Strong Together? A Comparative Study of the Impact of the Women’s Movement on Policy-Making in Finland

Abstract

Securing women’s political rights has become increasingly prominent in international law and treaties on human rights. At the outset, starting from the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the focus was on ensuring women’s formal political citizenship rights only, that is, suffrage and formal eligibility for public office. Over time and as societies proved resistant to accepting women as fully-fledged political actors, the focus gradually shifted to emphasising women’s inclusion in all forms of decision-making, as well as incorporating gender equality considerations in all the levels and stages of policy-making (gender mainstreaming). The motivation is often that women’s increased participation is conceived as enhancing democracy. Paradoxically, however, as this chapter illustrates, democracy may also be an important precondition which helps realise the participation of women’s constituencies in public policy-making. It also shows that their inclusion indeed matters, as it tends to produce more satisfactory policy outcomes. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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