Jennifer M. Piscopo
EVERYONE WANTS THE “NEXT BIG IDEA” that will solve the intractable global problem of gender inequality. As I have argued, without women the promise of representative democracy remains unrealized. In order to solve the problem of men’s dominance over politics, many countries have landed on a quick fix: the adoption of gender quotas that compel parties to nominate and elect more women.
Described as the “fast track” to women’s political representation, gender quotas gained popularity as a policy tool beginning in the 1980s. The fast track model rejects the notion that women should wait for sexism to gradually disappear. As political scientists Drude Dahlerup and Lenita Freidenvall argue, it captures “the impatience of today’s feminists, who are not willing to wait seventy to eighty years to achieve their goals.” The international community now talks less about gender quotas and more about gender parity, but the fast track still appeals. The World Economic Forum, for instance, recently extolled the importance of policy incentives for “hurrying history” toward gender parity.