The Epistemic Double Bind of Parity Representation in France’s National Assembly

Abstract

As legislatures approach gender parity in different parts of the world, questions remain about whether institutional cultures support equal epistemic authority for women. In the French National Assembly, modern republicanism promotes depersonalized representation: deputies are expected to embody the universal citizen, with gender embedded but not defining. Drawing on 24 interviews with deputies elected before and after the 2017 elections, this article develops a feminist institutionalist framework to show how women navigate tensions between republican expectations that demand conformity to masculinized neutrality and pluralist norms that confine authority to “women’s issues.” We introduce the concept of epistemic double bind to theorize this dilemma and present a typology of role expectations and strategic responses that captures how deputies negotiate it. Our findings show that even in more gender-balanced legislatures, women face enduring constraints on epistemic authority. France serves as a critical case for understanding the practical demands of depersonalized representation and how actors reconfigure its contradictions in institutions shaped by parity laws.