Women’s Representation and Antagonistic Co-operation Amongst Legislators: The Case of Canada’s Status of Women Committee

Recent work by feminist democratic scholars calls on researchers to understand women’s representation as a process (Celis and Childs 2020). As a beginning step in this research agenda, we investigate how legislators make connections, develop relationships, and work together (or not) to advance women-friendly policy. This project undertakes exploratory interview research to understand the role, functioning and effectiveness of Canada’s Status of Women Committee (FEWO) under the Justin Trudeau government (2015 to 2025). FEWO deals with issues relating to a key priority of the Trudeau government: gender equality. As an opposition-chaired committee, members of the Conservative Party had the opportunity to direct committee business during the tenure of the Trudeau Liberal Government. An opposition-led committee responsible for a key government priority, in a parliamentary environment with one of the strongest systems of party discipline in the world, FEWO thus constitutes a least-likely case for “antagonistic cooperation” (Best and Vogel 2014) that advances women-friendly policy. Did committee members engage in antagonistic cooperation – in other words, did they reach consensus using the informal norms of conflict resolution in Parliament? And what did that look like for legislators on an individual level? How did the leadership styles of committee chairs affect the working relationships of the group, if at all? The findings from this study can help us understand how women’s representation is accomplished in highly partisan environments, in Canada and around the world.