Female participation in politics in Brazil and the challenges towards participatory parity democracy

Abstract

Women are most of the Brazilian electorate able to vote and yet are abysmally underrepresented in public spaces of power, both in elective positions of political representation, as in the internal compositions of institutions, from political parties to the courts. Present at the bases and absent from positions of influence and leadership, they not only face the historical political, economic and social inequalities that have kept them for so long excluded from the enjoyment of formal equality of rights in relation to men, but they are also victims of discrimination and gender-based violence, which are aggravated at the same intensity with which they aim for positions of greater prominence in public life. Positioning the Brazilian reality in a world context of millenary male domination and the historical struggle of women for political rights and substantive equality, this study seeks in political science the origins of female exclusion from the foundation of modern democracy, as well as the theoretical justifications for the implementation of temporary affirmative measures to repair such inequalities. Analyzing the gender quota legislation for the inclusion of women in the parliament and the extremely relevant contributions of new affirmative policies built through the jurisprudence of the Superior Courts, in comparison with the human rights treaties signed by Brazil, in the face of persistent resistance from political parties and Brazilian parliament itself in advancing this agenda, this study seeks to design a new model that contemplates the implementation of gender parity in other institutions, together with the strengthening of popular participation mechanisms provided for in the Constitution, which are now practically obsolete. It is, finally, a project of participatory parity democracy.