Gender inequality in political representation remains and cannot be fully explained by contextual factors or feminist inaction. This paper suggests that in order to increase our understanding of why men’s overrepresentation in politics persists, gender equality in descriptive and substantive representation should be analysed as power struggles. Power is operationalized as positional power and active power, and struggle as the interaction between feminist strategies and resistance. The paper offers a re-reading of the scholarship on gender equality and political representation through the lens of power struggles and concludes with highlighting some future research tracks.
