Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons: Beneath the Spectacle 3030642380, 9783030642389

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GENDER AND POLITICS SERIES EDITORS: JOHANNA KANTOLA · SARAH CHILDS

Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons Beneath the Spectacle

Cherry M. Miller

Gender and Politics

Series Editors Johanna Kantola University of Tampere Tampere, Finland Sarah Childs Royal Holloway, University of London Egham, UK

The Gender and Politics series celebrated its 7th anniversary at the 5th European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in June 2017 in Lausanne, Switzerland having published more than 35 volumes to date. The original idea for the book series was envisioned by the series editors Johanna Kantola and Judith Squires at the first ECPG in Belfast in 2009, and the series was officially launched at the Conference in Budapest in 2011. In 2014, Sarah Childs became the co-editor of the series, together with Johanna Kantola. Gender and Politics showcases the very best international writing. It publishes world class monographs and edited collections from scholars - junior and well established - working in politics, international relations and public policy, with specific reference to questions of gender. The titles that have come out over the past years make key contributions to debates on intersectionality and diversity, gender equality, social movements, Europeanization and institutionalism, governance and norms, policies, and political institutions. Set in European, US and Latin American contexts, these books provide rich new empirical findings and push forward boundaries of feminist and politics conceptual and theoretical research. The editors welcome the highest quality international research on these topics and beyond, and look for proposals on feminist political theory; on recent political transformations such as the economic crisis or the rise of the populist right; as well as proposals on continuing feminist dilemmas around participation and representation, specific gendered policy fields, and policy making mechanisms. The series can also include books published as a Palgrave pivot. For further information on the series and to submit a proposal for consideration, please get in touch with Senior Editor Ambra Finotello, [email protected]. This series is indexed by Scopus.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14998

Cherry M. Miller

Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons Beneath the Spectacle

Cherry M. Miller Faculty of Social Sciences Tampere University Tampere, Finland

ISSN 2662-5814 ISSN 2662-5822 (electronic) Gender and Politics ISBN 978-3-030-64238-9 ISBN 978-3-030-64239-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For my Mum, Sue and Sister, Emma

Acknowledgments

This book could not have happened without the participants, including the MP and her office who very generously provided the setting to conduct the research from and who provided support during the field work. I am thankful to all of the participants of the study who were generous with their time and insights and I take full responsibility for the representation in this study. The study provides one lens to make sense of gendered power relations in the UK House of Commons, and I only offer a partial account, which makes the need for more research all the more pressing. The book could not have happened without Peter Kerr and Stephen Bates at POLSIS University of Birmingham, who supervised the original research. I am also grateful to the examiners of this work: Fiona Mackay and Nicki Smith. I would like to thank the EUGENDEM team for friendship and intellectual stimulation Johanna Kantola, Anna Elomaki, Petra Ahrens, Barbara Gawenda and Valentine Berthet and my colleagues at Gender Studies Tampere. The ECPG conference in 2019 was my first ECPG. It was a supportive environment and it was a privilege to present some of the work for this book on Josefina Erikson and Tania Verge’s panel on studying parliaments as gendered workplaces. Thankyou to the Uppsala Gender and Politics crowd for welcoming me in November 2019 to reflect on the ethnographic work undertaken in both the UK House of Commons and European Parliament.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am thankful to the Gender and Politics Series editors, Sarah Childs and Johanna Kantola, for their assistance and support. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewer for their very helpful and constructive comments. I would also like to thank Ambra Finotello and her team at Palgrave for their help and patience in the publication process. I am lucky to have had productive and critical discussions with numerous colleagues, from POLSIS at the University of Birmingham and Gender Studies at Tampere University. This includes, not least Raisa Jurva, Nataša Mojskerc, Tuula Juvonen, and the whole Tampere ‘Shut up and Write’ gang. The book was supported by funding from the Economic and Social Research Council as a 1+3 Ph.D. It then received funding from the European Research Council Horizon 2020 Programme, grant number 771676, to enable me to write this up and extend the research further in the exciting context of The European Parliament. I really couldn’t ask for better or more supportive friends throughout this research—in Tampere, Birmingham, Folkestone, and beyond. These friendly faces include: Will, H, Remant, Georgie and Dan, Georgina, Ollie, Sarah, Shane, Martien, Emma C, Leanne, Nigel, Pete, Lorelai, Bear, Chrissie, and the Tampere Park Run crew. To my dear friend T—whom I have had the immense privilege of sharing the highs and lows of politics with—thanks a million! The book could not have been written without the support of my family in Kent: Auntie Jane, Adam, Chris, Tom, Steph and of course Millie—who brings us so much joy! And also from my Dad’s side of the family, who it is such a privilege to get to know more: Karen, Trevor, Sadie and Gary. A special mention goes to my Dad who sadly never knew of my achievements in relation to this research. (Memories of) his cheery laughter down the phone have carried me very far. I am also grateful to my Nan, Heather, who was a formidable woman and someone who I miss dearly. Finally, to Mum and Emma, to whom this book is dedicated, thanks forever and always.

Contents

1

Introduction: Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons—Beneath the Spectacle

1

Part I Conceptualising and Researching Gendered Parliaments 2

‘Fleshing Out’ Feminist Discursive Institutionalism

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3

‘The Eyes Have It’: Using Parliamentary Ethnography to Examine Gender in the UK House of Commons’ ‘Working Worlds’

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Part II Gendering the UK House of Commons 4

5

The Discursive Institutions of the UK House of Commons: An Introduction to the Empirical Chapters

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MPs: ‘Players’ and ‘Problems’

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CONTENTS

6

The House Service: ‘Servants’ and ‘Stewards’

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7

Parliamentary Researchers ‘Second Brains’ and ‘Tea-Getters’

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Beneath Mainstream Approaches

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8

Index

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Abbreviations and Acronyms

DCCS DFF DIS FDI IPSA PAd ParliABLE

ParliGENDER ParliON

ParliOUT ParliREACH

SpAd WEN

Department for Chamber and Committee Services Department for Facilities Department for Information Services Feminist Discursive Institutionalism Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority Political Advisor, Main Opposition ParliABLE is a Workplace Equality Network (WEN) in support of disabled Members and Peers, their staff, staff of both Houses, and others who work on the Parliamentary Estate ParliGENDER is the Workplace Equality Network for Gender in Parliament ParliON is the Parliament Opportunity Network, a Workplace Equality Network to promote inclusion and equality of opportunity across Parliament, and to raise awareness of issues around socio-economic inclusion ParliOUT is the Workplace Equality Network for LGBTIQ people in parliament ParliREACH is a Workplace Equality Network established to increase awareness and appreciation of race, ethnicity and cultural heritage issues in Parliament Special Advisor Workplace Equality Network

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2

Fig. 5.1

Fig. 8.1

A feminist discursive institutionalist model of institutionalisation Gender split by department of employees in the House Service in July 2014 (House of Commons and PICT Diversity Report, April 2015, p. 11, produced by the Diversity and Inclusion Team and the Information and Administration Team) Gender split by pay band of employees in the House Service in July 2014 (House of Commons and PICT Diversity Report, April 2015, p. 10, produced by the Diversity and Inclusion Team and the Information and Administration Team) The Vote Office by Chloe Cheese ‘The Vote Office–Portcullis House’ by Chloe Cheese, lithograph, edition of 30 (WOA 7377) Commissioned by the UK Parliament Works of Art Committee for their Jubilee Series (https://www.parliament.uk/about/art-in-parliament/news /2012/chloe-cheese) 01 June 2012 Revisiting feminist discursive institutionalism

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68

141 298

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 3.1 Table Table Table Table Table

3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6

Table 3.7 Table 3.8 Table 3.9 Table Table Table Table Table Table Table

3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16

Table 3.17 Table 3.18

Adapted from Lowndes’ taxonomy of gendering rules Existing studies using parliamentary ethnography or immersion in parliaments and political institutions Parents in Parliament (2013) and (2017) Parliamentary Hours (2020) Job Titles and Pay Grades of Members’ Staff Gender of staff members and the MP they work for Breakdown of parliamentary staff by position and by the two main political parties Members’ staff interviewed parliamentary researchers Members of Parliament Interviewed Members of Parliament Members of the House Service Interviewed Members of the House Service Extra-commons participants interviewed General observation diary List of parliamentary researchers interviewed List of MPs interviewed House Service participants interviewed Extra-Westminster participants interviewed Illustrative interview questions for parliamentary researchers Illustrative interview questions for MPs Illustrative interview questions for participants from the House Service

28 53 64 65 70 71 72 73 73 73 74 74 76 77 78 78 79 80 81

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LIST OF TABLES

Table Table Table Table Table

3.19 5.1 7.1 7.2 8.1

Indicative list of documents consulted Key tasks of a committee chair Factors affecting the tone of an MP’s office Gender of special political advisers’ by party 1979–2013 Subversive agency

82 130 244 251 305

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons—Beneath the Spectacle

It’s Easter recess and the Member had left her jacket in the cloakroom. She calls the office very apologetically, asking her researcher, exceptionally, if she could get it, not normally asking for such tasks. We walk through an airy Portcullis House and into the darker Palace. We inquire to a member of the House Service about the jacket as a male middle-aged MP swaggers past confidently and interrupts us by asking: ‘Have you come to hang your swords on the pink ribbons’? We both uttered an awkward laugh, completely unimpressed.1

1.1

Beneath the Spectacle

The voices above in the vignette and of those interspersed throughout the book: of MPs, members of the House Service, parliamentary researchers, and extra-parliamentary actors, indicate that gender works through embodied interactions and subjectivities everyday in workplaces. This means that how actors think, feel and are empowered to act around others matters for the organisation and outcomes of gender in parliamentary spaces. Bodies in the UK House of Commons do not move equally throughout the space. Some bodies are repeatedly subject to prohibition and affirmation and this interacts with categories of gender. Furthermore, the social and more informal spaces of the UK House of Commons are © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Miller, Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6_1

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not immune from workings of power and gender does much ‘work’ in constructing these spaces. For the very first time, this book brings theoretical literatures to develop a ‘fleshed out’ version of feminist discursive institutionalism, the least developed (Kantola and Lombardo 2017) of the feminist institutionalism strands. It does so by bringing together the gender theory of Judith Butler; literatures on the everyday; and methodological literatures on parliamentary ethnography into a productive exchange, to explore the ‘work’ that gender does everyday in the UK House of Commons. It is based on an extensive fieldwork conducted in the UK House of Commons at the end of the 2010–2015 parliament. The book provides a newly developed optics of parliaments and treats them as workplaces —empirically demonstrating the relationality of gender between actors from different working worlds. To this end, the book provides a textured account of gender, that brings discussions of identity and performance to bear on a range of workplace practices. Examples of such practices include recruitment, rotation, advice-giving, the social spaces of the workplace, everyday resistances and open struggles to gender equality, performing public service, and the endogenisation of democratic innovations into the everyday of the UK House of Commons. Gender and politics scholars are increasingly making appeals to ethnography. This is because parliamentary ethnography not only helps us to study informal practices, but also avoids the risk of over-generalising agency. Ethnography provides the tools to investigate agency empirically as subject-contingent. To conceptualise agency as subject-contingent means that different types of agency may be graspable to certain actors, depending on their institutional location, reputation, identity, subjectivity and resources. Rather than universal theories of ‘male domination’, this book, uses parliamentary ethnography to conceptualise and empirically focus on gender as in struggle. Like others (Mackay 2008; Ahmed 2012, p. 8), the book shares a desire to thicken our descriptions and analyses of inequality and institutions. Moreover, ethnography avoids the risk that taking an everyday approach could be hagiographical, rather than political—that is, treating the everyday as something to be valorised as a space of agency, without paying attention to structural inequalities (McNay 1996). Feminist institutionalists have been interested in informal practices and institutions (Krook and Mackay 2011; Kenny 2013, 2014; Kenny and Bjarnegard 2015). Hence, it would be useful to bring these two approaches together. Using feminist discursive institutionalism, the book

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explores more closely the interaction with institutional rules and struggles, to show heterogeneity, agency and contradictions in the reproduction of gender. Furthermore, using a feminist discursive institutionalist approach accepts that change may be subject-contingent and the book provides five entry points for change in Chapter 8, derived from a model of the various ways in which gender is institutionally reproduced and resisted in Chapter 2. Taking insights from anthropology seriously, the book knits together a series of emic and etic insights to explore everyday gendering in the UK House of Commons. Emic means interpretations from parliamentary actors. Etic means ‘outside’ interpretations, sometimes informed by theory or other logics. Indeed, at a greater distance from political exigencies of the setting, etic interpretations can propose much too. The vignette indicates that in order to understand the reproduction of gender, we need a different optics to capture different angles, interfaces, interstices and environments. Furthermore, if gender is something that is repeated over time, then ethnography is an appropriate methodology to use. The book argues that in order to understand everyday capillary workings of power, we need to speak with differently situated actors, accepting that parliaments are not unified and there are different gender regimes and identities at play. Whilst there is much to commend in existing sophisticated research on gender and parliaments, there is a problematic tendency to treat elected MPs as the presumptive centre of analysis. This has the effect of foreclosing other actors such as parliamentary researchers, advisors, clerks and bar workers—who are rendered ‘not to matter’ in this analytical focus but who provide crucial insights. Parliamentary ethnography de-naturalises this residual status. Nader urged anthropologists to study ‘sideways’ and ‘down’ as well as ‘up’ (1962) towards differently situated bodies. Far from extraneous, actors in less prominent positions in the Commons are crucial to the study of gender regimes in workplace settings. Inter-professional relations and the gendered terms of arrangements between political actors matter for drawing analytical conclusions about the gendered—or rather, the gendering nature of arrangements within the UK House of Commons. There is a risk that staff in political settings become ‘para-everythings’ who are ‘reiteratively and citationally outside the main events of a singular [in this case Westminster] story’ (Sylvester 1998, p. 39). This reflection is particularly resonant for interprofessional and hierarchical environments like parliaments—the integrity

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of elected members’ identities is based on non-elected ‘outsiders’—and therefore this book insists on the importance of multiple actors in order to understand gendering in a thicker sense. The gender lens taken in this book is necessary if we attend to broader arguments about cultural backlashes in the UK, where some gender equality norms are contested (Norris and Inglehart 2019). The UK’s gender regime contains several inequalities and contestations. For example, community organisations lobbied the local police force to make misogyny a hate crime in Nottinghamshire in 2016, with due consideration of the performative character of hate speech directed at women. Furthermore, with regard to arguments to apply a gender lens to the crisis in democracy (Waylen 2015), the book is also needed because in the context of increasing arguments towards more deliberative democratic mechanisms such as discussions of citizens assemblies in an All Party Parliamentary Group on deliberative democracy, established in 2019 in the UK Parliament it is important to remember that identity matters and that gendered actors do not participate in these mechanisms on an equal basis. This has coincided with a broader practitioner movement worldwide to make parliaments more gender-sensitive (Palmieri 2011). Therefore, this book is important to practitioners too, by providing a thick analysis of gender dynamics within the parliamentary arena. The three research questions that this book seeks to provide insights on are: 1. How is gender reproduced in the ‘working worlds’ of the UK House of Commons and what ‘work’ does gender do in the workplace? How does parliamentary ethnography help us to understand these processes? 2. How do gendered actors respond to the institutional conditions and what are the possibilities for change for differently situated parliamentary actors? 3. How can we theorise institutions from a feminist discursive institutionalist framework? In order to provide insights into these questions, the book establishes relationships between the different actors who work on the parliamentary estate and sees how they conceptualise the terms of arrangements between them in an emic sense, and how this might be gendering.

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Sharing a concern of the weightlessness of some critical discursive social science when analysing the political (McNay 2014), the book undertakes a ‘fleshier’ investigation of power operating at the capillaries. To this end, the book borrows from etic frameworks and places Judith Butler’s gender performativity (2011) within a contextual framework of institutional repetition. Smith and Lee problematise the underuse of Butler’s work in political science, arguing that: such everyday issues around common human experience are considered by other social scientists to be central to the practice and theory of social relations…[yet]…these commonplace issues are being written out of (or, more accurately, have never been written in to) contemporary political science. (2015, p. 49, emphasis added)

In this fleshed out feminist discursive institutionalist framework, power is seen as embodied. As such, gender injustices are sometimes difficult to articulate, but it is where relationships of power are cited and naturalised over and over again.

1.2

Why the UK House of Commons?

Why should the institution of the UK House of Commons generate interest from feminists as an institutional arena that is worth studying? I suggest that we need to make this exploration for two sets of reasons, grouped broadly as discursive and material. In terms of the discursive place of parliament, the UK House of Commons makes claims for the UK democracy—being the central institution in the UK’s democratic regime. The UK House of Commons plays a key role in articulating public opinion to government and legitimises UK state power and authority (Judge and Leston-Bandeira 2021). This book understands parliaments as potentially crucial sites for the discursive politicisation of gender—that is, the political contestation and attention given to an issue. The UK House of Commons is a key site where gender struggles are being played out, it is the focal point for campaigners who are still willing, albeit sometimes reluctantly, to participate in the structures and practices of parliament. Parliaments contribute to discursively shaping gender values—not only in deliberative set pieces such as International Women’s Day debates; oral and written questions to the Equalities Minister and in the deliberations of the Women and

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Equalities Select Committee; but also informally in discursive struggles within the parliament over institutional leadership, staffing arrangements, workplace cultures, sexual harassment, and representation. Whilst women have ascended to some parliamentary leadership positions, there have been questions asked about how far the UK House of Commons really supports a thriving and gender-equal parliamentary democracy. At the time of the fieldwork, at the end of the 2010–2015 parliament, the Commons was numerically male dominated with just 22% of MPs being women and that figure in 2019 stands at 30%. Despite modest and incremental institutional reform to institutionalise democratic practices, there remains a growing evidence base of potentially problematic gender regimes at play within the UK House of Commons (Childs 2016)—that is, ‘the state of play in gender relations in a given institution’ (Connell 1987, p. 120) for situated parliamentary actors. There has been widely reported ritualised bullying of men and women at Prime Minister’s Questions including subtle sexualised humiliating comments; bellicose and spectacular styles of leadership from Prime Ministers—who have told MPs to ‘Calm Down Dear’ and called the Leader of the Opposition a ‘Big Girl’s Blouse’. Overbearing behaviour towards female members of the House Service (the permanent staff of the Commons) has also been reported. Three reports, the Cox Report, the White report and the Ellenbogen report, all undertaken by independent QCs highlighted considerable problems in the parliamentary workplace cultures. The gender regimes of the House of Commons are embedded within wider inequality regimes—such as aural othering towards (female) MPs with regional accents and racism experienced by black MPs and those in work experience placements (Cocozza, Guardian, 8 October 2019). On the material side, parliaments are embedded in the broader economy (Rai and Spary 2019). Parliaments have claims of being sovereign and so they matter, they are not a residual actors. Contra to the parliamentary decline thesis, whilst not initiating most legislation, there are many types of power in parliaments relative to other institutions such as political parties and government (Russell and Gover 2017). The UK House of Commons is still an important institutional arena for feminists, because the working worlds and cultures of public and private institutions may themselves be subjected to parliamentary scrutiny. In their capacity as Members of Parliament, politicians are resourced to respond to case work—from those who wish to seek representation as users and workers of bureaucratic structures. However, this representation and the

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effectiveness of the legislative and scrutiny process is incumbent upon— and is nested within, a broader workplace environment. In sum then, parliaments do matter for feminists on matters of gender, power and resistance—both discursively and materially.

1.3

Gender and Legislative Studies

Gender and politics debates have become increasingly sophisticated in applying and developing feminist new institutionalism. The feminist institutionalist literature provides a good starting point to further increase our understanding of gendered rules and norms. Feminist institutionalism engages with new institutionalism approaches which suggest that institutions matter and that we can study institutions qua institutions (Waylen 2015, p. 507). Lovenduski suggests: ‘the foundations of feminist institutionalist analysis are fine-grained descriptions of gendered environments accompanied by explanations of how gender constrains or enhances agency and affects stability and change’ (2012, xi). Feminist institutionalists analyse both ‘the gendered character and the gendering effects of political institutions’ (Mackay 2011, p. 181) in both domestic and global governance. Casting our institutional net wider, we can locate valuable research on in/equalities and institutions in literature that is not explicitly aligned with feminist institutionalism (Ahmed 2012; Phipps 2014), yet is also necessary and important. Ahmed for example grounds her institutional analysis in a phenomenological approach that centres embodiment; whilst Phipps has located the gendering of bodies in institutional discourses. However, at present the feminist institutional literature has explored identity in descriptive marks and gesture, less. Everyday embodiment and how the body comes into being in institutional contexts is important in order to understand power and how agency is more graspable for some, than others. Power then works through identities at an everyday level at the capillaries of institutional environments, which institutional perspectives have been slower at analysing (Kantola 2006). Where this book innovates is that it provides a thicker and relational discussion of identity. Professional identity-building practices are seemingly disinterested, but we know from broader literature that institutions are places where identity and reputation ‘matters’ for the power,

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(perceived) influence, and acceptance that actors may enjoy in the legislature (Smooth 2001; Puwar 2004; Brown 2014). This is consequential—not least in the everyday enactment of representation. In deepening the understanding of the gender regime through professional identity and gender building practices, we can better explore the institutional contexts of agency and can investigate more fully gender in struggle. Kenny suggests that ‘an understanding of gender as ‘practice’ or ‘performance’ shifts the analytical focus away from the individual to social and political institutions, processes and practices’ (2007, p. 93 emphasis added) but we invariably fail to attend to agency in the repetition of these acts, if our analysis is weighted too far to rules.

1.4 Taking an Everyday Lens: What Might an Optics of Parliaments as Workplaces Look like? The everyday is at the heart of this book, both in its theoretical and methodological approach. It reads Butler as a theorist of the everyday and joins scholars who read gender performativity as/with institutions (Tyler 2019), and as such, ties feminist political theory to legislative studies (see also Rai 2011). The everyday appears to be a propitious concept in the current disaffected political climate, when we unpack it. This is because, as feminists note, it is a concept that conjures relationality (Colebrook 2002). This focus may have come about in order to bridge the perceived distance between elite workplace norms and professional workplace norms (Busby 2013). Unlike anthropology and cultural studies, where the everyday is taken as given as a substantive area of inquiry, there has only recently been an everyday interdisciplinary turn in neighbouring disciplines to political science, such as economics (Hozic and True 2016). International Relations scholar, Enloe puts it simply, ‘[the] mundane matters’ (2011). Political science has been slower to take these conceptual steps and to follow through with an analytics of power that moves from government to governance. Shifting one’s optics to beneath ceremonial displays of power in everyday workplace practices is not turning a blind eye to more ceremonial relations of power that have been explored, such as in Prime Ministers Questions, or the State Opening of Parliament but is complimentary to these approaches. The everyday is arguably not an ontological concept but more of an epistemological concept. If we recognise this, we can see that placing the everyday—or rather plural everydays in focus can then spawn a range

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of analytical trajectories using interdisciplinary analytical frameworks that draw upon ‘distinct lineages of thought to bear upon a wide-ranging set of practices’ (Guillaume and Huysmans 2019, p. 279). I will now outline how one everyday lens might be a workplace approach, though this is only one way to take forward an everyday analysis. Feminist political scientists have begun to consider parliaments as gendered organisations, acknowledging both the theoretical and empirical interactions between the parliamentary organisational context and the political and legislative context (Dahlerup 1988; Crawford and Pini 2010; Connolly 2013; Dahlerup and Leyenaar 2014; Wangnerud 2015). Some feminist political scientists have developed this categorisation further to explore parliaments and local and devolved government as gendered workplaces (Charles 2014, p. 369; Childs 2016; Erikson and Josefsson 2018, 2020; Erikson and Verge 2020); arguing that the working conditions of parliamentarians and staff feeds into democratic questions about parliaments (Erikson and Verge 2020, p. 2). Politicians have also made use of labouring discourses and increasingly make sense of parliaments as workplaces, in addition to their representation function. They suggest that parliaments should symbolically and practically lead on workplace standards. A gendered workplace perspective generates methodological issues. These include issues of coverage in terms of actors and how far a comparative framework can be generalised to other parliaments (Erikson and Josefsson 2020). In terms of methods, a survey data set (Erikson and Josefsson 2018), whilst producing robust data and vast coverage, has epistemological problems, since involves the atomism of positivist approaches and cannot capture ambivalences. Qualitative interviews are beneficial to capture some attitudinal aspects of gender equality (Childs 2004) but cannot capture how this self-representation interacts with everyday, contextualised behaviour. Immersion within the setting (Childs 2016) avoids the atomism of surveys and the positive presentation of self in interviews and has the potential to enrich our understanding of gender bias. Linked to a workplace perspective is the notion of power operating informally that constructs everyday gendered hierarchies within parliaments. Ethnography has the potential to canvass a wide range of power relations within the parliamentary workplace and the gendered terms of arrangements between and within actors working in different working worlds. Ethnography is fruitful for highlighting political practices and ongoing

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contestations within parliaments—that is to observe gender in struggle, as well as gender repeated over time. To position this book beneath representation literatures, the everyday would suggest indeterminacy that cannot be fixed by rules and arguably is in excess and ‘outside’ representation, or more akin to symbolic-discursive forms of representation (Lombardo and Meier 2014; Galligan and Meier 2016). This book does not abdicate from the possibility that gendering can be an effect of positioning within rules, since it is the contention of this book that gendered rules structure the everyday—and indeed are constitutive of the ‘micro’-foundations of institutions (Lowndes 2019), but are not fully determining of the power relations of the UK House of Commons. The book seeks to take a more discursive approach in order to centre how discursive interactions with these rules are subjectcontingent. Institutions produce and interact with subject positions—that is representational formations of gender. However, deeper processes of parliamentary actors’ self-representation, disidentification and how they are positioned within these structures and subject positions are important.

1.5

Book Overview

Moving on from this introduction, Chapters 2 and 3 provide consideration of the conceptual and methodological frameworks used in the text. Chapter 2 provides a framework to investigate what it means to say that gender is reproduced everyday in the UK House of Commons. It argues that the discursive dynamics in parliaments are important. It draws upon and develops the feminist new institutional approach from a discursive perspective. This provides conceptual flesh on the gendered practices in the UK House of Commons. In ‘fleshing out’ a feminist discursive institutionalist approach, the reader will be introduced to some of the key ideas of Judith Butler. The framework is developed to investigate the ways that ‘male’ and ‘female’ political subjects in parliament are positioned in working rules and practices. The book is therefore valuable in looking beneath more ceremonial performances of power within this setting to explore gender in institutional struggle. Chapter 3 provides a stand-alone methodological chapter discussing parliamentary ethnography from a feminist discursive institutionalist lens and brings Judith Butler into a productive tension with ethnography. There are several possible methodological inroads into exploring the reproduction of gender in the UK House of Commons. The chapter is based on the premise that feminist researchers can attempt to make

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a fuller understanding of (in)formal dynamics, through immersion within the setting. The chapter presents ethnography, discusses access and participation and maps the ‘field’ in terms of the three sets of actors that are engaged with. The methodological chapter is combined with a methodological appendix which grounds the discussion in interpretivist political science. The empirical chapters open in Chapter 4 by firstly outlining the three ‘discursive institutions’—that is, three institutionalised ideas which frame, produce and discipline gender performances and take on an empirical specificity in the UK House of Commons. The three different, but overlapping ideas that I encountered in the UK House of Commons are: (1) the career cycle—that is, the everyday transactions, enactment and movement throughout a career and the acquisition and recognition of status and skills; (2) citizenship—that is, the inward-looking, world-making relationships performed on the parliamentary estate; and (3) public service that refers to other-regarding, duty-bound activity and has conceptual links to motivation, accountability (regimes) and ethics. The chapter locates the inter-subjectivity of these ideas in the field, and claims that they were palpable and performative enough to be conceptualised as discursive institutions. Chapter 5 looks at the first set of actors: MPs. Whilst democratic practices introduced in the 2010 parliament ‘have much to say that is pertinent to issues of women in politics’ (All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in Parliament 2014, p. 14), the endogenisation of some of the democratic innovations into day-to-day gender regimes in the House of Commons has not been explored in depth. The chapter looks at the endogenisation of democratic changes surrounding committee chair elections into MPs’ working days, such as leadership elections to select committee chairs and the performance of leadership. In terms of citizenship, journalists on the estate are key interlocutors in framing the relationships, activity and mood of the estate and so relationships with journalists are important. Gender is ‘in struggle’ for MPs and women MPs find themselves being heard as ‘insistent’ when having to demand the same media coverage as men. In terms of public service, in the absence of a job description, I explore some of the claims making around ‘good’ representation and how gender is performed in these claims. Chapter 6 looks at a period of open institutional struggle around changes to a rule-in-form: parliamentary (re)design of the staffing leadership structure and the overall governance structure of the UK House of

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Commons. The chapter examines subtle resistances to the appointment of an Australian, ‘outsider’ candidate, Carol Mills and argues that in this episode, the career structure was de-gendered—that is, gender was not treated as an overall analytical category in the governance structure of the House, whilst the applicant was quite overtly gendered in discourses by situated parliamentary actors. The chapter charts the movement towards ‘gender citizenship’ and broader equalities performed through Workplace Equality Networks as parliamentary staff use their skills to organise for change in the House of Commons. Finally, the chapter discusses existing efforts to link up parliament with wider society and how rule displacement around bullying followed Dame Laura Cox’s report, where an inadequate behavioural policy had fallen into disuse. Chapter 7 explores the working world of UK parliamentary researchers, responding to a double absence of research on/with this set of actors, and offering perhaps the first academic treatment of parliamentary researchers through a gender lens. The chapter looks at the ‘work’ that gender does in their workplace performances. Quite uniquely as actors on the estate, parliamentary researchers are structurally in a relationship of status contingency to their MP. This means that their reputation is based upon who their boss is and this power relationship is constitutive of gender performances and is affectively managed. In terms of citizenship, parliamentary researchers are present on the estate for longer, although in volatile working contracts, experiencing high turnover, and therefore inter-office relationships may be performative in terms of job opportunities. Finally, in terms of public service, the chapter argues that researchers can be constrained when performing public service. It explores how the claims of sexual harassment were made intelligible for this group of actors in the debate that followed the fieldwork and draws attention to an intra-party rule in use—the notion that researchers will campaign in the constituency, the lack of parliamentary coverage for this activity, and the gendering therein. Chapter 8 pulls together the different themes of the book and considers how looking beneath the spectacle to the kinds of dynamics that mainstream legislative studies can neglect, may be insightful of parliaments’ inner workings. These dynamics include the gendered rules at play in the UK House of Commons, how actors respond, and the ‘work’ that gender does in these terms of arrangements. Rather than complete domination the book finds that gender is ‘in struggle’, with different varieties of hierarchies reproduced everyday. Actors do not respond uniformly

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and the book discusses four responses to refuture parliamentary democracy. Finally, it discusses how change might come about, especially given the challenges and reflections that Covid-19 poses to parliaments and what that change might look like. Taking a feminist discursive approach to endogenous change, it argues that change is likely to be subjectcontingent and so is resistance to change. It draws on Butler’s notion of discursive responsibility within and around institutional settings. Overall this book forms one small part of a broader feminist project to refuture UK and international parliamentary democracy.

