the symbol represents
Feminists will look to the symbolic representation of gender and query the basis upon which we feel represented by symbols
Substantive Representation ('Acting For')
Our representative should be responsive to the people and must be held accountable for their actions
Relationship between the descriptive and substantive is core to politics
Empirically assessed
Contingent, complicated, mediated, not guaranteed
Shooting in the dark
Symbolic Representation
Pitkin
Representation of a group (women), nation, or state through an object to which a certain representative meaning is attributed
Symbols refer to something/someone because they evoke their referent
'Feeling' represented
Lombardo & Meier
Analysing the construction of women and men as political symbols
What does the symbol actually do to the principals (women and/or men) by standing for them?
Role Model Effect
Researchers have explored the ways in which women's attitudes towards the political in influenced by role models
Sometimes role models have been received positively
'You can't be what you can't see'
- The UN
Think about how this symbolic representative may have an exclusionary effect
Who gets to be present?
The women who get into these powerful roles have to be 'super women'
Creates a distance between the role models and the ordinary person
Parliament dominated by ethnic-majority men
Substantive representation
Are different groups having their interests acted upon?
Are their voices listened to and responded to?
Conclusions
Politics historically symbolically represented as masculinised
Symbolic representation remains understudied
How women - and diverse women - are symbolically well represented in an empirical question
The relationship between symbolic and other dimensions of representation is not necessarily straightforward
Politicians have some agency in their presentation even in they are subjected to gendered mediation
Political campaigns constitute gendered institutions
Representation in Politics
Agency and Symbolic Representation
An interactive relationship
Political actors also actively participate in construction of media representations
(Dittmar 2015, 2019)
Claiming clothes as a political symbol
E.g. women in politics wear white to represent suffrage and their ability to be in politics
HOWEVER we must think about who amongst women takes part in these actions
Rachel Reeves 2024
Talks about what it meant for her to be the first female chancellor
Collective success
'We made history'
'I am here because of the effort of those who went before me'
Speaks forward to future generations
Representations at Westminster
A baby was allowed into the House of Commons with its mother
Treasury committee on International Women's Day was completely male
Proxy voting for maternity leave is not allowed
Gender Mediation
Angela Rayner as disrupting the image of a single mother from a working-class background
Unruly woman
Women in politics as representing party modernisation
Number of women in Cameron's Conservative Party doubled overnight in 1990 (60 --> 120)
How do the WAGs of politicians get used to represent the men?
Voter friendly; normal; down to earth
Andy Burnham's wife attacked for her clothing and spending
Normalising racism against women MPs,
Collignon & Siow 2024
Reluctance of some parliamentary colleagues to address racial and gendered nature of the comments
Political Campaigns as Gendered Institutions
Gender embedded in 'expectations for and behaviour of candidates
(Dittmar 2015: 4)
A two-way street
(Dittmar 2015, 2019)
Gender influences campaign strategy and behaviour of different groups
Candidates decisions shape the gendered nature of campaigns
Choices for campaigns between meeting voters demands and gender and/or disrupting gendered perceptions
'Running as a man' vs 'running as a woman'