No (Parliamentary) Gender Gap Please, We're British |
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Authors: | NICHOLAS ALLEN JONATHAN DEAN |
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Affiliation: | Teaches at the University of Essex where he recently completed his doctoral thesis on ethics regulation in the House of Commons since 1995.;Recently completed his PhD on the 'deradicalisation' thesis in British feminist politics at the University of Essex. |
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Abstract: | Although the number of women MPs has increased in recent years, there continues to be a pronounced gender gap in the British House of Commons. Most attempts to close this gap have involved political parties selecting candidates on the basis of some form of electoral gender quota, but quotas are problematic, and more radical steps need to be taken if we are serious about women being equally represented in the Mother of Parliaments. This article proposes a possible solution that accords as far as possible with Britain's governing and representative traditions: the modification of current electoral arrangements so that voters in each constituency vote for and are represented by both a male and a female MP. |
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Keywords: | Electoral systems feminism gender Parliament quotas representation |
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