Abstract
AbstractThis introduction to the Special Section ‘Parliaments as workplaces: gendered approaches to the study of legislatures’ makes the case for revisiting the conditions under which male and female Members of Parliament (MPs) and staff carry out their parliamentary duties, thereby furthering the understanding of parliaments’ inner workings. It shows that adopting a workplace perspective grounded on feminist institutionalist analyses and gender organisational studies opens up new avenues for studying parliaments and the outcomes of political representation. The article then outlines how contributors to this Special Section deal with various aspects of the parliamentary workplace and concludes by highlighting the wider implications of this perspective for examining crucial questions of the parliamentary studies research agenda.
Highlights
Worldwide, gender inequality in the workplace is still pervasive with regards to access to opportunities, resources, influence and recognition for the duties carried out, even in female-dominated workplaces
We argue that looking at parliaments through a gendered lens inevitably changes the way we conceive of and empirically examine this crucial institution of democracy
We introduce the articles in this Special Section and outline how they deal with various aspects of the parliamentary workplace
Summary
Gender inequality in the workplace is still pervasive with regards to access to opportunities, resources, influence and recognition for the duties carried out, even in female-dominated workplaces. The realm of politics (governments, legislatures, political parties, etc.) is a workplace While gender and politics scholars have long studied legislatures qua organisations, unveiling how the rules, structures, and outputs are riddled by ‘organizational masculinism’
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