Quebec Women and Legislative Representation

Women represent a slight majority of Quebec's population, yet they continue to occupy a minority of seats in its National Assembly and in Canada's House of Commons and Senate. To explain why this is, Manon Tremblay examines Quebec women's political engagements from 1791 to the present. She traces the path that led to women obtaining the rights to vote and run for office and then draws on statistics and interviews with female politicians to paint an indepth portrait of women's underrepresentation and its main causes. Her innovative account not only documents the significant democratic deficit in Canada's parliamentary systems, it also outlines strategies to improve women's access to legislative representation in Canada and elsewhere.Manon Tremblay is a professor of political science at the University of Ottawa. Käthe Roth has been a literary translator,working mainly in historical nonfiction, for more than twenty years. She lives and works in SaintLazare, Quebec.