What, if anything, do women share transnationally in their experiences of running for National office, with regards to gender discrimination?

The intention of this thesis is to explore whether the local forms of gender discrimination that female political leaders face running for national office can be connected to wider forms of discrimination that women face, transnationally. The first part of the study explores ideas of power relations, solidarity and difference through a Transnational feminist lens and locates the 1995 Beijing conference as a key milestone for highlighting the importance of gender discrimination and for unifying different and diverse women. The thesis then progresses to explore four female political leaders from the Global North (GN) and Global South (GS), pre-Beijing – Golda Meir (GS) and Margaret Thatcher (GN) and during/post-Beijing – Benazir Bhutto (GS) and Hillary Rodham-Clinton (GN) and their experiences of local gender discriminations. Furthermore, using five key markers of gender inequalities from the Beijing Platform for Action, the thesis concludes by analysing similarities and idiosyncrasies between the local forms of gender discrimination that the leaders faced and wider, global forms of discrimination that women share transnationally. The research reveals that the majority of local discriminations that all four female political leaders faced can be linked to the discriminations that women face transnationally, as outlined in the Beijing Platform for Action. Key words: Transnational feminism, Beijing conference, solidarity, gender discrimination, female political leaders, national offic