Women in Latin America and the Caribbean - Cepal

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In many countries, a new collective subjectivity was built around gender inequalities and new
political fields emerged. Actors in these fields drew attention to the systemic nature of gender inequality
and identified different and sometimes contradictory forms of discrimination within the social and
institutional spheres, that is, in day-to-day interactions, family life, the marketplace, politics and culture.
Unlike the feminist movement in Europe and the United States, the feminist campaign in this region
revolved around development, social equality and poverty.
The effort to develop measures to deliberately increase women’s political representation comes in
response to the slow or almost non-existent growth of their numbers in parliaments, despite improvements
in women’s levels of education, their entry to the labour market and their growing membership of
political parties. Thus, women’s organizations —especially groups of female politicians in cross-party
alliances— are campaigning for affirmative action to counteract the formal or informal barriers
preventing women’s nomination to electoral lists or appointment to designated positions.
Electoral gender quotas, as initially implemented in political parties in the Nordic countries in the
1970s, were intended to guarantee a certain number of women in senior political positions and to create a
“critical minority” (30% to 40%) to counteract their political isolation and channel resources, not only
towards meeting women’s demands, but also into initiatives to change the way political systems worked.
Quota systems may be examined from two angles: first, the source of the quota mandate
(constitution, legislation, political parties) and, second, the stage of the political and electoral process at
which it is enforced. Quotas can be employed at the first stage of the process (identification of would-be
candidates), at an intermediate stage (candidate nomination) or the final stage (by reserving a certain
percentage of seats for women). The double-quota system is one which not only calls for a certain
percentage of women to participate, but also requires them to occupy positions on the electoral lists that
have a good possibility of being elected.
The use of quotas is a matter of considerable debate and resistance in the political system. Some
of those in politics argue that quotas violate the principles of the universality of citizenship and of
competition on an equal footing based on individual merit. They warn of the danger of encouraging the
differentiation of new groups and the corporate representation of group interests. In relation to these
arguments, however, from the point of view of political strategy electoral quotas do not imply the
recognition of any fundamental interpretation of womanhood, but constitute a mechanism to counteract
subordination and improve chances for real equality. Quotas are built upon the concept of affirmative
action concept mentioned earlier.
Affirmative action is associated with programmes to train social and political leaders and with
measures to promote the formation and action of women’s organizations. In a political environment
constructed around gender equity, it is possible to define gender problems and build them into
governments’ institutional agendas; promote legal and constitutional reforms; expand knowledge towards
the State; provide appropriate human-resources training; and support the establishment of arenas in which
pro-gender-equity policies can be coordinated. The world conferences held under the auspices of the
United Nations in the 1990s were highly significant and became major media events that galvanized
public opinion and therefore went a long way towards disseminating and legitimizing issues, proposals
and the resulting agreements. The growing involvement of NGOs in preparatory meetings for
conferences, national committees and delegations, alternative forums and follow-up committees and
conferences provided the feminist movement with new opportunities for political participation at the
global level, as well as channels through which to influence governments. This helps to explain why the