Dimensions
138 x 216 x 19mm
Discussion of the position of women in the formal political process in Europe, including interviews with women in the European Parliament.
This book contributes to two ongoing debates: one about the presence and activity of women in politics, and the other about the part which language plays in shaping and developing our political activity.
Hilary Footitt argues that, in a world of shifting roots and multiple identities, the stories we tell, the ways in which we understand the relationships between us, and the communities we imagine ourselves belonging to, are of ever-increasing political importance. At the centre of the study are the women (from 12 EU countries) who participate in the transnational political site of the European Parliament.
Using interviews with women MEPs, and a close textual study of speeches in the European Parliament, Hilary Footitt argues that women have created a language of politics which transcends nationalities and political parties and contributes to engendering democracy, defining citizenship and imagining the community of Europe. Politics, she argues, is multilingual, and an understanding of the varieties of vocabularies and grammars which are potentially available to us may help us to create a more inclusive and dynamic political process.
