Women’s Hampered Participation: The Case of Processes of Democratic Innovation in the Basque Country

By Jone Martínez Palacios, Igor Ahedo Gurrutxaga, Alicia Suso Menzada, Lara Zuriñe Rodriguez
English

This article aims to identify the obstacles that women have encountered in their participatory projects within the democratic innovation processes in the Basque Country (Spain). Through a dialectic approach, this article analyzes the ways through which the male-domination sex-gender system is reproduced in those spaces. We identify and explain four main groups of obstacles that limit women’s participation in the processes of democratic innovation: institutionalized social structures, elements linked to an absence of a symbolic power, the formal structure of the device, and embodied social structures. The conclusion highlights the need to influence these embodied structures to contribute to the progressive disabling of the male-domination sex-gender system that is being reproduced through democratic innovations.

Keywords

  • gender rules
  • feminist counter-public
  • citizen participation
  • deliberation
  • democratization
Go to the article on Cairn-int.info