tation. In addition, the few existing provisions are not accompanied by clear rules of application or precise sanctions and, even when they exist, they are not applied, as in the case of electoral lists that had no women candidates and were not verified and invalidated. In fact, existing studies show that one of the most important factors for increasing women's political representation is gender quotas(whether they are at the level of legislation or at the level of political parties)(Childs& Krook 2009, O'Brien& Rickne 2016). Over 100 states have adopted, in recent decades, various quota systems: legislative quotas or voluntary, internal quotas(Kenny& Verge 2016). On the other hand, although they are a strong catalyst, gender quotas do not guarantee – depending on their type and implementation – any increase in the descriptive representation of women(Kenny& Verge 2016), nor do they in all cases produce a substantial change in the definition of equality or an effective(re)renewal of representative democracy(Lépinard& Rubio-Marin 2018: 11). So far, in Romania all legislative projects proposing various variants of gender quotas have been rejected, often thereby generating controversy and ideological attacks, as we show in the following. A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK 5