Rushing into gender quotas? : education and political participation of women in USA and Slovenia

english

2013

volume 6, issue 2

Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

Women as "political minors" are subjected to numerous equal opportunity policies. The so called gender equality in modern societies was established not long ago and consolidation of equal rights is a work in progress. Legal barriers to the ballot are mostly removed and women have de iure equal opportunity to participate in politics as men. However female representatives are greatly outnumbered by male representatives, virtually on all levels of politics. The article examines women's political (under)representation through the lenses of often tested hypothesis that education is the predictor of political participation. This causality is tested on two compared societies; USA and post-communist Slovenia. Since the role of women in political structures varies greatly due to social standing emerging from broader cultural systems of gender, socio-economic class, and political history, the similarities in final output (number of female representatives) in both countries are to be observed.

20.12.2023