Australia’s first woman Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, was sworn into office in 2010. In 2012 she was driven to make a powerful speech on misogyny, which reverberated around the world. This research note explores the circumstances prompting the Prime Minister’s speech and argues that the arrival of a woman Prime Minister helped bring into the open the gendered nature of politics. At a more form…
Despite significant advances in women’s status in political science departments in New Zealand and internationally, women remain underrepresented in the profession. This review article discusses five factors that are identified in the literature as problems for women’s progression in political science: the double bind, gender devaluation, the ‘chilly climate’, the culture of research and the ch…
This article examines the state of the political science discipline in New Zealand, focusing on the numbers of women in the profession, the representation of women in the discipline’s journal, and the place of gender in the political science curriculum. While women in New Zealand political science have been active as a community for at least 30 years, there has been no systematic review documen…
This article seeks to reintroduce discussions on gender relations in politics back into scholarly and political debate. Many countries have adopted gender quotas, but it is unclear whether their implementation has meaningfully changed the prevalent inequalities governing gender relations in politics. This article considers whether the implementation of gender quotas could promote change, and as…
This paper investigates gender differences in voting for the two major parties (Labour and National) and the two main small parties (Green and New Zealand First) at the 2011 New Zealand general election. In contrast to the gender gap found in many post-industrial societies with women being more likely to lean towards the left than men, this study reveals limited differences in party preferences…
Considering insights from ‘third-wave’ literature, this paper examines the impact of young women’s online activism on the visibility of feminist engagement in New Zealand. Drawing on 40 interviews with women of all ages who are concerned with women’s political issues in New Zealand, I identify a generational divide in the ways these women participated in feminist activities and I argue that onl…