Evoking Equality: The Gender Sensitivity of Parliaments through their Symbolic Function
| Author | Tània Verge |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321721998931 |
| Published date | 01 November 2022 |
| Date | 01 November 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321721998931
Political Studies
2022, Vol. 70(4) 1048 –1067
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321721998931
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Evoking Equality: The Gender
Sensitivity of Parliaments
through their Symbolic
Function
Tània Verge
Abstract
This article examines parliaments as symbol-makers beyond the actions of individual Members
of Parliament or parliamentary party groups. In doing so, it develops an analytical framework for
studying how legislatures symbolically represent women and, more generally, how they stand for
gender equality. The article identifies who are the symbol-makers on behalf of the institution and
outlines several indicators that allow assessing how the symbolic may further the gender sensitivity
of parliaments. The indicators are clustered into two domains: on one hand, physical spaces, and,
on the other hand, communications and public outreach. Drawing on examples from parliaments
around the world, the article documents the wide range of available repertoires aimed at eroding
the association between politics and masculinity. It also discusses the expected impact of symbolic
activity on the targeted audiences and pinpoints the ways in which descriptive, substantive and
symbolic representation build onto each other.
Keywords
gender-sensitive parliaments, institutional innovation, public engagement, symbolic
representation, women’s representation
Accepted: 5 February 2021
Introduction
Increasing scholarly attention has been paid to the role that parliaments as institutions
have on descriptive representation – numerical presence of social groups – and on sub-
stantive representation – acting for specific constituencies – beyond the action of political
parties, parliamentary groups or individual Members of Parliament (MPs). Studies using
a gendered workplace perspective have identified the ways in which the gender-biased or
apparently gender-neutral rules of parliament and its inner workings constrain women’s
Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Corresponding author:
Tània Verge, Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Ramon Trias Fargas
25-27, 08005 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Email: tania.verge@upf.edu
998931PSX0010.1177/0032321721998931Political StudiesVerge
research-article2021
Article
Verge 1049
access to legislatures and undermine equality of influence (Erikson and Josefsson, 2019;
Erikson and Verge, 2020; Franceschet, 2011; Kantola and Rolandsen Agustín, 2019). In
sharp contrast, the role that parliaments as institutions take on regarding symbolic repre-
sentation – constituents’ feelings of ‘being fairly and effectively represented’ (Pitkin,
1967: 92) – has been under-researched by gender and politics scholars and parliamentary
studies scholars alike (but see Leston-Bandeira, 2012, 2016; Verge, 2020).
Several works have looked into the effects that women’s descriptive or substantive
representation in parliament have on citizens’ political engagement and on their attitudes
towards political institutions (for a review of the literature, see Espírito-Santo and Verge,
2017; Franceschet et al., 2012) and a few studies have examined the self-representations
of congresswomen (Brown and Gershon, 2016; Niven and Zilber, 2001). Nonetheless,
hitherto, little is known about the array of activities through which parliaments can con-
vey and create new meanings about equal gender representation. With a view to filling
this gap, this article delves into how the symbolic function is enacted within and by leg-
islatures, thereby examining symbolic representation as a dimension in its own right
(Lombardo and Meier, 2014; Rai, 2010; Verge, 2020). More specifically, I develop an
analytical framework for studying how parliaments as institutions symbolically represent
women and, more generally, how they stand for gender equality beyond the actions of
individual MPs or parliamentary party groups.
The first section of the article addresses the issue of the elusive measurement of the
symbolic function of parliaments by identifying who are the symbol-makers on behalf of
the institution and by outlining several indicators that allow assessing how the symbolic
may further the gender sensitivity of legislatures. These indicators are clustered into two
domains: on one hand, physical spaces, and, on the other hand, communications and pub-
lic outreach. The second section illustrates each of the indicators through examples that
capture the wide range of gender-sensitive symbolic activities implemented by parlia-
ments around the world. The third section discusses the expected impact of claim-making
activity on the targeted audiences and pinpoints the ways in which descriptive, substan-
tive and symbolic representation are mutually co-constitutive. The last section highlights
the main findings and suggests various avenues for furthering the study of the symbolic
function of parliaments.
Analytical Framework for Studying the Gender Sensitivity
of the Symbolic Function
Even though the symbolic function is not the core function of parliaments, ‘it is by no
means marginal’ (Leston-Bandeira, 2016: 512). The symbolic is indeed pervasive in par-
liaments because they are the ‘theatre of democracy’ (Rai and Spary, 2019: 2). Legislatures
stage democratic politics through aesthetics, discourses and performances that evoke spe-
cific meanings about the representative process, the representatives and the represented
(Rai, 2017: 507). This symbolic activity is highly consequential for the feeling of being
represented among constituents. However, studies on the ways in which parliaments seek
to build ‘an institutional identity’ for themselves (Kelso, 2007: 372–373) and ‘reinforce
the presence of the actual institution’ by means of claims of representation that convey
ideas and meanings about what the institution stands for (Judge and Leston-Bandeira,
2018: 157) are far and between.
The few existing works on the institutional claims made on behalf of parliaments have
mainly focussed on the public engagement activities through which legislatures seek to
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