Les « liaisons paradoxales »: Genre, ordre politique et ordre social en france et en allemagne

Abstract

The above article attempts to solve a gender paradox that obtains in the relationship between the political and social order: to wit, why are there more women in the Bundestag than in the Assemblée nationale although women are less "emancipated" in German society than in France. A comparison of the two systems reveals that female political staff are recruited chiefly according to a logic that is peculiar to the political sphere and largely determined by the competition between the political parties. To all intents and purposes French politics is a hermetically sealed domain, whereas in Germany, in the wake of the 1968 upheavals, widespread social movements have heavily impacted the recruitment of professional politicians, enabling women to enter Parliament in considerable numbers.