Attitudinal Analysis of Women's Political Participation in Ecuador: Social and Legal Perspectives

The main objective of this research is to analyze the participation of women in Ecuador in multi-person and single-person popular election processes at a legal and social level between 2019 and 2021. This is a documentary study corresponding to the qualitative paradigmatic modality, descriptive in scope and ethnographic design where the analytical-synthetic, inductive-deductive-historical-logical and legal interpretation methods were used. Data from the 2019 elections corresponding to multi-personal positions such as mayors, prefects, urban and rural councilors and unipersonal positions corresponding to president, vice-president and national, provincial and foreign assembly members elected in the 2021 elections are analyzed. The findings show that women in Ecuadorian politics have difficulties in being elected and achieving parity, identifying a gender gap at all levels that is due to multidimensional factors explained in this study. It was determined that despite the existence of different regulations that promote gender equality and women's representation in the political world in Ecuador, these have not been able to materialize due to criteria related to the deep and marked social stereotypes that are maintained in the country. Received: 21 August 2022 / Accepted: 3 October 2022 / Published: 5 November 2022