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The Pros and Cons of Gender Quota Laws: What Happens When You Kick Men Out and Let Women In?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2006

Lisa Baldez
Lisa Baldez
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College
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Extract

What country currently boasts the highest percentage of women in parliamentary office? If you ask most people, they will guess one of the Nordic countries: Sweden, Norway, Finland, or Denmark. These guesses are close in one sense but very far off in another. The answer is Rwanda. As of this writing, women make up nearly half of the members of the Rwandan Chamber of Deputies—48.8% according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (2005b). Most people find this answer surprising. Sadly, we tend to associate Rwanda with the genocide of 1994 rather than with gender equality. What has put Rwanda in the number one spot on the list of women in elective office, an important indicator of women's equality?

Type
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER AND POLITICS
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 102 - 109
Copyright
© 2006 The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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