Note 1. Field note, 10th April 2014, London.

References Ahmed, S. (2012). On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in Parliament. (2014). Improving Parliament: Creating a Better and More Representative House. Available at: http://www.appgimprovingparliamentreport.co.uk/. Brown, N. (2014). Sisters in the Statehouse, Black Women and Legislative DecisionMaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Busby, A. (2013). ‘Normal Parliament’: Exploring the Organisation of Everyday Political Life in an MEP’s Office. Journal of Contemporary European Research, 9(1), 94–115. Butler, J. (2011). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limitations of Sex. London: Routledge, First Published 1990. Charles, N. (2014). Doing Gender, Practising Politics: Workplace Cultures in Local and Devolved Government. Gender, Work and Organisation, 21(4), 368–380. Childs, S. L. (2016, July). The Good Parliament. University of Bristol. Available at: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/medialisbrary/sites/news/2016/july/20% 20Jul%20Prof%20Sarah%20Childs%20The%20Good%20Parliament%20report. pdf. Cocozza, P. (2019, October 8). I’m a black female MP. Why do people assume my white office manager is my boss? Guardian. Available at: https://www. theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2019/oct/08/im-a-black-female-mpwhy-do-people-assume-my-white-office-manager-is-my-boss. Colebrook, C. (2002). The Politics and Potential of Everyday Life. New Literary History, 33(1), 687–706.

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Connell, R. (1987). Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons. Connolly, E (2013). Parliaments as Gendered Institutions: The Irish Oireachtas. Irish Political Studies, 28, 360–379. Crawford, M., & Pini, B. (2010). The Australian Parliament: A Gendered Organisation. Parliamentary Affairs, 64(1), 82–105. Dahlerup, D. (1988). From a Small to a Large Minority: Women in Scandinavian Politics. Scandinavian Political Studies, 11(4), 275–298. Dahlerup, D., & Leyenaar, M. (Eds.). (2014). Breaking Male Dominance in Old Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Enloe, C. (2011). The Mundane Matters. International Political Sociology, 5(4), 447–450. Erikson, J., & Josefsson, C. (2018). The Legislature as a Gendered Workplace: Exploring Members of Parliament’s Experiences of Working in the Swedish Parliament. International Political Science Review, 40(3), 1–18. Erikson, J., & Josefsson, C. (2020). The Parliament as a Gendered Workplace: How to Research Legislators’ (UN)Equal Opportunities to Represent. Parliamentary Affairs, 0(00), 1–19. Erikson, J., & Verge, T. (2020). Gender, Power and Privilege in the Parliamentary Workplace. Parliamentary Affairs, 0(00), 1–19. Galligan, Y., & Meier, P. (2016, July). The Gender-Sensitive Parliamnet: Recognising the Gendered Nature of Parliaments. Paper presented at the International Political Science Association World Congress. Poznan, Poland. Guillaume, X., & Huysmans, J. (2019). The Concept of ‘The Everyday’: Ephemeral Politics and the Abundance of Life. Cooperation and Conflict, 54(2), 278–296. Hozic, A., & True, J. (Eds.). (2016). Scandalous Economics: Gender and the Politics of Financial Crises. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Judge, D., & Leston-Bandeira, C. (2018). The Institutional Representation of Parliament. Political Studies, 66(1), 154–172. Judge, D., & Leston-Bandeira, C. (2021). Why It Matters to Keep Asking Why Legislatures Matter. The Journal of Legislative Studies, Online First. Kantola, J. (2006). Feminists Theorize the State. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kantola, J., & Lombardo, E. (2017). Gender and Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kenny, M. (2007). Gender, Institutions and Power: A Critical Review. Politics, 27 (2), 91–100. Kenny, M. (2013). Gender and Political Recruitment: Theorizing Institutional Change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kenny, M. (2014). A Feminist Institutionalist Approach. Politics and Gender, 10(4), 679–684.

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Kenny, M., & Bjarnegard, E. (2015). Revealing the “Secret Garden”: The Informal Dimensions of Political Recruitment. Politics and Gender, 11(4), 748–753. Krook, M. L., & Mackay, F. (Eds.). (2011). Gender, Politics and Institutions: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lombardo, E., & Meier, P. (2014). The Symbolic Representation of Gender: A Discursive Approach. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. Leston-Bandeira, C. (2013). Parliaments’ Endless Pursuit of Trust: Re-focusing on Symbolic Representation. Journal of Legislative Studies, 18(3), 514–526. Leston-Bandeira, C. (2016). Why Symbolic Representation Frames Parliamentary Public Engagement. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 18(2), 498–516. Lovenduski, J. (1996). Sex, Gender and British Politics. Parliamentary Affairs, 49(1), 1–16. Lovenduski, J. (1998). Gendering Research in Political Science. Annual Review of Political Science, 1, 333–356. Lovenduski, J. (2005). Feminizing Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lovenduski, J. (2012). Prime Minister’s Questions as Political Ritual. British Politics, 7 (4), 314–340. Mackay, F. (2008). ‘Thick’ conceptions of substantive representation: Women, Gender and Political Institutions. Representation: Journal of Representative Democracy, 44(2), 125–139. Mackay, F. (2011). Conclusion: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism? In M. L. Krook & F. Mackay (Eds.), Gender, Politics and Institutions: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism (pp. 181–196). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. McNay, L. (1996). Michel de Certeau and the ambivalent everyday. Social Semiotics, 6(1), 61–81. McNay, L. (2014). The Misguided Search for the Political. Cambridge: Polity Press. Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit and Authoritarian Populism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Palmieri, S. (2011). Gender-Sensitive Parliaments: A Global Review of Good Practice (Inter-Parliamentary Union, Reports and Documents, No 65s2011). Available at: https://www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/gsp11-e.pdf. Phipps, A. (2014). The Politics of the Body: Gender in a Neoliberal and Neoconservative Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Puwar, N. (2004). Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place. London: Berg. Rai, S. (Ed.). (2011). Ceremony and Ritual in Parliament. London: Routledge. Rai, S., & Spary, C. (2019). Performing Representation: Women Members in the Indian Parliament. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Russell, M., & Gover, D. (2017). Legislation at Westminster: Parliamentary Actors and Influence in the Making of British Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, N. J., & Lee, D. (2015). What’s Queer About Political Science? British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 17 (1), 49–63. Smooth, W. (2001). Perceptions of Influence in State Legislatures: A Focus on the Experiences of African American Women in State legislatures. PhD Dissertation submitted to the University of Maryland. Sylvester, C. (1998). Handmaids’ Tales of Washington Power: The Abject and the Real Kennedy White House. Body and Society, 4(3), 39–66. Tyler, M. (2019). Judith Butler and Organization Theory. Abingdon: Routledge. Wangnerud, L. (2015). The Principles of Gender-Sensitive Parliaments. London: Routledge. Waylen, G. (2015). Engendering the ‘Crisis of Democracy’: Institutions, Representation and Participation. Government and Opposition, 50(3), 495–520.

PART I

Conceptualising and Researching Gendered Parliaments

CHAPTER 2

‘Fleshing Out’ Feminist Discursive Institutionalism

The point is not to apply ready-made concepts to feminist concerns, but to resignify or appropriate them for specific ends. (Butler and Scott 1992, p. xiii)

2.1

Introduction

Feminist political scientists are studying parliaments as gendered workplaces, but what theories and methods should they use? This book argues that everyday discursive struggles surrounding gender within parliaments at the micro-level are important. This is because parliamentarians articulate struggles in the UK’s gender regimes to governments in policies and debates—but also because parliaments are crucial sites of gendered workplace struggles—made meaningful, through discourses and where gender binaries and subject positions reiteratively consolidated. Discourses are where actors enact power beneath/around/with/through formal institutional rules and through gender performance—in particular, by those parliamentary actors who may lack formal power. This chapter uniquely sets out a ‘fleshed-out’ feminist discursive institutionalist approach to study gendered parliaments—with an analytic focus more oriented towards their practices, rather than their policies. This framework came about as an emergent approach to answer the research questions. Feminist discursive institutionalism places Butler’s © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Miller, Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6_2

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theory of performativity squarely within an explicitly institutional and contextualised framework of repetition. Butler’s consideration of embodied struggle is important to correct the social weightlessness of some critical discursive politics (McNay 2014). The chapter is structured into four sections that bring feminist discursive institutionalism and Judith Butler’s gender performativity into a productive exchange, to explore the everyday interpellative fabric of parliaments—that is, the ways that parliamentary actors are called into multiple subject positions and their opportunities for action. In the first section, I introduce discursive institutionalism vis-a-vis discussions of the organisation of discourse within parliaments; (2) I then introduce feminist discursive institutionalism; before (3) fleshing out feminist institutionalism with the work of Judith Butler and presenting concepts to guide the research on the reproduction of gender in the UK House of Commons; and then (4) I discuss how these sit in productive tension as frameworks to examine the everyday in the UK House of Commons. In sum, this chapter presents an open and flexible conceptual FDI framework through which to analyse the ‘work’ that gender and power do within the UK House of Commons as a gendered workplace.

2.2 Introducing Feminist Discursive Institutionalism Feminist discursive institutionalism is an approach to institutions that builds on new institutionalism—that focuses on both the formal and informal rules of institutional arenas. Instead of focusing on pathdependency, critical junctures and external shocks to parliamentary institutions it focuses more on everyday discursive opportunities for change and resistance. It builds on sociological institutionalism, used elsewhere in parliamentary studies (Pegan 2015) but emphasises struggles and agency. Indeed, feminist institutionalism has been a productive framework in parliaments and political parties (Kenny 2013; Kenny and Verge 2016; Pispoco 2016; Berthet and Kantola 2020). FDI can be situated amongst current trends in parliamentary studies as a subfield, that has sought to open the subfield up to interpretive approaches to parliaments, for example, ceremony and ritual (Rai and Spary 2019); symbolic representation of parliaments (Leston-Bandeira 2016); a performance framework (Rai 2014); attitudinal approaches to styles (Childs 2004) and also role theory (Searing 1994) combined with

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interpretivism (Geddes 2019) and anthropology of parliamentary cultures (Crewe 2016). These are all excellent studies and move the centre of gravity away from ‘old institutionalist’ approaches. Together they are critical of rational choice institutionalist approaches and point out the expressive aspects of politics, through gender and the role of meaning. The originality and distinctiveness of this book can be found in the distinction between ‘stronger’ and ‘weaker’ senses of performance. In the stronger sense of the term, ‘“performance” refers to formal rituals and festivals, “framed” events that are deliberately set apart from everyday life. When it is employed to refer to the informal scenarios of everyday life, on the other hand, the concept is being used in a weaker sense’ (Burke 2005, 43). Whilst the above scholars do look at the everyday, this book looks at acts, rather than more unified roles, styles or more framed performances with audiences in mind. The difference is one of emphasis, rather than disagreement. Feminist discursive institutionalism also has synergies with approaches that take a more discursive approach to the gender-sensitivity of parliaments (Galligan and Meier 2016). This literature draws on discursivesymbolic representation (Lombardo and Meier 2014), arguing that parliaments as institutional settings symbolise different gender relations, not just the symbolic annihilation of women, for example but also how (in)formal rules encourage and sanction different performances of gender. Discursive institutionalism (hereafter DI) is arguably not a discrete analytical framework but has variants that ascribe different roles to ideational elements. DI is an umbrella of approaches that collectively identify a critical role for ideas and discourse for explaining (policy) change and stasis (Campbell and Pedersen 2001; Schmidt 2008, 2010; Panizza and Miorelli 2013; Moon 2013; Alasuutari 2015; Hay 2016). Put simply, DI treats discourse as a constitutive factor of outcomes, rather than as epiphenomenal. DI’s genealogy follows an argumentative turn associated with Habermas that privileges a rational and deliberative subject. It conceptualises discourse as conscious rhetorical devices to coordinate ideas amongst policy actors and to communicate ideas to the general public (Schmidt 2010, p. 15), rather than as constitutive, extra-deliberative, affective, corporeal and (non)-verbal. Discourses are relatively identifiable in their textual form, are intentional, communicative, transparent and measurable. The empirical material that is handled by DI principally consists of speeches, newspapers, conferences and debates and neglects broader unarticulated power from lived social relations.

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Feminist discursive institutionalism (hereafter FDI) is the approach that is taken in this book to explore subject formation because it attends to the everyday discursive aspects of gender performance and bias. Where FDI ‘fits’ in relation to other frameworks is that it more seriously considers the work that discourses, subject positions and congealed identities ‘do’ to co-ordinate and structure everyday behaviour and agency within the UK House of Commons. FDI in this formulation has not been applied to this empirical site thus far. In order to attend to power, we must problematise how discourse is understood within the first-wave discursive institutionalist framework. This book contends that it is possible to read Butler as/with feminist discursive institutionalism, drawing on scholars who have made similar use of Butler and organisations (Tyler 2019; Jenkins and Finnemann 2017). FDI is not necessarily an outgrowth of a Habermasian conception of discourse. Feminists employ different conceptions of discourse (Freidenvall and Krook 2011, p. 48) and I use a Butlerian conception of discourse. Feminist and post-structural evaluations of discursive institutionalism have vehemently critiqued any possible pairing with Habermasian discourse (Bacchi and Ronnblom 2014; Jacobs 2019). For this book, subject-building practices are important, because subject positions confer recognition, empower people to speak and (dis)identification between parliamentary actors. It highlights several of Butler’s ideas that are valuable to feminist institutionalism, such as the bridging of a norms and power approach. This book insists that gender identities in parliaments themselves, valued through institutional positions, can be a site of struggle, privilege and agency (Kulawik 2009, p. 265). The way that parliamentary actors are made intelligible or read has symbolic and material effects. The institutional arrangements that confer this recognition unevenly are naturalised. As such, FDI identifies ‘the ways in which power operates through discourse to fix certain constructions of gender relations as dominant and to marginalize or exclude counter-discourses’ (Freidenvall and Krook 2011, p. 49). FDI is the best analytical framework to address the paucity of gendered identities in parliamentary analyses. This is because, on the one hand, it conceptualises identities as created through the forcible bodily citation of norms (Butler 2011, p. 176) and, on the other hand, it understands that discourse is the medium through which power and gender(ed) norms function. When analysing identity, Butler suggests:

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It would be wrong to think that the discussion of “identity” ought to proceed prior to a discussion of gender identity for the simple reason that “persons” only become intelligible through becoming gendered in conformity with recognizable standards of gender intelligibility. (2007, p. 22)

To conclude this section, FDI pays attention to the communicative and performative processes of gendering and is therefore a pregnant framework of analysis. However, it needs to be fleshed out to capture a more embodied notion of identity.

2.3 Fleshing Out Feminist Discursive Institutionalism with Butlerian Concepts It is the contention of this book that FDI can have a thicker analytical power if it is ‘fleshed out’ with Judith Butler’s concepts in an open and versatile approach that can account for gender performance over time. Gender performance travels across the ideological spectrum and we can analyse how gender is performed in left activist spaces too in potentially exclusionary ways. Discourse is a contested concept. Its meaning is relative to theories within which it is embedded. Butler does not typically feature greatly in discourse textbooks (e.g. Torfing 1999; Fairclough and Fairclough 2012). Although political scientists invoke accounts of gender performances, such accounts have an undifferentiated conception of gender performativity and do not clarify whether they are taking an ethno-methodological account of the self or post-structural account of the subject, often with considerable slippage in-between. This has the effect of circulating ceremonial citations of Butler without further elaboration (Wickes and Emmison 2007). The two approaches themselves are not generally conversant with each other. Butler’s central thesis is that both sex and gender,1 whilst having materialities, are inessential and are enacted every day in ‘a organized repetition of acts’: ‘“sex” is an ideal construct which is forcibly materialised through time’ (2011, p. 1). This observation has been supported by a range of phenomenological work on the body that shows how muscles and postures are developed through learnt social norms. The concept of institution has been particularly productive in Butler’s quest ‘to understand the mundane manner in which bodies get crafted into genders’ (1988, p. 525) within regulatory discourses. This insight

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is important for this book: how parliamentary actors get constituted as such in repetitive (gendered) acts. An institutionalist approach corrects misinterpretations of Butler’s approach that invoke a commodification of gender—whereby gender is seen to be something voluntarily chosen from the wardrobe everyday. Butler discusses citational chains for example to link up performances (2015) and to capture the notion that performances are not discreet performances but are intimately linked to others. A recurrent concern is that Butler ‘posits a subject abstracted from personal, lived experience as well as from its historical and geographical embeddedness’ (Nelson 1999, p. 331; Boucher 2006, p. 114). This is an unsustainable criticism, since Butler has increasingly discussed how bodies are/not supported by institutions. If gender is ‘a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint ’ (2004, p. 1 emphasis added), then we need to map the institutional architecture, whilst being attentive to the temporality of structure. Butler’s interest in embodiment and institutionality is developed in her work on disability. Butler has recently reworked the notion of speech acts to encapsulate the interdependence with institutional infrastructure: The embodiment implied by gender and performance is one that is dependent on institutional structures and broader social worlds. We cannot talk about a body without knowing what supports that body and what its relationship is to that support. In this way, the body is less an entity but a relation and it cannot be fully disassociated from the infrastructures and environmental conditions of its living. (2015, pp. 64–65, emphasis added)

It seems then that it might be fruitful to read Butler’s gender performativity with/as feminist discursive institutionalism. 2.3.1

Fleshing Out Feminist Discursive Institutionalism: Key Concepts

Having introduced feminist discursive institutionalism and the problem of a narrowly delineated conception of discourse, this section seeks to ground feminist discursive institutionalism more in Butler’s concepts. I will now place the concepts of my own feminist discursive institutionalism into an articulate profile. This is because by disaggregating concepts, we make them visible (Rai 2014).

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Gender(ing)

Gendering is a key concept in this book because it denotes the ongoing and iterative performance of gender everyday. If ‘gender’ is a ‘key contribution’ to feminist institutionalism (Freidenvall and Krook 2011, p. 50), a clear interpretation of gender is needed (Bacchi 2017). Butler suggested that: that “girling” of the girl does not end there [declaring sex at birth]; on the contrary, that founding interpellation is reiterated by various authorities and throughout various intervals of time to reinforce or contest this naturalised effect. (Butler 2011, p. xvii)

Butler arguably can be interpreted here as stressing that gender can be ‘done’ with actors by institutions and contexts, altering the ways in which it is performed—in everyday acts of reproduction and resistance by gendered actors. Butler does not deny the materiality of bodies but suggests that certain contexts are organised to accentuate and support certain performances of gender and how these performances are read by others. Attention to power is also important here. Not only is gendering how categories of ‘men’ and ‘women’ are produced, but as Bacchi notes, it is through these processes that ‘“women” and “men” are treated as specific kinds of unequal political subjects’ (2017, p. 20). Furthermore, Bacchi presents a concept of de-gendering. This means when gender is not treated as a relevant category of analysis. Rule changes may position ‘women’ and ‘men’, ‘femininities’ and ‘masculinities’ in different ways as gendered actors and this can be attended to as part of a feminist political analysis. Furthermore, although ‘gender requires and institutes its own distinctive and disciplinary regime’ (Butler 2004, p. 41), inevitably this book is embedded within wider mutually-reinforcing inequality regimes in the UK House of Commons. Gendering is cut through with other power intersections, such as race, class, sexuality and ability. A limitation of this book is that does not provide a systematic analysis of these intersections, though ethnography can enable researchers to explore how political actors are multiply positioned. Moreover, an approach to gender that examines it as an analytical category can explore the qualitative nature of these constructions (Beckwith 2005). Crucially, gendering is always partial, which opens up spaces for heterogeneous gender performances.

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2.3.3

Formal Aspects

Feminist discursive institutionalism pays attention to formal aspects of norm reproduction, such as in legislation and rules-in-form. Despite some reservations towards working inside the state, and of liberal democracy, although institutions are more pronounced in her later work, repetition and norms have arguably been inherent in all of Butler’s work. Drawing on Althusser, Goldstein argues that Butler ‘roots this performative view of gender in material or institutional practices’ (2005, pp. 69–70). Butler suggests ‘the interpellative name may arrive without a speaker – on bureaucratic forms, the census, adoption, papers, employment applications’ (1997a, p. 34). Norms are often objectified in legal form (Foucault in Butler 2004, p. 49) as mundane ritual truths. It may seem strange for a discursive approach to analyse formal rules and structures (Peters 2012, p. 114; cf. Ferguson 1984). However, for the post-structuralist variant of DI, Moon suggests that the distinction between formal and informal can only be made ‘within’ the discursive… with each aspect being mutually constitutive rather than ontologically distinct aspects of the discursive institutional ‘whole’ (2013, p. 114). Moon suggests that institutions comprise of both formal and informal parts using the metaphor of tissue and bones—though his approach is curiously disembodied, drawing on Laclau and Mouffe. ‘Bones’ have been covered by ‘old institutionalist’ studies of parliament. They are the formal, codified parts of an institution that are consistently and equitably enforced through channels that are largely sanctioned as official. They are: ‘the codified, official rules, positions, jobs etc. that structure the relationships of power between individuals within institutions’ (Moon 2013, p. 3). Formal aspects in the House of Commons may be the standing orders, Erskine May, and IPSA’s rules. 2.3.4

Informal Aspects

Feminist discursive institutionalism also attends to the informal. This is because Butler cautions against reducing sexism to single scenes and theorises ‘elaborate institutional structures’ as contexts of performativity, rather than just dyadic scenes of utterances (Butler 1997a, p. 69; 2004, pp. 40–56). Interpellations also take place ‘out of ear shot’ of formal rules (Butler 1997b, p. 33) and can include the non-formal. Indeed: ‘[s]peech acts don’t always have to be explicit, verbal statements...[t]here are all

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sorts of implicit modes of address that structure institutions’ (Butler and Bell 1999, p. 168). An example is language as an ‘assimilative device’ and a ‘key tacit requirement’ (Puwar 2004, p. 112) in the UK House of Commons. Rules can be rules-in-form and rules-in-use, but some wish to end the distinction. For the sake of simplicity, I have kept this as an analytical distinction: rules-in-form denote formality, whilst rules-in-use denote informal rules. Informality does not always work to disadvantage women (Pispoco 2016). 2.3.5

Gendering Rules

Although feminist discursive institutionalism is used here to study the everyday, perhaps controversially it retains some focus on rules since rules structure everyday political life and support gendered bodies differently. However, it attends to micro-foundations of rules—that is their interactions with gendered actors. Lowndes has proposed a set of gendered rules to explore the ‘micro-foundations’ of institutions (2019). The book sees these rules are both constituted by gender and constituting gendered relations. It investigates the available subject positions for gender that these rules produce that may or may not be subsequently performed by political actors. Feminist discursive institutionalism builds on these gendered rules, since it shows how gender is performed in the discursive struggles both beneath and in open struggle around these rules. FDI investigates the gender identities that these rules support; how they dispose some bodies to certain conditions, and the opportunities for performing gender identity within these rules. Table 2.1 sets out an adaptation from Lowndes’ gendering rules (2019), from Gains and Lowndes (2014). Although Lowndes provide a systematic taxonomy of rules, in my view they still lack attention to identity and the affective privileges, embodiments and subjectivities that enable actors to carry them out more or less successfully. Therefore, Butler’s concepts may ‘flesh out’ these micro-foundations further. 2.3.6

Performance

Gendered actors in the UK Parliament ‘perform’ gender. Performance is simply some form of articulation (Goldstein 2005, p. 67)—that is, an individual or collective ‘bounded act’ of speech that is corporeal, spoken

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Table 2.1 Adapted from Lowndes’ taxonomy of gendering rules Gendering rules

Description

Example

Effects on gender Effects on as a process gender as an analytical category

Rules about gender

‘rules that specify and allocate particular roles, actions, or benefits for women and men’ (Gains and Lowndes 2014, p. 527)

Quotas for political parties

More women may be placed as the candidate to contest winnable seats

Rules with gendered effects

‘rules that are not specifically about gender but that have gendered effects, largely because of their interaction with institutions outside the political domain’ (Gains and Lowndes 2014, p. 528)

Holding training sessions and meetings outside core business hours

Less employees with dependents will be able to attend the meeting and receive benefits from networks at meeting

‘Quota Women’ are constructed as being ‘protected’ by law and lesser candidates who are not so ‘embattled’. They may also be constructed as their personhood being respected and addressed by law Employees with dependents who cannot attend some meetings are constructed as less committed

(continued)

in narrative or the material environment. This may be a greeting, document, gesture or a physical attack. Performance is ideational as well as material since ideas mediate why the speech acts of some actors get appraised positively for a given audience. Power is expressed through ideas, persuasion and inequalities in persuasiveness. Narratives can reinforce and constitute rules.

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Table 2.1 (continued) Gendering rules

Description

Example

Effects on gender Effects on as a process gender as an analytical category

Gendered actors working with the rules

‘Actors occupy male or female (or transexual) bodies, their values and attitudes reflect different positions on a masculine/feminine spectrum, and they hold different perspectives on the gender power balance and possibilities for change (in the context of intersectional identities)’ (Gains and Lowndes 2014, p. 529)

Male gender champions in predominantly male institutions

Gendered actors might be able to identify and work collaboratively with other gender actors and achieve change

Diversity workers constructed as ‘right on’, ‘woke’ or earnest

Fleshing out micro-foundations of institutions means paying attention to identity-building practices. This is because performances are constitutive of the materialisation of an institution. This concept helps the book by examining everyday gendered speech acts: spoken and acted, as a site of gendered power and where gender(ed) norms are articulated. How parliamentary actors perform, project and make themselves visible within configurations of rules is important. Performance is the site in which performativity, that is, materialisation takes place. Rai suggests: ‘performances – even when policy-driven – reflect, resist and refurbish existing and shifting power relations’ (2014, p. 1181). The repertoires of performance that actors have access to may vary through habitus and are subject to recognition and reception. Performances can be affective—performing the correct affects may bring privileges and recognition. Performances take on a different emphasis than coherent gendered ‘styles’—as imagined by MPs themselves (Childs 2004). The analytical interest of acts explores them as nonlinear, situated, and nonuniform.

