English: The share of women in parliament has increased a lot in many countries

Another crucial mark of political equality is women’s ability to represent their fellow citizens.

This chart, using data from the Varieties of Democracy project (V-Dem), shows that women were completely excluded from national parliaments in the early 20th century. No woman was among the parliamentarians in any of the countries that had a legislature.

Women entered the first parliament in 1907, making up almost 10% of Norway’s legislature.

After very limited progress in the first half of the 20th century, women made it into many more parliaments in its second half.

The process sped up in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In 2008, the Rwandan parliament became the first to have more than 50% women — the first women-majority parliament. That year, another handful of countries had between 40 and 50% women parliamentarians.