Gender Parity in Political Representation: Advancing Descriptive Representation and Confronting Challenges Permeated by Gender, Class and Ethnicity. The Case of Mexico and Bolivia

Abstract

Chapters 4 and 5 address the obstacles to achieve effective political participation for all women in Latin America—a necessary step to implementing meaningful gender equality, by looking at the experience of Mexico and Bolivia. This chapter addresses the remaining challenges women face in countries where formal gender parity in political representation has been attained at the national, and sometimes even at the local, level, focusing on the Mexican case, where despite an increase in female members of parliament in the 2018 elections (in which the lower legislative chamber consisted of 49.2% women and 51% in the higher chamber, respectively), political violence and harassment on the basis of sex continues to occur at all levels of power. The subsequent chapter (Chap. 5) continues to analyze the Mexican situation, where in spite of the parity in political representation mentioned above, ethnicity and poverty are formidable obstacles for Indigenous women to be taken seriously and respected even if they become elected. Chapter 4 presents as well the case of Bolivia where gender parity in political representation was attained in 2014 before than in Mexico. Given the fact that part of the legitimacy of the Morales government was a revaluation of the Indigenous cultures, many more Indigenous women than in Mexico, became elected at the national and local levels. However, as in Mexico, many of these elected women (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) had to confront serious challenges to the exercise of their office in the form of harassment and even political violence. Both chapters arrive at the conclusion that gender parity in political representation is only the first step in the strive to attain a real gender equality at all levels in our societies. This gender equality is not only about joining the already existent political institutions but about transforming them.

I would like to express my enormous gratitude to Robyn Baker who helped me enormously in the formatting and many practical details and edits to finish this article.