This study examines a novel form of gender-based governmental discrimination: the differential taxation of men’s and women’s apparel products.

🌍 Context: Analyzing nearly 200,000 paired tariff rates across 167 countries from 1995 to 2015.

🔍 Key Question: Does women's descriptive representation influence import tax penalties?

📊 Findings: In democracies with higher female legislative representation,

tariffs on women’s apparel are significantly lower, indicating reduced penalties for women consumers. This effect is robust across comparisons between democratic and non-democratic systems.

⚖️ Mechanism: The implementation of legislative gender quotas appears to drive this reduction in tax discrimination.

💡 Significance: These results reveal a previously unacknowledged policy connection between descriptive political representation and trade discrimination, demonstrating tangible evidence that women’s representation can directly mitigate economic gender inequality.