Re-gendering the UK House of Commons: The Academic Critical Actor and Her ‘Feminist in Residence’

Abstract

Parliaments are everywhere highly masculinized institutions, created by and for men. Yet they are not unchanging institutions. The UK has just undergone an Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Gender Sensitive Parliament’s audit. This was one of the recommendations of the 2016 The Good Parliament Report. With its 43 recommendations, The Good Parliament Report was a blueprint for a diversity sensitive House of Commons. Since then, and through the newly established Commons Reference Group on Representation and Inclusion, Westminster has addressed some of its diversity insensitivities. This article reflects back on the author’s secondment to Parliament and how her relationship with a feminist official was critical to the success of Report and indeed the day-to-day practice of seeking to be an impactful academic change actor.

Keywords

Parliament gender diversity institutional change critical actor

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