Women’s Work and Parliamentary Effectiveness in the Latvian Parliament

Women in politics face a variety of impediments to their daily work as a legislator yet examinations of the parliament as a gendered workplace are limited. In this chapter of a larger book project, I explore the Latvian Saeima as a political space and examine women’s work in parliament through committee work, speeches, bill sponsorship, and women’s caucuses. I seek to determine what kind of work women do in the Latvian parliament, how this work differs from their male counterparts, and how the increase of women’s representation has changed the daily work of politics. I analyze the differences between men and women members of parliament and the obstacles and challenges facing women MPs in their own words. I apply a gender sensitive parliament framework to critically examine the space of the Saeima and parliamentary work from a gendered lens. Finally, I look at women’s cooperation across party lines and question if women MPs in Latvia have shared interests across party lines. I examine women’s cooperation in parliament with the increase of women’s representation and if women MPs work with other women MPs. This research in an emerging democracy and gender and politics leader in Eastern Europe can shed a light on legislative behavior and gendered institutions in an understudied region of the world.