How have party systems and individual parties in Latin America responded to, and filtered, women's movement demands for political voice representation and state gender policies. Does this vary between national and local levels of government? This study compares two Latin American cases. The first analyses the National Women's Ministry (SERNAM) in Chile, a country with a history of ideological conflict, strong parties and centralized government. The second examines the local administrations of the left-wing Brazilian Workers' Party in Brazil, in a political environment shaped by clientelism, weak parties and decentralization. This is the first study to focus exclusively on parties as gendered and gendering organizations, analysing them not just in terms of ideology, but also of their individual party histories and cultures, expressed as a gendered political habitus and sociability. This book also highlights the spatiality of party and gender politics by examining local as well as national government.