Women candidates' success under STV is not certain.
But there were some successes for women under STV in Canada.
The first woman MLA in Manitoba was elected in the first STV election in Winnipeg in 1920. It was also the first time women could run though.
The first woman city councillor in Winnipeg was elected in Winnipeg's first city STV election, that same year.
Edith Gostick was elected in Calgary in 1940 under STV. She was one of the first woman MLAs in the province (although the first two had been elected in 1917, one under FPTP in a rural district, and the other under Block Voting of army personnel).
Gostick was the first female MLA in Calgary. She was Social Credit. Voters under STV rank candidates, not just parties, and Edith was preferred over two other male SC candidates, who were not elected.
Rose Wilkinson was elected in Calgary in 1944 under STV. She was Social Credit. Rose was preferred over three other male SC candidates, who were not elected.
Rose was the most popular candidate in Calgary (even over four other male SC candidates) when she ran for re-election in 1948 and in 1952.
Edmonton, although using the same STV system as Calgary, did not elect a single woman MLA during its time using STV, 1924-1955. (Nor did it elect a single woman city councillor during the five elections when STV was used in city elections in Edmonton.) (see Montopedia "From Izena..." blog)
Many women candidates ran in Edmonton in STV provincial elections but with no success.
I don't why they had such poor luck compared to Calgary. Except that the parties that scored two or more Edmonton seats, such as the SC, did not run a female candidate in Edmonton.
The only exceptions were in 1952 and 1955.
Stella Baker in 1952 came in tenth on First Count for the seven-seat election. She was the 6th-most-popular SC candidate in the First Count - SC would elect three in the election. Gerhart, a lower-placing SC candidate, less popular than Stella, was elected, replacing Holowach, a SC candidate more popular in the First Count than Stella, because Holowach (and Stella) did not receive as many vote transfers as he did.
SC's Mrs. Hattersley in 1955. She came in 18th on First Count in the seven-seat contest. She was the least-popular of SC's seven candidates - the SC took three seats in this election in the city again this time.
There were no woman candidates in Edmonton in the 1926 and 1930 elections.
Edmonton's women candidates mostly ran for parties that took no seats (LPP), or did not take more than one seat in Edmonton in each election - CCF and Liberal -- and that one seat went to a man each time.
In 1935 three woman ran but none were elected. They ran for the Liberals (which elected two males, both more popular than the female Liberal), the Conservatives (which elected one), and the Economic Reconstruction (a form of Communist, I believe), which elected none.
In 1940 one female candidate. She was not elected.
In 1944 Mrs. Butterworth ran for CCF. She was 4th-most-popular CCF candidate in the First Count. The CCF only elected one in Edmonton that year, and it was not Butterworth.
Mrs. Murdoch (Labour Progressive Party/Communist) was the least-popular candidate in the city in the First Count in 1944. She was eliminated very early in the vote count process. The LPP did not win any seats in this election. And in fact did not win any seats in the history of Alberta. (This was a different experience than city STV elections in Winnipeg where pretty much one or two Communist candidates were elected in each election from 1940 to the 1970s. Communist MLAs were also elected under provincial STV there, prior to 1953.)
Edmonton's women candidates in 1948 and 1952 (other than Baker mentioned above) ran for parties that did not take more than one seat in Edmonton in each election - CCF, Conservative and Liberal. And that one seat went to a man each time.
So STV does not guarantee women's success - nor success of Communist or Labour/CCF/NDP. But it does not deny them election always either.
(Oddly, afer change to First Past The Post, a woman was elected to an Edmonton seat, something not seen since 1926. Ethel Wilson ran in 1959 under First Past The Post and won an Edmonton seat under FPTP. But in that case, SC took every seat in Edmonton, and Wilson was the sole SC candidate in her district, so SC voters in the district had no choice but to vote for her. She had not run under STV so her success under FPTP might have been achieved earlier if she had run under STV. By 1959 she had been on city council six years so she had a great personal profile by that time - and oddly after her election to the Legislature in 1959, she continued to serve on the city council seven years even though also serving as an MLA.)
It can be starkly seen that opposition parties suffered from Alberta's change from provincial STV in 1955 to FPTP in 1959 . And the change did not increase the number of women elected (despite Wilson's Edmonton success).
In 1955, Edmonton and Calgary elected a mixed roughly-proportional representation in each city, each city electing MLAs of three different parties reflecting the mixed sentiment among the city's voters. The Government party (SC) took only six of the two cities' combined 13 seats, Liberals and Conservatives also being elected. (The CCF had elected one in Edmonton in 1948 and 1952, but Elmer Roper was locked out in the 1955 election.)
But in 1959 after each city had been divided into many single-member districts under FPTP, all the cities' seats, except one in Calgary, were taken by the SC.
That is the difference that a loss of pro-rep (of whatever sort) can make, and clear indication of the failure of FPTP to deliver fair results.
The change to FPTP possibly caused a windfall for at least one female candidate. Ethel Wilson, sitting city councillor, was elected as the SC candidate in Edmonton North. It is not known how much of her support was for her personally and how much was party vote - she was the only SC candidate in the single-member district so it is difficult to known that, unlike under STV.
The only other female candidate in Edmonton's nine new districts was another sitting city councillor, Laurette Douglas running for the Liberals. She was not elected. Her district was taken by Social Credit in the person of Ambrose Holowach - the same man who had been denied a seat under STV in 1952. He had in the meantime won and lost a federal House of Commons seat. FPTP was more kind to him than STV had been.
Thanks for reading.
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Netherlands shows the effect of Pro-rep fair voting:
1917 Netherlands adopted PR. At-large (country-wide district). List PR. 100 members. DM-100. Low electoral threshold of just 0.5 percent. 1.3M votes cast in first PR election (1918). The smallest party won a seat with just 0.509 percent of the vote. Only two percent of the vote was not used to elect someone.
First woman was elected (even though women were not yet allowed to cast votes.
In 1922, Netherlands again used PR. By then women had got the vote, and this time, seven women were elected.)
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