Between 1975 and 1990 the number of women in Finland’s parliament rose from 23 percent to 39 percent; in Sweden from 21 percent to 38 percent; in Norway from 16 percent to 36 percent; and in Denmark from 16 percent to 33 percent. Farther south, in the parliaments of Italy and Portugal, women constituted just one in twelve of parliamentary deputies in 1990. In the UK House of Commons they were just 7 percent of the total; in France’s Assemblée Nationale, a mere 6 percent.
