Power and gender : policy frames on gender inequality in politics in the Netherlands and Spain

This article studies a potential barrier for women in political decision-making: the way in which policy documents frame the concept of power. Our study covers a selection of Dutch and Spanish policy documents on the issue of women in political decision-making. Drawing on Steven Lukes, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault, we examine what policy actors say about the concept of power and we analyze existing power mechanisms in the text, even when the concept of power or the power relations between the sexes is not explicitly discussed. Policy documents do not really discuss power, but yet they (implicitly) accept and reproduce existing power relations between the sexes. This lack of problematization of existing power relations might present an important discursive barrier for women to positions of decision-making.