When Do Governments Promote Women's Rights?

A Framework for the Comparative

Analysis of Sex Equality Policy
Author(s): Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon
Source: Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 8, No. 1 (March 2010), pp. 207-216
Published by: American Political Science Association
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Symposium

When Do Governments Promote

Women's Rights? A Framework
for the Comparative Analysis of
Sex Equality Policy
Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon

This essay proposes a framework to analyze cross-national variation in women's legal rights. To explore the distinct logics of policy
change, we disaggregate sex equality policies on two dimensions: 1) whether they improve the status of women as a group or alleviate
gender-based class inequalities, and 2) whether or not they challenge the doctrine of organized religion and the codified tradition of
major cultural groups. We show that policies promoting gender equality seek fundamental social change and therefore challenge
historical patterns of state-society interaction concerning relations between the state and the market; the respective authority of the
state, religion, and cultural groups; and the contours of citizenship. Different issues, however, challenge different aspects of these
relations. What's more, the priorities, strategies, and effectiveness of advocates and opponents of change (including women's move
ments, left parties, international NGOs, and organized religion) are shaped by state capacity, policy legacies, international vulner
ability, and the degree of democracy.

n Pakistan, a woman who reports rape can expect to be
charged with adultery; in neighboring India, women
run police stations and new legal devices empower vic
tims of violence and help state officials prosecute sex crimes.
In Catholic Ireland, abortion is a crime while in Italy, seat
of the Vatican, access to abortion is not only legally guar
anteed but also provided at state expense. In Canada and
the United Kingdom, parents are entitled to paid mater
nity leave but United States law grants parents no paid
leave at all.
These gender-related policies shape women's access to
education and employment, their ability to care for their
families, and their chances to escape poverty and enjoy
Mala Htun is Associate Professor of Political Science at the
New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College
(htunm@newschool.edu). She is the author of Sex and the
State: Abortion, Divorce, and the Family under Latin
American Dictatorships and Democracy, published by
Cambridge University Press in 2003.
S. Laurel Weldon is Associate Professor of Political Science,
Purdue University (weldons@purdue.edu) and is the author
of Protest, Policy and the Problem of Violence against
Women (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002) and When
Protest Makes Policy: How Social Movements Represent
Disadvantaged Groups (University of Michigan Press
forthcoming 2010).
good health. They have broader implications as well: soci
eties with greater equality are more likely to be prosperous
and sustain stable democratic institutions. And children
have better chances to lead healthy lives in more gender
equal societies.1
How can we explain the global variation in gender
equality policies?2 Theories based primarily on the expe
riences of developed countries and established democracies
may mislead us when it comes to the rest of the world. For
example, studies of Europe suggest that Left parties and
parties with powerful women tend to adopt quota policies
for women candidates.3 Yet states outside of the West have
introduced candidate quotas and reserved legislative seats
for women under right-wing and military governments
(in Argentina, Pakistan, Peru) or governments where
women have wielded little influence (Jordan, Morocco).4
What's more, advanced democracies and wealthy coun
tries are not always the most progressive when it comes to
gender equality. Sweden offers generous parental leave and
day care but has been slow to combat violence against
women. In fact, the governments in the "macho" coun
tries of Latin America did far more to mitigate violence
against women than the "women-friendly" Scandinavian
welfare states.5
Too little cross-national research has investigated these
puzzles.6 Gender and politics scholarship has advanced
remarkably over the past two decades, but most of us have
shied away from global comparisons. Most work on gender

