The candidate selection process within parties is a critical stage for the descriptive representation of women. This internal process within parties is the main gatekeeper
in the recruitment of women as candidates. In this paper I argue that due to the limited supply of female candidates party selectorates may face trade-offs in the candidate
selection process: Party selectorates may have to choose between maximizing descriptive characteristics (e.g. Gender), electoral, and ideological concerns. To model these
trade-offs I employ a conjoint experiment, presenting over 1400 state level party leaders in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland with the choice between randomly generated candidates
for a party list. I show that left-wing and center party leaders value the descriptive representation of women as decision making factor dynamically depending on the absolute level of descriptive representation of women. The worse women are represented, the stronger effect of gender on the candidate selection. This interaction between the level of descriptive representation of women and the strength of gender on the candidate selection does not exist among right-wing respondents.