Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Gender and sexuality in Australian politics
For scholars of gender and sexuality, representation is not just numerical (or
‘descriptive’)butalsosubstantive.Thismeansthatthereneedstobeadistinction
betweensimplyhavingawomanorLGBTIQ+personinapositionofpower
(numerical representation) and that representative addressing issues and adopting
political positions that advance the goals of feminist and LGBTIQ+ activism
(substantive representation). Many women politicians, for example, share socially
conservative positions that are opposed to feminist and LGBTIQ+ activism; yet
their participation as visibly feminine people in politics is still significant in itself.
Feminist and queer scholarship has sought to define what difference representation
makes – and could make – without assuming that underlying dynamics are
automatically shifted by numerical representation.
There is evidence that numerical representation enables substantive representation,
such as the collective action of women in parliament across party lines on
reproductive rights during the deliberations on a drug used for medical abortions. 61
Women and LGBTIQ+ people being present in decision making affects what issues
are prioritised and brings knowledge about marginalised problems and experiences
into decision making. But this does not happen in the absence of countervailing
forces, especially existing norms and male-majority representation, but also (at
times) harassment, political violence and more subtle forms of marginalisation
and exclusion. The diversity of women and LGBTIQ+ people is also not yet well
addressed in scholarship on representation or in advocacy for greater representation.
There is a growing understanding that the category ‘women’ is, in itself,
important, but needs to be used in a more disaggregated and nuanced form also
addressing race, class, migration status and disability.
Gender representation often tends to be seen as seeking parity in binary terms,
encompassing the two genders that are taken to compose humanity: male and
female.ManonTremblaynotes,though,that‘theFrenchconceptofparité…is
deeply heterosexist’, and human beings cannot be reduced in this way: ‘Things are
much more complex’. 62
Representation in parliaments and Cabinets
Practices of assessing parliamentary gender representation in simple terms are
now well established. In October 2019, 30.46 per cent of Australian House of
Representatives members were women, placing Australia 47th in the world. 63
Representation differed between the two houses of parliament, with 50 per cent
womenintheSenate. 64 While analysis of LGBTIQ+ representation has not yet been
published for the 2019 election, in 2016 LGBTI representation stood at 3 per cent in
61 Sawer 2012.
62 Tremblay 2019, 108.
63 Inter-Parliamentary Union 2019.
64 Parliament of Australia 2019.
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