Abstract
Recently, the question of women's candidature for Presidency has been very important in France and in the United States, with the candidature of Ségolène Royal of the Socialist party, applying for the Presidency of France. In fact, Arlette Laguiller was the first woman in France to be a candidate for a presidential election, but she belonged to a small party, whereas Ségolène Royal reached the second stage of the elections. Moreover, Hilary Clinton was candidate for primary elections for Presidency of the United States. If we consider the access to politics as the ability for people to access to elective functions or nominations, we can try to study the gender gap between men and women considering the access to politics, and consequently considering the work of a politician in the political scene. We can ask the question about the situation of the gender gap nowadays. Can we speak about a gender gap in the access to politics? We will first analyze the reasons for the gender gap in the access to politics and the men's circle of the political field as a barrier for women to go into. Actually we must study the long process of women's integration in the political sphere. Then we will study the different attempts to struggle against the inequality between men and women in politics. Finally, we will try to see if the gender gap does exist even now and what strategies women should use to go into the political scene. We can study this issue with two countries, France and the United States.