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2.3.7

Performativity

Gendered actors in the UK House of Commons must contend with the everyday naturalisation of gendered arrangements. A fleshed-out FDI attends to the naturalisation of institutional arrangements everyday. Performativity is: ‘that reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and constrains’ (Butler 2011, p. xii). Put simply, a performative socially institutionalises. Butler’s gender and linguistic performativity dovetail. Butler is critical of how speech and action are separated (1997a, pp. 72, 131). Butler draws heavily on Austin’s speech act theory where she makes a distinction between illocutionary, or ‘truth producing’, speech acts and perlocutionary speech acts that ‘change events’ (Kirby 2006, p. 92). She suggests ‘[m]ine is not a loyal use of Austin’ since she charges him with ‘a fantasy sovereign power in speech’ (Butler and Bell 1999, p. 164). She is critical of illocutionary speech acts because there is always temporal deferral. In perlocutions, there is a greater lapse of time and more chance for performances to go ‘awry, or adrift, or producing effects that are not fully foreseen’ (2009, p. 3) and argues that all speech is performative, rather than simply constative. Furthermore, whilst illocutionary speech acts install an ontological effect, they bring about what they name, perlocutionary speech acts may bring about change but not necessarily an ontological effect. Therefore, the way that performances ‘matter’—that is, bring gender into being—varies considerably. Performativity as a temporal concept then helps to meet the research aims by analysing how, through everyday repeated linguistic and gestural acts, a gender identity as an effect of power comes to be recognised in parliaments. We must analyse the context that rewards certain repetitions and makes them more enduring and thus makes performances performative. They form social objectivities: the repeated signifier assumes a ‘truth’. This means feminist discursive institutionalists explore how gendered institutional relations becomes naturalised, even depoliticised, and calcified, since there is the creation of a ‘truth’ with the thick contingency and unstable repetitions that comes with it. Performativity is reproduced through ‘the logic of iterability’ (Butler 2011, p. 69) and this is where change can occur. This version of FDI changes its logics of explanation of endogenous change from a logic of communication associated with Schmidt (2010, p. 5), to a logic of iterability (Butler 2011, p. 68). Borrowing from Derrida, Butler

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offers a ‘logic of iterability’ as an explanation of change, where individual performances can become performative: they bring about an effect and are sanctioned by others (2011, p. 68). Gender performances are always derivative or a citation rather than ‘original’. Gender is a ‘social temporality’ (Butler 1988, p. 520). It is the repetition and subsequent authorisation of gender performances that determine their performativity and give the illusion of a stable gender. A notable example is Rosa Parks (Butler 1997a). Parks’ act of refusal was a performance but only came performative when it was authorised by the repetition of others. The growth of a mediatised democracy has provided new echo chambers to iterate gender(ed) performances. Butler remarks ‘identity categories…are in fact the effects of institutions, practices, discourses, with multiple and diffused points of origin’ (Butler 2007 [1990], p. xxxi emphases added). This questions authorship since each citation exceeds the temporality of the one actor, gender is produced diachronically and synchronically at the same time. Iteration helps the research questions, since a norm can remain a norm only ‘to the extent that it is acted out in social practice and reidealized and reinstituted in and through the daily social rituals of bodily life’ (Butler 2004, p. 48). This book thus establishes the importance of (re)iteration to understanding gendered institutional power. The logic of iterability is what Ahmed calls a ‘sweaty concept’ (2017, p. 13). This is because the term captures repetition and embodied labour. Rai also puts performance squarely in the realm of labour—a performance that some actors do not have training for. This has theoretical and empirical significance for parliaments as gendered workplaces. For some, performance is more of an exertion and brings about, not only difficulty, but anxiety as well: the outsiders, ‘strangers’ and ‘space invaders’ in institutional spaces – have to learn the ‘tricks of the trade’, to put in hours of work, endure heightened levels of anxiety and self-doubt. (Rai 2014, p. 1185)

Furthermore, iterability can be a key concept to study gendered actors working with the rules. Feminist acts can be only provisional, and this links to male allies. Male allies can be feminist in some acts, and nonfeminist in others. Iterability captures the regularity and temporality in distributing power, the reproduction of privilege and imagined futures. Forms of iterability

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include persistence in: (1) labour in accounting for one’s presence in an institutional environment; (2) feelings of entrapment and omnipresence in a total institution; especially if political actors live away from home; (3) intergenerational reproduction through parental occupation, politicisation and experiences; (4) confessional and non-performative discussions of inequalities; (5) affective and physiological iterabilities: repetition of affects such as shame, anger, resignation, disengagement and envy over time insinuate themselves deep into subjective, embodied dispositions carrying visions of futures that actors can imagine for themselves and are energy-sapping; and (6) inter-textual highlighting conceptual genealogies of language and thought, nationhood, storyboards and mythologies (Friedenvall and Krook 2011). 2.3.8

Descriptive Marks and Gesture

Parliamentary actors are embodied beings. They enact power in quotidian acts and are brought into being as professional actors through their embodiment and have frailties and needs. Therefore, fleshing out FDI to register everyday power inequalities means attending to the body and how the flesh is disciplined and disciplining. Meanings are not just the properties of words but are social and non-verbal too (Schonhart-Bailey 2017). Butler suggested that the bodily performance can both redouble and soften the verbal utterance: on the basis of a grammatical analysis alone… [a statement], appears to be no threat. But the threat emerges precisely though the act that the body performs in the speaking act. Or the threat emerges as the apparent effect of a performative act only to be rendered harmless through the bodily demeanour of the act. (1997a, p. 11)

Descriptive marks and gestures are important, because they can signal health, happiness and well-being; can build rapport and indicate engagement, such as sitting forward; and can show entitlement such as how much space one occupies, as well as being a metaphor for the body politic. They can also be a form of resistance in legislatures, such as Polish MPs wearing rainbow colours to President Duda’s swearing in ceremony in 2020, and Italian female MPs wearing jeans in 1999 to protest against a previous court ruling that tight jeans made rape unlikely.

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Embodiment is marginalised in DI by rational and cognitive thinking (e.g. Schmidt 2010). Previously disciplinary2 fissures have ‘kept apart questions of bodily performance from those of institutions and work’ (Puwar 2004, p. 773 ) and there have been attempts to (ad)dress the body politic (Parkins 2002, p. 1). Both male and female politicians have sought advice for: elocution lessons, particular ways of moving arms and hands, styles of dressing – colour coding; dressing up or dressing down; power dressing; clothes that exaggerate or diminish one’s identity and presence… [these] add to the visceral equivalent of rhetorical emphasis and help dramatise actors’ speech acts…There is no doubt that this kind of power is indeed wielded. (Coole 2013, pp. 181–182)

Issues of clothing and body shape give class signals towards resources to work on the self. Political actors can signal a non-verbal assent to certain values or aesthetics that have been often learnt through activist pedigrees and subcultures. Friedman and Laurison provide a classed concept of ‘studied informality’ as well as a ‘knowing’ ironic demeanour in addition to more corporate notions of ‘polish’ (2019); whilst Charlesworth discusses class and language use (1999). Because the body is associated with women, and especially black female political actors (Brown and Casarez Lemi 2021) some white men can disavow their socially marked embodiment: ‘the male body, fully disavowed, becomes, paradoxically, the incorporeal instrument of an ostensibly radical freedom’ (Butler 1999, p. 16). However, although the male producer has traditionally been contrasted with the female consumer, the visual male body is increasingly being acknowledged as powerful. Furthermore, for men as well, the body has been identified as a site of gender policing and where strict categories of sex are maintained. Butler maintains that ‘I am not a very good materialist. Every time I try to write about the body, the writing ends up being about language’ (2004, p. 198). Although we are linguistic beings, Butler argues in PGC that identity is embodied through repeated bodily enactments. She writes: ‘[t]he effect of gender is produced through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self’ (1988, p. 179). This is not an individual act since embodied agents ‘dramatically and actively embody and,

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indeed, wear certain cultural significations’ (Butler 1988, p. 525) in citational chains. This concept then helps to meet the research question of how gender[ed] norms are reproduced: ‘[T]o the extent that gender[ed] norms are reproduced, they are invoked and cited by bodily practices that also have the capacity to alter norms in the course of their citation’ (Butler 2004, p. 52). The lenses through which bodies are seen as ‘attractive’ and ‘professional’ are often in Western terms and lookism exists in hiring practices. Furthermore, gendered actors working with the rules make different sartorial decisions for different aspects of their job. Feminist discursive institutionalism attends to actor constellations and what it means when different bodies are indeed staged alongside each other and in what ways. This suggests that bodies are productive of place as well rather than a surface where a text imprints itself. The body can also make itself present in embodied phenomena such as affect. Descriptive marks and gesture can be citational, even pedagogic. Overall then, Butler wanted to decentre verbal speech in performance and ‘situate speech as one bodily act among others’ (2012, p. 14). Thus if we are to attend to gendered power in the House of Commons, then bodily marks and gestures are a key site to observe how gendered power relations work. We might look at (in)formal dress codes as well as how bodies from different classifications of employment are staged together and in which spaces. 2.3.9

Regulations

Fleshing out FDI also attends to informal resistances and regulations. In a chapter titled ‘Gender Regulations’ in UG, Butler refers to regulation in the plural: ‘the term “regulation” appears to suggest the institutionalization of the process by which persons are made regular’ (2004, p. 40). Regulation establishes coherence. Those who approximate the norms become legible subjects in the field: seen as ‘effective’, ‘normal’ or ‘able’ field members. We can never escape gender(ed) norms as they make us intelligible and we embody regulatory gender(ed) norms in addition to rules that regulate us. Their citation is ‘forcible’. Furthermore, by the continued performance of acts, what is produced is a ‘regulative fiction’ of an identity (Butler 2007). So in the parliamentary domain, we might ask which leaders are celebrated and ossified as ‘leaders’ but at a cost to their complexity and at a cost to the complexity of the category of a ‘leader’?

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Performing gender unintelligibly attracts sanctions. Sanctions police and render individuals unintelligible. Butler argues that ‘those who fail to do their gender right are regularly punished’ (1988, p. 522; 1993, p. 315; 2011, p. 60). Sanctions include being abjected, disavowed, ‘othered’, not seen as viable, or as a ‘constitutive outsider’ from the norm. Regulations might be conveyed in positive and negative appraisals. Crucially, ‘for gender to be regulated is not simply for gender to come under the exterior force of regulation’ (Butler 2004, p. 40). Sanctions are also interior, such as self-doubt, burn out and withdrawal. Crucially, whilst individuals are ‘striving to inhabit a regulated ideal’, it is ‘never fully inhabitable’ (Butler 2015, p. 39). In terms of emphasising the ambivalent and contradictory nature of institutional life, transgressing regulation can be pleasurable (Butler 1993, p. 315). The social sciences and legislative literatures also contain examples of regulations. Hochschild for example notes that workplaces are managed affectively by ‘feeling rules’ and ‘rule reminders’ are provided in both internal and external dialogues (2012, p. 57). Similarly, Lowndes suggests that obligation is a key mechanism, alongside regulation and persuasion, for example that informal rules are followed (2019). Breaking away from the behaviours of an institution has three types of regulation: cognitive, financial risk and social risk (Phillips et al. 2004, p. 637). Hawkesworth noted informal racing-gendering mechanisms in congress for black women such as: being patronised, silenced, ostracised, censured, challenges to epistemic authority, conditionality, discredited, stereotyped, marginalised, segregated and treated as a ‘deviant’ (2003, p. 531). Mergaert and Lombardo suggest that resistance can make a key contribution to feminist institutionalism and that institutions are ‘not monolithically resistant to gender’ (2014) indeed resistance and regulation may be identity-contingent—that is, some performances and bodies are more likely to attract more governance, regulation and resistance. FDI has the potential to make both explicit and implicit resistance(s) visible, because it is a framework that is based upon endogenous change and stasis. Regulation helps to meet the desire for a fleshier everyday framework of workplaces since gender(ed) norms are regulatory. They establish punishments for incorrect gendered and affective performances as a form of gendered institutional power. These appear in the form of positive and negative appraisal loops of interactional acts as well as pedagogical notions of identity and internal dialogues.

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2.3.10

Subjectivity

This book explores how parliamentary actors ‘think’ gender as well as ‘do’ gender. It investigates how they see themselves as political subjects; the dynamics of the institutional environment that they see as relevant, future and plausible subject positions, and power relations. This matters if institutional constraints can be cognitive, or normative (Lowndes 2019)—acting on the subjectivity of the individual. Articulating the everyday then attends to subjectivity—that is parliamentary actors’ shifting self-understandings, or ‘the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world’ (Weedon 1997, p. 32). Butler explores how the psyche and the social interrelate. She is concerned with getting enmeshed in and beneath the skin to explore ‘the psychic incorporation of norms’ (1997b), since subjectivity is embodied and how parliamentary actors are consensually regulated. Regulation works by: confirming or frustrating one’s self-image and self-esteem… and the production of emotions of uncertainty and anxiety when either oneself and/or people around oneself feel that those standards [for gendered being] are not met. (Alvesson and Billing 2009, p. 116)

However, ideas and subjectivities do not always necessarily translate into political action. Gender identity might be constructed through subjective narratives of identity and history and identity-building practices may be brought about by distinguishing oneself from others. Resources available to work on the self are unequally distributed. Some people have a strong sense of subjectivity and can give a coherent narrative of the self, others do not. Fleshing out FDI is an epistemological project also of listening to the ‘intelligence of the flesh’ (Brennan 2004, p. 139) and how things are felt. Butler works within two theories of subjectification. Dissatisfied with Foucault’s mechanistic version of docile bodies (1988), she modifies Althusser’s scene of interpellation4 to look at specific scenes of address. Subjective individuation is not just a psychic phenomenon but an embodied phenomenon too (Noland 2009, p. 9). Rather than imposed unilaterally, individuals can be ‘complicitous subjects’ (Goldstein 2005, pp. 69, 75), through the activation of fantasy:

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identifications belong to the imaginary; they are phantasmatic efforts of alignment, loyalty, ambiguous and cross-corporeal cohabitations…Identifications are never fully and finally made; they are incessantly reconstituted, and, as such, are subject to the volatile logic of iterability. They are that which is constantly marshalled, consolidated, retrenched, contested and, on occasion, compelled to give way. (Butler 2011, p. 68)

Recent institutionalist work attends to ‘actors with real human heads and hearts, who engage critically and strategically with institutions rather than simply playing pre-assigned roles’ (Lowndes and Roberts 2013, p. 145 emphasis added). Affect is not a new phenomenon. Connell (2006) included the structure of feeling, or cathexis, or ‘the construction of emotionally charged social relations with other people’. Whilst Connell suggests that cathexis is ‘emotional energy attached to an object’ (Connell 1995, p. 74), it can also include negative disidentifications. Affects have a capacity to sediment power imbalances through affective privilege and affective atmospheres may be more or less conducive to agency. A sense of loss, mourning and grievance for jobs or careers that have not worked out may be performed, or regret at democratic backsliding. Far from sites of instrumental rationality, parliaments are affective institutions, built on desire, fear, trauma and anger as motivational, as well as more middle-range and banal everyday affects, moods, charges and flows. The party system as well as an institutionalised arrangement exists as a social relation between MPs—MPs are viscerally immersed through a structural predisposition to producing enmities, trust, dependency, distrust and jealousy. Crewe describes the House of Commons as an ‘addictive’ city of torture and the disappointment that is felt by MPs (2015, p. 49). Malley describes belongingness (2012) and Mackay and Rhodes note that ‘gender…operates at the subjective and interpersonal level through which humans identify themselves and organize their relations with others’ (2013, p. 2). This expands our notion of ‘the political’ considerably. Feminist discursive institutionalists do not need to be in the clinician’s chair in order to discuss subjectivity in institutional spaces, but we can analyse how actors articulate the stakes in what they see and do. Subjectivity addresses the research aims by analysing the ‘psychic life’ of institutions. Rather than ahistorical approaches to the psyche, Butler’s gendered subjectivity is ‘instituted in an exterior space’ (2000, p. 141). As such ‘the personal is institutional’ (Ahmed 2017). Parliamentary actors are actively invested or ‘passionately (un)attached’ to their workplaces. By

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investigating different subjectivities, the research does not homogenise ‘men’ and ‘women’ but looks at how masculinities and femininities inform actors’ self-understandings, loyalties and aspirations and what field members can claim for themselves. Furthermore, gender inequalities can be one of perception, not of ‘reality’, but this constitutes the subjectivity for those involved, and so is still meaningful. 2.3.11

Subversive Agency

Fleshing out feminist discursive institutionalism requires an identitycontingent conception of agency—that is, that different agencies are graspable to different parliamentary actors. Rather than being a peripheral concept, or even an over-used concept (Bell 2011) agency can be a nuanced concept in FDI. Lovenduski suggests: ‘the foundations of feminist institutionalist analysis are fine-grained descriptions of gendered environments accompanied by explanations of how gender constrains or enhances agency and affects stability and change’ (2011, p. xi). Rather than ontological purity, there may be a range of agencies (Lowndes 2019). Parliamentary ethnography is a key methodology to avoid overgeneralising when making analyses of agency. Chapter 1 suggested that the everyday is not an ontological concept but is based on theoretical epistemological lineages. This informs the type of agentic practices that are studied. For example, those scholars who have an activist conception of everyday life may see agency practiced immanently in tactical details of daily life (De Certeau 1984). Agency in feminist legislative studies has been conceptualised in a liberal agency, resistance, mobilisation, intentionality and activism which requires a conception, albeit strategically essentialised, of interest to intentionally actualise, by attitudinally committed political actors (Cullen 2018). Agency in legislative studies has also been conceptualised in descriptive and inductive ‘roles’ (Searing 1994), but these have not as yet considered gender in their formulations. Subversive agency provides an everyday level of agency that is generative from environments rather than as sovereign. As mentioned, Schmidt locates agency in rational discussion by sentient agents. Butler avoided codifying subversion or distinguishing between the (non)subversive (Chambers 2007) since ‘judgements on subversion are contextual’ (Butler 2007 [1999], p. xxiii). Butler suggests ‘the iterability of performativity is a theory of agency’ (1999, p. xxiv). Drag is taken as the

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epitome of subversion agency but it is illustrative, rather than exhaustive. Butler’s conception of subversion has been considered in various accounts (Brickell 2005; Chambers 2007). Butler’s notion of subversive agency has five tenets. These are enumerated here: (1) agency is outside traditional humanist discourses—agency does not begin and end with the speaker; (2) agency is immanent to power; (3) agency is a reiterative, articulatory practice; (4) power is disproportionately and unequally invested in certain bodies to enact agency through symbolic power; and (5) agency can work as a text—who is recognised as agentic is important. The focus is on then how gendered actors re-appropriate spaces of institutional rules and regimes through gender performance (Fig. 2.1).

Fig. 2.1 A feminist discursive institutionalist model of institutionalisation

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The diagram is non-directional, as shown by the mutually directing arrows. For change to come about in the everyday life of gendered parliaments, each of the points for entry can be engaged with by actors and authorities for which this agency is graspable. Explanation is conceptualised as being constitutive, rather than causal.

2.4 Discussion: Productive Tensions in a ‘Fleshed-Out’ Feminist Discursive Institutionalism I will now weave the threads of the analytical framework together. Thus far, I have presented a favourable pairing between gender performativity and feminist discursive institutionalism to analyse gender in the everyday of parliaments. However, I would like to qualify what I have said thus far by responding to two groups of pertinent criticisms: both of new institutionalism and of Judith Butler’s performativity. Firstly, there has been a critique from anthropologists and poststructuralists that versions of institutionalism may downplay heterogeneity, agency and contradictions and may incur fixity when exploring (gendered) parliaments (Crewe 2014; Abélès 2008; Bacchi and Ronnblom 2014). Rather than an all-encompassing framework of which to plug in all problems, this framework explicitly concentrates on the discursive. Wolcott suggests that ‘by itself thick description offers a thin basis for ethnographic claims-making’ (1994, p. 91). Therefore, theoretical engagement is warranted. There have been questions about how far institutionalist frameworks can capture the richness of the everyday at all, since the everyday is in continuous motion and may exceed pre-existing normative and institutionalised frameworks of the political. However, parliamentary ethnography can provide a thicker investigation of these concepts at work. Butler describes her own analytical concept as illuminating a form of power: Taking the heterosexual matrix as a point of departure will run the risk of narrowness, but it will run it in order, finally to cede its apparent priority and autonomy as a form of power. (2011, p. xxvii)

Far from imposing rigor mortis on rich empirical insights, the chapter provides a structured set of ideas and concepts organised within a capacious and open framework and not a rigid ‘epistemological Zimmerframe’ (Atkinson 2017, p. 7). I argue that such a framework can situate

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and illuminate some of the observations in a thick analysis. Whether it is right to put people’s desires, intimacies and embodiments into an everyday conceptual framework is a contentious and political question, not least because the carrier of this analytical framework is a white graduate woman, and this is obviously not representative, but drawing on McNay (2014) and Brennan (2004) I also see the benefit of finding words to articulate everyday experiences and to give entity status to some of the phenomena observed and described. Eisenstein’s description of performing ‘feminist judo’ (1996) captures the idea of harnessing the weight of mainstream analytical frameworks to ‘make trouble’ by exploring phenomena in a thicker sense that may have been excluded. In this case, harnessing new institutionalism may provide profound insights into the reproduction of gendered norms. It is surprising then, that materialist feminists criticise post-structuralism’s ‘logic of contingency’ and want to rearticulate knowledge within a more ‘systemic conception of the social’ (Hennessy 1993, p. xv; Ebert 1992, p. 7). Secondly, on the other hand, Puwar found Butler’s reflections ‘to be extremely productive when applied to institutions’ (2004, p. 80) so does Butler need institutionalism? Weber suggests that combining Butler’s approach with other approaches, such as FDI rather than illuminating Butler’s work, disciplines Butler’s work as a failure (Weber 2015) and others are more sceptical of a post-structuralist institutionalism (Bacchi and Ronnblom 2014; Jacobs 2019), and prefer a more autonomous discourse theory. Whilst not seeing Butler’s work as a failure, a Butlerian approach is not an uncontested approach, I argue that it can be enriched with a contextual approach with FDI and ethnography. There have been substantial criticisms that Butler’s incitement to subvert norms may ignore intersectional challenges where it may not be desirable to subvert gendered norms and subversion may carry great personal risk and occlude labour, class, diasporas and entrapment. Moreover, sedimented subjectivities may be difficult to disavow and may be carried out by a ‘small number of knowing actors’ (Ebert 1992 p. 40; Nussbaum 1999; McDowell 1997, pp. 193, 208; Seidler 2006, p. 131; Mahmood 2005, p. 22; McNay 2014, p. 208; Schep 2012, p. 874). These criticisms, I think, are responded to in a feminist discursive institutionalist approach that places Butler’s performativity inside a material and contextualised framework of repetition that analyses real institutional constraints and conceptualises change as identity-contingent. For Rai, Butler’s performativity does not: ‘allow us to analyse why and how some performances

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mark a rupture in the everyday reproduction of social relations’ (2014, p. 1181). A thicker notion of ruptures is what the depth, detail and complexity of ethnography can help us to explore better. Finally, is Butler capable of ‘fleshing out’ a feminist discursive institutionalism? Butler acknowledges that interpellations are often ‘without voice or signature’ (1997b, p. 6), and Foucault urges that power is acephalous—that is, without a face, and urges scholars to cut the king’s head off from political analysis (1991, p. 59). Therefore, both scholars largely practice subjectless critique. However, Butler does argue that subject positions and ‘regulative fictions’—that is, how identities come about, is only through embodied performed acts.

2.5

Conclusion

What would a feminist discursive institutionalist approach to analysing gender in Parliaments look like? Chapter 1 argued that we need to centre identity and dailiness in feminist institutional analysis of parliaments to enable us to explore the reproduction gender regimes. However to date, we have not had an institutional approach that could do this as thickly. This chapter has presented a ‘fleshed-out’ framework to undertake a contextualised and fine-grained analysis of gender bias in the (in)formal, parliamentary arena using concepts from a suitably tailored (feminist) discursive institutionalism. Framing these strands: Butler’s performativity with Lowndes’ gendered rules under ‘feminist discursive institutionalism’ is deemed to show that these two approaches are interrelated, but modifies each strand to attend to the institutional context. To return to the central theme of the book, as McNay (2014) argues, a critical discursive politics attends to the everyday lived realities, gender as a social relation and how constructions of gender operate within this, in order to gain a purchase on power operating at a capillary level. This analytical framework adds to knowledge by providing a lens that is attuned to the subtly felt, descriptive and desired marks of gender. It is worth noting, rather than being theory driven, the concepts offered by Butler are very much problem-focused and speak to many everyday experiences both in and beyond the purview of workplace life in parliaments, for example in street harassment, gender, race, LQBTQI and class pay gaps; and in work intensification. Being able to discern these forces in

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everyday workplaces and finding a match between uneasy feelings, experiences and words can release energy for other productive pursuits (Brennan 2004). The chapter has tied this everyday politics to a framework of repetition in institutional rules. Lowndes’ gendered rules are used to investigate the ‘micro-foundations’ of institutions (2019), though in my opinion, the interaction of rules with actors could be richer. Butler’s more capacious and flowing concepts allow us to study the institutional options for political actors to perform gender in parliaments. This ‘fleshed out’ framework allows us to investigate gender bias in the capillaries of parliaments. The next chapter continues to explore how to ground this framework in ethnographic methodology, before introducing the empirical section to the book.

Notes 1. The terms ‘male’, ‘female’, ‘man’, ‘woman’ are used in this book. These are not used essentially, but strategically. It is acknowledged that gender does not necessarily flow from sex and that sex and gender are not necessarily presented in a binary way. 2. Embodiment has been theorised extensively in workplace and cultural contexts such as business, industry and advertising (see Goffman 1976; Cockburn 1991, pp. 150–152, 158; McDowell and Court 1994; Tseelon 1997; and Noland 2009). 3. See Jenkins (2005), Coole (2007, 2013), and Smith and Lee (2015) for theorisations of corporeal politics. 4. Althusser’s notion of interpellation is outlined in his essay ‘Ideological state apparatuses’ (2001). This was presented as a reparative to classical Marxism’s economic reductionism.

References Abélès, M. (2008). Foucault and Political Anthropology. International Social Science Journal, 59(191), 59–68. Ahmed, S. (2017). Living a Feminist Life. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Atkinson, P. (2017). Thinking Ethnographically. London: Sage. Beckwith, K. (2005). A Common Language of Gender? Politics and Gender, 1(1), 135–169.

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CHAPTER 3

‘The Eyes Have It’: Using Parliamentary Ethnography to Examine Gender in the UK House of Commons’ ‘Working Worlds’

Broadening how we understand the political realm is crucial to what a political ethnographer does. (Schatz 2009, p. 306)

How can we conduct parliamentary ethnography to explore everyday performative acts of gender in parliaments? This chapter fleshes out how we might research gender ethnographically in parliaments. Given that gender is a practice, ‘done’ every day in ‘incessant activity’ (Butler 2004, p. 1) and that power is insidious at the micro-level level, I needed to conduct situated observation that paid attention to the ‘processual’ nature of everyday life (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007, p. 235). Felski argues, ‘[e]veryday life is above all a temporal term’ (2000, p. 18). To explore the everyday dynamics of gendered power relations in the UK Parliament, we need to get immersed within parliaments and their struggles, rather than reading power relations off as given and universal, from objective structures. To ensure methodological congruence between the purpose of the research, research questions, and its corresponding methodology, I will now restate the research questions. These are: • How is gender reproduced in the ‘working worlds’ of the UK House of Commons and what ‘work’ does gender do in the workplace? How does parliamentary ethnography help us to understand these processes? © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Miller, Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6_3

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• How do gendered actors respond to the institutional conditions and what are the possibilities for change for differently situated parliamentary actors? • How can we theorise institutions from a feminist discursive institutionalist framework?

3.1

Parliamentary Ethnography as Methodology

Ethnography is ‘the peculiar practice of representing the social reality of others through the analysis of one’s own experience in the world of these others’ (Van Maanen 1988b, p. x). The research design took an ethnographic approach that used three types of research material: ethnography, in-depth (elite) interviews and documentary analysis. The book’s emphasis on the everyday is not one of a distinct level or scale of politics but a way of exploring things—seeking connections, descriptive marks and gestures, ambiguity, agency and subjectivity. The productive tension between Butler and ethnography is discussed in a methodological note in the Appendix, as are the details of the interview participants and observations. There is a lively discussion between anthropology and political science about the benefits of ethnography (Cerwonka and Malkki 2007; Schatz 2009; Wedeen 2010; Aronoff and Kubik 2012) and this has arrived at the subdiscipline of parliamentary studies about the potential of ethnography to help analysts to understand the ‘inner life’ of parliaments (Crewe 2014; Miller 2020). Indeed, according to Loewenberg, there is a ‘benign state of affairs’ in legislative studies and it has ‘not suffered the methodological controversies that afflicted other subfields of the discipline...there has never been a wholesale rejection of any method of study’ (2011, p. 105). Methodological reflection is of relevance to gender and politics scholars who seek to conduct ethnographic research on parliaments. Rosenthal suggests: ‘[t]hose who do not “experience” the institutions directly often find it easy to reject the argument that gender shapes the processes, procedures and cultures of organisations’ (1999, p. 63), whilst Kenney recommends ‘an eclectic methodology that draws on ethnography’ (1996, p. 463). Ethnographic representation concentrates on the broader (extra)legislative ‘activities’ that political actors perform (Fenno 2003). However, there have been some criticisms of anthropological studies of parliaments ‘[a]nthropologists, cultural historians, sociologists and linguists tend to ‘depoliticise’ parliament by reducing the actions of its members to everyday human conduct instead of seeing the politically constitutive aspects of acting parliamentarily’ (Palonen 2018, p. 5).

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Therefore, it is important to consider the distinctiveness of parliaments as workplaces. Indeed, ethnographic methodology and methods have been seen as methodological advances in feminist political scientists’ research practices in order to get at everyday informal discursive politics better; to explore gender enacted in a relational manner and to see the effects of how rules are nested in broader institutional environments (Gains 2011; Brown 2014; Mackay and Rhodes 2013; Chappell and Waylen 2013; Galea and Chappell 2017; Rai and Spary 2019). Table 3.1 outlines scholarship that Table 3.1 Existing studies using parliamentary ethnography or immersion in parliaments and political institutions European Parliament and EU Institutions

MEPs’ everyday parliamentary workings (Busby 2013)

UK Parliamentary Arena

Global Parliamentary Arenas

A Select Committee (Geddes 2019) Shadowing MPs (Orton et al. 2000)

Latvian Parliament (Dean 2020) MP in the German Bundestag, Advisors in the German State Land and a working group faction in Austria (Laube et al. 2020; Brinzchin 2019) Women’s Parliament event in the Catalonian Parliament (Verge 2020) The Indian Parliament (Rai and Spary 2019)

The European Parliament (Abélès 1993)

UK and Scottish Parliaments (Malley 2012)

Trialogue meetings (Rippoll Servent and Panning 2019)

Immersive methods for a report on diversity-sensitive parliaments (Childs 2016) UK House of Commons (Crewe 2015a, b)

COREPER, (Adler-Nissen and Drieschova 2019) EU institutions (Lewicki 2017) The European Commission (Shore 2000; Abélès et al. 1993) Translation services in the Commission (Koskinen 2008) The Political Groups of the European Parliament (Kantola and Miller 2021)

Shadowing an MP in the Slovakian Parliament (Smrek 2020) UK House of Lords (Crewe The French National 2005) Assembly (Chibois 2019) UK Government Ministries Women MPs of Serbia and (Bevir and Rhodes 2006a) Kosovo (Subotic 2020) The Welsh Assembly (Schumann 2009)

Congress (Weatherford 1985; Jones 2017). US State legislatures (Brown 2014) National parliaments of Indonesia, Asia and Singapore (Adiputri 2019)

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has taken immersive methods into parliaments and the governmental arena. Different parliamentary ethnographies have different approaches to ethnography. There were three levels that emerged in my study and in a non-linear way. These were (1) discursive institutions—that is, the broad pushes and pulls that structure and frame parliamentary life, (2) Gains and Lowndes’ rules (2014), as set out in Chapter 2, and (3) performances as set out in this chapter—actors’ subjectivities, descriptive marks and gestures and the regulations on their behaviour.