doi: 10.1017/S1537592709992787 March 2010 j Vol, 8/No. 1 2OT

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and politics focuses on established democracies, makes
only limited regional comparisons, or concentrates on a
single set of issues.7 What is more, it tends to duplicate
rather than interrogate the organizing principles and
assumptions of the comparative politics field.
The field of comparative politics has not focused on sex
equality and womens rights as a major topic. Instead, the
main approaches of comparative politics have developed
with an implicit focus on mens lives and activities while
assuming that women's activities, particularly those under
taken in the private sphere, were not political and not
economically productive. We should not presume that the
field's traditional approaches and typologies (based on socio
economic modernization, democratization, cultural change,
and regional distinctiveness, among others) offer the best
explanations for gender and politics.8 Instead, we should
formulate new theories of change in women's rights. Mov
ing gender from the margin to the center of comparative
politics demands that we start from a global perspective
and with a fresh intellectual agenda.
Explaining global variation in gender equality policy
should be at the center of a comparative politics of gender
(CPG). While CPG can encompass other areas of schol
arly endeavor (for example, some may consider gender an
independent variable in their analysis of political out
comes), the focus on women's rights in law and policy
reflects a normative commitment to advancing gender
equality. It most closely links the field of CPG to feminist
praxis. And although it is true that law and policy consti
tute only one element of the broader constellation of gen
der relations and institutions (as we explain below), it is a
crucial and understudied one.
We understand gender as the constellation of institu
tions, including policies, laws, and norms, that constitute
the roles, relations, and identities of women and men, and
the feminine and the masculine, in a given context. Gen
der equality is only one possible form of such a configu
ration though it exists in no contemporary state. Male
dominance is the most common form and is manifest to
varying degrees in most societies. Gender equality policy
aims to dismantle hierarchies of power that privilege men
and the masculine, a sexual division of labor that devalues
women and the feminine, and the institutionalization of
normative heterosexuality.9 Sex equality policy is a nar
rower category than gender policy for it concentrates more
on equality between men and women and less on norma
tive heterosexuality.10 Our dependent variable in this essay
is sex equality policies, though we ultimately hope to con
sider the fuller range of phenomena encompassed by gender.
We propose a framework to analyze cross-national vari
ation in women's legal rights.11 Frameworks "help to iden
tify the elements and relationships among these elements
that one needs to consider for institutional analysis."12
They offer lists of factors that could be relevant for gender
politics, helping to generate questions and providing a
208 Perspectives on Politics
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basis upon which to compare theories. Theories, in turn,
help analysts understand which elements of the frame
work are relevant for particular questions. Many theories
may be compatible with a single framework. Models oper
ate at an even higher level of specificity. In other work, we
offer theory and models for a wide variety of policy issues.
This essay focuses on presenting the framework.
The framework is based on two key claims:
1. Gender policy involves not one issue but many and
each issue involves different actors and conflicts (issue
distinctiveness). We explain why particular actors mat
ter more for some areas than others by showing how
the policy in question relates to the institutionalized
relations between state, market, and church.
2. Different actors have different powers and effects in
different contexts (agent-context interaction). We argue
that state capacity, institutional legacies, vulnerabil
ity to international pressure, and degree of democ
racy are powerful contextual influences on sex
equality policy. These factors affect the priorities and
effectiveness of the advocates of change. They shape
the ways policies are framed and their "fit" within a
particular context.
Sex Equality Policy Is Not One Issue
But Many
To explain the origins of sex equality policies, many schol
ars focus on women as political agents in policymaking
positions and social movements. Most also explore the
ways that political contexts?including the presence of
women's policy agencies, federalism, political parties, and
cultural attitudes?shape women's political behavior.13 Yet
few theories confront the fact that gender equality policies
have been adopted when women's presence in govern
ment is low (or nonexistent) and when women's move
ments in civil society are weak. For example, the
governments most active in addressing violence against
women are not those with the largest proportion of
women.14 Dictatorships from the Middle East to Latin
America embraced progressive family law reforms without
pressure from women's groups.15 What's more, politically
active women have mobilized to oppose sex equality pol
icies such as equal rights amendments in national
constitutions, reproductive rights, parental leave, and even
gender quotas.
Solving these puzzles requires disaggregating the analy
sis by gender issue. Each category or type of issue involves
a distinct set of actors, activates different cleavages and
conflicts, and has distinct implications for gender rela
tions. Disaggregating, therefore, reveals the variation in
causal processes that are obscured when one considers gen
der policy as a single category. Though some gender and
politics scholars note that causal processes vary across
gender issues, there are very few accounts of why and how
 Table 1
Typology of sex equality policies
Do these policies challenge religious doctrine
or codified cultural traditions?
Yes No
"Doctrinal" policies "Non-doctrinal" policies
Do these policies empower Gender-status policies Abortion legality Gender quotas in politics
women as a status group Contraception legality Violence against women
or address class inequalities? Family Law Constitutional equality
Class-based policies Abortion funding Parental leave
Contraception funding Federal funds for child care
Workplace equality

