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Congresswomen and Substantive Representation in Brazil

Abstract:

Increasing the number of women elected to parliaments has been a historical objective of many feminist movements. The expectation is that this will not merely broaden the correspondence between parliament and society, but furthermore that advances will be seen in relation to policies for women. In order to investigate the substantivity of representation, we analyzed 10,753 legislative propositions made between 2015 and 2017 in the House of Representatives, in an attempt to evaluate the quality of the legislative production by Brazilian congresswomen and the correlation between their legislative performance and the agenda of the Articulation of Brazilian Women. As a result, we identified that, in the period, congresswomen had three times more bills transformed into law than men and that there was adherence between issues considered consensual, but little action in relation to more progressive agendas.

Keywords:
Political representation; Feminist movements; Gender; Legislative productivity; Brazil

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