3.2 Logistics of the Parliamentary Ethnography in the UK Parliament I will now discuss the logistics of the parliamentary ethnography. The fieldwork for this book was exploratory, ‘open minded exposure to events in the milieu…produces ideas that would never have occurred to them otherwise’ (Fenno 1978, pp. xiv, 250; Geertz 2000, vii–vi). During the fieldwork, there was a major Cabinet reshuffle—which is of consequence to the everyday in a fused parliamentary system; two by-elections for Select Committee Chairs; the Scottish Independence referendum; an inquiry into the arrangements of the Governance of the House; and a Women in Parliament APPG Inquiry into Improving Parliament for women (2014). The observational work went from holistic to more focused observations which are detailed in a general observation diary in Table 3.11 in an appendix to this chapter. 3.2.1

Entry and Access

In terms of entry and access, there are costs and benefits to each kind of ‘access’ for conducting ethnographic research. A rotational access is where access is placed in different hierarchical levels of an organisation, but securing such access is difficult in elite environments. As Schatz suggests: ‘access is a sliding scale, not a binary’ (2009, p. 307). In the field, I asked the Member if I could accompany her to events and she invited me along to events: access was symbiotic. Whilst I had a parliamentary pass, I did not interpret this as carte blanche access and so sought to be respectful about how I conducted myself and how I have included observations in the final ethnography. Because the parliamentary estate is stratified in access rights, I could not access the Members’ and Officers’ tea room. The

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nature of the access needed to engage with capillary, day-to-day performances of gender in the House of Commons, was unstructured soaking. Levels of access differ in different parliaments. Some parliaments are more securitised than others, with the demand to leave all belongings outside such as in the Indian Parliament. Although a pass might be issued by an authority, such as the Speaker, there may be resistance from other actors (Childs and Challender 2019) and it does not provide access to all parliamentary spaces. In sum, a pass can provide mobility, but not omnipresence. Entry was negotiated through a female backbench MP who was powerfully placed to facilitate my access. Justification can be problematic when negotiating access (Fielding 2008, p. 271) but the MP was both attitudinally and demonstrably feminist, and was sympathetic to the aims of the project. In terms of the practicalities of access, fortuitously I had undertaken work experience in the Member’s parliamentary office as part of a university placement and so we had established a trusting relationship. This was an immense privilege and also shows ‘strategic positionality’— hidden privilege (Reyes 2018). I contacted the member in August 2013 outlining the research and that it had received ethical clearance from the University Ethics Board, and asked if she would facilitate my access, and if there were any permissions that we may need to ask from authorities within parliament. Access was arranged quickly. In the abstraction of the pre-fieldwork stage, or the ‘legwork’ stage (Wilkinson 2013b, p. 136), ethnographers are routinely pressurised to take a ‘proleptic view of their fieldwork encounters, anticipating what will be discovered in the field’ (Geertz 2000, vii–vi; Coleman and Collins 2006, p. 11), when much ethnographic knowledge is achieved through in situ negotiation. The endorsement of my research project by the MP, email introductions by WEN members, and identifying key individuals through public lectures very much helped. Ethnography is not unproblematic both ethically and politically for feminists when studying elite actors (Stacey 1988; Strathern 1987). I (re)introduced myself as a research student with an academic interest in performances of gender where possible and thus took a research role as ‘participant as observer’ (Denscombe 2014, p. 207). I emailed a senior representative in a staff committee and asked if it was OK if I attended their meeting and what my research was about. If something has been observed or told to me in confidence, then I have either omitted it from the analysis, clustered the finding with other observations, or have found

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an open source document where the issue has been addressed publicly. The Member obtained permissions from whoever was in charge of a meeting, such as the chair of a party group, or member in the secretariat of an APPG. In terms of public areas of the estate however, observation does not require consent since accredited journalists were often present and some meetings were televised. Ethnographers are usually ‘at the mercy of the “moment”’ (Becker 1998, p. 210) which makes gaining consent difficult. I collected a parliamentary pass on my first day of fieldwork. I formally spent over four and a half months—that is, 18 weeks or 71 days1 in intensive fieldwork as well as undertaking ‘yo-yo fieldwork’ (Wulff 2002, p. 117) to conduct 68 interviews in the field-site and attend events, with a progressive focusing, once in the parliament. This also shows that the ethnographic tropes of ‘entering’ and ‘exiting’ the field-site may be problematic since there is no ‘clean’ entry and exit from the field-site. Whereas ‘small q’ research is more pragmatic and fills gaps, ‘Big Q’ research permits the researcher to generate and revise a series of research questions. Research design in ethnographic research takes a methodologically pragmatist approach. It tends to be reflexive, iterative and emergent, and makes few explicit assumptions (Erlandson et al. 1993; Coleman and Collins 2006, p. 11; Hammersley and Atkinson 2007, p. 21; O’Reilly 2012, p. 105; Blommaert and Dong 2010, p. 12; Crewe 2016, pp. 9, 11). Researchers take Malinowski’s ‘foreshadowed problems’ derived through looser theoretically informed ideas instead of hypotheses to the field (O’Reilly 2012, p. 31). Some concerns included women’s agency, whether the House of Commons was still not a conducive place to perform feminine behaviour and whether these performances are still seen as illegitimate, a decade after Childs’ study (2004), and whether parliamentary masculinities were always anti-social and oppressive. Often in ethnographic research, there are ‘surprises’, ‘chance encounters’ and ‘aporias’ that can open fruitful research agendas in the field. As such, research is a social process. In terms of the period of time needed to conduct ethnography, classical anthropologists maintain a ‘Malinovskian myth’ (Hockey and Forsey 2014, p. 71) of a year as the optimum period in the field-site, however rapid ethnography makes a challenge to this (Galea and Chappell 2017). My prior experience in the field meant that the ‘sunk costs’ of learning practical skills of the field-site (Schatz 2009, p. 309) and gaining trust were reduced. I was familiar with the situated vocabularies of the field-site

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such as the Member’s ‘House style’ for press releases and documents. It is important to weigh up ‘how much immersion is necessary appropriate and ethical’ (Schatz 2009, p. 5), and the ‘institutional context of research’ as well as ‘scale, timing and resources’ (Ramazonoglu and Holland 2002, pp. 148–149). I reserved the ‘exit interview’ with the ‘gatekeeper’ until after the formal period of fieldwork, because I felt that this would generate the richest insights and would be the most informed on my part. I could ask her pending questions as a cumulative product of my observations and it might be a more interesting experience for her. My entry as situated within an MP from a political party’s parliamentary office proved advantageous. The Member had served in parliament for over two terms and had held Ministerial and Shadow Ministerial portfolios. She had served on select committees and a domestic committee. Her institutional and personal capital helped immensely with arranging elite interviews. The ethnographic trope ‘gate-keeper’ did not reflect my interaction with the Member. ‘Gate-keeper’ nominally means an opening and closing of access opportunities but the Member also gave me support in acquiring interviews and volunteered ideas—particularly in stressing the reinvigorated importance of select committees in the ‘everyday’ life of parliament, as well as recommending events on the estate, particularly based upon rules-about-gender to observe and collect notes. As such, ethnographic tropes are ‘texts’ in themselves. Like Ho’s ‘institutional kinship’ that helped her to conduct ethnographic research in the banking sector (2009, p. 13), two previous MA cohorts from two universities also invited me to events. This reflects strategic positionality (Reyes 2018), an invisible privilege. The Member’s researcher introduced me to her networks of contacts who were also very helpful. The location in an MP’s parliamentary office made me frequently reflect on neutrality and partisanship. In terms of neutrality, partisanship in fieldwork is contested (Hammersley 2000). Fenno emphasised political neutrality (1990, p. 67) and Crewe emphasised not aligning with a particular ‘gang’ (2015b, p. 2; see also Burnham et al. 2008, p. 270). Neutrality is contingent upon the type of access negotiated by ethnographers and the political background of the ethnography. Neutrality in fieldwork is near impossible and could perpetuate an unattainable vision of a disinterested bourgeois scholar—when feminism is an inherently political stance. ‘Key informant’ is a trope that has been problematised (Warren 1988, p. 59) since we cannot know a priori who our key informants are. Innumerable

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individuals and offices generously helped me with my research, particularly by making email introductions to recruit further participants. A key informant was a researcher from an opposite party who introduced me to his networks, invited me to numerous events, including an equalities fringe event at a party conference, and who himself had many complex layers to his identity and a consciousness towards equalities. Therefore, we frequently discussed (in)equalities beneath rules—the lack of rules, and performance. Whilst I introduced myself as a researcher to field members, this also comes with disadvantages. I joined a parliamentary running group because I was training for a half-marathon rather than to collect observations of their ‘jographies’ (Cook 2020) or to recruit participants. Therefore, this shows that introducing oneself as a researcher, whilst ethical in one sense, has its limitations because the runners may have been uncomfortable with me joining them. On the other hand, several scholars have described ethnography as a ‘sensibility’ rather than a method (Pader 2015), and this sensibility becomes part and parcel of everyday, we never turn our minds off from analysing news and insights, and therefore, it is difficult to fully ‘switch off’ from observation mode. 3.2.2

Participation

In terms of participation, there are various typologies (Denscombe 2014, p. 207). In reality, I moved along a continuum throughout the research. Access is not an inalienable right (O’Reilly 2012, p. 11) and issues of burdening the participants and intrusion must be managed carefully. In terms of benefice, I underwent training of normal researcher (Wacquant 2011, p. 81). I undertook bespoke pieces of research for the MP. This included locating quotes from select committee evidence; pulling themes out of an APPG report; drafting a speech, formatting references for a pamphlet; attending events; and briefing the Member about the main issues raised. I also performed ad hoc tasks such as escorting constituents and transporting paperwork. I also accompanied a tour to escort a group with a researcher. Therefore, in terms of parliamentary researcher, often I was Denscombe’s ‘total participant’ (2014, p. 216). Goffman suggests that participation has been treated as: subjecting yourself, your own body and your own personality, and your own social situation, to the set of contingencies that play upon a set of

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individuals, so that you can physically and ecologically penetrate their circle of response to their social situation. (1989, p. 125)

I shadowed the Member to bespoke events where her diary permitted as a ‘participant as observer’ (2014, p. 214), such as an APPG launch of a report; an APPG presentation; offsite and onsite events that she was chairing; an interview with a journalist for a trade magazine; a launch of a pamphlet; and women’s parliamentary group meetings. The Member also sent me to events around the estate to take briefing notes for her on key inquiries. I also spent time in the gallery observing debates, including a trip to PMQs, and observing select committees. There are debates about how far the label ‘ethnographic’ can be applied to fieldwork, or whether ‘field study’ is more appropriate (Wolcott 1994, p. 82). The ‘world’ that I accessed the least was the daily routines of employees of the House Service and so there are empirical limitations to any conclusions about this world. The parliamentary pass occasioned the opportunity to speak informally to members of the House Service, MPs and researchers on the estate about my research. They were more readily agreeable to a more formal interview, since I was expediently embedded on the estate. Proxy access to the everyday and rules with gendered effects was achieved through interview accounts with rank and file participants, and those in mid and high leadership positions. The Governance of the House Inquiry provided a pertinent analytical window into how personnel was organised in this world and I observed the debates in the chamber and the Backbench Business Committee meeting, where floor time was sought to debate this issue. Like Shore, I attended staff associations that spanned different divisions in order to provide access to different areas (2000, p. 180) but this was for deep contextualisation rather than recruitment. I joined the gym and attended workplace equality network events, fundraisers, public lectures and events held on the parliamentary estate, to gain coverage of a range of actors. The Member sent me to training inductions provided by the House Service that were particularly useful because different representatives from the House Service came and gave talks introducing their departments and the range of issues that were important. Like Shore (2000, p. 8), I found the inductions useful for contextually mapping out the departments of the House. There was no typical day, though I have included a general observation diary in Table 3.11 in the Appendix.

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3.2.3

Recording

Ethnographic insights are ‘fleeting in nature’ (Murchinson 2010, p. 70). Three sets of notes were taken: scratch notes, head notes and more fully typed discursive field notes. ‘Head notes’ were recorded in my head and written down wherever possible. ‘Scratch notes’ (Ottenberg 1990, p. 148) were taken in small A6 books in the field that were unobtrusive, and then, more comprehensive field notes were written up in a forced writing period on the train and then translated into an electronic document at home. An ethnographer cautioned: ‘it may be possible to sleep before writing field notes but it would not be sensible to end the day by going to a party!’ (Fielding 2008, p. 273). Notes were helpful especially to document feelings of ambiguity at something that was arresting, not realising the significance or regularity of events until later on in the research. Field notes contained impressions, scenes, sensory notes, plans for future observations and potential informants as well as analytical observations. Another way to record fieldwork is in an observation protocol that can be used with analytical frameworks and may be of benefit to feminist institutionalists. 3.2.4

Interviews

Ethnographers conduct both formal and informal interviews (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007, p. 3). Interviews took place in committee corridors, PCH atrium, MPs’ parliamentary and constituency offices, the riverside terrace, Tothill Street and Millbank cafeteria. Recording elite interviews is an issue that is debated (Harvey 2011). Whilst the majority of interviews were taped-recorded, some interviews took a more informal form and I took notes and sent them to the participant for verification. The interviews lasted between twenty minutes and three hours and constituted ‘engaged listening’ in the field. Elite interviews explicitly helped the research aims in a threefold way. Firstly, ‘the personal is institutional’ (Ahmed 2015, p. 10). Therefore, interviews provided a personal insight into institutional gendered subjectivities—how they felt about their own positionings and experiences on the parliamentary estate. Secondly, I informed participants that I had been immersed in the House and would like to discuss some findings in order to see if they resonated with them—the interviews were dialogical and so knowledge was coproduced. Thirdly, visiting institutional spaces to conduct elite interviews

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is important for its own analytical value and immersion (Ahmed 2012, p. 9; Puwar 1997). The interviews were semi-structured since I took a loose interview guide. The more that I learnt about the intricacies of the House of Commons, I adapted emergent topics in the field to a discussion of gendered rules-inform and rules-in-use. I also asked some pragmatic questions to elicit straightforward information. Crewe suggests, rigid questions may be infantilising and she asked ‘focused and open’ questions (2016, p. 10). Focussed interview questions reveal a lot more about what the research is about and so is arguably more collaborative. I researched the backgrounds of each respondent where possible to make their experiences and expertise the centre of the interview. 3.2.5

Documentary Analysis

Documents with FI’s rules-in-form are key rather than ‘ancillary’. They are ‘formally constructed and written down’, and can be studied through ‘the tools of the historian’ (Lowndes and Roberts 2013, pp. 53–54). I collected bounded instructional guides, for example informing MPs how to speak in the chamber and how a Select Committee works. Political documents served other functions such as providing orientation within the field such as the weekly Whip. The House of Commons is selfreporting and provides descriptive data. It conducts internal reviews on staff and services. Where information was not publically available, I also submitted Freedom of Information requests. This was based upon transpareny and equality legislation in the UK, for example asking for the results from gender audits of the staff circulation procedure. Understanding can also be thickened through immersing oneself into media such as, podcasts and radio shows, and in-house publications. (Auto)biography and insider accounts, can be used to supplant interviews and explore rules-in-use (Annesley 2015, p. 623). This included ‘considered writing’ (Mackay and Rhodes 2013, p. 5) such as speeches and public lectures such as the Speakers Lecture Series. As mentioned, I had the least participation in the House Service, so documents took on a particular importance. Documents are important because performativity is about bringing (gendered) realities. Butler suggests: ‘it is not simply that a subject performs a speech act; rather, a set of relations and practices are constantly renewed, and agency traverses human and nonhuman domains’ (2010, p. 150). Whereas, traditionally, ‘all students of

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politics are, perforce, students of politicians’ (Fenno 1990, p. 113), we can follow a ‘thing’ in fieldwork: ‘a material object of study such as money, a metaphor such as immunity, a plot story or allegory, a life or biography and conflict’ (Marcus 1998, pp. 89–95; Schatz 2009, p. 18). Documents can be examined as texts themselves: ‘[not only] what documents say but what they do: how they circulate and move around’ (Ahmed 2012, p. 6). Together, these three types of notes, interviews and documents were put into NVivo and coded along with empirical codes that emerged from the data and theoretical codes that came from the framework. I will now map the ‘field’. When analysing the fieldwork, I did not pursue a systematic intersectional analysis, but the ethnographic and interview data do highlight how actors were multiply positioned in terms of gender, race, class and ability, and these examples have been included in the chapters.

3.3 Mapping the ‘Field’: Introducing Three ‘Working Worlds’ of the UK House of Commons In this section, I will delimit the ‘field’2 in terms of its actors who are positioned differently in the UK House of Commons in terms of tasks, roles and contractual status. The opportunity to engage with unexpected and serendipitous interlocutors (Schatz 2009, p. 11) is an unparalleled epistemological benefit of ethnography. The House of Commons is an inter-professional working environment, yet so far little attention has been paid to the differently situated actors on the estate. Many actors may contribute to a gendered institution. Ackerly and True note: Feminist-informed researchers…ask gender-sensitive research questions by observing that something is missing from existing accounts of social and political reality…Sometimes the something that is missing is an account of the political activity of less powerful political actors. (emphasis added, 2015, p. 138)

‘[E]mphasis on connections’ is a key to ethnography (Crewe 2014, p. 673). A conception of MPs as elected individuals renders staff ‘other’ which is inherently gendered (Sylvester 1998; de Beauvoir 2010). We rarely see the ‘real’ constitutive outside that provides MPs with the integrity of their identity. Identity is always relational. MPs are situated in an inter-professional environment. This ethnography does not commit to

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the holism of earlier ethnographers, because it is impossible to represent a setting in its entirety. It employs a principle of ‘polyphonic contextualisation’ whereby empirical ‘reality’ is multifaceted across a range of actors, locations and activities. This affects my approach to knowledge acquisition. This creates a more relational presentation of the different groups that coexist in the social context and avoids capture by one group (Mackay 2008, p. 126; Burnham et al. 2008, pp. 274–275). Different gender regimes in workplaces interact, and so speaking with and ‘studying up’ from differently situated bodies from different working worlds are important. Felski suggests that: ‘some groups such as women and the working class are more closely identified with the everyday than others’, and that ‘[w]omen like everyday life, have often been defined by negation’ (2000, pp. 16–17). By omitting these actors and multiple gender regimes at play, we shelter gender inequality in our analyses. Methodologically, Crewe suggested that ‘listening to as many [clerks] as possible is the fastest crash course on Parliament and its cultures’ (2015b, p. 3). Therefore, these actors are essential if we are to take seriously the power exercised in the capillaries and to make conclusions about the operation of gender within the UK House of Commons. To explore relationships amongst actors, I will present three working worlds and the production of gendered interstices and interfaces. This book is composed of three chapters—one for each world—and explores some focal points inside each gender regime. These three worlds are internally heterogeneous. I will now introduce the three sets of actors. I chose not to make the member the direct subject of my research, because of the level of intrusion upon her and access, although this would have been very interesting. This approach has been taken by other early career researchers (Busby 2013; Malley 2012). I will now set out the three working worlds of analysis. • Working World 1: MPs’ Working World The first set of actors is MPs, the only elected actors on the estate. MPs occupy high-profile and reified positions as actors, due to their electoral mandates, first past the post electoral system, and single-member constituencies. MPs are an important group to analyse gender and workplaces since MPs receive approaches from constituents for advice in how to manage gender and bureaucracies and their legislative (non)decisions

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effect workplaces. They also provide a linkage to the workplaces that they have previously served in. A number of typologies have been produced about the roles of MPs (Searing 1994; Wright 2010; Flynn 2012). Searing outlines seven roles for MPs: policy advocates, Ministerial aspirants, constituency members, parliament men, PPS, Whip and Minister. However, like Wright and Flynn’s discussions, these roles derive from the MPs themselves, and it may be fruitful to speak with a broader range of actors. It is also pertinent to explore how gender identities affect the everyday performance of these roles. Despite some affirmative action, methods to improve descriptive representation of women by the political parties have been uneven. The social composition of the Commons at the time of research was 22% women. In the 2019 election, this number had risen to 34%. A third of MPs had been replaced at the time of fieldwork following the parliamentary expenses scandal. Moreover, Table 3.2 shows a motherhood gap in 2013 and 2017 in the House of Commons. This had narrowed, but not disappeared in 2017. Unlike the other staff on the estate, MPs do not have a job description, which is discussed in Chapter 5, though there have been attempts to make the job more professionalised as shown in the changes to parliamentary hours, listed in Standing Order 9 in Table 3.3. A Coalition government was in office in the fieldwork period. Opinion polls at the time of the fieldwork period suggested, incorrectly, that there would be a hung parliament in the 2015 General Election. • Working World 2: The House Service Professionalisation of parliaments has meant that more expertise is required for parliamentary administrations—who provide both the ‘hard’ Table 3.2 Parents in Parliament (2013) and (2017)

Men Women

2013—MPs with no children

Average Number of Children

Average age of first child

2017

Average number of children

Average age of first child 2017

28% 45%

1.9 1.2

12 16

30% 39%

2.4 2.0

11 15

Source Campbell and Childs (2014, 2019)

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Table 3.3 Parliamentary Hours (2020)

65

Parliamentary Hours Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday (If sitting)

2.30 pm–10.30 pm 11.30 am–7.30 pm 11.30 am–7.30 pm 9.30 am–5.30 pm 9.30 am–3.00 pm

and ‘soft’ infrastructure to parliamentarians (Erikson and Joseffson 2020). Parliamentary administration has become a subset of legislative studies in US scholarship (Patterson 1989; Duerst-Lahti 1995) and European scholarship (Niemi 2010; Pegan 2015; Egeberg et al.; Högenauer et al. 2016; Crewe 2005, pp. 70–92; 2017; Evans 2018; Geddes 2019). Parliaments are not unified institutions and host a range of demographic differences such as gender, class, ethnicity, ability and sexuality, and these include professional, contractual and power differences (Rai and Spary 2019). There have been both theoretical and empirical reasons for academic engagement with parliamentary staff. Studying parliamentary staff works towards the feminist perspective of situated knowledge (Kulawik 2009, p. 263). Feminist discursive institutionalists note how different gender regimes interact and therefore study: ‘interrelations of institutional arrangements, actor constellations and political discourse’ (Kulawik 2009, p. 267). To borrow from Nader’s phrase, it is important to ‘study up’ from differently situated bodies (1972). This requires exploring the gender relations of the actors who have been relegated to the shadows in the process of a preoccupation with public enlightenment ‘individuals’ as the ‘central point of reference’ (Puwar 2004, p. 141). Parliamentary administration has been treated as a ‘no man’s land’ in academic scholarship due to academic focus on the executive (Egeberg et al. 2014, p. 227). We could also argue that academic scholarship on parliamentary administrations is a ‘no woman’s land’ from a gender perspective. Takayanagi suggests that: ‘[c]uriously, consideration of how ‘woman-friendly’ a workplace parliament is for MPs has never been extended to staff’ (2012, p. 221). Duerst-Lahti suggests that ‘how individual staff members are rewarded [in Congress] reflects masculinist dominance of that environment’ (1995, p. 383). Furthermore, academic feminists have benefited from productive relationships with practitioner feminists in the parliamentary administration (Childs and Challender

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2019). Therefore, these are key actors to speak with. This is a distinct gap that this book seeks to fill. The formal framework for the governance of the House of Commons was established by the House of Commons (Administration) Act 1978 which set up the House of Commons Commission. Terms and conditions replicate those of the civil service so that parliament is equipped to scrutinise the government. The House Service are not civil servants because they serve parliament not government. The House of Commons Service provides a politically impartial service to all Members of Parliament to support them in their parliamentary duties. There has been an increase in demand for House Services since Members receive more casework. Because of the principle of self-regulation, Members organise the House’s governance though there have been five reviews (House of Commons Commission 1990; Braithwaite 1999; House of Commons Commission 2007; Jablonowski 2010; House of Commons Governance Committee 2015). The Service employs around 1,700 people across five departments. The House of Commons is a commission-based parliamentary administration (Verrier 2008), with several ‘parliamentary pillars’, such as the executive board and domestic committees—that is, internal committees of the House that links MPs to the House Service. The House of Commons Commission was set up in 1978 and is responsible for the administration of services in the House of Commons. Unlike almost all other committees of the House, it has no elected members and is chaired by the Speaker. With the appointment of Angela Eagle to Shadow Business Secretary in October 2015, the House of Commons Commission temporarily only had two female members out of a total of eleven members including the Chair and these were both external members, though this composition has since improved. The Commission employs the staff of the House and oversees their terms of employment. Betty Boothroyd described chairing the Commission as ‘a challenging task for which my previous career had given me no useful experience’ (2000, pp. 142–143). The Commission’s aim is to be an ‘exemplary employer’, with an annual budget of around £1.3 million. Beneath this formal governance, the social composition of the House Service has been targeted for improvement with an increase in recruitment efforts. There have also been notable ‘firsts’ in the House Service such as employing a female, working-class and Muslim, Serjeant at Arms; employing a black female Chaplain; and a female Black Rod. The House Service has Investors of People Status and is bound by the Public Sector

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Equality Duty. The House also produces annual Diversity Monitoring Reports. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 outline the sex composition and pay of House Service employees at the time of research. Fuller breakdowns of the diversity data are included in the reports. As of 31 March 2018, data show that the number of women in SCS was 42%, A 48%, B 47%, C 57%, D 35%, E 56%, catering is 43% and other is 13% (House of Commons Parliamentary and Digital Service 2018). White men are the largest group in the House, at 43% of all staff who have shared their ethnic identity. The next group is white women at 34%. There is roughly even proportion of male and female staff from minority ethnic backgrounds (12 and 11%, respectively). To reiterate, the House Service was the ‘working world’ that I had the least access to a degree of proxy access had to be achieved. In terms of how subjects are able to intervene in discourses, the evidence submitted to the Governance of the House inquiry by members of the House Service, is, in theory, valuable (Winetrobe 2014). Actors without material bases of power rely on discursive power. The committee consulted staff and sought ‘soft data’ through focus groups, interviews and permitting the submission of anonymous written evidence. This meant that a different genre

Fig. 3.1 Gender split by department of employees in the House Service in July 2014 (House of Commons and PICT Diversity Report, April 2015, p. 11, produced by the Diversity and Inclusion Team and the Information and Administration Team)

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Fig. 3.2 Gender split by pay band of employees in the House Service in July 2014 (House of Commons and PICT Diversity Report, April 2015, p. 10, produced by the Diversity and Inclusion Team and the Information and Administration Team)

of discourse was introduced into the realm of political speech acts, which is key to studying the everyday in parliaments (Wodak 2009). Indeed, looking at this evidence highlights what anthropologist Bellier (2005) calls an ‘alchemy’ of textual production—that is, the different struggles and identities that were constitutive of the output. Illustrative documents analysed for this book are laid out in Table 3.19 in the appendix to this chapter. These included (1) reports from Hansard debates; (2) field notes; (3) interviews; (4) coverage in print media and industry publications; (5) written and oral evidence submitted to the governance of the House Inquiry; and (6) inhouse and external reports; and (7) guides. Whilst the findings from my small non-random sample of interviews (see Tables 3.7– 3.10 in the appendix) cannot be extrapolated to all in the House Service, looking inside the gender regime of this world clearly lends insights and contextualisation. • Working World 3: Members’ Staff’s Working World

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A developing literature3 is exploring actors who provides regular research and administrative assistance to politicians, who are on the estate for longer and who have traditionally constituted the pipeline of future MPs. Parliamentary researchers are key protagonists in my account of gendering the UK House of Commons because I spent the most time with them, accompanying them to trainings, events, sharing meals, drinks; conducting ad hoc research tasks; and learning about their career and life projects. Like Wacquant, I underwent the training to be a researcher. In Congress, the lack of representativeness of personal staff has been openly discussed4 though few initiatives had reached the UK Parliament, apart from a campaign on unpaid internships and the Speaker’s Parliamentary Placement scheme. Dale, author of How to be a Parliamentary Researcher, maintains: ‘it’s a shame [that] so little is written or spoken about parliamentary researchers, or the ‘unsung heroes of the Westminster Village’ as John Bercow calls them’ (Dale 2015). I argue that there is a double absence-both in research on/with parliamentary researchers, but also from a gender perspective. There are nearly 3,000 Members’ Staff employed on the parliamentary estate (Dale 2015, p. 227) and staffing constitutes 78% of MPs’ office budget and the total staffing budget costs nearly £100 million a year (Dale Independent, 10 September 2015). Indeed, the resources allocated to the staff budget became politicised in the response to COVID-19, whereby an allowance was provided to staff members to work from home. The median pay category for those working for an MP is between £22,500 and £25,000. The annual minimum income needed to live in outer London for a single person with no dependents in 2020 is £27, 201 (Minimum Income Calculator UK 2020). There are three job families for MPs staff although most Members’ Staff’s responsibilities move across a spectrum and they tend to be employed as generalists. These include administrative, executive and research categories. These job titles are outlined in Table 3.4. Most MPs employ between three and five staff. Anecdotal evidence suggests a conflicted picture of how people experience staffing on the parliamentary estate in terms of descriptive representation: I don’t know if this is just anecdotal, but it feels to me like there are more women who are working with male MPs.5 when I first walked into Portcullis House it seemed to me as though it were staffed entirely by young men called Will, Tom or Ben…here weeks

Senior Secretary Senior Executive Officer Senior Administrative Officer Administrative Manager

Principal Secretary Office Manager Executive Office Manager Chief of staff

2

3

Executive

19,641–27,876 23,938–35,465

OUTSIDE LONDON

Caseworker Communications Officer Constituency Assistant Support Officer Constituency Support Officer Senior Caseworker Constituency Communications Manager Constituency Support Manager Senior Communications Officer

21,960–31,500 27,324–37,184

LONDON

Research

20,420–31,311 30,290–43,105

OUTSIDE LONDON

Senior Parliamentary Assistant Senior Researcher Research Manager

Parliamentary Assistant Researcher Research Officer

23,750–34,442 33,000–48,913

LONDON

Source (I would like to thank Rebecca McKee for bringing this Freedom of Information request to my attention. The Freedom of Information request is available at: https://www.theipsa.org.uk/publications/freedom-of-information/2017-18/cas-99866/) FOI Request IPSA CAS-99866 Breakdown of Salaries paid to MPs’ Staff

JOB TITLES

19,013–26,250 16,478–24,472 24,238–33,822 21,951–30,328 30,324–43,698 27,815–39,915 Secretary Personal Assistant Executive Officer Administrative Officer

1 2 3 1

PAY RANGES

OUTSIDE LONDON

Administrative

LONDON

LOCATION

Job Titles and Pay Grades of Members’ Staff

JOB FAMILIES

Table 3.4

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Table 3.5 Gender of staff members and the MP they work for

Male MPs Female MPs

Male staff

Female Staff

Total

43% 870 45% 455

57% 1153 55% 555

100% 2023 100% 1010

Source FOI Request IPSA CAS-99866 Breakdown of Salaries paid to MPs’ Staff

will go by without anyone seeing a pregnant woman walking around the estate. (Phillips, HC Deb 10 November 2015, CC 35, WH)

Table 3.5 tests some of these claims. Data from IPSA suggest that both female and male MPs were indeed more likely to employ female staff, though their relative position matters and is broken down further in Table 3.6. For some positions, such as apprenticeships, the use of this post differed by party. For example, of all the 9 apprentices, they were all employed by Conservatives. From the data, there are more female personal assistants, caseworkers, secretaries and office managers than males. Males are over-represented as communications offices. This data can be broken down further by salary level and remains underexploited. Furthermore, data could be collected to examine the socio-economic background of parliamentary researchers, by asking: (1) parental occupation at age 14; (2) type of school attended at age 11-16; (3) free school meal eligibility; and (4) highest parental qualification (Social Mobility Commission 2020).

