15:00 - 16:40
P4
Room: South Hall 2B
Panel Session 4
Cyrill Otteni - Female political empowerment and the gender gap in political participation
Martin Haselmayer - Equality Of What? Mapping Changes In The Equality Concepts Of Parties In OCED Countries Since 1970
Andy Harris - A Booth of One's Own: Gender and Turnout in Pakistan
Didac Queralt - Historical origins of gender gaps in political representation: And how cultural entrepreneurs can help close it
Katharina Pfaff - Gender and Political Protest: Understanding Mass Mobilization for Gender Equality
Gender and Political Protest: Understanding Mass Mobilization for Gender Equality
P4-05
Presented by: Katharina Pfaff
Katharina Pfaff
Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien
When do people mobilize against gender inequality? Not only on the occasion of the international women’s day protesters worldwide draw attention to sexual abuse or inequity in rights and work payment for women. Grievance theory contends that inequality triggers protest among those who are most disadvantaged. In line with this theory, protests against gender inequality should be more likely to be organized when women face higher discrimination. Despite cross-country studies on contentious politics, research on mass mobilization in favour of gender equality is comparatively scarce. This article examines whether countries with higher gender inequality see more protests calling for gender equality. To test this theoretical expectation, country-level data on indicators of gender inequality such as gender pay gap are combined with event data of protests against gender discrimination. In addition, the analysis disaggregates women’s protests into different types of such as protests prompted by gendered socioeconomic discrimination, abortion policies, and violence against women. Empirical findings thus provide more refined insights on the determinants of women’s protests.