Background Document - Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy

Generally speaking, developments are uneven, particularly for the first fifty years,
which are characterised by long periods of stagnation broken by some notable forward
leaps in the early 1940s and again in the early 1970s.
The representation of women in Parliament thus falls into three phases, which
mirror the general situation when it comes to equal status policy.
1915-1945 with less than 5 % female representation.
1945-1971 with a female representation of up to 10%.
1971-2011 with a rapid and sustained growth in female representation towards the
40% mark.
The first phase ends with the close of the Second World War, when a great window
of opportunity opened up in equal rights policy, as is often the case in post-crisis situations.
Across the world, women had made a significant contribution during the war
years, both on the home front and in the field.
Recognition of this contribution came in several forms. Equal gender rights were
included in international legislation through the United Nations Charter and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The political representation of women increased
in countries with women’s suffrage, including Denmark, and having a female government
minister became a must. Other countries, including, as previously mentioned,
France, instituted voting rights for women.
The second phase ends with the beginning of the second feminist wave in the
wake of the 1960s youth rebellions. The 1970s became the women’s decade par excellence,
not least due to the United Nations’ prominent focus on equal rights, including
the International Women’s Year, the World Conference on Women, and a bill of rights
for women: the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW).
In Denmark, women charged into parliament, where the percentage of women
surged from eleven to twenty-four per cent over the course of the 1970s. And in a new
development, women’s political representation continued to increase. Following the
long period of stagnation, focus shifted from political rights to political participation,
and the feminist tenet that political organs not having an equal gender distribution
are illegitimate now garnered broad popular support.
Revolutions are created by the assault of youth on old regimes, and the second
feminist wave became the historical youth rebellion of women. In earlier days, female
politicians were typically middle-aged, because they did not run for office until the
children were out of the house. Since the mid-1960s, the mean age for women in Parliament
has dropped by ten years, from fifty-five to forty-five, and the age composition
has become more diverse. The latest national elections gave seats in Parliament
to two women between the ages of twenty and twenty-four, and two between the ages
of sixty and sixty-nine.
“The entire female elite in the country was
mobilised in a large-scale media push.”
The young women brought the issues of pregnancy, birth, and parental leave with
them into political life. When the first pregnant woman ran for Parliament in 1971,
and was elected, it made the headlines. Front pages were cleared again when the first
female minister gave birth while in office in 1998. Since then, many have followed in
their footsteps, and today nobody disputes female politicians’ right to have children
while holding office.
WOMEN IN POLITICS DANISH INSTITUTE FOR PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY PAGE 52