Parity:: A counterfeit equality?: Discursive framing and practices of reform

The new French gender parity law has been applied in several elections since it was voted on 6 June 2000. However, it is the source of serious disillusionment for activist supporters, as its concrete results fall far short of the hopes it initially raised. In this paper we investigate this discrepancy, sketching out a history of the reform and showing how it evolved from a claim for positive discrimination for women, with the aim of bringing about true equality, to a claim for the symbolic representation of gender difference in elected bodies. As a result of various constraints, both discursive (such as abstract individualism) and practical (such as its discussion in the parliament), parity underwent profound transformations altering its meaning and the conception of equality it embodied.