Gender and politics in the electoral processes

Abstract

This paper presents a descriptive survey on the female presence in electoral rolls for the 1995 regional and local elections in the Canary Islands, and as elected members of the canarian political institutions during the 1995-1999 term. Regarding women’s percentages as candidattes and elects, their distribution within electoral rolls, their different wheight in the three institutional levels analized (local, insular, regional), and the different population levels of the electoral districts, the author detects two main mechanismes of exclusion of women: institutional distance and the position in electoral rolls, while the urban or rural character of the different districts seems not to have any decisive role to play.