3.4

Conclusion

This chapter has detailed the methodology that this book has taken to look beneath what is provided in traditional political science methods. It has also defined the field-site, borrowing from the language of ‘working worlds’ that was provided emically by a field member and has set out a numerical picture of the actors that comprise the UK House of Commons. If gender is repeated over time, then immersion amongst gender acts is sought. To return to the central theme of the book, gender is a social temporality, a relation and something that is practiced and therefore requires studying over time, which is what ethnography can bring. Feminist discursive institutionalism puts actors and gender identity at the very heart of

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Table 3.6 Breakdown of parliamentary staff by position and by the two main political parties

Apprentice Personal Assistant Researcher Senior Researcher Caseworker

Communications officer Senior Communications officer Paid interns Chief of staff Secretary Office Manager

Senior Parliamentary Assistant

Total in whole of parliament

Employer F Con

Employer M Con

Employer F Lab

Employer M Lab

F 5 (56%) M 4 (44%) F 16 (84%) M 3 (16%) F 35 (38%) M 56 (62%) F 10 (37%) M 17 63%) F 287 (59%) M 200 (41%) F 16 (27%) M 43 (73%) F 15 (45%) M 18 (55%)

F2 M1 F1 M0 F5 M5 F3 M0 F 26 M 19

F3 M3 F5 M0 F 13 M 28 F7 M7 F 94 M 52

0

0

F4 M3 F7 M 13 F1 M 10 F 69 M 42

F6 M0 F7 M8 F3 M 10 F 58 M 58

F1 M7 F1 M4

F 10 M 13 F6 M7

F3 M 10 F3 M1

F2 M 13 F1 M4

F 39 (46%) M 45 (54%) F 15 (35%) M 28 (65%) F 46 (74%) M 16 (26%) F 219 (69%) M 98 (31%) F 136 (49%) M 142 (51%)

F7 M5 F2 M 11 F6 M0 F 20 M9

F9 M 23 F8 M9 F 24 M 13 F 88 M 28

F 12 M8 F3 M5 F5 M1 F 40 M 24

F7 M7 F2 M3 F 11 M2 F 54 M 27

M 15 F 22

F 78 M 60

F 14 M 24

F 19 M 35

Source FOI Request IPSA CAS-99866 Breakdown of Salaries paid to MPs’ Staff

the analysis, within their material settings. Section 2 of the book puts this research strategy into practice. Chapter 4 introduces the empirical research, before exploring the reproduction of gender regimes that three sets of actors: MPs, the House Service and parliamentary researchers work within, in Chapters 5 to 7.

3

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Appendix: Methodological Reflection, Ethnography See Tables 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, 3.16, 3.17, 3.18, 3.19. Having outlined the methodology in this chapter 3, this reflective note now outlines: (1) the meta-theoretical position taken, situating Butler and Table 3.7 Members’ staff interviewed parliamentary researchers

Government Main Opposition Minority Opposition Total 13

M

F

Total

6 2 0

1 3 1

7 5 1

Table 3.8 Members of Parliament Interviewed Members of Parliament

Government Main Opposition Minority Opposition Select Committee Chairs (Included in above) (Former)(Shadow) Ministers/Whips (Included in above) Backbenchers (Included in above) Former MPs (2 cabinet Ministers) Total 31

M

F

Total

6 6 1 2 6 2 0

7 9 1 2 8 5 2

13 15 2 4 14 7 2

Table 3.9 Members of the House Service Interviewed Members of the House Service

DCCS DIS TUS DFF DHRC Total 14

M

F

Total

4 1 1 1 0

4 2 0 0 1

8 3 1 1 1

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Table 3.10 Extra-commons participants interviewed

Journalists Expert select committee witnesses Peers Westminster hotel bar worker Female political commentator Parliamentary artists Total 10

M

F

Total

1 0 0

1 2 2 1 1 2

2 2 2 1 1 2

0 0

Table 3.11 General observation diary Activities Shadowing the Member through her normal life

Macro ✔ ✔ Meso ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Micro ✔

Activities the House Service

✔ Macro ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Meso ✔

Observed Member in chamber performances Observed Member in Select Committee Attended the launch of an APPG Report and an evidence session Attended an event in Whitehall that the Member was chairing Attended the launch of a party pamphlet, written by backbench MPs Attended three sessions of a party’s Women’s Committee Attended a stakeholder event that the Member was hosting on a matter of the constituency Observed Member in an interview with a journalist for a trade magazine Observed everyday office interaction

Attended an induction to the House Service Attended the Speaker’s lecture series Observed select committees in public evidence sessions Used spaces of consumption such as the gym and cafeterias Attended a WEN event

(continued)

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Table 3.11 (continued) ✔ ✔ ✔ Micro ✔ ✔ Activities with researchers

Macro ✔ ✔ ✔ Meso ✔ ✔ Micro ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Attended a WEN AGM Followed the Governance of the House Inquiry in full, attending the chamber debate and a backbench business committee session Attended a scrutiny workshop in PCH on parliamentary scrutiny Conducted interviews in 7 Millbank and Tothill Street Attended briefings to parliamentary researchers, Members and peers about changes to the House Service facilities Attended a party’s policy briefing Attended a political party induction and underwent training as a researcher Attended two staff inductions for new researchers Watched the Queen’s Speech in the parliamentary cloisters with parliamentary researchers and party staff Attended events around the estate, such as think tank events as well as a regional days Attended two fundraisers. Helped clear up for one of them. Accompanied a researcher in giving a tour Attended the staff network Attended the party’s headquarters Attended lobbyist events Attended recreational events and places: ‘Red Lion’, ‘Players Bar’ and the Sports and Social Club Attended think tank events Accompanied Member’s researcher on bespoke tasks such as getting a Twitter account verified and collecting items from members’ cloakroom

parliamentary ethnography; (2) the nuts and bolts of the specific methods outlined in this chapter 3; (3) the processes of analysis; and (4) criteria by which I assessed the quality of the interpretive research.

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Table 3.12 List of parliamentary researchers interviewed

Participant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

M/F

Date

Format

Male Male Male Male Female Female Male Male Male Female Female Female Male

27 28 28 28 29 30 20 23 12 12 11 11 14

In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person Skype Skype Telephone

May 2014 May 2014 May 2014 May 2014 May 2014 July 2014 August 2015 September 2014 October 2015 October 2015 January 2016 February 2016 March 2016

Butler and Parliaments---Interpretative Parliamentary Ethnography Parliamentary ethnography has much to share with Butler; however, the decision to couple Butler with ethnography is not uncontentious and this dissonance is addressed here. There are a continua of research practices in ethnography. Some ethnographies are situated at the interpretivist end and some towards the more positivist end of social science epistemology. Butler aims at subjectless critique, echoing a similar of Foucault’s critique of humanist anthropology. However, I would also argue that she encourages us to acknowledge those actors who are ‘interminably spectral’ (2004, p. 34)—in this case unelected staff and researchers, in addition to MPs as the ‘presumptive centre’ of power. Ethnography allowed me to observe and partially represent the interactions between different working worlds in the UK House of Commons and the gendering therein and so ethnography was a powerful pairing with Butler. In addition to the potentials for attending to spectral actors, the antifoundational ontological position of gender performed every day in acts marries with my epistemological position—which is that a researcher’s vantage point needs to be as closest to ‘knowledge’ as possible, prioritising embeddedness, rather than detachment in order to produce fine-grained analyses. Therefore, ethnography is an important methodology for gender scholars if we accept that gender is iterated over time and that change and agency are identity contingent.

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Table 3.13 List of MPs interviewed

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MPs MP

M/F

Date

Format

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

F M F F F F F F F F M F M M M M F M F M F M M F M M F M F F

22 July 2014 30 June 2014 24 June 2014 16 July 2014 14 July 2014 23 June 2014 18 June 2014 27 January 2015 08 July 2014 22 July 2014 15 July 2014 9 July 2014 15 September 2014 8 July 2014 25 July 2016 7 May 2014 6 January 2014 15 July 2014 14 July 2014 16 July 2014 18 July 2014 25 June 2014 7 July 2014 23 July 2014 14 July 2014 9 July 2014 7 November 2014 4 September 2014 9 September 2014 4 August 2014

44

F

24 October 14

In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person Telephone In person In person In person In person Over email In person In person In person In person *former MP In person *former MP

Writing up a parliamentary ethnography using Butler presents a clear issue about whether Butler’s verboseness can optimally speak to everyday issues since she ‘projects an aura of esotericism’ (Fraser 1995, p. 67). Indeed, in many respects, ‘subject position’ does not feel very human. I have argued in this book that far from being epiphenomenal or esoteric,

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Table 3.14 House Service participants interviewed House Service Participant

M/F

Department

Date

Format

45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

F M F F M F M M F M F M F

DCCS DFF DIS DIS DCCS DCCS DIS DCCS DCCS DCCS DHRC DCCS DCCS

17 September 2014 8 May 2014 16 May 2014 18 July 2014 6 June 2014 31 June 2014 12 September 2014 17 July 2014 14 May 2014 1 May 2014 4 June 2014 30 June 2014 27 July 2016

58

M

Member of Trade Union

1 May 2014

In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person In person Telephone interview In person

Table 3.15 Extra-Westminster participants interviewed Participant

M/F

Estate user

Date

Format

59 60 61

F F F

25 June 2014 9 July 2014 21 April 2014

In person In person In person

62

F

27 August 2014

In person

63 64

F M

13 May 2014 27 June 2014

In person In person

65 66

M F

24 July 2014 14 April 2014

In person In person

67

F

7 August 2014

In person

68

F

Peer Peer Expert academic witness Expert academic witness Party worker Westminster hotel bar worker Journalist Female political commentator Parliamentary sculptor Female Journalist

1 May 2014

In person

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Table 3.16 Illustrative interview questions for parliamentary researchers Theme to explore

Opening/ guiding questions to generate knowledge

Open question

Tell me about your place of work. How far, in your opinion, is the House of Commons a particularly ‘masculine’ environment to work in? What makes for a more/less effective relationship with an MP in the office? How have the techniques of running offices compared for different employers that you have worked for? What do you plan to do after your current job? What are the better and more challenging aspects of being a researcher? How did you distinguish yourself from other applicants? What is your relationship with role models? Have you ever considered becoming a (S)pad yourself? Why/ why not? How do you hone a professional image at parliament? What made you apply for a job at Westminster? How is work allocated in the office? How inclusive is the parliamentary estate? Where do you socialise? What are the dynamics of the place that you socialise? If you had a problem, where they would take this? Have you ever experienced/witnessed/ heard of sexism? Have you ever experienced/witnessed/ heard of sexual harassment? What are your thoughts on the new hotline that Speaker Bercow has set up? How are ethical issues dealt with? What’s the most rewarding part of your job? What factors around the parliamentary estate make it conducive to harassment behaviours reported in the press?

Career cycle and job effectiveness

Citizenship Public service, efficacy, support accountability and resolution

identity-building practices, reputations and gender performance are actually very important and that naming these and providing a language to describe insidious power relations where there may otherwise not be a language (McNay 2014) frees energy for other productive pursuits. In particular, the logic of iterability and writing the body into parliaments as settings is important. I assembled the fieldwork materials into a NVivo project. NVivo is a data management package; it allowed me to collate the data in one place, create analytic memos, and make links across documents. I could also run computer-aided searches to navigate terms. This was not a substitute for fine-grained analysis. Researchers often feel obliged to engage in a ‘quasi-industrial process’ of carefully ‘cleaning up’ unwieldy data to meet disciplinary standards when it is often unruly or: sprawling, sticky, lumpy, impure and distinctly rough around the edges – not a substance that…[is]…easily handled, let alone neatly decanted into

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Table 3.17 Illustrative interview questions for MPs Topic

Opening/guiding questions to generate knowledge

Open question

Tell me about your place of work. How far, in your opinion, is the House of Commons a particularly ‘masculine’ environment to work in? How is success measured in the House of Commons? What were your thoughts on the cabinet reshuffle in terms of gender? How do you manage conflict on your committee? Why do you always sit in that place on the committee? How do the dynamics of committees differ that you sit on? Do men and women have different ways of asking questions? How consultative is the Chair? Is there a different dynamic between you and witnesses as the only XXXX on the committee? Do men and women have different interactional styles for asking questions? How does the chair achieve unanimous support for reports? What is your experience going before a select committee? What would make your job easier? You sit on X number of committees, how do they differ in their culture and chair styles? How inclusive is XXXX team that you work in and how have your bosses styles differed? What are your thoughts on the Health and Defence Chair elections? Why was XXX put in this portfolio and not XXX portfolio? How do MPs socialise in the Commons? How inclusive is the tea room/Strangers? How is media allocated in the party?(How) are there any differences between men and women building relationships with press on the estate? You said XXXX in your evidence to the inhouse inquiry on XXXX, are you happy with the outcome? What are your views on the Governance of the House arrangements? If you had a personal problem, where they would take this? How is gender discrimination dealt with, if this is found to be occurring in parliament? Have you been active on gender issues in the House of Commons and if so, what were your experiences and what was the reception inside the House and party? What factors around the parliamentary estate make it conducive to harassment behaviours reported in the press?

Career

Citizenship

Public service, efficacy, support accountability and resolution

the stringently delimited and sterile confines of a theoretical framework. (Wilkinson 2013b, p. 389)

Furthermore, ethnographies of parliaments may aim at some type of political—in this case, feminist change, to bring about social justice. However, Butler’s Foucauldian conception of power has been questioned for its theoreticism and inability to create an actionable programme for change (Lowndes and Roberts 2013, p. 88; Nussbaum 1999; Hennessy 1993; Ebert 1992; Hartsock 1985, p. 38; Lather 1991, p. 8) and that ‘she

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Table 3.18 Illustrative interview questions for participants from the House Service House Service Open question The career cycle

Citizenship

Expert knowledge Select Committees

Public service, efficacy, support accountability and resolution

Tell me about your place of work. How far is the House of Commons a particularly ‘masculine’ environment to work in? A theme that has come up in my research is the notion of working ‘worlds’ at Westminster. Do you recognise this description and if so, how would you classify the different working worlds? What are your views of the Governance of the House arrangements? How is knowledge shared? How developed is the culture of flexible working? What are your views on the appointment of the clerk? How does the circulation process work? How inclusive is the parliamentary estate? What are the advantages of being in a WEN? What are the greatest challenges that WENs face? What are the advantages of being in a WEN? Please could you tell me about the MPs’ tea-room if you can access it? I am trying to build a mental picture Do male and female MPs have a different style of questioning for witnesses? How are witnesses selected? Do men and female witnesses receive the same kinds of questions? Why are only 24.7% of witnesses female? I went to a Select Committee hearing on a gender-sensitive topic and there were no female MPs to question the female witnesses —why is this? How do you characterise the dynamic of this committee compared to others that you have served on? What makes an effective chair? How are inquiries chosen? (How) have approaches to witness selection changed following the report by Democratic Audit? How can attendance be improved? What factors around the parliamentary estate make it conducive to harassment behaviours reported in the press? If you had a problem, where would you take this? Are staff always treated with respect and dignity?

prefers the sexy acts of parodic subversion to any lasting material or institutional change’ (Nussbaum 1999, p. 211, emphasis added). Butler stressed that programmatic assessments belie contingency and context (Butler and Bell 1999, pp. 166–167). However, it would be incorrect to suggest that Butlerian scholars have sought discursive change in and of itself. Using Butler has consequences for the types of claims that are possible to make from the parliamentary ethnography. Many post-structuralists are critical of a representational politics with faithfulness to an ‘original’. Performativity is seen to be a non-representational theory; rather than the

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Table 3.19 Indicative list of documents consulted Document

Purpose

Link

Respect Policy

This document was being revised at the time of fieldwork and looks into accountability To crystallise the findings with my own research

http://www.parliament. uk/documents/commonscommission/Respect-Pol icy.pdf https://www.parliament. uk/documents/commonscommittees/admincomm ittee/Memoranda.pdf https://www.parliament. uk/documents/commonscommittees/admin-commit tee/Members-and-Mem bers-staffinterview-projectdoc.pdf https://www.parliament. uk/documents/commonscommittees/admincomm ittee/Interview-study-Mem bersleaving-Parliament-rep ort-April2016.pdf https://www.parliament. uk/documents/commonscommission/diversity-and inclusion-scheme.pdf https://www.parliament. uk/documents/commonschief-executive/MBPapers/ 2015-03-12%20Review% 20of%20Diversity%20and% 20Inclusion%20scheme.pdf http://www.parliament. uk/business/commons/ governance-of-the-houseofcommons-/

Members Interview Projects: • Women Members • Members and Members’ Staff Interview Project • Former Members upon leaving the House

(Review of) House of Commons Diversity and Inclusion scheme 2012–2015

To investigate the new norm of diversity within the House of Commons

Governance of the House Inquiry evidence

As an analytical window into change in leadership structures, skills and governance in the House of Commons This was raised in interviews, to see how members of the House Service were represented in the images

Fast stream recruitment brochures

http://www.parliament. uk/documents/commonsresources/fast-stream-bro chure-2014.pdf

(continued)

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Table 3.19 (continued) Document

Purpose

Link

FOI Equality analysis of circulation policy and forward plan

The gender inequality around a rule-in-form, the circulation procedure was cited in three interviews

Bounded instructional guides and information leaflets: • Guide for Select Committee Members • Rules of behaviour and courtesies in the House House of Commons Standing orders

To provide additional information on rules-inform and rules-in-use

https://drive.google.com/ file/d/0BzW0w_61YSvz ZEp2MHE2LTZaeVU/ view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/ file/d/0BzW0w_61YSvz Wkc2NmYzU2d2Z2s/ view?usp=sharing Department of Chamber and Committee Services, May 2012 Issued by the Speaker and the Deputy Speakers, July 2013

The written orders that regulate the proceedings of each House

https://publications.parlia ment.uk/pa/cm201719/ cmstords/1020/so_ 1020_180501.pdf

‘what’, theorists of performativity are interested in the ‘how’. Butler is interested in what is at the limits of representation. Therefore, the book does not seek to provide ‘men’ and ‘women’ or distinct ‘styles’ but to open up some of the ways that gender was spoken about, performed, in relation to gendered/gendering rules. The empirical discussion and framework can be taken up, critiqued and reworked by others. Linked to this politics of representation, uncovering the informal ‘can present difficulties of access and confidentiality’ (Chappell and Waylen 2013, p. 2) and so I followed observations through interviews to see if people would be willing to discuss them in an interview context, omitted them or found an open source such as the FOI request on the reduced to two posts rule-in-use. As mentioned, I guaranteed anonymity to participants. This is because I was vigilant that academic work can become ‘performative’ in terms of its re-citation.6 Furthermore, when including, I followed Denscombe’s two criteria towards the respectful inclusion of field notes that: (1) participants should not suffer as a consequence of inclusion, and (2) they should not be identifiable (2014, p. 218). Reflexivity was practised throughout the research. Warren stresses: ‘It is not “any researcher” who produces a particular ethnography, it is you’

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(1988, p. 65). Given the exposure to ‘flesh and blood’ elite actors, it would be remiss not to comment on this, given my ‘fleshy’ analytical framework. Whilst over-reflexive accounts may lead to ‘full and uncompromising self-reference’ (Davies 1999, p. 7), Wilkinson suggests ‘the researcher herself becomes a source of data that can contribute additional layers to the thick description that is gradually being developed’ (2013a, p. 132). It is ironic when interpretivist scholars fail to discuss their ‘own beliefs, subjectivities, and subject positions, and how these may impact on the research process’ (Chappell and Waylen 2013, p. 11). A reflexive attitude was taken to inter-subjective power. Butler suggests that ‘we’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something’ (2004, p. 23). A researcher can undo a participant by asking an insensitive question. My academic identity was recited along a continuum of unthreatening to dangerous identities. I was aware that women can struggle to build authority as researchers: A female researcher may not discuss the issue of gender in presenting her fieldwork experience for a variety of reasons…[She] may overlook or even deny difficulties she experienced in the field to avoid having her work appear unsound. (Gurney 1985, p. 44)

In terms of less threatening identities, being young(er), blonde-haired, unmarried, having a small build and pursuing gender research does not appear to be threatening. MPs discussed their daughters’ applications to universities; asked about the courses that I taught on; and asked about my experiences of being a woman in higher education. T’hart’s identity was an ‘egg head’ in the field (2007, p. 55). I was ‘dear’ed7 at in the field, even by ‘enlightened’ research participants. Police officers laughed amongst themselves after I missed a diversion: ‘we were going to see how far she got’. I was met with nurturing receptions when conducting interviews in constituency offices: ‘Watch those traffic lights, lov’8 One male researcher said ‘Cherry you’re just so nice!’ and another said ‘Little Cherry’ who wouldn’t let me stand my round in the researchers’ bar. This had connotations of being ‘naïve, blonde and bubbly’, a ‘poor student’. When asking one respondent about the presentational styles of MPs, she offered me some ‘gentle’ advice:

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You want to present yourself as calm and capable but you’re doing this [slumps] and you’re doing this [bobs head] and I don’t know how old you are but it makes you look girlish9

This demonstrates that fieldwork at time, can be ‘hauntingly personal’ (Van Maanen et al. 1988a, p. 5), and a researcher can also be ‘undone’ positively and negatively by her participants (Butler 2004). I scratched my neck and an older man at a workshop with a press pass suggested ‘[i]n the old days, you would have had a noose around your neck for doing that’.10 I was also mistaken for a journalist rather than a PhD researcher: a subject position of being dangerous. This might be because by wearing old suits from a clearance store, my own descriptive marks and stylisation of the body were perhaps outside of the cycle of younger high street fashion. Generally, women tended to give more eye contact in interviews and they were more dialogical. One male researcher kept looking out of the window and gave the body signals of looking disinterested. Yet a male MP positioned me as expert as academic kindred-spirit: ‘people here would look very blankly at you if they tried to understand it. I can see you do. You’re the exception11 ’. O’Reilly suggests ‘there is no escaping your own body and this will affect how you are received and how participants interact with you in the field’ (2012, p. 100). This was also notable in Skype interviews where there is no escaping your own body and indeed may be a more frequently used practice in political science interview research.12 Brewer suggests that gender is the ‘primary identity’ in fieldwork and that female researchers can be treated as ‘gofers, mascots or surrogate granddaughters’ in the field (2000, p. 99). Whilst this is a valid point that women may be treated differently in the field, treating gender as a ‘primary’ identity ignores other aspects of identity such as class, race and sexuality (Butler 2011, p. 122). These positionalities may be affected by the parliament, for example, as a UK researcher in the UK parliament, accent is something that may be a qualitatively different marker than if I was conducting research in another country’s parliament. The tactic of flattering politicians (Crewe 2015b, p. 3) is possibly fruitful but also has gendered and power implications. This proved calamitous for myself when discussing mentoring schemes with a male MP. The MP questioned his mentoring skills and I replied with: ‘you can mentor me, then13 ’ and I panicked that this sounded sexualised. In interviews, I did, however, adopt active listening techniques to put myself in the

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respondent’s shoes, to be respectful of their experiences and to be a fellow traveller alongside their recollection of their experiences. I was reassured to read that the phrase: ‘that’s interesting in itself’ (Rapport 2014, p. 60) has been used frequently by other ethnographers because it was a phrase that I often used, if a respondent presented a claim counterintuitive to (what they thought) I expected them to respond with and they thought I would be disappointed. Oakley argued for sisterly interviews (1981). However, I found that there were risks of ‘closure to this mutuality’ (Rapport 2014, p. 53). An example of where I could have managed the interview better is with a working-class participant where she discusses her presence on a committee and men speaking behind their hands asking: ‘where is she from?’. I replied: CM: Where are they from? [both laugh]14

I could have optimised the conversation to ask: ‘why do you think that they asked you that?’ However, on the other hand, empathy, and understanding, revealed that often there is a time-lag to acknowledge sexism. CM: Have you experienced sexism? P: Yes…I walk out of the meetings and I retrospectively think: “I should have been more assertive” and it’s difficult to be assured that it is sexism. CM: This idea of identifying sexism in retrospect is interesting, because…it has a longer timeframe than just the moment. Something similar happened to me yesterday! P: Exactly because you end up channelling the anger in the wrong direction.15

Despite epistemic risks of over-familiarity when studying parliaments as gendered workplaces, arguably, the researcher’s second response resonates with Wulff’s comments surrounding collaboration in interviews: the interviewer and the interviewee trigger each other into an exchange of escalating states of creativity beneficial for the interviewer’s research process as well as for the interviewee in the form of potential new personal or professional insights. When it works, this can be seen as a synergy situation, as the two people involved would not have reached these particular insights independently. (Wulff 2014, p. 163)

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The weight that we should put on subjugated knowledge is a key concern for feminists. In choosing evidence to discuss within the book, I selected examples that were multifaceted enough to provide both content, but were also generative of new insights using analytical leverage. Ethnography has been described as ‘arrogant enterprise, taking hit and run’ (Reinharz 1983, p. 80; see also Agar 1980, p. 41; Stacey 1988). Sustaining synergies in the field has to be balanced with an appreciation of field members’ time pressures as a functioning workplace. I set up synergies and provided information on points of contact and pieces of research that had been conducted in the areas of interest to respondents. So far I have provided an optimistic account of parliamentary ethnography, but I would like to qualify what I have said thus far. All ethnographies are partial More eyes need to have it, so feminists do not turn a blind eye to intersections, power and those iterabilities that a white graduate female researcher might not capture or access. This is because subjects are multiply positioned. The work for this book was not intersectional, and therefore, a more systematic and in-depth intersectional critique must be enacted of everyday practice. In addition, ethnography needs institutional support such as funding and research leave; an awareness of gendered contingencies in practice; and in the history of ethnography. Conducting an ethnography clearly presents opportunities and challenges and was traditionally the preserve of ‘lone ranger’ male anthropologists (Kuklik in Wedeen 2009, p. 75). One must ‘cut your life down to the bone as much as you can afford to cut it down’ (Goffman 1989, p. 127). It is not surprising then that Park’s oft-cited instruction was to men: ‘[i]n short, gentlemen [sic], go get the seat of your pants dirty in real research’ (in Silverman 2011, p. 19) or that Ottenberg described his field notes as ‘an extension of me – like an extra penis’ (1990, p. 141). Goffman suggested that as well as ‘getting into place’, ethnographers have the imperative of ‘exploiting place’ (1989, p. 129). This has all sorts of ramifications for power relations. Furthermore, conflict methodology is ‘a willingness to utilize any and all situationally available techniques to gather data’ (Lundman and McFarlane 1976, p. 507). This instrumentalism negates personal safety and research ethics. Strategies have been developed for addressing sexual and gender harassment in the field (Warren 1988). Furthermore, elite ethnography has been described as: ‘a young person’s game. It requires a degree of physical stamina and psychological adaptability that, taken together, are optimized in people of their twenties and thirties more than in their forties and fifties (even though people in their

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forties do have the advantage of being closest to the average age of House Members’ (Fenno 1978, p. 253). Therefore, ethnography can require a wraparound commitment and research institutions could perhaps support researchers more in both practical and immaterial ways when undertaking fieldwork. Now that I have reflected on Butler and parliamentary ethnography, I will discuss how generalisable my analysis is. In terms of applicability, the quality of qualitative research is not based upon generalisability (Punch 1998, p. 154). Bevir and Rhodes favour ‘philosophical rigour’ (2006b, p. 81). I have developed an empirical framework of the career cycle, citizenship and public service that can be used in different settings, but parliaments come in different types and stress different functions, so it needs to be combined with qualitative research. I also conducted a degree of purposive sampling across men and women and political parties as well as power and identity. (2) Participant characteristics I will now discuss the meta-approach to recruitment to participate in the interviews from the three ‘worlds’ outlined above. Sampling approaches were relevant at different periods of the study. My sampling was theoretically consistent with my epistemological approach: that if we are to attend to power at the capillaries of the House of Commons, then we must attend to differently situated actors. Like Harvey (2011, p. 434), many of my interviewees referred me to contacts and so this precludes a more purposive sample. Requests were made on the basis of five broad areas. These were: (1) gender, (2) party, (3) power and positionality, (4) theory and (5) identity. Firstly, gender is not a synonym for women (Lovenduski 1996, p. 4). Ramazonoglu and Holland (2002, p. 5) study ‘gendered social lives’ rather than ‘women’. I moved back and forth, engaging with both men and women as subjects and beneficiaries of knowledge production by asking about their experiences. Secondly, there was a degree of quota sampling across parties where I spoke with actors in five political parties. Thirdly, I sampled across power and positionality. Moving away from methodological elitism and investigating power at the capillaries would have included staff on lower incomes, such as cleaners, but as an early career researcher, I did not have the profile to have carried this out with trust. I used the evidence submitted to the Governance of

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the House report, but acknowledge that many contractors and lowerpaid staff may not have felt a sense of ownership or submitted evidence to the inquiry. I spoke to a union member who may have had insights about this group but this can also be problematic for making representative claims. To maximise positionality, if somebody had served on two or three select committees, then this provided positionality to examine the different dynamics. Fourthly, theoretical sampling is most congruent with the type of ethnography that I was conducting, to gain informed comment on aspects of gender identity. In terms of meeting ‘gendered actors working with the rules’ (Gains and Lowndes 2014), I interviewed those who had taken equality initiatives through the Commons—such as being involved in an APPG, taken a Bill through and been a member of a Workplace Equality Network as well as everyday actors. Fifthly, I sampled across identity and included ‘outliers’ by listening for atypical views from participants who I met in situ: Be sure to include dissidents, cranks, deviants, marginals isolates –people with different points of view from the mainstream, people less committed to tranquillity and equilibrium in the setting. (Miles et al. 2014, p. 298)

Tables Nine to Twelve show the respondents spoken to. In order to protect the anonymity of interviewees, I have not included specific job titles. The limitations of the sample arose from the serendipitous nature of interactions with participants and the snowball nature of recruitment. Most of my respondents were white and from the UK. There were two respondents from Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME)16 backgrounds, though requests were sent to try to have a more representative group and to analyse superordinate and intra-category intersections (Brown 2018). For MPs, I had a greater number of Opposition members, though this matched Emma Crewe’s sample and equal numbers of requests were sent. For the House Service, I had a larger representation from the DCCS department, which is because my initial explorations were on the select committee as a gendered scene—that had been less explored in academic literature. For parliamentary researchers, I had a large representation of gay, male government researchers, due to the snowball nature of the recruitment. Illustrative questions that were asked to participants are set out in Tables 3.16–3.18 in the appendix to this chapter.

