ERC Starting Grant: How Women Have Shaped Politics – and Their Own Rights
In her ERC-funded project, Dr. Keonhi Son examines how female parliamentarians shaped the development of women’s rights in 18 countries over nearly a century from 1883 to 1980. In doing so, she considers both her direct influence, in the form of parliamentary participation, and her indirect influence through political parties. The history of social citizenship will be systematically examined for the first time from a women-centered perspective.
The researcher, who conducts research at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), defines women’s social citizenship as their economic independence from both the market and their husbands, for instance the right to sign employment contracts without permission of husbands or the right to social security. The funded project is titled “SheCitizen: She as Citizen: Female Parliamentarians and the Emergence of Social Citizenship.”
“In research on the history of the welfare state, the prevailing view is still that women were treated like children—that is, merely as recipients of welfare benefits,” says the postdoctoral researcher. “However, I am familiar with many case studies that show this is not true. There were numerous female politicians and women’s movements that drove the emergence of social rights for women. That is why I decided to investigate this more systematically.”