On Constitutionalism and Women’s Citizenship

Abstract

This article is an attempt to explain the forms in which constitutionalism has facilitated or hindered women’s equal citizenship throughout history and with a particular emphasis on Western constitutionalism, especially the US and continental Europe, but also with an eye on new constitutionalism and its innovations. In so doing, the article takes into account not only women’s access to the rights first conquered by men but also the extent to which the forms of participation traditionally assigned to women—neither in the state nor in the marketplace, but rather in the household and in the family— have become recognized as forms of citizenship contribution. In other words, it tells the story of the relevance of constitutionalism for women’s citizenship as defined in male terms (that is to say, with a focus on equal rights and participation in the so-called public sphere), as well as for women’s ability to redefine the very understanding of citizenship to include participation in social reproduction, in and through the so-called domestic sphere.