Political reform needs to include a gender perspective.

The French Revolution of 1789 was a landmark in the construction of contemporary society, formally abolishing the structures of feudalism in Europe. Alongside the most well-known leaders of that process, such as Robespierre, Marat, and Danton, there was a woman. Olympe de Gouges was the pseudonym of a writer and playwright who participated intensely in the revolutionary process. She was beheaded by men, Jacobins and Girondins, after publishing her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen. She and her group advocated for gender equality in marriage and political participation.

More than three hundred years have passed since the assassination of Olympe de Gouges, and we women continue to be symbolically "guillotined" when we dare to participate in the political arena.

Despite making up just over half of the country's population, the proportion of women participating in positions of power remains incredibly low. In the Chamber of Deputies, for example, the number of women has decreased from the last legislature to the current one. Today, we are 45 women, about 8,7%, out of a total of 513 federal deputies.

Last year, the Swiss organization Inter-Parliamentary Union released a study in which Brazil appears in 104th place in female parliamentary participation, in a ranking of 192 countries. More than investigating the causes of this distortion, it is necessary for parliament, at this moment when political reform is being discussed, to take a stand against the exclusion of women from the national political scene. Gender inequality in Brazilian politics is so aberrant that we are behind theocratic countries, such as Afghanistan, and Muslim-majority countries, such as Turkey.

Beyond being a fundamental issue of justice and respect for women, the underrepresentation of women in public office and in the legislature, specifically, entails serious problems for their political legitimacy and their capacity to assess and formulate opinions on issues of interest to Brazilian society.

It is vital that we promote public policies with a gender perspective that address the demands of Brazilian women. And specifically regarding the exclusion of women from positions of power, such policies can and should be reinforced and implemented through affirmative action.

Let's look at the case of Argentina. Currently, about 40% of the seats in that country's Congress are occupied by women, a very significant result. In the Argentine experience, the closed list system was adopted in 1991, requiring that at least 30% of the seats be filled by women. As the percentages demonstrate, affirmative action has fulfilled its objectives: the proportion of women in parliament already exceeds the limits defined by law. But this was only possible after the initial law was amended to establish the mandatory gender alternation and related sanctions. Before the amendment, the law seemed doomed to failure, as women were always relegated to the end of the list.

This demonstrates the importance and capacity of affirmative action to structurally transform social reality. Taking the implementation of racial quotas in public universities as an example, we see how affirmative action has the potential to renew the debate and raise awareness of the issue. This process is happening in public universities. And it can and should happen in Congress as well.

Gender parity in the Chamber's preliminary draft.

We must welcome the draft political reform bill from the Chamber of Deputies, presented in August by rapporteur Henrique Fontana (PT), as a step forward, especially for establishing exclusive public campaign financing and instituting the pre-ordered party list (closed list), within the so-called mixed system. In this system, the closed list is limited to defining the occupation of half of the seats won by the party in proportional representation positions (city councilors and state representatives), with the other half being filled by the post-ordered list, which already exists today. Public financing and closed party lists are measures that contribute significantly to the improvement of democracy as a representation of political projects, and not of personal or economic interests.

Regarding gender representation, however, the proposal to be defined by the Chamber can and should make significant progress. In the preliminary draft, the quotas for women would be implemented as follows: within the 50% reserved for the party list, the quota for women would be set at 2 to 1, that is, one woman for every two men, with no preference for women when filling the positions.

Based on simple arithmetic, proponents of the proposal argue that it would result in approximately 16% of women occupying legislative positions. This appears to be a considerable improvement over the current figure of around 8%. Proponents of the draft bill go further, adding this 16% to the current 8,7%, anticipating that women would occupy approximately 24% of seats in Congress.

However, politics cannot be reduced to simple arithmetic. First of all, it is necessary to consider that, for the quota to be fully met, each party must elect at least five parliamentarians (or a multiple of five) in each state. This is not the rule. In fact, it is the exception.

Furthermore, given the traditional exclusion of women from the political arena and the consequent difficulty in developing female leaders, those occupying the top positions on the closed list will likely be those who already hold or have held parliamentary office, thus diminishing the potential for female candidates with a real chance of winning on the post-ordered list.

Therefore, instead of adding the supposed 16% quota for closed lists to the existing 8%, the most likely result is the division of the existing 8% between post- and pre-ordered lists, with additional difficulties for those participating in the pre-ordered list. It is possible that the proposal, as it stands, will decrease the number of women in Congress, rather than increase it.

We propose quotas that establish parity in closed lists, with preference given to women in each pair. Thus, in the event of the election of an odd number of parliamentarians, women would be favored, not disadvantaged. Only in this way can political reform create a positive outcome from the point of view of gender equality.

The PT points the way at the IV Congress.

The National Congress should observe the example given by the Workers' Party, in the extraordinary session of its IV Congress, held at the beginning of the month. In the reform of the party statute, we, the women of the Workers' Party, achieved parity in the leadership bodies of the PT. The bodies will also have ethnic-racial quotas, for blacks and indigenous people, and for youth.