ment, violence, stereotyping, public exclusion and mar

the diverse processes of policy change vary across issues.16
Further, most studies lack systematic, cross-national ginalization, and the denial of citizenship rights.21 It is
investigation of the interaction between gender and other worth emphasizing that, though these injustices are inflicted
axes of group difference in spite of near-universal acknowl on women as women, they do not necessarily affect all
edgement that gender relations are shaped by religion,women in the same way or to the same degree. Nor do all
race, ethnicity and class. Such interactions are undoubtwomen subjectively experience them in similar fashion.
edly important for policy outcomes.17 Being female (alone or in conjunction with other social
Paid parental leave, for example, invokes questions ofconditions) triggers the unjust treatment.
socioeconomic inequality as well as gender inequality and We call policies to remedy such harms "status policies."
is shaped by patterns of class politics such as the power ofThey attack those practices and values that constitute
left parties.18 But class politics may be less relevant towomen as a subordinate group and prevent them from
issues concerning the status of women as a group, such as participating as peers in political and social life. These
violence against women. Left- and right-wing administra policies include:
tions may be equally likely to promote good policies.19
1) family law, which historically cast women as infe
Meanwhile, gender policy issues that challenge religious
doctrine or codified cultural traditions?such as abortion rior to men and gave them few or no rights over
marital property, minor children, or the ability to
and family law?invoke ecclesiastical opposition while
work;
other policies?such as workplace equality or gender
2) violence against women, a problem rooted in patri
quotas?generally do not.20
archal attitudes;
These two dimensions?whether a policy empowers all
3) abortion and other reproductive freedoms, which
women as a status group or addresses class inequalities,
ensure women's capacity to make choices about their
and whether or not the policy challenges religious doc bodies and other intimate matters;
trine or the codified tradition of a major cultural group?
4) gender quotas, which elevate the cultural image of
suggest a typology of gender issues. The typology can be
women in society at large by promoting their pres
used to identify the sets of actors relevant for each type of
ence in decision making.
policy issue. It helps explain the varying importance of
these actors across issues and countries.
Other policies are more directly targeted at women's
burdens in the sexual division of labor. This division, which
Gender Status Versus Class-Based Policies structures most contemporary societies, locates women in
Some gender equality policies address harms inflicted on the private sphere and places responsibility for caring for
women as women. These injustices affect all women in children, the sick and elderly, and maintaining the house
some way regardless of their other social positions (race, hold on their shoulders. Though all women are affected
ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, etc.). Owing to insti by the sexual division of labor, its consequences vary accord
tutions and patterns of cultural value that privilege mas ing to social class. Women with money have options. They
culinity and devalue everything associated with femininity,may choose to perform care work themselves or they may
these harms deny women the recognition and dignity theyhire nannies for child care, employ domestic workers to
merit as human beings. Sexist norms cast men as the stan clean their homes, contract hospice care for elderly par
dard and women as subordinate, "other," and lacking inents, and/or exit the labor market for a time. For their
value. Their consequences include sexual assault, harass part, poor women, who have no choice but to work for

