4th International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP4) June 26-28, 2019 – Montréal Panel T12-P03 Session 1 Feminist Governance in the 21st Century Title of the paper Advances or stagnation? Relationship between the feminist agenda and the Peruvian congress 2011-2016 Author Katherine Zegarra Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru
[email protected] June 27, 2019 4th International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP4) June 26-28, 2019 – Montréal Introduction When Latin America began its democratization process in the 1980s, exclusionary effects on women resulted (Rousseau 2012: 43). As the political regime does not define a better or worse situation for women's rights, Rousseau proposes that institutions themselves to account for these dynamics. This is reinforced by Ginwala: "So as in emerging and as in established democracies, it has become clear that universal suffrage by itself does not necessarily lead to the establishment of legislative entities representatives of an entire society. Indeed, many sectors of the population continued to be marginalized" (Ginwala 2002: 5). Against sub representation of women and due to an adverse context for their political participation, gender quotas and parity have been developed since the nineties as mechanisms of positive discrimination. Giving women preferential treatment, in order to balance the inequalities, they face and not to leave participation in the simple willingness of political parties (Peschard 2002: 174). These measures had an important effect on the increase of women in public positions, such as in the Parliament. The legitimization of affirmative actions is based on diverse arguments. First of all, they are based on the under-representation of women in public positions.