My first thought was "no way, it's stupid to discriminate by gender, we should let the voters choose the best person for the job regardless of what's in their pants." But after thinking about it some more... I'm not so sure.

Flip the genders around and think about how you'd feel if you thought the country is going in the wrong direction on many issues, but only ~15% of Congress is male, so men have little power to influence what happens. I know I would want equal representation, or at least something close to it.

Imagine seeing a few more men start to run for Congress, but most campaigns never really take off due to lack of political connections, an area where women have a massive advantage. Some men finally get on the ballot and have a chance to win... but the voters are just used to voting for a woman, making it tough for a man to win an election unless the opponent is really unpopular.

Normally I'm against quotas, especially in places where it's blatantly harmful (requiring 50% of accepted medical school applicants to be female, when there are 100 spots with 500 male applicants and 60 female applicants). But if there's one place where it's right to make sure everyone has equal representation, it's Congress.

Would you ever support a law like this? What if it was done on a temporary basis, 10 years of it to ensure women get equal representation and develop political connections, and to get the voters used to voting for women... and then drop this discriminatory law now that it's no longer needed?

For the sake of argument, please ignore the fact that it would be a logistical nightmare to figure out how to make sure 1/3 of Congress is female (which locations would be forced to have only women available to vote for, etc).