Behind the Curtains: Violence against MPs' staff members in the German Parliament as a gendered workplace

The analysis focuses on violence as a symptom of the gendered structure of parliaments and attempts to systematize factors that increase the risk of violent behavior affecting employees of members of parliament, such as their position in the hierarchical order, support structures, or other dependencies. Previous research conceptualizes parliaments as gendered workplaces with masculine norms and restrictions for people who do not conform to these norms (Acker, 1990; Erikson & Josefsson, 2022). This includes sexist practices against these people, which may also involve forms of violence. This perspective implies that these norms apply to the entire parliament, even though previous work has focused primarily on elected MPs. This is a shortcoming for a normative conceptualization of parliament as gendered, given that the elected body is rather small in total numbers. Thousands of people who work in a parliament also operate within this normative structure by adapting, opposing or trying to change it. To expand the theoretical conceptualization of the gendered nature of parliaments including the staff in parliament, this paper draws on 21 interviews with employees of MP offices of the German Bundestag, realized for the research project “Not in my Parliament”. In this sample, there are notable differences between staff members who work in the parliament building and those who work in the constituency offices. The latter group acts in the political public sphere (e.g., Habermas 1992) and is more likely to be attacked personally or as a representative of the MP or the party. Through their work in parliament, the first group is more exposed to gendered workplace structures. Dealing with such experiences can either support the normative structure (e.g., by normalizing it as part of political work) or counteract it (e.g., by publicizing and politicizing the incidents), which is associated with certain career risks. Building on a systematic analysis of violent experiences and coping strategies as a symptom of gendered parliamentary structures, the paper discusses the effects on employees, and considers which gender-specific differences exist in terms of how people are affected, which can be understood as unequal opportunities to work in politics.