March 2010 j Vol 1 209

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Symposium | A Comparative Politics of Gender
wages, do not have the money to buy childcare and house
hold help on the market. They rely on family members or
on the state.
Class-based policies address these inequalities among
women. They make it possible for all women?not just
rich ones?to get help with their reproductive and domes
tic responsibilities. Such policies include paid maternity
or parental leave and government-funded child care. State
funding for abortion and for contraceptives are also class
policies. Though the legality of abortion and contracep
tives is a status issue affecting all women, funding for
these practices is not. Rich women, but not poor ones,
can pay market rates for abortion and contraceptive devices.
Poor women's ability to exercise reproductive rights hinges
on public funding.
Doctrinal Versus Non-Doctrinal Policies
Some gender equality issues touch upon the jurisdic
tional conflict between the state and other organizations
over the administration of kinship relations, reproduc
tion, and sexuality. Before the modern state came into
being at the Peace of Westphalia, these institutions?
including churches, clans, tribes, and traditional
authorities?upheld the rules and managed the processes
related to the reproduction of life. In Europe and Latin
America, for example, the Roman Catholic Church main
tained registries of births and deaths, ran hospitals and
cemeteries, and presided over marriages and separations.
Sub-Saharan African clans and tribes administered mar
riage, family relations, and the use and inheritance of
land. Even today, the state's seizure of this authority has
been incomplete and contested. Much of Asia, Africa,
and the Middle East is governed by multiple legal sys
tems or by religious law. Even in the West, the Church
exercises a veto in certain policy debates while claiming
to be the guardian of moral values.22
Since many religious, traditional, and tribal authorities
perceive that their continued power depends on their con
trol over kinship and reproduction, they are central actors
in policy debates on those issues. The doctrine and codi
fied tradition of these groups also often endorses male
dominance and female submission, particularly in the areas
of family law, reproduction, and sexuality.23
Not all gender equality policies provoke such conflicts
between the state and other organizations over their respec
tive jurisdictional authority, however. These issues are more
distant from religious doctrine and codified tradition. They
concern zones of life rarely touched upon by scripture
(such as government versus private provision of childcare)
or more modern dilemmas that traditional religions and
customs failed to anticipate (such as equality in the work
place). To be sure, in some places even these issues may
provoke religious opposition. In Saudi Arabia, for exam
ple, sex-appropriate fields of work are designated by reli
gious law.
210 Perspectives on Politics
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We call the first set of issues "doctrinal" and the second
"non-doctrinal." In most countries, doctrinal issues include
family law, the legality of abortion, reproductive freedom,
and funding for abortion and contraceptives. Non-doctrinal
issues include violence against women, gender quotas,
equality at work, parental leave, child care, and constitu
tional provisions for sex equality. We do not define an
issue as doctrinal according to whether it does in fact pro
voke religious opposition. It is defined as doctrinal if the
policy contradicts the explicit doctrine, codified tradition,
or sacred discourse of the dominant religion or cultural
group. As this suggests, an issue can be doctrinal in one
country and non-doctrinal in another. Abortion is a doc
trinal issue in Italy and Ireland but not in China or Japan.
This distinction helps us understand why the same coun
try may witness progress on non-doctrinal areas (such as
violence against women, gender quotas, and workplace
equality) while stalling on others (abortion, divorce, fam
ily law). In the first instance, religious and tribal organi
zations abstain from involvement, while in the second,
they spend political capital to preclude reform. Uganda,
for example, has pushed women into power with its 30
percent reserved seat policy but has been unable to reform
laws to grant women co-ownership rights with men over
land. The first policy is agnostic on clan power while the
second presents it with a sharp challenge.24
At this point, a skeptic may wonder: don t political con
flict and cleavages depend on how an issue is framed, and
doesn't this vary from country to country? In other words,
couldn't the same issue?such as abortion or gender
quotas?be politicized as doctrinal in one place and non
doctrinal in another according to how the issue has been
framed by churches and women's groups? As noted earlier,
whether or not an issue is a doctrinal issue does vary across
national context depending on the dominant religion, tra
dition, or culture. Our typology does not characterize issues
according to how they are framed by actors but in light of
their relationship to religious and political-economic struc
tures in a given national context.
We acknowledge that framing is a strategic tactic, but
argue that contestation over frames reflects (rather than
determines) the conflicts predicted by our typology. In the
United States, for example, religious conservatives opposed
both the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) as well as the
United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),
claiming that these measures would strengthen abortion
rights (and it is possible they would have, though this was
not the primary focus of these documents). Their strategic
framing helped mobilize the actors ignited by a doctrinal
issue (namely, churches on abortion) to oppose change on
a broader issue (constitutional equality). It also distracted
the public from the broader, and less controversial, idea of
sex equality. The effect of framing, in this case, was not to
change the nature of constitutional equality so much as to
Figure 1
Agent-context interaction

f \ Determines which national actors matter

f Issue type \

/ Political Actors \_ / Gender Policy \

I J ^ Adoption J

( Features of the \
1 National Polity /
\ / Determines the effectiveness of national actors, the
relevance of international actors, and the salience of
^-certain issues