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Observations This section discusses more specifically the observations. Participant observers start out fairly non-selective in terms of what they observe (Denscombe 2014, p. 207) and work towards a progressive focussing. Table 3.11 refers to the scope and planning of my research engagements. Macro-observations were large and in-discriminatory to get an ‘overall feel’ for the situation, as a ‘scene-setting’ device. Denscombe calls this ‘holistic observation’ (2014, p. 207). Macro-observation included chamber performances, spending time in the various outlets on the estate, accessing open sources of information, ‘unstructured soaking’ and general unobtrusive methods to map the organisational structure and hierarchy. The meso-level of the diary included pre-planned, more focused observations of parliamentary business announced on the UK Parliament website, Mark D’Arcy’s week ahead and Benedict Brogan’s former Telegraph blog. In terms of micro-level activity, I attended serendipitous events that I was invited to by the member, coffees, events advertised on parliamentary intranet, staff networks, and think tank events that were focussed towards the themes that were emerging in the research. Table 3.11 outlines a general observation diary. (Elite) Interviews The strategy to sampling was discussed above. Tables 3.12, 3.13, 3.14 and 3.15 provide details on the date and format of the interviews. Tables 3.16, 3.17 and 3.18 should only be treated as examples of common questions that were asked in the interviews. I took interview guides, having researched the background for each participant, but the interview guide was used as a prompt to initiate dialogue rather than as unvarying. This means that not all interviews are directly comparable or quantifiable. This is because in practice, the ethnographic research was exploratory and followed issues that participants volunteered. I probed participants’ views, even regarding my own observations from the field. The questions were capillary to elicit ‘everyday’ information relevant to the context and background of the interviewee, and what was happening on the estate during the fieldwork.

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Documentary Analysis Table 3.19 outlines the different methodologies in these documents also need to be attended to. The soft methodologies involved in House of Commons interview projects were criticised as a ‘snapshot’ by one respondent,17 but this response was revealing. Overall, the combined observations, interviews and documents provided a rich set of information. This section has discussed three forms of generation that took place within the field. The next section discusses the quality of the generation of insights and issues of power and (inter) subjectivity. To conclude, to conduct ethnography in the UK House of Commons was an immense privilege. Butler is interested in what is at the limits of representation. This is only a very partial study and from one set of eyes behind the spectacles. I firmly feel that ethnography is productive for knowledge and ideas to change institutions and would thoroughly recommend this to other scholars and hope that higher education institutions provide the resources to support the time-intensive placement.

Notes 1. This included a conference and summer recess, which I have not counted in my formal fieldwork period but I was still in the field yo-yoing to conduct interview research. It also helped me to appreciate the pace and different rhythms of parliament. 2. Field is a problematic term in anthropology, for at least three reasons: (1) How do you map a field? It should be sensitive to participants’ boundaries that they create of their fieldsites; (2) it objectifies relations and creates the participants as inert ‘objects’; and (3) it is near on impossible for the researcher to extricate themselves from ‘the field’ separate from the researcher’s own current and prior working worlds and the ways that they construct them. 3. Studies have addressed the career dynamics of congressional staff (Romzek and Utter 1997), the roles of the European Parliament’s staff (Busby and Belkacem 2013; Pegan 2017), researchers at Party Head Quarters (Fisher and Webb 2003), the Conservative Research Unit (Fletcher 2011) as well as young party members (Bruter and Harrison 2009). There is only a sprinkling of detail on researchers across MPs’ autobiographies. Betty Boothroyd for example (2001, pp. 33–38) worked for both Barbara Castle and Geoffrey de Freitas as MPs. Evans has discussed the gender disparities in the Liberal Democrats between Parliamentary researchers (2011, pp. 34–37).

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4. StaffUpCongress: National Initiative for a More Representational Workforce. https://www.staffupcongress.com, by Nancy Pelosi in order to keep up with new representations. https://www.suttontrust.com/newsar chive/unpaid-internships-paving-the-way-into-politics/. If it is organisational connections that get people into parliament on internships such as Universities, can different organisations rather than universities build institutional connections with parliament? IPSA. 5. Interview 19, Female MP, 26 June 2014. 6. Though this comes at a loss since each legislative and constituency political party had very distinctive issues and is institutions in themselves which is an area for further research. 7. Field note, 2 September 2014. 8. Field note, 15 October 2014. 9. Interview 49, Former Female MP, 24 October 2014. 10 Field note, 23 June 2014. 11. Interview 41, Male MP, 4 September 2014. 12. I particularly felt tired, pale, and puffy when conducting a Skype interview with a younger female researcher. 13. Interview 31, Male MP, 15 July 2014. 14. Interview 18, Female MP, 22 July 2014. 15. Interview 12, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 February 2016. 16. BAME is not an uncontroversial term and is used in this book in a strategically essentialist way. 17. Interview 68, Female DCCS Member, 27 July 2016. Black Asian Minority Ethnic.

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PART II

Gendering the UK House of Commons

CHAPTER 4

The Discursive Institutions of the UK House of Commons: An Introduction to the Empirical Chapters

This chapter presents the discursive profile1 through which identity is scripted across, vis-à-vis the UK House of Commons as a workplace. Gender performativity operates through discourses that become institutionalised in workplaces. I argue that the everyday workplace for parliamentary actors in the UK House of Commons is structured by three discursive institutions. These are: the career cycle, citizenship and public service. The career cycle refers to the everyday performance of workplace duties and processes; citizenship refers to inward-looking activity and institutional service performed on the estate which may or may not be explicitly focused around gender; and public service refers to ‘otherregarding’ activity, be it everyday acts of representation, engagement or critique. Each parliamentary actor must navigate a social reality structured by these three ideas and meanings—they are not residual and they can provide significant performative supports to sustain both individual and parliamentary life. These superordinate institutions arose during the fieldwork, though were categorised when writing up, in order to capture a range of behaviour across the three working worlds. They are not fixed but are held together in struggle by heterogeneous, agentic and contradictory performances. They have both centripetal and centrifugal pulls.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Miller, Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6_4

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This means that they can simultaneously attract actors—that is interpellate actors and repel them at the same time. These three broad discursive power structures at play within the UK House of Commons are hung together by rules, norms and everyday performances. These are not necessarily functional to the everyday but can also be quite counter-productive when they assume particular forms, yet they are constitutively open to being taken up differently. This chapter now introduces the three discursive institutions. Because these were observed inductively in the field, each section is structured by: (1) how they arose in the fieldwork inter-subjectively (Erikson 2017); (2) how this connects to existing literature, vis-à-vis academic treatments of adjacent concepts; (3) what a feminist, if not Butlerian inflection of these concepts might look like, based upon a Butlerian social ontology; and (4) how these discussions then guide the kinds of rules, practices and performances that are examined for this book in the UK House of Commons.

4.1

Career Cycle

The first meaning that structures everyday life on the parliamentary estate is the ‘career cycle’. This refers to field members’ everyday enactment of and progression through their workplace responsibilities. The concept ‘career cycle’ was proffered over ‘career pathway’. This is because time’s arrow and time’s cycle are conceptualised as masculine and feminine temporal words, respectively (Felski 2000, p. 19) and so I wanted to disrupt this hegemonic discourse. The career cycle is perhaps quite apt for a parliamentary term that goes through cyclical sessions and condensation points of parliamentary activity and research tasks, for example the statement for the budget, specific speeches, set pieces, the Queen’s speech, types of casework that arise, and elections. An MP who may have started in a by-election and other parliamentary staff can be recruited along any of these times in the parliamentary session. Continuity and knowledge was a discourse in the field when there is high turnover in some posts or rotation, such as a parliamentary researcher leaving their office, a MP being promoted to cabinet minister and leaving a select committee, or staff being rotated in the House Service. The discourse of career in UK politics remains inflected with careerism or career-mindedness and certainly politicians and staff in this parliament discussed the New Labour and Coalition

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years where high-profile transitions from advisor to MP have been widely remarked upon. The career cycle arose as a discourse in the field due to contemporary debates around the professionalisation of the House of Commons; the growth of MPs’ staffing budgets; the social status of working in parliament as a profession; internal complexity in the House of Commons strengthened by the Wright Reforms to Select Committees; and a Cabinet reshuffle that happened during the fieldwork. The use of secondments in the House Service from the civil service and an open period of struggle around an ill-fated application to the post of Clerk of the House also foregrounded notions of career, job descriptions, and expertise. The House Service has a corporate identity as an employer (Rush 2005, pp. 113–135; Seaward 2011, p. 101). This is evidenced in Speaker Bercow’s address to the Trade Unions Congress in 2015. Furthermore in the House Service, there was a discussion of workplace ‘firsts’ (Verge and Pastor, 2018) in hires such as Rose Hudson as the first black female Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons; Jill Pay as the first female Serjeant at Arms; and Kamal El Hajji as the first BAME and Muslim Serjeant at Arms. When connecting the career cycle to academic literature, there has also been an academic debate about the professionalisation of politics as opposed to politics as a vocation in new and older parliaments. Cindy Rosenthal (1998a, p. 83) and Alan Rosenthal (1998b, pp. 54–66) have both conceptualised the professionalisation of legislatures and legislators. Cindy Rosenthal suggests: Legislators in professional legislatures are more likely to identify themselves as full time, to have no other employment or substantial interests outside the legislature, and to have access to large staffs to develop policy expertise. (1998a, p. 83)

The career cycle is unique to different parliaments, since some parliaments are geared towards working parliaments and debating parliaments, meaning a different career structure for elected members and unelected staff. This might vary between older and younger parliaments, the development of their select committee system and language requirements. Indeed, the institutional developments of parliaments can impact on career behaviour (Daniel 2015), especially if the politicians are policyseeking and so does the electoral incentive. For example in the European

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Parliament, there may be more career-minded politicians because the electoral connection is weaker (Hix and Hoyland 2013). Legislative careers are seen as a proxy on how transformative MPs see the legislature in terms of policy-making and in turn, careers can impact on how legislatures function (Mackenzie and Kousser 2014). The career also has been studied in terms of longevity with a ‘final term effect’ in national legislatures as seen to be shirking legislative effort. The professional ambition literature tells us that 82% of the 2010 intake of 232 MPs in the UK Parliament wanted to make politics a career (Korris 2011, p. 1). Career can use different conceptions of temporality. Political and social scientists have examined the (pre and post) parliamentary careers of MPs (Norris and Lovenduski 1995; Allen 2012; Byrne and Theakston 2016) and ‘constituency careers’ with distinctive stages (Fenno 1978, p. 171), whilst Daniel considers the career as an institution (2015).Therefore, career can be analysed more expansively. Feminist and Butlerian-inflected studies explore the ‘performative enactment of career’ (Rai and Spary 2019), looking at the various practices and performative supports that sustain a parliamentary career. This book shares such an approach. It explores practices such as recruiting candidates for posts; the daily transactions of employment; and the discursive struggles beneath rules that sustain careers; acquisition of skills, expertise, status and recognition; and the efficient use of the body, within the parliament; and attention to who is/not seen as competition to the actualisation of a career. Recruitment for example is a part of the routine, cyclical process of everyday organisational life. Respondents provided detailed accounts of their attempts to successfully navigate recruitment and progression procedures that, in turn, revealed often concerning insights into the refusal of new forms of potentiality via some of the recruitment practices that are risk averse. To understand how gendered norms are reproduced in the UK House of Commons, we can ask: What are the rules-in-form and rules-in-use and ritualised everyday gender/worker acts that sustain a career at the microlevel? This may be around practices such as: recruitment, job rotation, responsibilities, inter- and intra-office relationships and the acquisition and enactment of leadership positions. How do different actors respond to these positionings, and how might career cycles be reconfigured to be more equitable?

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Citizenship

The second discursive institution is citizenship. This is something that binds and connects political actors through place, culture and presents diffuse sets of obligations towards each other. Rather than conceptualising citizenship as a legal institution, citizenship was observed as a workplace discursive institution. A Commons’ citizenship refers to inward-looking mundane rituals of daily contact, and shared social ties, that reinforce status as members of the parliamentary estate and produce a shared organisational life. We can see that this has arisen intersubjectively. Parliament has an ‘institutional life’ and some scholars have critiqued that this dynamic has been wilfully omitted from strategies for change (Childs 2018). This is interesting since Lowndes suggests that there a threshold concept is that these are recognised by actors (2019), yet Childs intimates an institutional unwillingness to formally recognise this culture, which makes it difficult to politicise. However, the idea of a ‘parliamentary community’ is now institutionalised in texts such as Dame Laura Cox and Gemma White QC’s reports with regard to the workplace cultures in the Commons, so ‘community’ is starting to be institutionalised in workplace texts. Citizenship is spatial and is related to place. An ‘imagined community’ (Andersen 2006) was articulated in a village vernacular, in-house publications, consumption outlets, break out spaces used by different categories of staff, such as the first floor by the vending machine in Portcullis House being used by auxillary staff that researchers did not use, and an underground train station. Citizenship is enacted in and through claims to spaces; locale and places of consumption. The House of Commons was formerly a ‘gentleman’s club’ (Port 2002, Jogerst 1993, p. 124) and has experienced wider commercialisation. Citizenship is more pronounced in the UK House of Commons, compared to some other legislatures such as the French assembly, because French MPs spend more time in their constituencies and less time in Paris (Poyet 2018). Citizenship is institutionalised in second homes and long hours. Furthermore, Citizenship as a text can be used in public in order to build a putative identity of a community. In this sense, Parliament has been ‘consciously or otherwise’ building an ‘institutional identity’ online and offline (Kelso 2007, p. 372). Citizenship may be inter-institutional and performed vis-à-vis its relationship to the House of Lords. Cris Shore perhaps approximates a study of an institutional subjectivity whereby he talks about how staff come to speak

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as the Commission ‘we’ (2000). Citizenship is also fostered by those who share a historical context, such as an electoral campaign. Everyday citizenship involves recognition—performed through practices of looking. Mulvey’s gaze (2009) is important for ‘absent audiences’ such as the Twittersphere and this increases the audience of the parliamentary estate. The proposal of a crowd-funded app ‘ParliApp’ and ‘Eye Spy MP’ presents intrigue about the estate and (re) produces its inhabitants as parliamentary citizen-subjects. It’s a highly mediated institution and attracts spectatorship from academics, journalists and tweeters. This has made the everyday more spectatorial since the ‘gazed upon’ is more important. There is an imputed familiarity because many of the actors are household names such as the journalists. Media is endogenous to the estate because of the press lobby, are interlocutors of the affective mood and reflect back to the public the ‘news’ that they think they want to hear. Political scientists have identified the intracameral communal and informal aspects of legislatures as institutionalised to perform functions such as information sharing (Norton 2018). In his discussion of state legislatures in the USA, Alan Rosenthal discusses this in a functionalist way: Community encompasses the culture and norms of the legislature. It requires some level of agreement on the need for civility and some manifestation of collegiality. Informal socializing among legislators helps to build community. In most places such interaction has been in decline in recent years; nonetheless, it remains an element of institutionalism, and one that seems to facilitate the performance of legislative functions. (Rosenthal 1999, see also Rai 2015, p. 160)

This interaction might be for example practices such as ‘button-holing’ a Minister in the informal space of the parliamentary division lobby. Feminist approaches towards citizenship stress the performative notion of citizenship and seek to gender citizenship. They invite approaches to citizenship that have respect for human dignity and favour the development of well-rounded individuals in the workplace. In this trajectory, Gherardi has provided the concept of ‘gender citizenship’ in organisations in order to have gender equality actively recognised in workplace citizenship, rather than neutralised. This might mean practices of affirmation for relationships, coupledom, family and parliamentary actors from multiple

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backgrounds. Indeed, kinship has been discussed in congress (Weatherford 1985). Perceptions of gender citizenship are important because they might influence how changes to the gendered rules are perceived and how engaged workers feel in an organisation (Gherardi 1995). An organisational culture is indeed important for distinguishing the meaning of gender. Parliamentary and legislative friendships have been developed as an area of analysis in feminist legislative studies (Smooth 2001; Childs 2013) showing that social relationships in parliaments and legislatures are important for building ‘winning coalitions’ and race and gender and perceived reputation and influence can be mediating aspects. Indeed legislative friendships might involve visits to the constituency and to help in campaigns. It is then important to explore what facilitates and provides the basis of the formation of different friendship groups and interactions in parliaments and how political actors spend social time in the UK House of Commons. Citizenship might also be the space where emotional labour is enacted when parliamentary actors are experiencing challenging times in their work and private lives. Feminists have also sought to gender a key workplace concept which is Dennis Organ’s Organisational citizenship behaviour, hereafter OCB (1988). Organ defined OCB as pro-social discretionary behaviours, that are not formally recognised, but that help towards the functioning of organisations. Pro-social behaviours such as altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, civic virtue and sportsmanship have been gendered as masculine (Kark and Waismel-Manor 2005) and are in Organ’s treatment disentangled from particular institutional contingencies. Whilst some authors describe OCB as public service (Rayner et al. 2012), I categorise these behaviours analytically under ‘citizenship’, since these are ‘inwardlooking’ towards the construction of a communal culture within the parliamentary estate (Gherardi 1995, p. 166), for example, becoming involved in the governance of the House of Commons on domestic committees. To understand how gendered norms are reproduced in the UK House of Commons, we can ask: What are the rules-in-form and rules-in-use that govern citizenship acts and ritualised everyday gender/citizen acts that produce a ‘Commons citizen’ and what gender(ed) norms are forcibly cited in these? How do field members respond to their positioning in these acts and rules, and what would a more equitable Commons citizenship might look like?

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4.3

Public Service

The third discursive institution that arose was public service. Public service arose inductively in emic discussions of low remuneration and reward in relative terms. It also arose in emic and etic reformulations and repositionings of debates on legislative ethics such as developing principles, frameworks, instruments and sanctions, to compel public servants to practice power and accountability responsibly, such as debates around: the Nolan principles, parliamentary expenses, term limits and the right of recall. Public service is insistently (re)cited as an individual endeavour, in memorialisation such as paintings, busts and in a Speaker’s lecture series devoted to ‘eminent parliamentarians’. MPs and former House Staff receive OBEs, MBEs and political appointments into the Lords. Conquest, sacrifice and courage through military service are still residually exalted. Public service is commemorated in the parliamentary chamber and a medal display at the time of study. All field members, (un)consciously had chosen a career in public rather than commercial life and parliaments are key sites of identity-building practices, especially around partisanship and the making of legislation is normatively informed as well as managed affectively through indignation. Participants also discussed the inspiring a/effect of observing MPs and workers performing public service behaviours and how it had a contagious and citational effect on them—parliamentary actors wanted to work around those they respected. The section now discusses the adjacent social sciences literature on public service. Despite the ubiquity of public service discourses, political science has hitherto ‘sneer[ed]’ at the idea of public service because of rational choice biases and because it is less amenable to measurement (O’Toole 2007, p. 1). The contemporary public servant has been discussed more fulsomely in local government studies (Lowndes 2005, p. 292; Needham and Mangan 2016; Copus 2016, p. 81), but is also being discussed in the legislative ethics literature (Gay and Rush 2004; David-Barrett, 2015; Cini 2019). Public service as a discursive institution is performed differently in parliaments. For example, the Indian Parliament was formed in the heat of nationalist politics necessitating a particular form of representation (Rai and Spary 2019), whereas in the UK, public service has its antecedents in the administration of the empire where the state needed a moral basis for its expansion (Plant 2003, p. 560). A critical conception of the public

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service ethos conceptualises it as a power/knowledge system that protects the Westminster Model and: ‘the political neutrality of officials and their pecuniary and moral integrity’ (Richards and Smith 2000, p. 56). This dovetails with a feminist discursive institutionalist project that asks what discourses ‘do’. Public service is situated in broader discursive debates about the relationship between gender, work and public service (Griffin 2018). Whilst these discourses have always been entrenched, MPs’ articulation of the role of a public servant as/with/distinct from their former occupations is notable (Parker and Pickard, 2015). Traditionally, an ethical commitment to a career was more prevalent in skilled jobs that were seen as meaningful (Tolsen 1977). Class also played a further role in the discourse of public service that was fostered in elite English education that inculcated moral behaviours to lead others. This requires being capable of a ‘leader’ and to ‘lead’ and direct others in the domain of action and thought: Eton is a school which is dedicated to public service…It’s one of the few schools where the pupils really do run vast chunks of the school themselves, so they don’t defer in quite the same way. They think there’s the possibility of making change through their own actions. (Jesse Norman MP, in Sylvester and Thompson, Times, 27 April 2013)

Indeed, class is also invoked in Michael Gove, the Cabinet Secretary’s speech on public service, who reminded that MPs could earn more than they earn in public service (Gove 2020). Other legislative literature on public service has had a focus on how the private is the public’s constitutive other and has emphasised the personal costs as well as gratifications for performing efficacious other-regarding activities. Reeher examines public service by documenting the private costs. Indeed Reeher’s book on legislative public service is called: ‘First person political’ puts a personal face on everyday political life. 74% of respondents to the Hansard Audit of political engagement 11 wanted MPs to make personal sacrifices (2006, p. 6). Feminist treatment of public service is interdisciplinary, drawing on the proper use of power in bullying and harassment, on motivations and broader purposes, and on broader conceptions of ethics such as feminist ethics, affective ethics, the space for agentic practices, trainings, helpseeking and practices of critique. Connell suggests that ‘gender equity…is likely to benefit from an ethos of public service [because]…[g]ender

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equality is part of the model of a good society that public sector actions should seek to build’ (2006, p. 848) but this should be an empirical question rather than treated a priori. We can ask whether public service is a gendered regime of truth as it is constituted in its current form. For example, it can lead to a gendered division of labour. Flammang counterpoises a feminised public service in America such as the League of Women’s Votes, to the more masculine and ambitious career cycle and associates women with constituency service and civic connections (1985). This is residual in Primrose League activism in the Conservative Party, whereby women were regarded as better canvassers and constituency MPs and was contrasted by an activist in my study with ‘Whitehall men’.2 However, in UK local government, Bochel and Bochel (1996) cited in Mackay (2001, p. 95) found that a greater percentage of male Scottish councillors were motivated by public service than female councillors: 33 to 24%. Policy-wise, developments in the UK’s equalities architecture has a Public Sector Equality Duty contained in Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, which requires public authorities to have due regard to a number of equality considerations when exercising their functions. In terms of the values that inform public service, Butler was initially sceptical of ethical frameworks because they moved away from questions of power. However, Butler’s theory is a responsibility-sensitive account. Alterity relates to Butler’s ethical positioning and conception of discursive responsibility that is outlined in ES. Moreover, her work took a further turn towards ethical practice in ‘Giving an account of oneself’ (Lloyd 2015). She was initially sceptical of a heightening of moralism. For Butler, to the extent that she talks about ethics, she suggests that they are linked up in biopolitical questions and questions about the allocation of value, such as whose life is important and needs to be secured through political means; how to acknowledge the life and suffering of another and develop ways to sustain more lives; whose lives are worthy of protections, rights and dignity; and who is dispensable as a being. Public service rests on the fact human beings are relational and therefore obligations arise. A Butlerian approach also helps us to study public service in parliaments since she is interested in whose lives, actions and performances take on a performative efficacy and the fictive categories of sex that public service might hold up, such as women as essentially performing otherregarding behaviour and to biopolitical questions of responding to sexual harassment in the parliamentary workplace.

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To understand how gendered norms are reproduced in the UK House of Commons, we can ask: What are the rules-in-form and rules-in-use and ritualised everyday gender/public service acts that produce a public servant and what gender (ed) norms are forcibly cited in these? How do field members respond to their positioning in these acts and rules and whose public service performances take on a performative efficacy; what would a more equitable public service might look like?

4.4

Conclusion

This small introductory chapter presents three discursive institutions as ‘discursive routes’ (Butler 2007, p. 199) to (gender) identity in the House of Commons. These are: the career cycle, citizenship and public service. Granting entity status to these three aspects of the parliamentary working worlds is important since they are not residual categories but profoundly shape everyday life in the UK House of Commons. They are brought about on the basis of everyday rules, practices and performances. They take on different importances for different actors. Therefore, rather than establishing their hierarchical importance a priori, they have been organised in alphabetical order—each has relative importance at different times for different field members. Any unity is only discursively maintained and they are sites of continuous gender struggle. They hang together by heterogeneous, agentic and contradictory gender performances. It is impossible to capture the discursive institutions in their entirety and there is inevitably an arbitrariness of identifying three. Each chapter will have a slightly different emphasis vis-à-vis these discursive institutions, depending on the insights gathered. The value of the approach presented does not rely on accepting that I have appropriately categorised my empirical material under each ‘discursive institution’. This is because post-positivist discourses are necessarily partial and are not amenable to atomistic study (Blaikie 2007, p. 110). The value is in disaggregating these institutions into components: gendered rules and the performances they produce, to analyse focal points and constructions that constrain and produce gender(ed) identity. Methodologically, ethnography provides the best point of access to make a contextualised reading of how these are enacted. Chapters 5–7 discuss how these discursive institutions are differentially enacted in three

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‘working worlds’ and what these discursive institutions ‘do’ to performances of gender. Therefore, the next analytic move is to explore rules-inform and rules-in-use that hold these discursive institutions together. The following analytic move is to examine gender/worker, gender/citizen and gender/public servant acts that are constituted by these rules and the options to perform gender within these. Chapters 5–7 in which this analysis is undertaken are: • Chapter 5: MPs: ‘Players’ and ‘Problems’ • Chapter 6: The House Service: ‘Servants’ and ‘Stewards’ • Chapter 7: Parliamentary Researchers: ‘Second Brains’ and ‘TeaGetters’.

Notes 1. These categorisations emerged within the fieldsite and were widely accepted in discussions with participants. 2. Interview 59, Female Peer, 25 June 2014.

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Richards, D., & Smith, M. J. (2000). The Public Service Ethos and the Role of the British Civil Service. West European Politics, 23(3), 45–66. Rosenthal, C. S. (1998a). When Women Lead: Integrative Leadership in State Legislatures. New York: Oxford University Press. Rosenthal, A. (1998b). The Decline of Representative Democracy, Process, Participation, and Power in State Legislatures. Washington, DC: CQ Press. Rosenthal, A. (1999, July/August). The Good Legislature. NCSL State Legislatures Magazine. Available at: https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-leg islatures/the-good-legislature.aspx. Rush, M. (2005). Parliament Today. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seaward, P. (2011). The Idea of Parliament in British Political Culture, Bolingbroke to Brown. Redescriptions, 15(1), 99–124. Shore, C. (2000). Building Europe: The Cultural Politics of EU Integration. London: Routlege. Smooth, W. (2001). Perceptions of Influence in State Legislatures: A Focus on the Experiences of African American Women in State Legislatures. PhD Dissertation submitted to the University of Maryland. Sylvester, R., & Thomson, A. (2013, April 27). Eton Is Dedicated to Public Service’ Says No 10 Advisor Jesse Norman. Times. Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/eton-is-dedicated-to-public-ser vice-says-no-10-adviser-jesse-norman-2bcbs888s9b. Accessed 22 June 2017. Tolson, A. (1977). The Limits of Masculinity. London: Tavistock. Verge, T., & Pastor, R. (2018). Women’s Political Firsts and Symbolic Representation. Journal of Women, Politics and Policy, 39(1), 26–50. Weatherford, J. M. (1985). Tribes on the Hill. In The US Congress: Rituals and Realities. New York: Bergin and Garvey Press.

