Bringing Men and Conservatism Back In: New Approaches to Women’s Substantive Representation in Latin America

This paper analyzes women’s substantive representation by constructing and deploying measurement schemes that account for both male legislators’ actions as well as conservative policy positions. Drawing on over ten years of bill introduction data from Argentina and Mexico, the paper demonstrates that, in fact, most legislators who introduce proposals that reify traditional gender roles are men. While some female legislators do seek to protect women by preserving their mothering capacities, female politicians—even those from rightist parties—take more liberal stances on women’s rights and wellbeing when compared to their male co-partisans. The paper thus concludes that, when reformulating theories of women’s substantive representation to include conservatism, scholars must also re-envision men’s role as representatives who make claims for women.