Research on Gender Structure in Political Arena

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The purpose of this study is to analyze what factors influence women's political participation and what factors constrain women's empowerment in political arena, from the viewpoint of gender structure and organization in local politics. First we compiled the change of congresswomen in Kanagawa of these past approximately 10 years, mainly on the past three times of nationwide local elections. Next we tried to interviewed 13 female politicians in some area of Kanagawa prefecture and asked how they run election and why they won or lost, how they behaved as a member of local assembly, and what they produced as their political results. Next year, we carried out questionnaire survey for members of assemblies of cities, towns, and villages under Kanagawa. Analyzing 306 responses out of 829 people, we found some gender differences on backgrounds, political process, elections, political products and thoughts as politicians. When women enter political arena, their individual factors, for example, age, family, work, career, network and so on, influence their results of elections. However, political parties, power balance in the local assembly, rewords as politician of the assembly also influence women's political participation. Lastly we made research reports, using the data of both interview and questionnaire. Three parts of reports are constitution. At first, we gathered up about the present conditions and problems of "women and politics". Secondly, we reported interview investigation and questionnaire survey. We squeezed focuses such as family, election, factors of system or structure, activity of politics, and carrier. And lastly, we rethought of female political participation in the viewpoint of democracy and feminism.