Gender Equity Lecture Series: Parliament as a Gendered Workplace

The Center is pleased to host two preeminent scholars of gender politics for the latest Gender Equity in the EU and Beyond lecture series.  In this webinar, Profs. Josefina Erikson and Cecilia Josefsson, Associate Professors in the Department of Government at Uppsala University in Sweden discuss why the parliament should be conceived of as a gendered workplace and how to empirically study gendered working conditions in this setting.

Research on legislatures from a gender perspective has mainly been conducted from a representational perspective. This has implied that the focus primarily has been on the gender equality of political representation in numerical or substantive terms, while the gendered terms and conditions of the legislature’s inner workings have received significantly less attention in the literature. Drawing on their extensive research from the Swedish parliament, Profs. Erikson and Josefsson show how this perspective exposes remaining inequalities in this numerically gender equal context.  The Gender Equity Series, is a collaboration between the CEUTS (Center for European Union and Transatlantic Studies) and Global Initiatives and Engagement in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. The panel will be moderated by Drs. Georgeta Porchout and Farida Jalalzai. 

 Josefina Erikson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government, Uppsala University, specializing in the field of politics and gender. Her most recent research explores gendered working conditions in parliament, and gender in relation to conditions for political leadership, especially in the Swedish context. Her forthcoming book with Lenita Freidenvall (Palgrave Macmillan) explores the legacy of women’s suffrage for women’s political inclusion in the Nordics and beyond from a historical perspective. 

Cecilia Josefsson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Uppsala University in Sweden. Her research focuses on political institutions and representation from a gender perspective in a wide variety of contexts, including sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Scandinavia. Currently, She is researching gendered working conditions and leadership in the Swedish Parliament, resistance to gender-equitable institutional change, and political representation in sub-Saharan Africa during COVID-19.