The aim of this chapter is to analyse the strategies of the political parties when facing women as potential candidates, arguing that the resistance to women as representatives was fiercer than to women as voters. The analytical focus lies on the nomination and electoral processes in the first parliamentary elections with next to universal suffrage in Denmark (1918) and Sweden (1921), using a combination of unpublished party protocols, newspapers, and contemporary electoral statistics. The findings show that the poor result for women—3% women to the Danish Lower Chamber (Folketinget) and 1.7% women to the Swedish Lower Chamber (Riksdagens andra kammare)—was not primarily due to the voters, but to the political parties, who, supported by the closed electoral ballot structure, were the gatekeepers to elected positions. The major factor explaining this poor outcome was the prerogative of the incumbents, e.g. those MPs (evidently, at this time all males), who had won their seats in previous elections and wanted to stand for re-election.

Given the slow speed by which women’s representation in political bodies has increased, there have been amplified calls for more effective measures to reach gender balance in political institutions. Gender quotas represent one such measure. In fact, since 1995, gender quotas have rapidly spread across the world (Dahlerup, 2006; Dahlerup & Freidenvall, 2005; Krook, 2009; Lépinard & Rubio-Marín, 2018). Today, more than one hundred countries have adopted gender quotas to “fast-track” women’s representation in elected bodies of governments, ranging from reserved seats, legislated candidate quotas, and party quotas at national and/or subnational levels. While gender quotas vary in terms of design, where they are used, and to what extent they have achieved their objectives, they represent a major electoral reform, changing the dynamics of candidate selection and the traditional norms of politics as a male business.This chapter addresses this global phenomenon – this gender quota revolution – by focusing on three key aspects: What are gender quotas, why are they adopted, and how have they been implemented (effect). The ways in which they have contributed to the diffusion of quotas in other arenas (spill-over) are also addressed. The chapter is based on our extensive research in the field over the past 20 years, as well as additional research by colleagues across the world. In general, gender quotas are a mounting research area and subject to scientific discussions in dissertations, journal articles, and books, as well as at numerous conferences (Dahlerup, 2019).

This is a Festschrift to professor Malgorzata Fuszary, professor of Poliical Science at Warsaw University, and feminist leader in the campaign for adoption of gender quotas in Polish politics. 

My article is on different discources on electoral gender quotas. Usually, we discusss the different arguments of quota opponents versus quota proponents. This article, however, analyzes the disagreements among feminist scholars on the importance of adopting gender quotas in politics. 

The issue of whether political interests are gendered, and if so, how, has been a recurrent theme in research. While there have been several attempts recently to address gendered political interests theoretically, the central concept of feminism has not been explored in any depth in this context. This article uses unique data pertaining to self-identification as a feminist MP, and explores how it relates to gender, party and certain policy issues previously connected to women in Sweden and Denmark. The two neighboring countries both have a high representation of women, but while the Swedish government called itself feminist, this was unthinkable in the Danish case. Our main finding is that in both countries male feminist MPs deviate from their female counterparts by not supporting acting for women which indicates a separate and gendered understanding of what being a male feminist implies. However, no strong association addressing intrinsic feminists male concerns such as parental leave, was found. Another possibility could be that male feminists refrain from taking agency from females, what the acting for option could imply. We conclude that the concept of acting for women needs to be abducted from its central stance in feminism as a category of representation to mirror the multifaceted contemporary landscape.

While the Arab Uprisings presented new opportunities for the empowerment of women, the sidelining of women remains a constant risk in the post-revolutionist MENA countries. Changes in the position of women are crucial to the reconfiguration of state-society relations and to the discussions between Islamist and secular trends. Theoretically framed and based on new empirical data, this edited volume explores women’s activism and political representation as well as discursive changes, with a particular focus on secular and Islamic feminism, and changes in popular opinions on women’s position in society. While the contributors express optimistic as well as more pessimistic views for the future, they agree that this is a period of uncertainty for women in the region, and that support by ruling elites towards women’s rights remains ambiguous and double-edged.

A short version of the author's survey in the Danish parliament 2015 on attitudes towards gender equality and gender equality policies. Originally published as an aticle in Scandinavian Political Studies, vol 41, no.2, 2018. It shows that one third, including all male MPs from the right-wing parties believe that gender equaity is already obtained or has gone too far.

This chapter explores a critical perspective on today’s diverse processes of rebordering within Europe, with a specific focus on the unfulfilled goal of full and gender-fair political citizenship. A West-centric skew has permeated feminist knowledge production within a geopolitical space in which Central and Eastern Europe has been transformed from the Second World to the second Other of Europe. Political citizenship, or equal representation of citizens in elected decision-making bodies, is a central pillar of modern democracy. The point of departure in the quota debate is the social composition of elected assemblies, i.e., the descriptive representation. The Communist parties mobilized separate women’s organizations, which in some countries, for instance in the German Democratic Republic, were guaranteed a certain number of seats alongside trade unions and youth organizations. The political parties were asked about their general positions on the importance of gender in candidate selection.

I denne bog spørger Drude Dahlerup, hvorfor det trods mange årds fremskridt skal tage så lang tid at opnå fuld inklusion af kvinder i det politiske liv. Kvinder har kun en fjerdedel af pladserne i vrdens parlamenter, og i de nye globale styresystemer er kvinderepræsentationen endnu mindre.

Dahlerups svar er baseret på hendes mangeårige forskning. De bringer eksempler fra hendes arbejde som international konsulent omkring integrering af kvinder i politiske beslutningsprocesser. Den danske udvikling sætts i et internationalt perspektiv.

Despite almost unanimous adherence to the principle of gender equality in contemporary Denmark, a society with a long historical record of gender equality policies and almost 40 percent women in parliament, are there still divergences to be found among the members of parliament concerning gender equality principles and policies? This article argues that in order to identify underlying cleavages it is necessary to pose fundamental questions that go beyond the day-to-day disagreements on policy issues. Based on a new survey of the members of the Danish parliament, this study finds that the support for gender equality is not just a matter of lip service insofar as few MPs hold traditionalist views on women. However, the study reveals conflicting perceptions, left-right cleavages and gender gaps, sometimes also within the parties. A new discourse is identified, supported by a large minority that includes all of the male MPs from the four right-wing parties; this minority considers gender equality to be a closed case' - that is, as having by and large been achieved. This may provide clues to the puzzle of the stagnation in gender equality reforms in spite of the general support for gender equality'. The article discusses the possible connection between the closed case' discourse, present neoliberal trends in society and the recent construction of gender equality as an intrinsic Danish value' - an argument familiar in other countries with a harsh debate over immigration.

To af Rødstrømpebevægelsens vigtigste slogans var: "Ingen klassekamp uden kvindekamp - ingen kvindekamp uden klassekamp" og "Det private er politisk'. Mens det første slogan er gået over i historien, er det andet højaktuelt med #MeToo-bevægelsens globale oprør mod seksuel chikane og seksuelle krænkelser.