The trouble of a double gender gap in politics. Peru’s gender quota experience beyond women’s descriptive representation in the national Congress 2016-2019.

This paper builds upon a previous comparative research piece on descriptive representation in Latin America, from 1991 to 2020, and focuses on Peru’s gender quotas experience and the way in which this mechanism has affected women’s substantive representation in the national congress. Drawing on Pitkin’s (1967) deep connection between different levels on representation (‘formal’, ‘descriptive’, ‘substantive’ and ‘symbolic’), the study aims at exploring the extent to which Peruvian increased descriptive representation through gender quotas has contributed to a betterment on substantive representation, in terms of the ability to turn personal political priorities into meaningful political actions in the process of representing women’s issues (Schwindt-Bayer 2010). The analysis includes not only quantitative data, but also qualitative primary-level data collected through field interviews and surveys during the Peruvian COVID-19 pandemic; 30 congress women and men that had participated in the 2016-2020 term were involved in the study and thanks to their testimony it was possible to examine their political preferences and the way in which they could participate in parliamentary committees and other leadership positions. Horizontal segregation and political violence are also taken into account in order to understand what lies behind the increasing number of women participating in the national parliament. The Peruvian lesson, finally, allowed the author to strongly question the Critical Mass Theory and to detect a double gender gap in political representation.