The Parliament as a Gendered Workplace: How to Research Legislators’ (UN)Equal Opportunities to Represent

Josefina Erikson,Cecilia Josefsson

doi:10.1093/pa/gsaa049

Abstract

Abstract In this article, we introduce a Gendered Workplace Approach for studying the gendered nature of parliaments. This approach, which is informed by a feminist institutionalist perspective, addresses the potentially gendered character of both formal and informal institutions that regulate the inner workings of parliament, taking into consideration the obstacles and opportunities facing MPs of different genders. From a gender perspective, our framework focuses on five dimensions of paramount importance for MPs’ working conditions. These are (i) the organisation of work, (ii) tasks and assignments, (iii) leadership, (iv) infrastructure and (v) interaction between MPs.

Highlights

In spite of the increasing share of women MPs worldwide in recent decades, parliaments have often been described as gendered organisations (Crawford and Pini, 2011), gendered institutions (Rai and Spary, 2019) and male-dominated institutional settings permeated by a culture of masculinity (Lovenduski, 2005, p. 48)
While a workplace approach to studying parliaments could certainly include all the various categories of people that work in the legislature, the approach we develop in this article is primarily concerned with working conditions for Parliament as a Gendered Workplace 3 legislators seated in parliament
We have argued in this article that whether and to what extent parliaments are masculine workplaces are empirical questions that require a careful investigation of parliamentary working conditions

Summary

Introduction

In spite of the increasing share of women MPs worldwide in recent decades, parliaments have often been described as gendered organisations (Crawford and Pini, 2011), gendered institutions (Rai and Spary, 2019) and male-dominated institutional settings permeated by a culture of masculinity (Lovenduski, 2005, p. 48). A myriad of informal rules shape and guide parliamentary work, such as practices concerning how to behave in the chamber, norms prescribing political leadership roles and norms associated with political competence These rules are gendered to varying degrees, and together they constitute the parliamentary workplace. In order to identify the specific formal and informal rules that guide and shape parliamentary work, we propose five interconnected and overlapping dimensions of the parliamentary workplace that can be examined through a variety of methods and data sources: (i) the organisation of work, (ii) tasks and assignments, (iii) leadership, (iv) infrastructure and (v) interaction between MPs. While a workplace approach to studying parliaments could certainly include all the various categories of people that work in the legislature, the approach we develop in this article is primarily concerned with working conditions for Parliament as a Gendered Workplace 3 legislators seated in parliament. MPs’ relationships with other categories of employees in parliament are not of interest, unless they relate to legislators’ working conditions

Parliaments as gendered organisations

Studying parliaments as gendered workplaces

Five dimensions of gendered workplaces

Parliamentary Affairs

Conclusion