This article discusses the relationship between women's chances for access to political representation, in particular legislative representation, and their forms of participation in political parties. First, we look at types of representation and the party system, as dimensions of the political and electoral system. This is followed by an analysis of the political party system focusing on its organizational and ideological aspects. Based on the analysis of the literature that deals with our topic, we attempt to reflect on some of the institutional factors that within these systems have a negative or positive effect on women's chances to compete for electoral offices and be elected through political parties. This is followed by a second moment in which recent experiences of proportional quotas for the representation of both sexes have been implemented. Through research on the Brazilian case, we attempt to observe how the characteristics of the party system and the conditioning factors that we have discussed can affect the outcome of quota policies. Our conclusions show that women's access to political representation is conditioned by a complex of factors that go beyond the engineering of the political system, although efforts at engineering have an impact and can favor women's entrance into politics to a greater or lesser extent. As research has show, this influence can operate as well over the possibility that the quota system be implemented either more bureaucratically or more effectively by Brazilian political parties.
gender; political parties; institutional engineering; gender quotas