Women and candidate quality in the elections for the Senate : Brazil and the United States in comparative perspective

Abstract

The Senate remains as an almost uncharted territory for women. And not only in re-democratized countries like Brazil, but also in advanced democracies such as the USA. To date, 33 American and 28 Brazilian women have served in their Senates. Why are these numbers so reduced? This article discusses the key obstacles that women face and, through OLS and probit analyses, examines the degree of competitiveness and rate of success of all candidacies. We show that, even though womens are thought to be weak contestants, they can be as competitive as men when they have a record of elected public positions. The reduced availability of the latter, however, indicates that they are still far from inscreasing their presence in the Senate.