The goal of reducing gender inequalities in political representation has been elusive in many different kinds of political systems, even though women have made substantial progress in legal rights, education, economic resources, employment opportunities, and healthcare in the same polities. This book argues that gender quotas are an important strategy to improve women's political representation in legislatures and political parties and it lays out the history of this approach across the globe. It suggests however, that gender quotas are themselves not an 'easy fix' to gender discrimination since similarly designed quotas have had different outcomes across cases. The book's comparative approach untangles the various factors which need to be considered in designing, lobbying for, and implementing gender quotas so that they can be effective. While teasing out some shared experiences, this volume encourages coalitions of activists to develop context-appropriate strategies to craft effective campaigns to end women's exclusion from poltiical decision-making. It also emphasises that women's movements need to build public support for gender quotas and influence their design and implementation if they are to move beyond 'tokenism' and significantly improve political representation for women. It is a tremendously useful and informative volume for activists and scholars across the globe and does a masterful job in explaining divergent outcomes both within regions and across them. Hoodfar and Tajali argue that although more and more countries are successfully and creatively using gender quotas, some of the wealthiest long-standing democracies still continue to experience greater legislative gender inequalities.

-Diane Singerman (Co-Director of Middle East Studies at American University)

On 10 December 2011, Leymah Roberta Gbowee of Liberia, Tawakkol Karman of Yemen and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf were presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

In their acceptance speeches, they spoke of the commitment and achievements of countless other women working for peace and called upon women and men to continue nonviolent struggle.

We reproduce some short excerpts here. The full Nobel lectures can be found at: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/

About the 16 Days

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women's Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women's Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates November 25- International Day Against Violence Against Women- and December 10- International Human Rights Day- in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.