Gender Quotas in Politics
Gender Quotas in Politics

Popular, but contestedƒ– also among feminists

Author(s): Drude Dahlerup
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Sociology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: gender quotas; politics; feminists
Summary/Abstract: In many countries, the demand for electoral gender quotas has been a catalyst for public debate on the reasons for women’s historical under-representation. An all-male government or parliament was for long seen as solid and trustworthy, but today would be met with immediate protests. Demands for gender quotas can also have a mobilizing effect, not only in democratic countries, but even in semi-democratic and authoritarian states, and today gender quotas for election have been adopted in all three types of political systems. Yet, only in a few countries have gender quotas demands been subject to such large popular mobilization as in Poland. Here the mobilization around gender quotas spilled over to other feminist issues, most recently seen in the large mobilization against the Polish government’s attempts to limit abortion rights. Quota demands may have this catalyst effect on the public debate, even in places where no, or just unambitious, quota rules are adopted, as we have seen in Brazil.

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