Abstract

A large body of case study research shows that democratic transitions improve gender equality when a higher level of women participate in the movements that support the transition, and they believe that the protection of women’s rights is absolutely essential to the development of democracy in their countries. Building on this case study research, this article evaluates the relationships between female critical mobilization, female critical assessment and democracies’ treatment of gender inequality with data from a large, diverse set of democracies. The results support a chain of relationships that run from female critical mobilization, to female critical assessment, to female critical expectations to democratic treatment of gender inequality and suggest that future research should focus on women’s understanding of their rights as democratic rights, the importance women attribute to democratic institutions as mechanisms for improving gender inequality, the extent to which women support global and local activism on behalf of women’s rights as part of a larger democratization frame and the effectiveness with which women use democratic institutions to improve gender inequality within their nations.

Keywords: Gender inequality; Gender equality; Women’s rights; Democracy