4.2 The Path to Equality: Dominican Women in the Parliament
4.2.3 Gender Quota in the Dominican Legislation
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58 regime that did not accept dissent and that had already three decades of homicides in the Dominican Republic. All those involved in the “ajusticiamiento”19 (execution), the series of events against the dictatorship that led to the death of Trujillo on 1961, when he was shot on a highway while traveling with his driver, affirm without exception that the murder of the Mirabal sisters was the drop that filled the cup.
4.2.3 Gender Quota in the Dominican Legislation
The political participation of women in the Dominican Republic achieved greater significance after the enactment of Law 390 of 1940, which established their right to elect and be elected. Two years later, in 1942, women exercised their right to suffrage for the first time. In the 1960s, women have a notable presence in political movements and community organizations. Many women participated in the demonstrations and protests of the time. Some even managed to occupy leadership positions within the parties, as happened in the 14th of June Movement20 and in the National Civic Union21. In this sense, it is emphasized that in 1962, Josefina Padilla was a candidate for the vice-presidency of the Republic by this last instance (Arvelo Tejada 2012). However, the governing bodies of the parties, almost all composed of men, decided that women should do, assigning tasks of little importance “that little contributed to broaden knowledge, awareness and political development” (Hernández 1986, p. 147).
The participation of women in political movements contributed to developing a critical awareness of their role as a political entity and of the levels of marginalization to which they were subjected. This led to the creation of La Federación de Mujeres
Dominicanas (FMD, the Federation of Dominican Women) in 1962. Although the
19 El ajusticiamiento (execution) of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo was the crowning of a conspiracy plotted by several of the most influential Dominican families, fed up with the excesses of the tyrant's regime.
20 The 14th of June Movement, abbreviated 14J (and 1J4), was a leftist guerrilla movement of the Dominican Republic that fought against the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo and was led by the lawyer Manolo Tavárez Justo and the activist Minerva Mirabal.
21A patriotic organization created immediately after the execution of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, his main objective was to fight for the exit of the national territory from the remnants of the dictatorial regime.
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59 resistance of the Dominican woman to the dictatorship occurred individually or within the political movements created for that purpose, the FMD was the first independent, pluralistic and markedly democratic women’s organization in the country. This federation played an important role in the mobilization of women in relevant political junctures.
(Arvelo Tejada 2012).
Liberalist ideas began to expand in Dominican society, especially among women interested and concerned about the role they were taking on. The participation of women in political parties increased and the feminist movement began to penetrate the minds of women politicians. In the decade of the 1980s, alliances between women politicians and feminists initiated a process of demand for better conditions for women, in a general sense, and for women politicians in a particular way. In 1986, the deputy Rafaela Alburquerque made statements on the integration and participation of women in the Lower House. These affirmations caused commotion in all the population and were supported by eight legislators that for that time was the total of women in that institution.
The declarations of the deputy arose due to the evident helplessness and the inequality that existed for the feminine sector in that moment, where in spite of belonging to the legislative organs, they did not have the possibility nor the opportunity to participate in the processes of decision making of the lower house (Batista 2015). Beginning in the 1990s, women’s organizations in the Dominican Republic also began to demand greater inclusion in public administration positions and in elected candidates. As a result of the will and effort of women’s organizations and political women, in 1997 the Electoral Law (Law No. 275 -97) was modified to establish a 25% quota for the election of women in the lower house (Duarte 2002; Pérez 2012).
In the case of the Dominican Republic, the incorporation of the gender quota to the electoral legislation was the product of this process of discussion and demands exerted by the women’s movement and the determined support of all the country’s congressmen.
Equally relevant were the orientation and pressure campaigns carried out by several civic organizations, especially the role played by the NGO specializing in the area of women:
The Research Center for Women’s Action (CIPAF for its acronym in Spanish). This fight
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60 culminated with the enactment of the Gender Quota Law. The gender quota law was born as a compensatory measure aimed at partially repaying the historical debt that Dominican democracy has with women. This positive discrimination measure vindicates, temporarily and until the situation is balanced, greater institutional support for women, which allows compensating the effects of the de facto exclusion that affects their participation (UN Women 2007).
According to Arvelo Tejada (2019) of the Participación Ciudadana22 (PC, Citizens Participation) organization, Dominican women have always been incorporated into politics. However, historically, men have given them a very limited space, mainly in tasks that they consider of women, such as raising funds to organize activities, administer resources, deliver correspondence, as secretaries and other activities of this nature. She emphasizes that the gender quota law has been a very important mechanism to expand the areas of political participation of women in the country since the gender quota forces political parties to place more women on their ballots. I consider that an event that supports that the gender quota has been an effective mechanism to open more
opportunities for female political leadership is that Rafaela Alburquerque was selected to preside over the Chamber of Deputies during the period 1999-2003 when the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD, Dominican Revolutionary Party) dominated that chamber. It was the first time in the Dominican Republic that a woman was chosen to preside over the lower house. According to Batista (2015), the new president had the support of all the members of the Lower House. This event opened the doors and hopes that women could participate actively in the legislative bodies. However, since then, female representation has been gradual but constant in the legislative chambers, with the effect of legislative quotas or gender quotas in these institutions and the activities carried out by legislators and international organizations to promote participation of women in these organisms.
22 Participación Ciudadana is a non-partisan civic movement constituted on 1993. This organization appears as a result of the reflections of the Dominican citizens to check that the popular will of the society is respected in the electoral processes. In addition, this organization aims to face the corruption in the electoral processes and to strengthen the political institutions.
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61 From a quantitative perspective, the gender quota was successful, since this provision managed to increase the political participation of women in those decision-making bodies of the State. From a more qualitative perspective, there is no significant change in the trend of female representation. In effect, both in 1994 and in 1998, the majority of the seats occupied by women are concentrated in the municipal sphere and, within this type of representation, in the regidurías23. In the Chamber of Deputies (the lower chamber of the congress), although less shocking, women go from occupying 14 seats to occupy 24 seats. As we can observe in Figure 7, the parliamentary and municipal elections resulted in 16.10% of women elected as deputies. In other words, the gender quota law has fundamentally contributed to an overall increase in female representation, but women were chosen to participate in decision-making processes in more limited political and geographical spaces.
Figure 7: Women in the Dominican Legislature Before and After the Implemen- tation of the Gender Quota Law.
Source: Gender Statistics by the World Bank and the Archived Data from The Inter- parliamentary Union (IPU).
23 City councillorship.
0.00 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.00 12.00 14.00 16.00 18.00
1994 Election 1998 Election
Proportion of Seats Held by Women the Lower House (%)
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62 It is important to note that in the elections of 1998, the elections were held in a format that did not separate the elections of senators and deputies. In this sense, the voting system of 1998 not only fostered “the dragging” of candidacies but also granted great power to political parties since the closed-list system24 was used, that is, the electorate could not alter the order of the parties’ candidacies submitted by the parties indicating their preference (Duarte 2001). This form of voting negatively influenced the results of the application of the gender quota law.