ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the relation between symbolic and descriptive representation. It also focuses on the literature dealing with the relation between descriptive and symbolic representation. The chapter addresses the quota rules, showing that gender quotas are in themselves a form of symbolic representation, revealing that this is the contribution of descriptive representation to the process of symbolic representation. Gender quotas are an agent representing gender, and what gender relations are or should be in a particular society. The chapter explains the fact that symbolic and descriptive representation shares a focus on form, and elaborated that they differed in the sense that descriptive representation is a literal reproduction of the principal, while symbolic representation is a figurative production of the principal. This figurative production of the principal implies that the act of representing has a performative dimension not present in descriptive representation and requires a maker producing the meaning attributed to the symbol, the agent.