highlight possible implications for abortion and link it to
abortion politics. Actors employ frames that advance their
strategic interests, and they are more or less likely to pre
vail depending on their political clout, the extent of oppo
sition, and their "fit" with historic patterns of policy.
Framing is epiphenomenal to the institutionalized rela
tionships and political contests suggested by our approach,
not constitutive of it.
Interaction Between Agents and
Contexts
The type of issue determines the actors involved. Political
actors, however, do not operate in a vacuum. Features of
the national polity shape the power of actors to promote
change.25 The context also affects the priorities and strat
egies of advocates as well as the ways that issues may be
framed. In Catholic countries, for example, abortion is
seen as a doctrinal issue but not always in communist or
Buddhist ones. Issue type also determines which aspects
of the national context are most relevant. The states abil
ity to ameliorate women's burden in the sexual division of
labor, for example, depends on its fiscal resources and
capacity. GDP per capita is therefore an important aspect
of the national polity when it comes to parental leave and
childcare but may be less relevant for the legality of abor
tion or efforts to combat violence against women. Since
international pressure is greater on gender status than class
issues, vulnerability to international pressure will matter
more for those issues.26 Figure 1 illustrates the elements of
our analytical framework. We briefly discuss each contex
tual factor below.
State Capacity
Sex equality requires an effective state. It must be capable
of intervening in society, in the workplace, and in the
family to protect women from violence and discrimina
tion and to promote the value of their work and concerns.
State effectiveness may be even more important for gen
der than for other areas of policy since equality measures
challenge entrenched social norms and interests and pro
mote fundamental change. In countries with effective insti
tutions, a willing government can enforce the law and
overcome societal resistance. But in contexts without effec
tive institutions, even a strong political commitment to
gender equality can be easily frustrated. In places where
political institutions are so incapacitated they are almost
stateless, governments are completely unable to imple
ment, let alone enforce, some types of policies. Women in
rural Bangladesh, for example, cannot rely on the state to
protect them or to guarantee their access to education and
employment.27
Women's groups are unlikely to push for parental leave
or subsidized child care in weak states where implemen
tation seems unlikely. In such contexts, feminists know
they will be more effective, and therefore prefer to work
for, policies that are less financially costly, present less of
an enforcement challenge, or contain a significant sym
bolic dimension, such as quotas or constitutional reform.28
Where the need is great but the state's ability to meet it so
compromised, there may be little official remedy and little
pressure for one.
In China, for example, women's groups have eschewed
struggles for parental leave and day care policies because
they see the state as incapable of enforcing these measures.
Why? A major casualty of China's economic boom has
been workers' rights. In line with socialist ideals, Chinese
law requires that employers grant numerous benefits to
workers. Amidst explosive growth of the private sector,
however, the state has been unable to enforce legal stan
dards in all factories and workplaces. In this context, elite
women's groups are emphasizing policy changes such as

