Patriarchy and Female Exclusion from the Public Sphere: electoral quotas for women in Brazil

Abstract

This article seeks to elucidate, based on bibliographic research, the role of women in electoral processes and their political struggle for social spaces  in a society founded and  sustained by patriarchal ideology. The struggle for gender parity stems from the need to find ways to bring women into positions of power with real possibilities for changing their own reality. Creating these opportunities, however, implies modifying the sphere of power  that has been dominated for centuries by men who legislate in their favour through successive terms of office. In this sense, when analysing Saffioti, we recognise in depth the patriarchal roots that constitute society and verify that the State itself has produced and continues to produce public policies that are detrimental to women, further delaying the achievement of basic rights. In ‘Gender, the Public and the Private’ (2008), Okin manages to materialise the immense obstacles that women need to overcome even when they have already obtained equal rights to men. Female token candidates, for example, are a symptom of a patriarchal and clientelist political system that does not follow the rules of politics and alienates serious and competent women from public spaces. Finally, the article seeks to reflect on and even question, based on extensive bibliography and assertive discussions on the topic, how to strengthen democracy and institutions and break with the patriarchy rooted in Brazil.