CHAPTER 5

MPs: ‘Players’ and ‘Problems’

‘It is recess, and I conduct an interview with a sculptor who had spent time working up close with MPs. Whilst in the ‘Despatch Box’ coffee queue in Portcullis House, we both see a male Secretary of State who, the sculptor noticed, seemed bemused that we were not paying him too much attention. We sit at the back of Portcullis House on a table (normally displaying a ‘reserved for members only’ sign). The acoustics are poor with the clattering of coffee cups, we both observe a relaxed male MP in shorts [I later see him standing with his foot up on the side of the plant bed, where school children normally sit]. I ask her about metaphors of mind/body in her installation of MPs. To make her installation, she described sitting MPs on a desk chair that she could rotate at 10 degree angles to take their photos. She described the loud visceral snapping of her Nikon camera as she manually wound the film on. At zero degrees, MPs were in control, and had their public faces on, but as eye contact and control went and when they came round to 360 degrees, they were visually anxious. Anecdotally she suggested that more male participants felt unsettled and some even shut their eyes. When they opened the eyes and she was taking inner and outer eye measurements using callipers they had lost the strong control that they enjoyed in the outside world as she was staring into their inner selves (July 2014).1

What does it mean to say that the everyday parliamentary workplace may be gendered for MPs? The first part of the vignette highlights how © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Miller, Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6_5

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gender-sensitive parliaments work through schemes of recognition—that is, who gets taken seriously (Galligan and Meier 2016) and how categories of ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘masculinities’, ‘femininities’ play into this. The chapter proceeds by discussing the House of Commons as a setting of elections whereby there are elections to key committee chair positions at the beginning of parliaments and also by-elections. It also discusses how select committee chairs perform leadership. It discusses the inner life of the House of Commons and its governance through citizenship. Finally, when discussing public service, the chapter details the subjective experiences, self-censorship and ways that parliamentary participation is increasingly regulated in the face of gender inequality. This raises questions about the traditional categorisation and efficacy of the UK House of Commons as a ‘debating parliament’ where arguments are robustly articulated and enabling good societal links.

5.1 Performing the Career Cycle---The Select Committee Select committee work is the norm for UK parliamentary backbenchers. The committee system engages both governing and opposition MPs— there are more select committee memberships than Ministerial posts (Goodwin et al. 2020). In contrast to other parliaments, there are no limits on how many committees an MP can sit on. The Liaison Committee suggested: Westminster is an essentially plenary-based legislature. But as we have seen, over the last forty years, the committees have come to make up an increasingly vital and prominent part of the House of Commons. The House has been often reluctant and laggardly in recognising this fact, but overall the select committees reinforce rather than compete with the work of the plenary. (House of Commons Liaison Committee 2019, pp. 27–28)

It is not surprising then, that according to Strøm: ‘no understanding of the world of parliamentarians can be complete without an account of the committees in which they serve’ (1998, p. 22). Serving on a committee can allow MPs to accumulate resources such as building networks across the House and with civil society; engage in interesting work related to their personal or professional interests; gain visibility and credibility as specialists in a policy area; and bring issues from their constituency into

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the debate. O’Brien notes that serving on a select committee is more likely for newly elected MPs than incumbent MPs (2012, p. 194). This may impress their party leadership for future advancement. From a consideration of Butler in Chapter 2 of this book, it follows that what happens on committee corridor is important—if not performative for gender relations, despite select committees being comparatively weaker in the UK than in other parliaments. The notions of committees are situated in wider debates in parliamentary studies on the relationship between gender, power, and parliamentarisation (Abels 2020), with scholars combining analyses of institutional development of parliaments and career behaviour of its members (McKay et al. 2019). A female MP discussed gendered incentive structures and implied a future negative correlation with the participation of female MPs and the empowerment of select committees: it always strikes me that select committees are a more female way of working but that could be a sweeping generalisation!…I would be really interested to know if the standing of select committees is raised significantly by making them more independent and they are seen as more powerful, then actually if over time, you ended up with more men on them, whereas traditionally you would have more women on them.2

What is happening on committee corridor may then be at the very heart of how we might explore how gender is produced every day in parliaments. There is a substantial international literature on gender and committee participation such as assignments (Heath et al. 2005; Pansardi and Vercesi 2017; Murray and Sénac 2018; Goodwin et al. 2020), and behaviour, roles, and experiences of committee chairs and members in (state) legislatures (De Gregorio 1992; Kathlene 1994; Rosenthal 1998; Kelso 2016; Geddes 2019; Mckay et al. 2019; Crewe and Sarra 2019). Women’s representation in UK select committee chairs improved when they were elected by the whole House (O’Brien 2012). Descriptively there has been a longitudinal gendered division of labour where women MPs are more likely to sit on both ‘feminine’ committees and ‘low prestige’ committees and there is still a gendered division of labour in which committees they contest as chairs (Goodwin et al. 2020). Furthermore, when serving on select committees, women and BAME MPs were less likely to occupy a role as a policy specialist and were spread across different

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subject areas and for relatively short periods of time (McKay et al. 2019, p. 814). Building on these descriptive statistics and observations, this section qualitatively ‘fleshes out’ some of these findings and provides the first qualitative analysis of gender and UK select committees, post the 2010 reforms, using a feminist discursive institutionalist lens. Kelso suggests that we should analyse: ‘more lowly political figures who may not automatically spring to mind in the context of political leadership’ (2016, p. 124, see also Geddes 2019). The focus of this section is firstly on MPs’ experiences of chair elections, and then secondly how chairs perform committee leadership, once elected. Each section proceeds by discussion of (in)formal institutions. 5.1.1

Rules with Gendered Effects? Elections to Select Committee Chair Positions

Formally, the rules for the election of Select Committee Chairs are set out in Standing Order 122B.3 122A also states that chairs can only serve as chair of a committee for two parliaments. In contrast to Ministerial posts, candidates for Chair positions can self-nominate, but must be supported by 15 sponsors from the same party or 10% of MPs from the House, whichever is lower and elections are held by a secret ballot. The process to become a Select Committee chair through election is the result of recommendations of the ad hoc Reform of the House of Commons Committee, otherwise known as the ‘Wright Reforms’. Elections to select committee chairs were part of a broader package of reforms that focussed on greater democracy in the House, to increase not only select committee’s public standing, but also parliament’s intra-parliamentary standing vis-à-vis the executive. Formally, the committee chair posts are allocated to the parties at the start of parliament according to the proportionality principle. However, some developments have arguably fallen short such as the government’s support for the Women and Equalities Select Committee being conditional upon there being a conservative chair (Bercow 2020), though this could be interpreted as the Conservative party wanting to ‘own’ the equalities issue and that the first chair, Maria Miller MP had lobbied hard for the creation of the committee. In other parliaments, there is gender mainstreaming in terms of the committee’s chairs and vice chairs. In the European Parliament for example, committee VicePresidents have to be gender-balanced. There was no such formal rule

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in the UK Parliament. Formally, Women MPs, being a critical mass at 34% in the 2019 General Election, form a sizeable voting constituency as electors, but is not a guarantee for choosing a feminist candidate. Once MPs secure a nomination to stand for chair and then to be elected, it is then the responsibility for candidates and their supporters to campaign. Canvassing support, not just from co-partisans but from the whole House, and the movement of patronage away from the Whips, is seen to be more collaborative. The House, Parliament’s in-house magazine published candidate statements for the two defence and health by-elections and candidates participate in hustings (see Geddes 2019, p. 63). Furthermore, the candidate statements are printed in Parliament’s official communications. Candidates can lay out their expertise and credentials. However, informally there can be topic extinctions, such as gender equality and the following participant noted that she did not attend hustings and takes a partisan perspective: for the PLP there were hustings, I presume that there must have been one for the 1922 committee but I didn’t go to it but I had already decided that I was voting for X anyway. I thought that anyone who could cause that much trouble for the government by just sitting on the backbenches would be a very good as a Select Committee Chair! [Laughs]4

Beneath these formal and informal practices as constraints, gender could be performed in multiple ways beneath elections, especially because these are low information environments. Candidacy strategies at the time involved gaming—the manipulation of time and withholding one’s campaign literature until last5 to outshine others, or fighting for floor time to make a pitch in departmental questions in the chamber. Overzealous embodied lobbying efforts were described as bothersome this is just so funny- people who are writing to me who have been really rude to me in the past …there were these little cliques going around “well these people want that person but they don’t mind who you vote for as long as you don’t vote for that person”…we all got there and they were all standing outside the door in a row all the blokes…on the day of the vote waiting and someone said “is this the picket line”…one of them actually had a rosette on that had his name on it and I just thought “does he not know who he is?” It was ridiculous. But that was very blokey yeah6

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The duration of the election period also interacted with the experiences of the elections for the defence and health select committee chairs. I got lobbied less on the health one but I think that might have been a timing issue and that there were less people standing. I have a feeling that there were more for defence. The process felt very similar to me. Except that one seemed to go on forever and ever and ever and ever and we were all heartily fed up with it by the end but and with the health one, it had the opposite: that it happened really quickly. We had hardly got into our heads that it was happening and you had to suddenly make your mind up.7

There was an informal acceptance of partisan politics as an enduring aspect in the elections. One MP after having to vote for the opposite party said: ‘all sorts of Machiavellian considerations get taken into account8 ’. A point that drew attention to these rules in select committee elections came in January 2020. The newly elected Coventry MP, Zarah Sultana, who had been in the House of Commons for at most, 19 sitting days expressed dissonance for voting for the opposite party. She threw candidates’ fliers on the bin for the Defence Select Committee elections and posted this on Twitter. There are two interesting issues here around rules. One is the subject position and presumption that she did not know the party proportionality rule on the committee chairs being pre-allocated when the discomfort for voting for an opposite party was anticipated by the Wright Committee itself (Reform of the House of Commons Select Committee 2009, p. 30). Bracketing this, if she did not know, the second question is how to respond when ‘mistake anxiety’ is higher for younger female politicians (Erikson and Josefsson 2018) and abuse in other contexts is aimed at non-centrist women (Kuperberg 2019). Her outspoken partisanship was openly sanctioned, when she had been an MP for 19 sitting days. Criticisms from the public were imbricated in a workplace discourse, that it was her job to cast a vote for her constituents and to decide on this matter. The elections to committee positions are nested in a broader gender regime in the UK Parliament and we know that descriptive marks and gestures and comportment are important to show markers of leadership. Puwar notes that ‘white male bodies of a specific habitus…are valorised as the corporeal presence of political leadership’ (2004, p. 141). A male MP

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was negatively appraised by a parliamentary researcher for having experience in his policy field but for being ‘less serious and professional’9 and so was unlikely to meet the gravitas of the defence committee chair. According to an image consultant interviewed for this book, to achieve images of competence for women in the UK Parliament, bodily disciplining can include: ‘not wearing dangling earrings’, wearing ‘studs and a watch’10 and learning to project one’s voice. Indeed, norms of behaviour that hail MPs into being a parliamentary player included performing ‘swagger’; a proximity to the party leader; and a large staffing team: ‘There’s just a lot of swagger you know, a lot of swaggering as if you don’t belong anywhere. And I suppose for me it’s slightly better because I’m an older woman, I’m a bit invisible, older women here are invisible but if you’re a younger woman, you have to work harder because they just assume that you’re, because there is a clique of people who assume that all younger women, the point of them is there to be like ogled and looked at so ‘if that’s not what they’re there for then why are they here?’

In terms of the opportunities for MPs to gaining recognition as parliamentary leaders, more integrative institutions have ‘empathic appreciation’ of ‘intertemporal preferences’ (March and Olsen 1989, pp. 143– 144). In this context, the new system of committee assignment brought about subjectivities of ‘missing out’ under older systems where MPs’ capacities to bring themselves into being by converting preferences into assignments were lower. This pressure for discursive unity for the advancement of some women as a group makes it hard for other women to advocate for themselves. Furthermore, groups vote in blocs in intra-party and intra-parliamentary elections, such as new intakes and prior to the 2015 election, a large Scottish bloc was identified for example in the previous Labour shadow cabinet elections (Annesley 2015, p. 634). A male backbench MP suggested that elections to chair positions are facilitated by behavioural norms that have a ‘me me me’11 approach and militated against men and women who are lower profile, less institutionally legible and less comfortable with projecting a self-narrative. This meant that some cohorts and individual MPs felt overlooked and their former subjectivities ‘carried over’ into the new arrangements. This will of course be less relevant for chair elections in later parliaments, but it is an interesting insight for any programme of institutional change.

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MPs in this study and elsewhere have described the lack of knowledge of candidates combined a high turnover in new intakes as the selectorate in a low information environment leading to a leadership aesthetic of a ‘beauty contest’ for Chair positions since new MPs didn’t know the contenders were and thus there was a reliance on identity as capital. In 1997, the turnover was 37%, in 2010, it was 35%, and in 2019, it was 22%. If the elections are soon after the General Election and there is less time to prepare and that in inter-party elections, knowledge about the candidates is even lower, informational shortcuts are made (O’Brien 2012, p. 200). It may matter in an environment where there has been a gendered turnover of cohorts. The MP reiterated how this is strange for democracy ‘it just tends to be you relying on other people to tell you who you should vote for, which is a peculiar aspect of democracy’37 .12 Furthermore, if women and BAME MPs occupy the position of a ‘policy generalist’ more than a specialist as Goodwin et al’s study suggests (2020), then this can limit their electability, if committee service and expertise is a factor. As well as structural factors of committee placements, the abilities to account for relevant backgrounds outside of the select committee system are varied: CM: Is your professional background valued here? P: No in fact I suspect that most people don’t know about it because I never talk about it…I have a marginal seat so I’ve spent an awful lot of my time, I think rightly, trying to do a good job as a constituency MP….I’m not good at sort of promoting myself the way that some other MPs are because I just don’t like it’.13

Categories of gender could also be performed positively. In Margaret Hodge’s account of her own career, gender affected how she approached the process of chair elections. Hodge had cabinet experience, but in low information environments, performances of gender are not insignificant. She drew on symbolic representation discourses derived from sex, of being a ‘symbolic first’, to lobby other women MPs, noting that there had never been a female office holder in the long-established Public Accounts Committee, and appealed to women’s shared gender identity (O’Brien 2012, p. 189). Indeed, several women MPs are attitudinally feminists (Childs 2004). Therefore, this subjectivity could be harnessed. Agency is perhaps expressed whereby Hodge articulated her capacity for leadership, in acts that made career references exogenously from the parliamentary

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estate, having seen ‘off a challenge’ in her constituency from the British National Party. This section reflects on the UK House of Commons as a peculiar electoral environment and how chair aspirants and electors navigate and conceive of this context. Beneath the formal rules, there are performances of gender that keep the elections going, especially in low information environments. The Wright reforms—though positively appraised by all MPs—still have (1) gaming in elections (2) gender acts of ‘firsts’, (3) militate against those who are less institutionally legible as potential candidates to put themselves forward. 5.1.2

Gendered Actors Working with the Rules: Committee Chairs Performing Leadership

This section explores the strategies of performing leadership from committee chair positions. Images elongating male leadership are adorned around the House of Commons in marble busts, room names, statues and art. Indeed, ideas of political leadership of a more ‘mundane kind’ (Rai and Spary 2019, p. 274) are present, throughout the everyday. Rather than conceptualising leadership as a trait that MPs ‘have’ or ‘are’, we can conceive of leadership as performed. Leadership is often seen as a behavioural concept (Helms 2014, p. 195) but institutional rules may compel and constrain performances. Rather than treating leadership as implicit, political science has recently taken a more institutionalist approach to leadership (Leach and Lowndes 2007; Helms 2014; Annesley 2015; Annesley et al. 2019). Leadership is not a gender-neutral concept and is both sex specific and gender specific (Sjoberg 2014, p. 73). Formally, committee chairs are constrained by the powers, procedures and functions of their committees. UK select committees are less powerful than the US congress committees. The UK Parliament’s committees perform scrutiny, rather than policy-making. Committees may compel individuals to attend oral hearings, and request documents through exerting reputational pressure. They can also initiate their own inquiries. However, they have no formal role in the legislative process, other than the executive having to respond to a report within two months, and no veto powers. A clerk of the committees notes four tasks of a select committee chair (Evans 2017) outlined in Table 5.1. I take these to be formal tasks since they are coded in writing. Crewe and Sarra note that these are ‘an

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Table 5.1 Key tasks of a committee chair 1. 2. 3. 4.

Holding the committee together Providing support and direction to the committee’s staff between formal meetings Ensuring that members may contribute to the choices of topics, questioning, sessions, final reports, Providing the committees public face

idealised version of how chairs help committees meet their goals but reveal little about the complexity and changeability of what this entails emotionally, culturally and politically’ (2019, p. 844). This book adds to Crewe and Sarra’s discussion of these elements, by discussing some of the subject positions that gender is performed through. 1. Holding the Committee Together Formally, chairs preside over the business and conduct of select committees. There are smaller committee sizes than in the Italian and European Parliaments, which may make it easier to form bonds. Because chairs are elected by the whole House, rather than the committee itself as the sole electorate, informally, the Chair might not see their authority as beholden to the committee and some chairs have interpreted the institutionalised mandate to run their committee as a ‘chieftain’ (Geddes 2019). A clerk compared three leadership approaches: The ‘“hyper-active” who are non-consultative, the “obsessive” who manipulate their way to get what they want, and ‘“the weak”’, who either wilfully or inadvertently cannot bring their committee members with them”’14 . Leadership can be mimetic: X was my first Chair and I think that I learnt a lot from his technique ofas a Liberal…he was in the Opposition but it was a different Opposition from the official Opposition and I think that I learned a lot from him about how you bring people in and make sure that they have their say.

Whilst one clerk praised a chair’s ‘natural way of uniting members who are not all performers to make a fighting force’15 (emphasis added), performativity calls on us to consider how subjects are continuously

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constituted as leaders through various performances and how this can involve gender. ‘We had a witness in…and the Chair said “well I think that we are all reasonable Gentlemen around this table” so I went “excuse me”? and he just like batted me away and carried on, but I really was annoyed. And so the clerk said to him after a few minutes “actually, she is actually really annoyed” so during the committee, he came round- the Chair, and he knelt down next to me and said, this is another thing that annoys me, he mispronounced my name and he knows how to pronounce my name but he always says it as if he knows it better than me- how to pronounce my own name. He said ‘X, [pronounced wrongly] I’m very sorry, I must apologise, I accidentally elevated you to the position of honourary gentleman”.16

These performances are arguably performative—they order the arrangements for select committees because this MP would sit at the foot of the horseshoe to remain out of the chair’s vision. It also shows how clerks have to assess the mood of the committee as discussed in the following chapter. Chairs’ performances were regulated by organising out a disciplinary identity away from the public: CM: How as a chair, do you work to achieve fewer divisions on your Select Committee? P: ‘I’ll never chastise in public. In my previous profession, I learned that if you give someone a dressing down in front of other members, particularly if it was a bully as well, then the macho thing comes in and it makes them worse so my tellings off…were always done on the quiet…. You didn’t give them the ability to grandstand… the best discipline …[is] invisible17 ’.

Misplaced kindness was seen to be ineffective: I believe sometimes, that she is too kind to all of us and perhaps occasionally lets us all ramble on a bit too much18

A male chair engaged opposite party members personally through communicating knowledge of ‘low league football teams19 ’. In his leadership, he performed attributes that are culturally coded as ‘masculine’

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in order to shirk status and power and build closeness and friendship (see also Hammarén and Johansson 2014). My etic interpretation of this chair’s behaviour was that the (older) age of the male chair and his deputy developed their identities as male selves in an environment that arguably fetishises (middle-class) youth. Another explanation is that this was a (working) class indulgence by the two men. By contrast, a female chair reported being adaptive to establish her authority with a senior member on her committee: in the early days he [a committee member] thought that he could control me so there were early tensions that we had to work through to establish our locus…So there was a rather sticky patch at the beginning where he thought that I was probably another useless bit of fluff that he could sort of manipulate. And when I showed that I wasn’t…. We’re both probably quite arrogant…but I think we also both recognise that working together well is to both our mutual advantage… But there was a time at the beginning when I had to sort of establish myself, if I’m honest.20

Whilst homo-social behaviour reduces time when relaying information (Kanter 1993), affiliating behaviours are also targeted at men to impress men in a desire for recognition, rather than in response to organisational aims (Billing 2005, p. 267). This shows that gender identities can have a mediating impact in forging cohesion in committees. This meant relinquishing the role as a disciplinarian can mean anticipating and averting conflict such as displaying toleration for language in order to build relationships around a shared agenda. A female chair said: Some people do call me Chairman and if it’s [men from opposite party], I sort of feel that I do need to get them on board21

Gender relations on the committees were discussed and this is where a good chair might be crucial. These field notes were at the start of a committee meeting and were audible to myself sat in the audience of a committee meeting: A young female committee member wearing a dress kneels down under the desk to plug her phone in. She says “I’m just charging my phone”, “that’s what she claims” says male colleague. Female MP seems fine with this sexualised banter but this could be bravado. Later in the committee, another

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female member walks out, visually upset, in disagreement over something that has been agreed in the pre-meeting. The select committee members blithely ask in front of the witness: ‘is she coming back” intimating that this was frequent irrational behaviour.22

Examples of being undermined in front of witnesses included: being brought in last to ask questions and expected to ask questions on gender—one instance was at a committee outreach event and the MP remarked privately to me: ‘that is not a way to treat your subordinates in front of other people’23 . Informally, parliamentary friendships (Childs 2013; Geddes 2019) in the House of Commons are notable. Whilst friendships can build greater solidarity on a committee, they can also produce homo-social bonding along demographic lines (Bjarnegard 2013). Three MPs reported that being a numerical token female committee member was challenging. One described how her class background intersected with her gender: ‘it’s almost like they’re so pleased to be on the committee and so pleased to be with these other chaps and talking about all this stuff, that they know and “aren’t we clever” and they never actually find anything out. …a couple of the very public school types, one of them nudged the other one and went “where’s she from”? … [one] had an injury on his face and it was a shotgun pellet …then there was this big long conversation that went on about shooting accidents and all about these country sports… two of them…started speaking in Latin to each other [laughs]… and I’m thinking “What?”24

The MP did not perceive this behaviour as effective committee service which defies ‘robustness and forensic rigour25 ’ in select committee inquiries. ‘I mean what do they actually do? And then they get really upset, quite upset really about the impact that other Select Committees have had and hits they’ve made but the reason why the other committee is doing so well is because we’ve left a vacuum. If all we ever do is interview chaps and talk about theory, that’s not what affects people’.26

Participants critiqued technical, ‘alien language’27 (Cohn 1987; Clarke and Roberts 2016):

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X committee was quite different. I may have been the only woman on it so it was quite a challenge. I felt that it was real a challenge to keep speaking up for lay people. (14)

This language differs from the ‘conceived space’—that is the imagined space (Lefebvre 1991; see also Lewicki 2017) of the more modern select committee rooms in Portcullis House. For example, the ‘Debate Artwork—a piece of textile artwork hung in the Wilson committee Room has vivid, bold, active, red sweeping brush strokes to represent realism. The interpellative fabric of the textile artwork, indeed failed to interpellate—that is to hail, some committee members to have a vivid discussion and technocratic language was used. Whilst useful select committee guides have been developed for MPs (White 2015; Evans 2017), some chairs emphasised legal training: I don’t have a legal background. I find that the Members who have been lawyers, particularly if they have done a lot of court work, are much more effective questioners because that is what they’re used to doing in their day job and I didn’t think that I was always feisty enough in some of my questioning so on the back of that we had someone come in and talk us through.

The use of the valued performance ‘feisty’ as a performance is notable and that trainings are sought to perform scrutiny in delimited ways. 2. Providing support and direction to the committee’s staff between formal meetings There has been a change in the nature of a clerk where more is demanded and they have to be a buffer to ‘shield’ the chair, and sometimes to shield the staff from the chair: There are clearly challenges and opportunities. The opportunities are that Select Committees are growing in influence and your career prospects are enhanced but there’s a new breed of chairs who have extremely high expectations of their staff. Many of my counterparts on those committees are expected to work well into the evening446 . A chair might call at 11 o’clock at night frantically asking “if you could talk to so and so”. The clerk gets the brunt of it447

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This clearly has gender implications and the relationship between MPs and the House Staff in general clearly has gendered implications, which is discussed more substantively in the following chapter. 3. Ensuring that members may contribute to the choices of topics, questioning, sessions, final reports Committee work progresses through stages, agenda setting, eliciting evidence and report writing. In terms of agenda setting. Committees have pre-appointment hearings: Before a pre-appointment hearing, the Chair went outside and spoke to the candidate and said to us “this shouldn’t take too long, he is a good chap”. Sometimes, the people that come before us you think ‘I swear I’ve seen that person before’ and you find out. It’s like musical chairs’.

Chairs apportion questions and must balance contributions. When preparing for evidence sessions in pre-meetings, Chairs must balance the suspicions that they want to promote their own agenda and avoid accusations of silencing other members. An unstructured style of allocating questions was described as less effective and reproduced gender hierarchies amongst men according to requisite descriptive marks and gestures: ‘the chair says “right, bid for questions” and we have to shout out for the questions so me and my colleague, it’s one of the reasons we sit together59 , because XXXX has a really quiet voice so he doesn’t get heard and then he gets annoyed because he thinks “this is ridiculous”!’28

One clerk used a sporting metaphor: a cricket bowler to describe the posing of questions.29 A valued style was a rapporteur system, like in the European Parliament, where a chair would delegate to a committee member to take the lead on an inquiry.30 Julian Lewis MP as Defence Committee Chair set up a system where each Member could have an opportunity to chair the defence subcommittee and conduct an inquiry. A further drew identity boundaries between their own chair style and others’ noting reading the committee:

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Some Committees operate very rigidly- you get your seven minutes…whereas … I want to encourage the Members to spark off a question if it’s been sparked off by an answer…But…that can be a problem if people are interrupting and pinching other people’s questions. So that does take a bit more managing as Chair…Because often the person who’s there sitting back looking, you can often tell that they can see the thing that the witness is avoiding answering rather than the person asking the questions, so I don’t think that’s necessarily female or male, I think that’s a style. So there are more women on the committee and does that change the culture? No I don’t know, I don’t think so, it’s more my style of Chairmanship rather than anything else.31

The imperative to deliver a report involves management of staff and committee members’ expertise and relationships ‘before we get to the report stage32 ’, and creates overlap between chairs’ approaches: The hardest meetings are obviously where you are agreeing a report but I use humour a lot as well and you try and cheerily encourage people along and you say “well what are you willing to accept that someone from the other side will say “oh but we want to keep the wording”. And that allowed both sides: the government side to stop it and the Opposition side to say “well we wanted to get it watered down and we still think that”. So it’s just knowing how far and what you need to push.33

This chair used ‘cheerful’ methods—or emotional labour to manage emotions and ‘encourage’ members along (Hochschild 2012). A male chair suggested that ‘personal chemistry is so important’ whilst another described the dynamics on his committee as ‘really warm34 ’. A fourth chair said: I try to be much more consensual, ironically… I sit and have cups of tea with people and… we have away days. I don’t run it as my little empire. I’m much more conscious of being inclusive and participatory.35 on X Committee, you feel that you’re a valuable part of the committee, whereas on the other committee, you feel that it’s the Chair’s committee, but he can’t Chair a committee of no-one so you have to be there for him to Chair it. You feel like a sort of necessary annoyance in a way rather than an actual valuable part.36

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4. Providing the Committee’s public face Chairs perform a number of formal roles such as sitting on the Liaison Committee. Another Chair discussed the ‘kudos’ that accompanies being a select committee chair,37 for example an element of their seniority is being called early in parliamentary debates. Chairs must elicit evidence from witnesses and a tough approach can draw attention to the committee. One chair reported that the lack of select committee powers widens the reasonable limits chairs will need to go to in order to elicit evidence from witnesses: I have very few tools available in my basket…And if that occasionally means tough questioning and a little bit of histrionics I don’t apologise for that … I’ll use it. But I don’t do it for the histrionics sake, I do it for what comes out of it.38

One interviewee attributed the negative appraisal of a chair’s performance to sexism: I think she’s got it absolutely right…sometimes we had far too many inquiries to do… so you only felt like you were scratching the surface of an issue… XXX…can’t be bothered with any of that, she goes straight into the focus and she’s not afraid to take on vested interests and to me that is the strength of select committees… And that is why she has been so successful and it would be a man that criticised her wouldn’t it because she’s upstaged him–big time.39

The MP suggested that she and her colleagues learnt from a female chair and that they were impressed by her ‘making it [a leadership position] her own’. Another participant said: to survive as a Member of Parliament, you do have to be a strong personality and to assert yourself and there’s lots that’s done to undermine your confidence as a women in doing that40

Therefore, positive appraisals were also given for the interactive style of enjoying the performance of being oneself.

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Informally, investigative journalists, whistleblowers and other sources make approaches to chairs with inquiry leads. Indeed, ‘[f]ormal authority is a distant second to that which committees can create for themselves’ (Marsh 2016, p. 98). Chairs perform their profile symbolically when shadowing departments, such as a former Business Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee Chair, Rachel Reeves, joining a picket line outside the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for striking cleaners (Dunton, Civil Service World, 24 October 2019). A female chair jested after I asked about the reaction to her professional identity in the Commons: ‘it’s funny; I’m like an elder statesperson’.41 Observations supported these informal affirmations, such as when walking past a committee chair’s office: ‘a male official met my eye, flashed a smile and made a nod towards the occupant’s door and said to me mischievously “We’re all very envious of that office”’.42 Another MP said: ‘Select Committee work…[is] a really important job and it’s good that we’ve got quite a few women Chairs of Select committees because for me, that’s more of a change than from what I can remember. I mean, probably Margaret Hodge is the best Chair, I mean she has just made it her own, I mean for all of us, we look at her and we think “She’s just doing brilliantly in that job”, just by being herself, really in trying to get to the bottom of things’.43

It is worth noting then that Select Committees do observe each others’ public faces and the kinds of reception they get for their work. To summarise then, Committee Chairs perform these four tasks through institutional constraints, Subject positions such as gender is key then, the targets are more at impressing men, than at. Gender operates in symbolic representation derived from descriptive representation.

