Page | 3 Analize – Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies • New Series • Issue No. 5/ 2015 Women, Mobilization and Political Representation Oana BĂLUȚĂ University of Bucharest, Romania oana.baluta@gmail.com Political representation of women has been an important area for theory production and consistent research since the middle of the last century. There is a wide and engaging literature on gender and politics addressing various topics from voting behavior, obstacles women face when entering politics, strategies used to increase women’s political representation, the role of women’s movements, policy outcomes when women enter politics etc. Pamela Paxton, Sheri Kunovich and Melanie M. Hughes when selectively reviewed the literature on gender in politics focusing on women's formal political participation, they notice that „our knowledge of women in politics is still expanding. Indeed, the literature on women in politics could be described as exploding” (Paxton, Kunovich, Hughes, 2007, p. 264). However, some contexts were more opened for researches than others and became more visible for scholars and the wider public. These contributions are highly valuable since they developed complex theoretical, epistemological and methodological instruments and stream of thoughts. The authors conclude that future directions for research should include as well the perspective of globalizing theory and research: “Future research must globalize our present understanding of women's political participation, representation, and impact by (a) determining which theories developed in the West apply to the non-Western context, (b) , and (c) investigating whether these newer theories apply to other regions or globally” (Paxton, Kunovich, Hughes, 2007, p. 275) Nevertheless, despite expanding the arguments for a politics of presence, women have actively mobilized outside the realm of politics to better pursue their interests, sanction politicians for not addressing substantive representation, urge them to elaborate a gender sensitive agenda or women ‘just’ mobilized to support various causes (environment, LGBTQ, anti-globalization etc.). The evolution of technology and communication platforms made their mobilization more flexible.