Ma-ri- s< y> ^ V * 211

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Symposium | A Comparative Politics of Gender
non-discrimination in hiring and sexual harassment
(through a revision of the Labor Contract Law and
Womens Rights Law) that are easier to enforce and require
fewer financial outlays than paid maternity leave.29 The
resulting pattern of policy change reflects feminist advo
cates' judgments about state capacity, not the severity of
the actual problems.
State capacity refers to the effectiveness of national
political institutions and their ability (not willingness) to
enforce the law and to challenge dominant social groups.
This dimension of institutional capacity is distinct from
the political strength of particular administrations. Some
political parties might depend on the support of orga
nized labor, or religious groups, but this changes depend
ing on who is elected. As a structural feature of the state,
institutional capacity affects policy no matter who is
governing.
Institutional Legacies
Policy development is path dependent: institutions both
reflect previous political conflicts and shape contempo
rary ones.30 Most societies have historically experienced
conflict across multiple axes of social difference (ethnicity,
religion, class, and gender, among others).31 The way that
these foundational conflicts are resolved affects policy devel
opment in later years. In some countries, these conflicts
were resolved through a process of accommodation of reli
gious, racial, and/or ethnic groups (such as Canada, Israel,
and India). In return for their support for the state, elites
were guaranteed political representation, areas of exclusive
jurisdiction (education or family law), or other accommo
dations. Such a response to conflict institutionalized group
based approaches, or approaches that emphasize differences
among citizens, to policy development32 In these tradi
tions, women's rights advocates draw analogies between
their gender status and those of other marginalized groups.
In the United States, for example, feminist activists pig
gybacked on the success of the African-American civil rights
movement to win affirmative action in federal contracting
and anti-discrimination legislation.33 Such countries may
be amenable to gender-status policies but lack the solidar
istic political culture required to support class-based
policies.
Other countries (such as Norway and France) responded
to conflict by taking a universalistic path to nation build
ing that emphasizes the solidarity of all citizens. Such
universalistic traditions reject claims by women as a dis
tinct status group but may be amenable to claims about
their class-based or their universal interests.34 In France,
for example, women's demands for guarantees of political
presence (which produced the 2000 Parity Law) were
based on arguments about the universality of sex differ
ence and its relation to the nation, not the representation
of women as a particular interest group.35 We would
expect these contexts to be biased against gender status
212 Perspectives on Politics
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policies and other measures reflecting group differences
among citizens.
Vulnerability to International Pressure
The last quarter of the twentieth century saw an explo
sion of international advocacy networks and global agree
ments on women's rights. These networks fund and train
local activists, pressure governments, conduct studies and
raise awareness, and share ideas and resources across coun
tries.36 With moral leverage from inter-state agreements
such as CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action,
these networks call on countries to reform discrimina
tory laws and adopt gender equality policies. Such pres
sures resonate more and less in differently-situated
countries, however. Poor countries seek financial capital
and legitimacy; autocracies and emerging democracies
want to demonstrate their democratic and human rights
credentials. These countries are therefore more vulnera
ble to external pressure than wealthier nations or estab
lished democracies.
In countries that need to please global audiences, inter
national advocacy networks and agreements have more
powerful effects. By ceding to the demands of women's
rights and human rights networks, for example, a coun
try can divert focus from its other failings and even seize
global leadership on certain aspects of gender equality. In
Nigeria, one of the most important (if not the only)
feminist successes in reforming family law, the Child Rights
Act, was reportedly championed by former President Olu
segun Obasanjo because he felt the need to have a signif
icant accomplishment in the area of human rights.37
Former President Alberto Fujimori of Peru made a simi
lar move, adopting gender equality policies to improve
his human rights credentials on the international stage.
After the world condemned his closure of Congress and
seizure of power in a self-coup, Fujimori became the
only head of state to attend the Fourth World Confer
ence on Women in Beijing (in 1995) and ordered his
governing majority in congress to support for the gender
quota law advocated by feminists, subsequently adopted
in 1997.
Degree of Democracy
The more democratic a country is, the more developed its
civil society and the more open the government to auton
omous organizing. Women's groups, especially grassroots
or working-class women's movements, will have greater
influence. Yet democracy unleashes complex processes. At
the same time that it empowers some women's groups it
may also strengthen religious institutions opposed to
change.
Authoritarian regimes have less-developed or non
existent civil societies. Government elites have more con
trol over decision-making, so the ideology and preferences
of the party in power directly shape outcomes. On the
other hand, elite women and other progressive reformers
may have privileged access to power under autrocracies.
This can lead to surprising advances in women's rights
under otherwise conservative governments.
Conclusion
Scholarship on gender and politics presents many puzzles
about the struggle for sex equality. Studies have shown
that the power of left parties sometimes affects policy out
comes but that at other times, party ideology is irrelevant.
Religious opposition has thwarted certain efforts to advance
women's rights, while other issues have evoked little eccle
siastical protest. Some poor countries have more generous
gender equality policies than rich ones; democratization
sometimes seems to set back the promotion of women's
rights; and women's mobilization appears unrelated to the
