Fixing Parliament for women: Five dimensions that help explain why it’s an entrenched masculine workplace

Earlier this year, Australians were shocked to hear Brittany Higgins’ story – not only of her alleged sexual assault in Parliament House, but also the lack of a process to report and address her allegations. More recently, Annabel Crabb’s series Ms Represented showcased the historic and continuing barriers to inclusion and respect that women face in Australian politics. In today’s analysis, Josefina Erikson (@Josefinaerikson) of Uppsala University (@UU_PoliSci), shares a summary of her recently-published paper, co-authored with Cecilia Josefsson (@CeciliaJsfssn). It provides a framework encompassing five dimensions, explaining how parliaments fail to operate as gender-sensitive workplaces despite increasing numbers of women working there.  

The parliament is an important arena for politics and representation, but it is also a workplace for both legislators and administrative staff. The latter is an aspect often forgotten in the public debate as well as in research. Yet, recent incidents of sexism, bullying and even rape in the Australian parliament raise questions of whether these spaces are inclusive and accountable. These questions are raised around the world, highlighting the need to account for the working conditions within parliaments more generally, in particular for women and minority groups who are the most exposed to harassment, bullying, intimidation and violence. Although the job as a Member of Parliament is indeed special and in many regards different to other jobs in the labor market, it is not immune to the inequality problems reported from other sectors in society.

When Larissa Waters breastfed her infant in Parliament, it made news around the world. Is this the sign of a gender-inclusive workplace? Photo credit: ABC News.

For a long time politics was an entirely male business, and in many parts of the world political assemblies are still to a large extent male-dominated. In short, parliaments were created by men to suit men. By consequence, as in most organizations with a history of male dominance, a masculine culture has become deeply embedded within the very functioning of parliament. Women who enter parliaments are thus confronted with this culture, and they have to struggle to be both included and accepted as legitimate parliamentarians. The masculine norms are embedded in a number of ways, for instance the lack of child-care facilities in parliaments, times and patterns of parliamentary sittings that require excessively long working days or long stretches away from home, as well as norms and rules that perpetuate and reinforce gender segregation of work, sexism and even sexual harassment.

While research to date mostly has been concerned with the under-representation of women in parliaments and the lack of a gender-balanced perspective in the output of policy, we suggest in a recent article that parliaments need to be attended from a workplace perspective as well.

A truly gender-equal parliament is one in which all MPs are able to perform their tasks as legislators on equal terms, regardless of their gender, social background or identity. Not until we achieve that will legislators have equal opportunities to represent and implement policy.

While the parliament is similar to other workplaces in certain regards, it is also distinct. One example is the fact that MPs are elected and not employed, which has implications for relationships at the workplace and for labor law coverage. In order to identify the gendered underpinnings that guide and shape parliamentary work, we propose five interconnected and overlapping dimensions of the parliamentary workplace that shed light on the parliament as a gendered work place: (i) the organization of work, (ii) tasks and assignments, (iii) leadership, (iv) infrastructure and (v) interaction between MPs. Below we will briefly discuss each of them in turn.

Organization of work

The first dimension with implications for gender in the parliamentary workplace is the organization of work. The fact that MPs are elected and not employed is of major importance in this regard. Consequently, national legal frameworks developed to give female employees rights and protection normally do not apply for MPs. For instance, in most countries national labor laws that regulate working hours, parental leave laws and laws sanctioning workplace discrimination and harassment are designed for employees and therefore not applicable to elected representatives. As the background of MPs become more diversified, this is an obvious obstacle to gender-equal working conditions. One example is that MPs’ right to parental leave is circumscribed. While MPs in some parliaments enjoy the same formal right to parental leave as other government officials, no such rights are prescribed in others and MPs are forced to informally negotiate leave entitlements with their political parties. Other problems associated with the gendered organization of work involve the lack of accountability and immunity from prosecution for MPs committing sexual harassment as well as large variations between frameworks for handling sexual harassment.

Task and assignments

A second dimension of the parliamentary workplace is the gendering of appointment to and organization of tasks and assignments. The parliamentary organization is characterized by several overlapping arenas or ‘internal subdivisions’ such as the Chamber, legislative committees, parliamentary party groups and leadership bodies. Many of these positions are appointed through informal practices, where gendered norms and expectations often influence decisions. As a result, assignments as well as tasks are often distributed along gendered lines and women tend to be disadvantaged,  for example because tasks considered typically ‘feminine’ tend to be less valued while men are more likely to be offered higher and more prestigious positions. Examples of such gender segregation is also that women legislators become marginalized and isolated in ‘women’s issues’ committees, or that women are limited to initiating and sponsoring more bills on feminine-coded issues. This limits women’s involvement in the legislative arena and may reduce their status in consequence.

Leadership

The appointment to leadership positions is of particular importance for the gendered underpinnings of a workplace, as leaders also have the potential to shape the work environment. Due to the masculine culture in parliaments men are often considered more ‘natural and legitimate’ leaders, women therefore tend to be disadvantaged both in the appointment to leadership positions (seen as less suitable) and when holding a leading position (evaluated in a more negative way). Across parliaments, gendered patterns in leadership positions can be noted not only insofar as women are underrepresented in leading positions but also in that they are more likely to head committees on women’s/gender issues or social policy. Some women are also less likely to aspire to leadership positions and perceive themselves as less suitable leaders (see also here).

Infrastructure

Turning to the infrastructure of parliaments, the gendered underpinnings become clear in how physical features of the parliamentary building assume that legislators are men. For example, the size and location of men’s and women’s lavatories not only indicate which gender is viewed as the norm; they also create a tangible obstacle for women when their lavatories are placed far from the Chamber. Caring facilities, including childcare facilities, breast-feeding rooms, and family apartments, are also important in making it possible for legislators to combine care work with legislator duties but often lacking in masculine-oriented parliaments. Support functions and administrative staff is another important aspect of the infrastructure where women MPs more frequently refer to gender discrimination in the allocation of staffing.

Interaction

Lastly, the interaction between MPs is a dimension that overlaps the others, but nevertheless needs to be acknowledged in its own. Many occasions of daily interaction in parliament are constituted by informal practices and norms and are not regulated in codes of conduct or working procedures. In such interaction, the gendered underpinnings of parliament become visible. A number of studies have demonstrated that male behavior is regarded as the norm in parliaments, and that women feel pressured to adapt to the corresponding expectations. Institutional sexism— recurring instances bullying, silencing, micro-aggression and even sexual harassment— have been found in a wide variety of parliaments.

These five dimensions concertizes the specificities of the parliamentary workplace and shed light on the everyday realities MPs face in their parliamentary work, and how those continue to be gendered in ways that disadvantage women and minority groups. While the numerical representation of women is important it is not enough, a truly gender equal representation also means that all MPs enjoy equal opportunities for conducting their legislative tasks, regardless of their gender, social background or identity. These five domains provide a roadmap for creating a holistic approach to full gender inclusiveness in our parliaments.

See our original article for more detail and the full references.

This post is part of the Women's Policy Action Tank initiative to analyse government policy using a gendered lens. View our other policy analysis pieces here.

Posted by @SusanMaury