Paris WorldWide #9

A
grandmother tenderly rocks a newborn baby
while her silver-haired husband looks on, smiling.
The scene is unremarkable except for the
fact that the grandmother is Hillary Clinton, a
Democratic candidate for the next U.S. president,
and the grandfather is a former U.S. president.
Not to mention the fact that this photograph was
posted on the Twitter account of Barack Obama’s
former Secretary of State a few months before she
entered the presidential campaign.
Like the UK’s Margaret Thatcher and Germany’s
Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton has long appropriated
masculine codes to build legitimacy: a strict
look, sober outfits and a reputation for toughness.
“Until the 1990s, the few women in politics were the
exceptions and focused on neutralizing whatever
reminded us that they were women,” emphasizes
Frédérique Matonti, a professor of political science
at University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Today, the Democratic candidate is trying a new
approach. By highlighting the loving granny and
mother image (her daughter Chelsea is about to
play a key role in the campaign), Hillary Clinton is
moving closer to the younger generations, which
revel in their status as women and leaders.
GENDER EQUALITY, A PATH FRAUGHT WITH
PITFALLS
The times, and the laws, have changed. Since June
2000, when France passed its gender parity laws in
politics, over 120 countries around the world have
adopted similar quotas. The French law establishes
that half the candidates for European, regional and
municipal elections (for cities with populations over
3,500) must be women. Parties that fail to present
equal numbers of men and women candidates are
penalized. As a result, 15 years after the law was
enacted, 48 percent of regional council members,
47 percent of government members, 27 percent
of MPs at the National Assembly, 25 percent of
senators, and 16 percent of mayors are women. According
to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU),
77 - paris Worldwide septembre/octobre
september/october 2015