The Politics of Feminist Group Awareness

There is a long-standing debate in research on political representation about whether representatives' feminist beliefs matter more than their sex/gender for political attitudes and behavior. Put simply, Phillips (1995) argues for a politics of presence in which the sex/gender of representatives is given great importance, while Young (2000) argues for a politics of group awareness in which feminist beliefs are given a more significant role. This paper tests the proposition of a theory of feminist group awareness using survey data from the Swedish Parliament in 2022 (80% response rate). The results show that parliamentary feminists differ from others, especially when it comes to supporting policy proposals that primarily target women and girls. The politicization of women's interests over the past decades in Sweden has meant that there are clear advocates for such group interests. This is in sharp contrast to policy proposals that primarily target men and boys. In the latter case, there is a lack of parliamentarians championing such interests. However, models that include both sex/gender and feminist beliefs support that these are complementary rather than conflicting theoretical perspectives, as the vast majority of "feminists" are women (68% of Swedish female MPs and 32% of Swedish male MPs self-identify as feminists).