3
the gender quota law provides one indication of how far the country has come in the
process of democratization.
Mexico is one of thirty countries around the world that have adopted gender quota
laws that require a certain percentage of all candidates for office to be women (IDEA
2004). In all thirty cases, quota laws have been adopted since 1991. The quotas range
from a low of 5% in Nepal to 50% in France. The goal of gender quotas is to increase the
political representation of women beyond a token few. Electoral gender quotas target
gender bias in the candidate selection process, rather than in the electorate, and thus aim
to transcend the myriad social, political and cultural factors that mitigate against the
election of women to high political office (IDEA 2004). Quotas are seen worldwide as
the most viable instrument for increasing the participation of women in political decision-
making. The two most recent cases received widespread media coverage: the Afghan and
Iraqi constitutions each contain provisions that guarantee 25% of the seats of the national
parliaments for women.
While gender quotas appear to be everywhere these days, the degree to which
they increase the percentage of women in elected office varies a great deal. In Argentina,
the percentage of women in the House of Deputies increased by twenty-five percentage
points after the quota law was applied. In Brazil, however, the quota law generated an
increase of only two percentage points. The impact of gender quotas on the election of
women in Mexican is lower than the average of 9.5%, but consistent with the median
(6.5%) (Htun 2004)
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Convention