From electoral to corporate board quotas: the case of Portugal

In Portugal, a so-called Parity Law was approved in August 2006. According to that law, all lists presented for local, legislative, and European elections must guarantee a minimum representation of 33.3 per cent for each sex. Parties that do not respect this minimum are fined. The approval of that law places Portugal within a global trend for the adoption of such measures. This trend has intensified greatly over the last 15 years, and at the moment, more than one hundred countries have gender quotas for political office (Franceschet, Krook, and Piscopo 2012, 3). Although political gender quotas are the oldest and by far the most common ones, two further generations (Holli 2011) or groups (Meier 2013) of gender quotas have recently appeared in several countries: gender quotas for advisory boards and for boards of publicly listed and state-owned companies. Up until very recently, these two additional types of quotas were not present in Portugal, and quotas were synonymous with electoral gender quotas. However, in August 2017, a law aiming to achieve a more equilibrated representation of women and men in the administrative and fiscal organs of listed and state-owned companies was adopted.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Gender and politics in Portugal

This chapter surveys the literature on gender and politics in Portugal, focusing on explanations for gender differences in political participation and representation. We map trends in women’s inclusion in key areas of political life: from conventional to unconventional political participation, to the election of women in parliamentary parties (descriptive representation), and responsiveness to women’s policy demands (substantive representation). Putting Portugal in comparative perspective, we highlight the crucial roles of state feminism, women activists within parties, and strategic incentives of parties in progressing gender equality. We suggest several avenues for developing future research which leverages the Portuguese case, including the downstream impacts of political gender quotas, intersectional and non-binary analysis, and the symbolic impact of women’s inclusion in public life.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The elusive measurement of symbolic effects on citizens’ political attitudes: survey experiments as alternative avenues

In examining what the presence of female politicians symbolize to citizens, especially to women, scholars have sought to empirically prove whether it enhances the legitimacy of, closeness to, and satisfaction with political institutions, as well as levels of political efficacy and participation. By taking stock of the burgeoning quantitative research examining the symbolic effects of women’s descriptive representation on citizens’ political attitudes and behavior, we will discuss the main empirical and methodological challenges that may have led scholars to reach at best mixed results, to identify merely modest effects or to not find any trace of them. These challenges include difficulties in properly establishing the causal effects and in operationalizing the dependent variable as well as a dearth of adequate data. Our contribution discusses the advantages provided by new methodological avenues, such as survey experiments vis-à-vis standard public opinion surveys, to circumvent the shortcomings identified.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Gender and attitudes towards immigrants: Exploring threat perceptions

Throughout the years, great attention has been paid to the gender gap in political attitudes. Whereas the differences reported by scholars are not large, they are not negligible either. Consequently, the literature highlights the divergent preferences of women and men regarding such issues as public welfare spending and punishment, not to mention issues that particularly affect women, such as gender quotas. Yet, there are many political topics in which there is a lack of stable trends regarding gender effects. This seems to be the case with attitudes toward immigration. This chapter aims to enhance our understanding of the effects of gender on public attitudes toward immigrants. It provides a comprehensive literature review of the topic, complemented by a brief empirical analysis of nine countries. In line with previous studies, the tendency for women (vis-à-vis men) to perceive immigrants as a hindrance to the economy is corroborated. By contrast, women seem to be less concerned about immigration’s impact on crime –which is a less steady output in the literature. The broadly hinted propensity of women to positively appraise immigrants’ influence on their countries’ culture is not confirmed, proving that the relationship between gender and attitudes toward immigrants is complex and multifaceted.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Who gets what? The interactive effect of MPs’ sex in committee assignments in Portugal

This article investigates the role of key individual-level factors, namely expertise, seniority and preferences in women’s assignments to legislative committees. It focuses on Portugal and draws on biographical data on MPs in five elections until 2009 and interviews with 20 legislators in 2014. The results show that female and male MPs have a similar probability of being appointed to powerful and economic issue committees, but female MPs are more likely to be appointed to social issue committees regardless of expertise and seniority. Although this outcome might be the product of their own preferences, it is influenced by embedded gender norms.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Severe Thyroid-associated Ophtalmopathy and Hashimoto´s Thyroiditis in Euthyroid Patient

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Implementing gender quotas in Portugal: A success story?

The so-called Portuguese Parity Law adopted in 2006 determined that candidate lists presented for national, European and local elections must include one third minimum representation of each sex. Following its revision in 2019, the minimum percentage required for each sex increased to 40%. The implementation of the Portuguese Parity Law has succeeded in meeting the direct goals of the policy. However, can the same be said for all stages of implementation? Moreover, even when the numbers tell a success story, what practices and resistances do they conceal? And, finally, has the law contributed to gender empowerment that goes beyond the direct scope of the law? This chapter aims to answer these questions by focusing on the national Parliament and on the major Portuguese parties. It draws on the figures for candidates and MPs between 2002 and 2019 as well as on semi-directive interviews with party stakeholders. The main conclusions are the following. First, the implementation of the law takes place smoothly in all four stages of implementation, although parties have usually gone no further than the minimum quota requirements. Parties’ actions and discourses demonstrate a moderate but serious commitment to the law. Second, both explicit and implicit forms of individual resistance, as well as passive institutional resistance take place at the national level for both parties. These resistances are not intended to cause policy failure, but rather to limit policy success. Third, the indirect effects of the law (i.e., gender empowerment in Parliament) are still limited.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio