Abstract: "Women?s political participation and representation vary dramatically within and between countries. This paper selectively reviews the literature on gender gap and women?s participation in politics, focusing on women?s formal political participation particularly from 2010 general election in Burma/Myanmar. The paper discusses, however, various barriers and challenges including traditional, religion, lack of education, experience in public discussion, participation and more importantly the military drafted 2008 constitution for women?s political participation and representation in Burma/Myanmar. It also explains significance of women?s political participation as well as the role of international mechanisms and gender quotas particularly the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Electoral Quotas System for empowering women?s participation in politics. Then, it explores the gap between the 2008 Constitution and the CEDAW standards. Throughout the review, the paper demonstrates a very low level of women?s political participation from secondary data as well as in-­‐depth interviewed with women parliamentarians explained the challenges and difficulties for women participation in politics of decision-­‐making. It also reveals the most common mechanism for increasing women?s political participation-­‐quotas and in order to have an effective the gender electoral quotas system it is explicitly important both men and women attend training and skills development. Importantly, the paper also asks what degree and under what conditions elected women actually do represent women and contribute to gender equality, democracy and whether women are distinctive—does having more women in office make a difference to public policy?".....Paper delivered at the International Conference on Burma/Myanmar Studies: Burma/Myanmar in Transition: Connectivity, Changes and Challenges: University Academic Service Centre (UNISERV), Chiang Mai University, Thailand, 24-­26 July 2015.