WOMEN's POLITICAL REPRESENTATION: THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL ASPECTS

Abstract

The article raises theoretical questions about the importance of women's representation in national parliaments in the context of a strategy to achieve gender parity in politics. Based on the theory of representation by H. Pitkin, the authors reflect on the role of women’s representation in legislative bodies in the promotion of women-oriented politics, and draw attention to the cross-national features of women's advancement in politics. The historical outline of the evolution of women's representation in parliaments focuses on such countries as Great Britain, the USSR, Ireland, the USA, the United Arab Emirates, etc. The authors draw attention to the concept of a "women-friendly state", formulated in the Scandinavian countries, and extrapolate it to theoretical reflections on the importance of women's representation in the parliaments of other countries. The authors demonstrate the difference between descriptive and substantive types of representation using the representation of women as an example and analyze the theory of "critical mass" that is traditionally used by researchers when talking about the representation of minority groups in politics.