Trends Of Quota Analysis

4.6 Trends of Quota system created by political parties of other countries--

4.6.1 The Nordic countries --The Nordic countries have especially used quotas successfully over a longer period of time than other member states. For example, the Danish People's Socialist Party introduced quotas in the early 1970s, specifying that either sex had to be represented with at least 40% of electoral candidates. The effects of quotas can clearly be seen in the consistently higher numbers of women in the parliaments of these countries over time.

4.6.2 Germany-- Another example of the use of quotas by the parties is the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which established the use of quotas for both electoral office (33%) and internal party structure (40%).

Systemic gender discrimination in political structures and institutions favor men over equally qualified women. It is a fallacy that there are not enough qualified women; rather women’s qualifications are systematically downgraded. Furthermore, since male political elites have historically defined what constitutes “appropriate qualifications” the valuation of male experiences and qualifications over those of women has prevailed, thus emphasizing the key roles of citizens as defenders of the country (soldiering) and as “productive” labor within the formal economy. These conceptions ignore the crucial role of women in (re) producing society and their critical contributions in the daily management of households and communities, on which the survival of a society depends even more than on national defense and perhaps even economic markets. 7 Distorted assumptions that disadvantage women have not profoundly changed in many cases. Thus women’s years of care-giving and family-raising, community activism or dealing with government institutions and bureaucracies are worse than undervalued – such long-term experience is often considered to handicap women wanting to enter into formal politics. Yet it is precisely these everyday grassroots activities and the concerns of ordinary women which must be represented in parliament if the majority of citizens are to feel that politics is relevant to their lives and that they are truly part of a democratic society. Further, given that 50% of any nation’s population is women, gender in itself must count as a major qualification for political representation, since the parliament of a democratic society should reflect its population. In these regards, quotas can be, and are, an important measure for making the political landscape more