Role of women political participation and change in the gender role attitudes of people

Absztrakt (kivonat)

Women’s descriptive representation in politics seems to have an influence on the attitudes of people towards their role in society. Despite having evidences from literature regarding this relationship, very little has been explored in the context of South Asia where gender norms and gender roles are different from the rest of the world. I theorize that due to the gendered division of labor in South Asia , when women join politics which is considered as a ‘male’s domain’, it sends a cue to other people to envision themselves as equal to their male counterparts by breaking the conventional perceptions of people. Supported by Social Role Theory and Symbolic Empowerment Theory, I examined for the positive linkages between women descriptive representation in politics and change in the gender role attitudes for the three South Asian countries (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh). Alongside I also investigated the differences in the gender role attitudes in three countries and between men and women too. Using the data from World Value Survey and Inter Parliamentary Union, a comparative analysis of two time periods (1999 and 2017) has been made. The results suggest that in South Asian countries, the relationship between women’s participation in politics and gender role attitudes is significantly negative. Although over time the percentage of women in parliament has increased in all the countries yet on the same hand people have become more conservative in their opinions and especially towards women’s political leadership capability and their right to employment in job scarcity. Attitude towards female higher education is the only dimension where a positive change is observed. This research thus calls for the role of context in this regard and suggests to explore further the reasons behind such a backlash effect.