pace of change.
Our approach suggests that many of these seeming con
tradictions can be resolved by disaggregating gender policy
issues to reveal the different causal dynamics at work. Each
issue, whether gender status or class-based, doctrinal or non
doctrinal (and various combinations of these), confronts dif
ferent axes of state-society relations and involves different
casts of characters. The priorities, strategies, and effective
ness of these advocates, allies, and opponents are shaped by
aspects of the national context, including state capacity, pol
icy legacies, international vulnerability and the degree of
democracy. Showing how these different issues, actors, and
contexts combine provides a framework to guide the analy
sis of political struggles over sex equality policy. This frame
work shows the way for future research to describe the
dynamics of particular struggles in greater detail. A better
understanding of the causes and obstacles to sex equality
policy will advance the field of the comparative politics of
gender as well as help activists as they struggle for rights and
freedom for the world's women.
Notes
1 Sen 1999; Dreze and Sen 2002; Nussbaum 2001;
Inglehart and Norris 2003.
2 We define gender equality as an ideal condition in
which all men and all women have similar opportu
nities to participate in politics, the economy, and
society; their roles are equally valued; neither suffers
from gender-based disadvantage; and both are con
sidered free and autonomous beings with dignity
and rights. Gender equality policies are those mea
sures through which governments can accelerate
progress toward this ideal.
3 Kittilson 2003; Lovenduski and Norris 1993.
4 Dahlerup 2006; Krook 2006; Casimiro et al. 2009.
5 Weldon 2002; Hemes 1987.
6 For an exception, see Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler
2005.
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7 For an evaluation of progress, see Beckwith 2005.
Most multi-country work on gender and politics
compares a small group of countries. Exceptions
include Casimiro et al. 2009; Htun 2003a; Dahl
erup 2006; Krook 2006; Matland 2006; Schwindt
Bayer 2003; Weldon 2002. Other studies cover
many issues but fewer countries; Mazur 2003.
8 Cf Inglehart and Norris (2003) who argue that
beliefs on gender equality largely follow trends to
ward socioeconomic modernization and
secularization.
9 Following Iris Young (2005), we consider the sexual
division of labor, hierarchies of power, and norma
tive heterosexuality to be the three axes (or pillars) of
the gender system.
10 In the paper, we continue to use "gender equality"
and "sex equality" interchangeably, since the former
category includes the latter.
11 This framework takes the adoption of sex equality
policy as the dependent variable, not the implemen
tation or enforcement of these policies.
12 Ostrom 1999, 39.
13 Elman 1996; Bashevkin 1998; Stetson and Mazur
1995; Mazur 2003; Gelb and Palley 1996; Gelb
1989; Hansen 1993; Mansbridge 1986; Lycklama,
Vargas, and Wieringa 1998; Swers 2002.
14 Weldon 2002.
15 Charrad 2001; Coleman 2004; Htun 2003a.
16 See Mazur 2003. Exceptions include Gelb and Pal
ley (1996) who distinguish between policies that
promote gender role changes and those that pro
mote role equity. This typology helps us understand
the varying conflicts provoked by gender equality,
but offers little guidance to differences between
issues because distinct policies within the same issue
area can promote role changes or role equity. In
addition, it does not illuminate why the same poli
cies (e.g., paid maternity leave) can be controversial
in one context (such as the U.S.) but not in another
(such as Norway). Blofield and Haas (2005) distin
guish between rights- and role-based policies, and
those that promote redistribution and threaten class
privileges and those that do not, in their study of
women's rights legislation in Chile. In a recent book,
Casimiro et al. (2009) note that in Africa, policies
promoting women's equality in the public sphere of
state and market have been easier to achieve than
those concerning women's rights in the private
sphere of home and family. Both analyses point to
some of the factors we mention here, particularly
the distinction between class- and non-class issues
and between doctrinal and non-doctrinal issues.
17 Williams 1995; Crenshaw 1994; Beckwith 2000;
Hawkesworth 2003.
18 Stetson and Mazur 1995.
March 2010 | Vol 8/No.. 1 213
Symposium | A Comparative Politics of Gender
19 Brush 2003; Elman 1996; Weldon 2002.
20 Htdn 2003a; Htun 2003b.
21 CfFraser2007, 26.
22 Charrad 2001; Glendon 1989; Rheinstein 1972;
Casimiro et al. 2009; Htun 2003a.
23 In some places, religious and cultural doctrine en
dorses female submission not only in the family but
also in work and education.
24 See Casimiro et al. 2009.
25 Skocpol 1992; Skocpol, Ganz and Munson 2000;
Thelen and Steinmo 1992.
26 Some scholars of public policy argue that bigger
problems promote better policies (Kingdon 1984).
We do not address this argument here at any length,
except to say that extant scholarship suggests that
such an approach appears to shed little light on areas
such as violence against women (Weldon 2002),
child care, family law, or reproductive rights which
are problems in every society. In fact, the public
awareness, recognition and framing of these prob
lems depends on women's rights activism and other
processes of political contestation at the national
and international level. Problems need to be per
ceived as such before there can be a policy
response.
27 Shehabuddin 2008.
28 For a similar argument about how state capacity
affects preferences about social policy, see Mares
2005.
29 Interviews by Mala Htun, Beijing, June 4, 2007.
30 Pierson 1994, 2000; March and Olsen 1989; Castles
1993; Richardson, Gustafsson, and Jordan 1982.
31 Marx 1998; Skocpol 1992.
32 Esping Andersen 1990; Milner 1989.
33 Skrentny 2002.
34 Young 1990; McDonagh 2002.
35 Unlike arguments for quotas in other countries
(which focused on the interests that women
representatives would bring to the legislature),
the case for parity was based on universalistic argu
ments about republican representation. See Scott
2005.
36 Friedman et al. 2005; Clark, 2001; Keck and Sik
kink 1998; Risse-Kappen 1994.
37 Interviews (Abuja, Nigeria and Lafayette, Indiana
USA 2008). For more on the Child Rights Act see
Nkoyo Toyo, "Revisiting equality as a right: the
minimum age of marriage clause in the Nigerian
Child Rights Act, 2003." Third World Quarterly, 27,
(7) October 2006: 1299-1312(14).
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