Gender and Comparative Forms of Government. A Possible Crypto-Type?

Even today, even in the most modern Western democracies, female Heads of State are very rare. Many of these democracies, such as Germany, Portugal, Italy, and France, have indeed never had a woman in such an institutional role. How can this be explained? And why do European monarchies seem to be more successful than Republics in achieving gender equality in this apex role? Cultural machismo is a perhaps too easy way of dismissing these questions. This paper will argue that the gender inequality that we see today in the role of the Head of State in European Republics actually depends on an implicit and submerged legal element – a legal crypto-type – that our modern Republics have silently inherited from their monarchical past; as such, it is not part of the official constitutional order, but it still implicitly affects the gender life of this apex institution. Only the unveiling of such a silent legal element will make gender equality effective in this apex institution.