Abstract:
Women’s political representation has been for decades ahead of women’s rights movement. However, women presence in politics is not only limited to women political participation but their position in party politics as well. This paper aims to analyze the role of parties in empowering women at the UK parliament and tries to contribute towards the existing literature through presenting an interdisciplinary view of the issue– notably from a political perspective. Through examining issues such as political participation and legislative behavior, the paper captures the scope of the position of women MPs in British political party life and represents answers to the question whether parties can make a change in favor of changing women’s positions at the UK parliament or not. By the scope emerging from different resources, this study shows the British parties have played an important role in empowering women in the United Kingdom parliament mainly through the feminization of some of their partisan aspects and offering new opportunities to women representative at the parliament. Despite this fact, some traditional partisan structures still continue to hinder this process.
Machine summary:
"Following this, the party introduced all-women shortlists (AWS) policy to the Chamber as a positive discrimination policy ensuring the selection of a female candidate in half of the party’s winnable seats led to a significant shift in the political representation of women within the British parliamentary partisan structure (Moran, 2005, p.
In order to understand this better, one should see how International Journal of Women’s Research Vol. 3 , No. 2 , Autumn & Winter 2014-15 the position of women minsters as high-party ranking change through British political parties.
Women Ministerial appointments 1945-2013 Source: Center for the Advancement of Women (2013) International Journal of Women’s Research Vol. 3 , No. 2 , Autumn & Winter 2014-15 Furthermore, the number of women elected as MPs in comparing with the number of women ministers is quite low which emphasizes that the nature of British partisan life is still resistant toward feminization (Fig. 2).
In 2007, as an example, the WPG stepped forward to International Journal of Women’s Research Vol. 3 , No. 2 , Autumn & Winter 2014-15 feminize Conservative policy making where the submissions for party platform being directly reported to the party leader and party chairman; however, it could rarely change the agenda toward more women friendly as the party top rankings opposed the submissions (Fielding, 2011, pp.
Following this, the party introduced all- women shortlists (AWS) policy to the Chamber as a positive discrimination policy ensuring the selection of a female candidate in half of the party’s winnable seats led to a significant shift in the political representation of women within the British parliamentary partisan structure."