While India struggles to implement women’s reservation in one-third of seats at the Centre and in states, it should look closer at the countries where women account for more than half the elected national legislatures. The case of Rwanda, where women occupy almost two-thirds of the seats, is an outlier because its 1994 genocide slashed the country’s male population. But higher representation in four other countries listed by University of Gothenburg’s V Dem Institute— Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Mexico—is testament to persistent lawmaking on gender balance. One of the biggest lessons from Latin America—which in some ways is no less patriarchal than India—is that high levels of women’s education can go a long way in enacting more equitable laws.
