Parliaments as gendered workplaces: Achievements, Challenges, and Lessons from the Indian Parliament

Drawing on our recent study of women MPs in the Indian Parliament (Rai and Spary, 2019), we tease out some key insights for examining ‘parliaments as gendered workplaces’. We discuss intra- and extra-institutional factors affecting parliamentarians' experiences in performing their work as elected representatives. For intra-institutional factors, we discuss parliamentary rules, norms, procedures, and provisions, pertaining to its different modes and mechanisms of deliberation and representation. For extra-institutional factors, we highlight the crucial role of parties, as external actors, in influencing intra- parliamentary norms and practices, both in terms of parliamentary functioning and in parties’ gate-keeping roles, which produce highly constrained opportunities for women candidates and low numbers of women elected to parliament (currently only 14% women MPs in the lower house). We also assess whether the two successive women presiding officers of the lower house (Lok Sabha) have made a difference in transforming parliamentary culture towards a more gender-sensitive workplace.