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The paper examines experiences of women elected to local government in British Columbia, Canada, to show how gendered discourses and patriarchal practices persist within political systems. Using Bashevkin’s “discomfort equation” and feminist adult education, it argues for creating critical spaces that support women’s greater inclusion, and discusses how political learning can enable or constrain access to leadership roles.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/unsettling-the-gendered-power-paradigm-discomfort-dissonance-and-dissention-among-women-in-local-government/597488/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/unsettling-the-gendered-power-paradigm-discomfort-dissonance-and-dissention-among-women-in-local-government/597488.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"pop out","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the paper mean by the “discomfort equation” in women’s political leadership?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It refers to gendered discourses that undermine how women in politics are perceived and evaluated, combining constraints and ongoing devaluation of women’s participation.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"Which setting and participants does the study focus on?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The study looks at women in British Columbia who participate in local (municipal) government activities, examining relationships among political marginalization, education, and civic agency.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does feminist adult education connect to improving women’s inclusion in local government?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The paper argues that feminist adult education can create critical spaces to support women’s greater inclusion and offers an educational framework centered on consciousness raising and recognizing difference.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},597488,1792165039,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},962090760408,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","Unsettling the Gendered Power Paradigm: Discomfort, Dissonance and Dissention among Women in Local Government  \nCatherine McGregor  \nUniversity of Victoria  \nDarlene Clover  \nUniversity of Victoria  \nAbstract  \nDespite decades of efforts to achieve gender equity in political life, women remain underrepresented in nearly all levels of government. In this paper, we explore the experiences offered by women who have been elected to local government in the province of British Columbia, Canada, to illustrate the persistence of gendered discourses and patriarchal practices within political systems. Drawing upon Bashevkin’s (2009) recent discussion of how women’s political roles are undermined through the discomfort equation, we consider how feminist, adult education offers the potential for creating critical spaces that will support women’s greater inclusion in local government.  \nKeywords: feminist adult education, political learning, gender, politics  \nRésumé  \nMalgré des décennies d'efforts en faveur de l'égalité des sexes dans la vie politique, les femmes restent sous-représentées à presque tous les niveaux du gouvernement. Dans cet article, nous nous intéressons aux expériences partagées par des femmes qui ont été élues dans une collectivité locale de la province de la Colombie-Britannique, au Canada, afind'illustrer la persistance du sexisme systémique ainsi que des pratiques patriarcales au sein des systèmes politiques. S'appuyant sur la récente analyse de Bashevkin (2009) sur la façon dont les rôles des femmes en politique sont minés par l'équation de l'inconfort (femme + pouvoir), nous examinons comment l'enseignement féministe pour adultes offre la possibilité de créer un espace critique qui va oeuvrer en faveur d'une meilleure intégration des femmes dans les collectivités locales.  \nMots clés : enseignement féministe pour adultes, apprentissage politique, genre, politique  \nCANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 34, 1 (2011): 248–281  \nUnsettling the Gendered Power Paradigm: Discomfort, Dissonance and Dissention  \namong Women in Local Government  \nIntroduction  \nBashevkin (2009) recently argued that gendered discourses permeate the ways in which women in politics are perceived and evaluated. She calls this tendency to undermine women in political leadership “the discomfort equation”(p. 2) . This concept draws attention to two different but related discourses that doubly marginalize women’s participation in political life. The first discourse that limits women’s participation in political life is that it is gendered—that is, the historical, cultural, and naturalized belief systems about politics as a male-centered domain. The second discourse is that of devaluation; this refers to public and media discourses that denigrate civic life and participation within it. Bashevkin (2009) argues that these two discourses operate iteratively at a macro and micro level, such that women are caught in “a pincer movement that constrains public involvement . . . and permits all the [gender based] [patterns . . . to](patterns . . . to)[ ](patterns . . . to)[continue](continue)”(p. 117). This double bind of naturalized patriarchy and the continual devaluation of democratic processes have had serious consequences for women. As Heard (2008) and Bashevkin (2009) both note, women’s participation in public life in Canada, despite some years of growth in the 1970s and 1980s, is now declining. If participatory democracy is to thrive, all voices—and at least 50% of these voices are women’s—must be represented in political decision making. The question for feministsand educators is: how can such patterns be broken so that women can take up their rightful roles as representatives of and for communities—roles that challenge gendered  \nassumptions and processes of devaluation? Specifically as feminist educators, we ask the question: how might political education be theorized and used as a liberatory tool for such work?  \nIn this article, we document a recently c","cbCaihaguASiRhMj","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaihaguASiRhMj","pdf",182971,34,"English","# Introduction\n## Discomfort equation and gendered devaluation\n## Research focus on women in British Columbia\n# Feminist Adult Education and Political Learning\n## Empowerment strategies in feminist adult education","[{\"question\":\"What does the paper mean by the “discomfort equation” in women’s political leadership?\",\"answer\":\"It refers to gendered discourses that undermine how women in politics are perceived and evaluated, combining constraints and ongoing devaluation of women’s participation.\"},{\"question\":\"Which setting and participants does the study focus on?\",\"answer\":\"The study looks at women in British Columbia who participate in local (municipal) government activities, examining relationships among political marginalization, education, and civic agency.\"},{\"question\":\"How does feminist adult education connect to improving women’s inclusion in local government?\",\"answer\":\"The paper argues that feminist adult education can create critical spaces to support women’s greater inclusion and offers an educational framework centered on consciousness raising and recognizing difference.\"}]","Unsettling the Gendered Power Paradigm: Discomfort, Dissonance and Dissention among Women in Local Government | PDF",1792085108,86]