Telling women to ‘lean in’ is not the answer to get more women in politics
Men dominate Canadian politics. In the 2021 federal elections, men were 57 per cent of candidates for the Liberal party, 67 per cent of candidates for the Conservative party and 70 per cent of victors in the House of Commons.
Yet rarely do the pundits and policymakers talk about men’s dominance of politics. Instead, they talk about women’s absence. Women don’t run, they say. Women lack confidence, doubt their qualifications and wait to be asked. Women must, a 2019 House of Commons report concluded, be empowered to stand.
These talking points characterize the “lean in” narrative of women’s underrepresentation. To overcome women’s reluctance, dozens of programs and schools across Canada and the globe are training women to run for office.
Except “lean in” gets a lot wrong about how electoral politics actually works — and it won’t bring about gender parity among candidates anytime soon.
The lean-in solution exists thanks to political science research showing that women have less political ambition than men. Study after study from the United States found that women were consistently less likely than men to say they had ever considered running for office. In Canada, one study found that one-in-three men had thought about running, compared to one-in-five women.
Women’s lack of political ambition is a deceptively simple fact. On the one hand, this gender gap does exist. On the other hand, just because women lack ambition does not mean disinterest alone keeps them from running.
After all, politics has other problems that may be turn-offs for women. Political careers become more interesting to women when framed in terms of helping the community, rather than seeking power and promoting oneself. Incendiary rhetoric, mudslinging, toxicity, aggression, and violence especially discourage young women and young women of color.
Women’s candidate training programs are marketing political careers to women, empowering them to navigate an arena where self-aggrandizement and competition are the unquestioned norms.
My research into programs across the globe found a consistent emphasis on empowerment through “skillification.” Canada’s Equal Voice offers campaign schools that “equip women with the skills, knowledge and resources they need to run for office.” Calgary’s Ask Her campaign has three pillars: get prepared, get connected and get equipped.
Of course, women’s campaign schools do provide important benefits, like access to role models, networks and information. Since women are frequently excluded from the “old boys’ clubs” that dominate political parties, they often do not have relationships with the right power brokers nor access to insider knowledge about the nuts-and-bolts of campaigning.
In this way, campaign schools provide women with the same knowledge and resources that parties usually provide to men. That means women are underrepresented not because they lack ambition, but because the parties exclude them.
In Canada, like most other democracies worldwide, political parties are the gatekeepers to elected office. That Canadian men get the lion’s share of candidacies and parliamentary seats comes down to how parties recruit candidates. Recruitment happens via local networks that often exclude women.
Parties’ control over candidate selection means that exhorting women to “lean in” is not enough.
What’s more, this narrative shifts the blame from parties to women. It implies that women’s character traits and professional credentials need fixing. Women have to rely on candidate training to signal their preparedness, whereas men benefit from already knowing the right people alongside the assumption they are naturally suited for the job.
Women might have less ambition because they know the game was not designed for them — and men might have too much ambition because they know they can more easily win.
Except the skills emphasized by women’s training programs would benefit men too. Democracy surely improves when all elected officials follow the law, behave with decorum, listen to constituents, design sound policies and dialogue and collaborate with one’s opponents. If “skillification” aims to make politics better — to make government more diverse, more representative, more professional, and more responsive — then pure ambition seems a less valuable starting point than empathy and humility.
All this does not imply that women’s campaign schools should fold up shop. Thanks to men’s political dominance, women consistently receive the message that politics is not for them. Campaign schools exist because the parties have left women behind.
But those encouraging more women to run need to flip the script. It’s not women who have failed to stand, it’s men who have failed to stand aside. It’s not just women who need to improve themselves and clean-up politics, it’s parties’ responsibility to set high standards for all candidates.
The parties decide who runs, and the parties are accountable for men’s dominance of Canadian politics.
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