ABSTRACT

In recent years, a political representative’s gender has come to be seen as an important factor in democratic governance. This is primarily because women hold public office at rates far below their proportion of the general population. Should more women be elected to political office? If so, how should this be accomplished? Should citizens be encouraged to vote for women, or should democracies enact laws that aim to increase the number of women in legislature? At present, nearly a hundred democracies have achieved high percentages of women participating in elected office by implementing some type of quota provision for the selection of female candidates.1 In other democracies, there are independent, grassroots movements that seek to build coalitions of women for the purposes of governing, and independent organizations that train women to run for political office so that more women are elected. But are these interventions ethically justified? And do citizens have an obligation to take a political candidate’s gender into consideration when voting? Do women with the aptitude, skills, and resources have a special reason to run for office?2