5.2

Performing Citizenship

As mentioned in Chapter 4, MPs manage several loyalties and obligations to their colleagues. Citizenship produced gender in three ways (3) a rule-in-use of time preservation leads to intolerant behaviour; (2) governance of the House in the domestic committees of the House still had a largely male membership at the time of fieldwork and information channels operated sub-optimally; (3) the press lobby that is endogenous to

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the parliamentary estate, and party communications teams favour ‘reliable [male] performers’. This section discusses each of these in turn. 5.2.1

Rules-in-Use with Gendered Effects: Time Management

Formally, because of executive control of parliamentary time, temporal manipulations within institutional rhythms were experienced as a form of infantilised control and as an everyday practice of exerting power: it’s this game playing that the Whips’ office has of knowing when you need to be here and when you don’t but they don’t tell you and it’s a way of exerting power…But they like it not working very well. Yeh they do.44

Within these constraints then, MPs have to manage their time the best that they can and a male MP described the need to ‘be discriminating’ in what you do (MP 15). Body language of ‘running around’ was discussed by two rendered participants culturally intelligible as ‘busy’: ‘I thought, “I’ll just be busy and accept everything”. I was running around in circles at the beginning and wanted to be all things to all causes’45

Feeling rules about feeling adequate also operated: ‘I know it sounds quite a bit soft and people might laugh because it’s my dream job and I achieved it…but…everyone was running around really busy and I just remember constantly sitting and thinking “what am I doing here?”46

I explore the iterative settings that MPs must engage with, where rituals of talk, sharing and support are performed. Time management was insistently (re)cited and could affect interactional styles: there is also a weird perception of time at parliament. Everything happens on time. Parliament sits at 2.30 pm…not 2.31 pm. This can lead to a level of intolerance and rudeness, in conversations, you’re always thinking “get to the point. ‘I noticed this [time] profoundly when I was reading a novel. I read the introduction and conclusion first and was like “get to the point, get to the point”. Three months after I became an MP, my election agent came to Central Lobby. I said to him “right, I’m a bit busy, I’ll meet you back here in approximately twelve minutes”. My election agent

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replied “XXXX, humans don’t speak like that”…You know what minute it is[i]’ . 47 ”.

Women engaged in citizenship behaviours and it was felt that ‘women make time’ (McVey, Asda Mumdex, 8 April 2014) such as supporting and participating in each other’s events on the estate90 : A group of backbenchers launch a pamphlet. The heavy and illustrious rooms of the palace with thick carpets and heavy gilted frames feel at odds with the thematic content of the pamphlet: innovating social policy. A female MP who normally wears a trouser suit for her PPS duties, wears a flowing summery pink floral skirt for the occasion and looks relaxed. The backbench MPs, many in the same cohort, have assiduously prepared the pamphlet, but it is the frontbench male politician who is presumed to lend profile to the pamphlet and so is asked to appear in the photos.48

Two former MPs described a gendered bifurcation of free time. This was affected by the negotiation of family schedules, whereas it was felt that men had an abundance of time. The first quote highlights a perception of ‘kidding around’: The men – you would often see them prowling around looking for something to do and they would be doing all the crosswords and the Sudoku’s in the tea room… he (an MP) used to lob messages to me across a committee room saying “I’m bored! Do you want a cup of coffee?”… Women would be heard on the phone saying “well if you do that darling” [comforting voice] to some distraught child.49

The use of ‘everyday’ time is captured in Fig. 5.1, a painting based on four days of observations and sketching. ‘hub of parliamentary activity’ since a thick description details that this located near the doors on the way into Portcullis House that is regularly attended by MPs and staff. The descriptive marks and gestures in the artwork present several gender performances. The male actors in the foreground rest their limbs on the counter leisurely, occupying more space with their upper torsos half turned away from the interaction. One has his head tilted back. They both have a ‘play leg’ crossed over a weighted leg (Wex 2010, p. 121). The female actors both wearing skirts/dresses have large bags and their torsos are thrown forward, by their heels, which are facing the interaction, or perching anxiously in a hunched seated position, with her legs snapped

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Fig. 5.1 The Vote Office by Chloe Cheese ‘The Vote Office–Portcullis House’ by Chloe Cheese, lithograph, edition of 30 (WOA 7377) Commissioned by the UK Parliament Works of Art Committee for their Jubilee Series (https://www.parliament.uk/about/art-in-parliament/news/ 2012/chloe-cheese) 01 June 2012

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closed distracted on the telephone. Her gaze is looking out, waiting for another. One woman is seemingly passing with her fur-hooded coat. The female’s security pass is visible: she must identify herself to security. This implies conditional membership, whereas the males’ are concealed. The men behind the counter are in control of the interaction and are comfortable on their own patch and have an informal style of interaction. It could be interpreted that the staff are represented in lower hues and saturation compared to the MPs. The men are painted in more dominant colours, in solidity; others are more transient. The male figure in the reflection in the distance is shapeless. Apart from possibly the woman in the foreground who is sat at a spatially lower level, all of the figures are wearing dark jackets. At least six out of the seven figures are white. Therefore, this thick descriptive practice by an artist tells us much about gender, power, embodiment and time. To centre Butler’s concept of iteration—that gender is repeatedly performed over time, whilst women have traditionally been associated with repetition (Felski 2000, p. 19; de Beauvoir 2010), regularity and informality are performed in multiple iterations of the ‘same kind of faces’50 in both the bodies and artwork in the MPs’ Strangers Bar. Some Members had drinks informally named after them,51 whilst a female MP was made a ‘stranger’ by being asked if she was a Member, whilst Dawn Butler MP described an altercation with a male MP on the terrace who told her it was for members. These performances and sanctions bring about a sense of regularity. Women were described by themselves and by staff as sitting the terrace in the summer or to celebrate recess a project. The following MP mirrors patterns in other workplaces, where women increasingly seek sociability from their professional networks: sitting on the terrace having a drink of a long summer evening, there’s something really pleasant about all of that and that’s part of the lifestyle that people will criticise, but it’s actually also, for someone like myself who’s single, this is my life and this is my social life as much as it is my work life and I’ve enjoyed it.52

One cartoon entitled ‘Regulars’ was displayed in Strangers bar and a cartoon in Moncrieffs, Press Bar called the ‘Division Bell’ illustrated MPs and journalists running to vote with a pint of beer. Discussing ‘The Regulars’ cartoon that includes MPs with high-profile alcohol problems, a male MP’s replied:

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If you go in [Strangers], there’s all regulars there, it’s all “ho” you know and double you squire and such. But the answer to that is all explanation, education and contextualising and making people visually aware whereas I think that people around here are quite closed to that sort of stuff you know53

Loneliness at parliament was cited by six participants.54,55 Football games provided informal ways of socialising. The tea room was described— in embodied language, as a conducive environment for confidential backbench interaction: It’s like a cocoon. It’s a very, very supportive environment because it’s only Members there and across the political divide as well. So you know, if people have had a tough time you know, the metaphorical arm goes around them. It’s a very nurturing place and my experience is the complete antithesis of macho bravado.56 I love the tea-room… one of the criticisms perhaps of modern parliaments is that they’re less collaborative… It’s all family friendly which is good but we spend less time with each other so it’s less collegiate. There’s something to be said for knowing about where your colleagues are, what their aspirations and concerns are.57

Both male and MPs discussed the decline of community in parliament since longer hours had encouraged presentism. However, participants reported that the dynamics of the tea room changed throughout the day and it is a surrogate for the family. it was pretty male [in the tea room] in the morning. That tended to change throughout the day. There were certain people who seemed to be men, that would spend an enormous amount of time in there actually and you would wonder when they did any flipping work!58

Affiliational relations for Ministerial aspirants are performed in informal spaces (Annesley et al. 2019). Informal succession plans encouraged hedging behind candidates, and ‘hanging around’ in social settings. This had moved from ‘vertical-drinking’ in the Strangers bar to ‘comfy sofas’ in the tea room.59 Citizenship was also performed through cohorts. Friendship could be even more important if backbenchers felt cut out of Leaders’ inner circles. A participant criticised a male member of her intake for being ‘patrician’ upon his ascent into a leadership position:

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we [our intake] kind of look out for each other…we’ve tried to have dinners together and to be quite cohesive as a group. He’s never really been part of that with us whereas another [more combative ‘alpha’] male MP has… He’s quite an aloof character.60

Some actors used a politics of presence and absence as a tool of agency. Butler suggests: ‘[t]here are advantages to remaining less than intelligible, if intelligibility is understood as that which is produced as a consequence of recognition according to prevailing social norms’ (2004, p. 3). A female MP re-negotiated her absence in the bars by drawing on her own professional identity, time preferences and indeed, a workplace narrative: I got some really good advice off a long standing Member of Parliament when I first came here, she said to stay out of the bar…I want people to see me as professional and good at my job, I don’t think sitting in the bar makes you look professional or good at your job (emphasis added)61

MPs’ access to regularity is mediated ideationally by norms about gender and alcohol. An MP deliberately made arrangements to leave her car at the train station referring to stereotypes about women and alcohol: ‘I made a commitment when I first came in that I wouldn’t drink in the bars because it’s very difficult for women as well because a man who drinks in the bar is just a good bloke, whereas a woman who drinks in the bar is a drunk’62

Given the different ways in which MPs participate in the communal life of the estate, which gendered actors work with the rules to manage the spaces and estate that these activities can take place in? This brings me to the next section. 5.2.2

Gendered Actors Working with the Rules: Domestic Committees of the House of Commons

Formally, behind the ‘ceremonial face’ of parliament is its domestic economy (Port 2002). Domestic committees at the time of the fieldwork were numerically dominated by good male ‘House husbands’, who perform a positive commitment to the estate. This departs from other institutions where routine administration is performed by women. Despite them being disesteemed—a female MP brushed off her domestic

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committee service as ‘doing the Whips a favour63 ’ feminist actors’ engagement with the domestic committees is important because the committees conduct inquiries into key occupational and cultural elements of an MP and junior whips may sit on the committee. Historically, Ellen Wilkinson MP used levers in the kitchen committee to act for women MPs such as restrictions to dining arrangements and cramped working conditions (Vernon 1982, pp. 83–84). Women get appointed to the domestic committees at the beginning of parliaments and are promoted off of them. A male and a female MP raised the exclusivity of these committees. A male MP advised me to look at who is here- who is sitting on committees that run allowances, allowances, menus and sitting times. They are self-perpetuating older men that perpetuate the institution of Parliament in their own image. For example with the sitting hours, every battle has to be fought and won.64

The House of Commons Commission was equally criticised: The House of Commons Commission has a bit of a reputation as a sort of hybrid of the Magic Circle and the College of Cardinals. It needs to be able to fish for its members in a wider and deeper pool. It is drawn from too narrow a base of Members of this place and therefore, if it is to command the respect of this place and those who take an interest in its proceedings, that needs to be looked at as a matter of some urgency.65

Younger MPs were discussed as more outward facing from the Commons.66 However, a recent innovation was getting the House of Commons to serve Kosher and Halal food by two younger MPs, Charlotte Nichols and Zarah Sultana who gathered 49 signatures to the Speaker. This suggests that it is not inevitable that younger MPs are not interested in the organisation of the estate. Informally, serving on a domestic committee can allow MPs to experience camaraderie together from knowing how the parliament works. Housekeeping positions took on a more strategic role during coalition government (Annesley and Gains 2012, p. 722). Discourses around the ownership of the estate and being good citizens stick to different bodies. ‘Civic virtue’—that is, responsible and interested participation in the macro-level of an organisation has a history in organisational research (Organ 1988). Being a good citizen often comes with recognition/reward. Exchanges of time and personal capital transform spaces

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into communities. However, MPs suggested that committees were predisposed to conflict and membership resembled members’ ‘bit of power’67 and that ‘old farts’ are put onto these committees68 to feel agentic outside of frontbench posts (Flynn 2012, p. 27); and that committees were insufficiently consultative such as changing the Members’ Centre into a lounge without ‘riff raff’69 —a phrase betraying a bourgeois reading of House rules. Beneath these committees, a ‘good’ parliamentary citizen may share advice. However, colleagues’ performances could be ‘defensive’ and ‘amateurish’73 when approached for advice. This was not malevolent but because running an MP’s office does not lend itself to standardisation. A female MP disagreed: ‘I think that knowledge is part of people’s personal power, I don’t think that there’s much sharing…It’s pretty uncooperative in that way [pooling resources] really and people are sort of battling away at things’.70 In this context then, legislative assistance from the parliamentary administration is important. A female participant was reluctant to ask party colleagues for information: Again if you’re not that kind of person that doesn’t like to bother people and keep asking. I’m more the kind of person who would rather get their head down and figure it out for them self. So they’re [colleagues] there and willing to help, but I just try to muddle through on my own.71

A female MP described her engagements with the parliamentary administration as ‘battling away at things’. This finding was also reinforced by a House of Commons interview study: [MPs]… considered that although staff were generally helpful when asked, women may be less confident at demanding information from staff, and at navigating a system based on knowing who and what to ask. They felt that having staff explicitly available to ask, or more written or on-line information that they could browse themselves, would be more helpful. (Benger 2015, p. 10)

Another female MP discussed receiving ‘information overload…you just get completely flooded with information…and it’s quite intimidating I think72 ’ at the beginning of the parliament. A female MP was positioned as ‘some silly old woman’ (Benger 2014, p. 15) when engaging with these services. Power is exercised in a productive capacity and freezes

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the participant, into a disempowered subject position. Participants cited paternalistic pedagogy that ‘girls’ women: you typically learn the rules here by doing something wrong…no one really tells you, you just find out incidentally.73 there’s a certain leaning towards having officialdom at every turn… it creat[es] a sense of who’s on the inside: who knows what is going on and who doesn’t as it is about conducting good business… I think that it serves those who have been around for a long time…And you will be corrected for it.74

The second quotation alludes to performances of pedagogy. Being ‘corrected’ involves a developmental and maturing narrative—one is wrong and ‘bettered’, which intersects uncomfortably with race and class. Sarah Champion MP received informal benevolent regulations when her curly hair was deemed ‘unparliamentary’, bring into order towards an ‘original’ parliamentary citizen. The House of Commons then, is produced discursively as a gendered organisation through who is recognised as putting labour into the governance of the estate and who is a problem for not knowing. The Commission-based structure (Verrier 2008) with domestic committees as parliamentary pillars as a linkage between MPs and the administration, legislative assistance can be crucial in providing some of the performative supports to members to thrive in the estate. 5.2.3

Gendered Actors Working with the Rules-Politician-Journalist Relations

The media presence on the parliamentary estate makes parliament somewhat qualitatively different from other workplaces. Journalists located on the parliamentary estate play a key role in constructing parliamentary activity boosting the profile of MPs and policies. In this subsection, I analyse gendered actors working with the rules—that is, relationships with political journalists, the Parliamentary Press Lobby and communications officials. Formally, the media is endogenous to the parliamentary estate because of the formal system of accredited political journalists— who are regularly criticised as being too close to parliamentarians with a smaller number, lobby journalists, being able to access Members’ Lobby, just outside the chamber and are briefed by the Prime Minister’s team.

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James Cleverly MP who contributed to journalist, Marie Le Conte’s book on political gossip suggests that Journalists are likely to read the ‘mood music’ so are key interlocutor of what a political act means and also are auditors on the newsworthiness of something vis-a-vis other information (Cleverly in Le Conte 2019, p. 102). Structurally, the Lobby is imbalanced, with 32% women in 2020 (The Fawcett Society 2020), and this has substantive policy consequences (Hardman 2018). The Lobby also fares poorly in race and class representation (Alexander 2020; Goodall 2017). The division of labour of journalists can be performative, since policy specialists are based at the news headquarters, rather than based on the parliamentary estate and unable to probe MPs forensically about their policy positions. Women as journalists are interpreted in a liberal frame as a sign of democratic strength. For example 2018 the centenary of some women getting the vote celebrated as the first time that there had been both a female chair of the press gallery (accredited journalists with access to the parliamentary press gallery), and a female chair of the parliamentary lobby (accredited journalists who can access Member’s lobby). However, there are informal pecking orders in journalism. Descriptively lobby journalists are more highly positioned than women in news teams and are most likely to question senior political figures and are mistaken for MPs77 and called ‘big beasts’ (Roberts, Guardian, 20 March 2016; Grace, Guardian, 14 May 15) whereas female journalists have been mistaken for secretaries and those who cover lighter feature pieces (Newman, Channel 4 News, 14 April 16). Parliament competes with other political sites and actors for coverage. Structural changes to the production and consumption of news might reduce the reliance on the traditional news lobby and reporters who are inclined to report on gladiatorial and divisive ‘set pieces’ due to high levels of activity on the parliamentary estate and experience commercial pressures. Some radio shows such as LBC have been criticised as having a ‘blokey’ format, indeed several of the call in shows by politicians are men. One participant discussed his personal preferences for more discursive platforms such as the Huffington Post, but the MP predicted that the outlet might eventually have editorial constraints and replicate other media. There are also idiosyncrasies of UK journalism, such as the tradition of parliamentary sketch writers, which take a more informal, rather than policy-oriented approach. In terms of broadcast media, College Green outside Westminster is used to conduct broadcast

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interviews, though this site became highly politicised during the votes on the UK’s Withdrawal Bill from the European Union and MPs had to be escorted there. Media institutional locations and programming make it difficult for MPs with dependents to travel to London or to appear on flagship programmes on Thursday nights or the Today Programme’s flagship 8.10 am slot. 40% of broadcast political editors were women in 2020 (The Fawcett Society 2020). Women can also be sanctioned for wearing too low cut tops for broadcast media, therefore femininity is disciplined. Beneath the structural composition of the media, relationships between ‘the media fraternity and the fraternity of professional politicians’ are important (Walsh 2001, p. 77). Whilst a sorority of female MPs and journalists exists as a source of performative support (Phillips 2017, p. 123), male journalists prefer ‘cerebral’ male MPs (Crewe 2015, p. 173) and practices include a yearly lobby vs MPs football match (Harman 2017, p. 82). A male participant challenged this dynamic by suggesting relationships with the lobby is identity-blind since journalists prefer an ‘elite group’ of MPs and would replicate their behaviours of engaging with this group whatever the gender.75 However, a female participant described how a journalist adjourned to the bathroom in a Westminster Hall debate and missed her party’s only female spokeswoman on a security debate and she complained to the news team. She said: ‘I think there was something in that’.76 This has a gendered effect on subjectivity. Antagonism may then be organised along gender lines (see also Harman 2017, pp. 81–85). Parties’ communication teams can act as gatekeepers too: we were complaining about the fact that we weren’t putting up enough women and he [party Communications official] came up with some silly line that apparently we don’t answer our phones, which wound us all up and we made it very clear that we weren’t happy.77

These multiple iterations of complaint about symbolic media annihilation (Childs 2008) create the identity-effect of women as ‘insistent’ complainers. Being insistent could be a response to institutional contingencies rather than a conscious strategy to advance in the Commons: Some have to “insist” on belonging to the categories that give residence to others…you have to insist on what is simply given to others. Not only that, you are heard as insistent, or even as self-promotional, as insisting on your dues. (Ahmed 2012, p. 177)

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MPs’ appearances on broadcast media can establish their credibility informally within the precinct parties choose those who are institutionally legible as reliable or ‘interesting’ performers. It is notable here, how the MP compares the system of merit unfavourably with the workplace norms of her former workplace: CM: P:

How is success recognised and valued at Westminster? Do you know, that’s a really good question that I really don’t know the answer to. Because ever since I got here it’s a complete mystery to me. I come from [profession] where success is very much based on merit about what you produce, what you do, but here it seems to bare no relation often to a meritocracy. I would have to tell you that I have no idea. There’s something to do with the media. That’s a part of it. It seems to be that the media tag onto people for whatever reason. Then that’s deemed to be success but I don’t share that view. I find it a complete and utter mystery’

There is considerable pressure for media opportunities to go successfully, especially if there are less opportunities, e.g., in a period of coalition government where there are two government parties. For example, I empathised with an MP’s interview performance and noted how windy the school playground looked and she was very worried: ‘did you notice that’ and I thought: ‘you can’t change the weather’.78 Again, these small acts are performative—they bring about reputational and institutional realities in the House of Commons. Describing a female colleague’s visibility on TV, a participant said: ‘I think people know that they’re dealing with someone serious’.79 An informal ‘star system’ replaces a lack of formal rotation of opportunities and the same pool of MPs were described as ‘cycling round’80 national media opportunities. Informally, in addition to the structural composition of media, there is a sexualisation in the symbiotic relationship between journalists and their sources: MPs. ‘Boozy’ lunches have declined (Cole, Spectator, 29 March 2014), but a traditional emphasis on intimacy, informal contact and immediate access (Tunstall 1970, p. 110) is a rule-in-use that remains. Settings might be quick chats beneath stone arches, or men who sit in Portcullis House on coffee tables and MPs make approaches. Ebert

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(1992, p. 37) suggests, that the heterosexual matrix is not purely discursive, but is imbricated in labour, in this case, the imperative to get a story. Referring to a colleague being girled and called ‘Totty’, a journalist described ‘entertaining banter’ as one of the ‘unwritten rules of the game’ in newsgathering at Westminster (Oakeshott, Mail Online, 13 April 2016). Mackinnon critiques this as ‘a condition of work’ where women have to exhibit a ‘posture of openness’ (1979, p. 45). This is reified in a more contemporaneous ‘flirtation turn’ in political culture whereby politicians lure different constituencies (Yates 2010). A bartender suggests that both male and female journalists experience sexualised attention when newsgathering: A senior male weekend columnist…exhibits a lot of self-confidence and has the aura of the doyenne of journalism… The MPs swarm around these journalists and are like “we’ll just bask in your sunlight Sun King”…MPs drool at her [female journalist] and communicate like a confidante. They will follow her around like a puppy – it’s crazy to think that grown men would put themselves in that position.81 (emphases added)

In this oedipal discourse, performances of gendered subjectivity are coimbricated with age. In addition to furtive approaches towards journalists by MPs, the participant discusses ‘grown men’ who lose autonomy and are reeled in as objects by male and female journalists. A female political commentator was also girled by an MP addressing her chest.82 This subsection has explored media and though feminist media can be performative supports for women MPs, gender was performed in (1) MPs’ identities as news sources; (2) locations and environments of media; (3) format of media; and (4) party gatekeepers for media opportunities. This demonstrates that the debate about women ‘acting like men’ to ‘get on’ in parliament has a slightly wanting emphasis, since behaviour can be reactive.

5.3

Performing Public Service

This final section discusses ‘public service’. Accountability in a traditional political science sense has mean responsibility for decision-making. But feminists look at broader conceptions of accountability. Bacchi where degendered and gender is not treated as a category of analysis in formal standards architecture. Accountability genders MPs in two ways: (1) MPs

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are the ‘final advocate’ and wear their ‘MP identity’ as a skin rather than a sweater. Public service becomes a ‘greedy institution’ (Mackay and Rhodes 2013) that mitigates against those with caring responsibilities. (2) The UK House of Commons delayed architecture that covers misconduct related to gender and sexual harassment. 5.3.1

(Lack of) Rules-in-Form with Gendered Effects, No Job Description

In contrast to staff discussed in Chapters 6 and 7 whose roles are much more highly specified, the job of an MP is less so, despite reflection on this after the expenses crisis (Wright 2010). A lack of job description is not just a technicality or a minor point. There is a great degree of interpretation (Geddes 2019, p. 37). A male MP described feeling structurally ‘rootless’83 in comparison with his former job: ‘as a barrister you get your brief and off you go, your life is structured for you’, again comparing the organisation of the job at the UK House of Commons unfavourably with his former profession. A female MP also said: I went from working as a XXX, knowing exactly what I did every single day, being a local councillor knowing exactly what I did, to coming to work in a place- in a city that I just didn’t understand, I didn’t really have any friends here. I was away from my family and it just felt really isolating and I didn’t know everyone else.84

MPs have several principals—or rather, they are answerable to several actors: their party, their constituents and their committees. Whilst MPs criticised a ‘job prescription’ (Childs 2016, p. 15), the lack of clear specification of roles can present problems. There are a number of informal expectations and interpretations. Here, I specifically discuss: (1) constituency service and (2) the institutional infrastructure to support embodied public service. Public service encompasses everyday constituency service acts. Arguably, constituency service in the UK is still very individual and variable, not least because there is no job description, and there is no codification between central and local government—that is, the relationship and responsibilities of MPs and Councillors, and this can place undue pressure on caseworkers. Each constituency has a different history, different employers and gender regimes that an MP has to navigate,

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though some scholars have counterposed a more communal constituency representation to career-mindedness (Murray and Sénac 2018). Women MPs can have a positive gender identity in the constituency which they felt increased accessibility to them for women (Childs 2004). An MP described bringing citizens into the political process. She reiterated: ‘photos are not informal’ and so she strategically stood next to and put her arm around under-represented actors in a mixed sex photograph, or asking ‘can I travel with her?’ She said ‘the women will be seen to be taken seriously by an MP’ and that ‘this is a responsibility in public life85 ’. Constituency service then is bodily and affective. Three MPs described compulsorily responding to the hail (Butler 1997b, p. 24) as an MP that was decentred by camera phone technology. Parliamentarian’s bodies can become sites of morality. For example, participants reported ‘defensive’ behaviour such as not wearing tracksuits to the supermarket86 or being ‘pissed on the night bus87 ’. MPs may therefore wear the state and their parliamentary responsibilities like a skin rather than a sweater. Another MP came into parliament having shut her thumb in the car door whilst campaigning, drawing attention to tiredness and private injury.88 Barbara Castle eschewed glamorous images of the upwardly mobile female in her descriptive marks and gesture: People who saw her in London as well as Blackburn noticed Barbara shift character as she travelled north: the smart, sassy cabinet minister emerged from her sleeper in Blackburn in clothes that were more downbeat, harderworking, less showy. One reporter suggested that, with a cigarette between her lips, she took an almost masculine air. (Perkins 2003, p. 341)

A former MP discussed the importance of image for the public and projecting capable leadership to constituents, as well as cultivating knowledge practices around dressing: if you know anything about the cost of suits, they [the Conservative men] dress very expensively. XXX does too…you do look better if the suit is cut to fit you. But overall, they look as if they know how to lead and that’s how they’ve been brought up and people, you know if you walk into this constituency, people feel very lost in the world economy as it is and they want someone who looks as if they know how to lead.89

Butler notes that ‘hailing’ into positions comes with costs at a complexity to the subject (2004). One participant lamented the loss of authentic

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communication with a supermarket worker who shared her name after her finding out that she was an MP.90 This contrasts with councillors whereby the ‘physical closeness introduces casualness to the interactions …and an element of familiarity’ (Copus 2016, p. 88). In addition to the appropriate sartorial presentation, presentism is a norm in the constituency as a criterion for being intelligible: if people want to ask you “how hard do you work”, they ask “well how many surgeries do you do?” …it’s this idea of having to be seen to be doing surgeries. It’s this sort of macho thing of “I did a three hour surgery”. They’re an old fashioned idea of when people…[had] to come and see you in the town hall on a Saturday morning.91

MPs can receive pressure from constituency associations to be present as a local dignitary which has gendered consequences for those with caring responsibilities. A male MP raised centralisation in the interview: There’s a huge pressure because the UK has quite under-developed local democracy. There’s no federal aspect to the country at all so MPs are very prominent – people want them at everything from big to small things. And if you represent 80,000 people, you can’t do that.92

The geography of the constituency makes being a local dignitary harder, for example a rural highlands constituency may involve longer travel between events. The gender regimes of the actors in local industry in constituencies are also notable, for example more women working in housing and implementation and who the MP builds relationships with.93 Emerging from the structure of an indivisible MP are embodied subject positions. Indeed, several of the tasks of an MP are embodied, such as squeezing in the division lobbies. Butler notes that it is important to investigate how infra-structures differentially support bodies (2015). Indeed, with regard to the decision to ask MPs to return to Parliament on June 2nd, 2020, Robert Halfon MP, an MP who was shielding amidst the Covid pandemic, drew on a subjectivity of morality as well as highlighting the ‘problem’ subject position, ‘old horses’ or deemed in Butlerian parlance ‘not to matter’: Is it really morally just to say in effect to MPs, because you are not Tarzanlike and able to swing through the chamber, beating your chest, shouting to your constituents, ‘Look I am here!’ that you are effectively euthanised

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from the Commons? “MPs who are disrupted by this awful pandemic are not just old horses to be sent to the knacker’s yard. (Your Harlow, 21 May 2020)

Whilst some MPs discussed disruption to body clocks, vomiting before maiden speeches, sexual harassment (Childs 2016, p. 37) and fatigue93 from bobbing in the chamber, mastitis from exhaustion and breastfeeding,95 and the material dislocation between two locations raising issues such as locating a practice for smear tests; others saw the job as intellectually demanding when discussing the corporeal demands of the everyday. Th following quote is interesting, because it casts physicality as braun—casting boxes around and building houses. CM: P:

What are the physical demands of the job? You need to make a distinction between mental and physical demand. It’s not greatly physical. I don’t lift a great deal of boxes around, or build houses. The intellectual demand is that you have a wide range of issues before you that at any given time that you are elected to exercise your judgement on96 ’.

By being publically accountable to many, MPs are expected to be knowledgeable on a wide range of issues, whilst information need can be unpredictable and reactive. Cognitive energy in terms of preparation was also cited as challenging in the interviews: ‘I will spend absolutely hours making sure that I know exactly what it is that I will be speaking about …sometimes I can send myself a bit you know – into overdrive I went to one of the first meetings in the constituency… I swatted up on Syria, Iraq and all the international stuff all about policies everything and I thought ‘right I’m ready, any questions in the world-hoy them at us!’ And they asked about dog muck the local park (laughs).97

Centring Butler’s proposition that institutional infrastructure can support bodies, it was not until January 2019 that baby leave was formally introduced for MPs via a temporary standing order. This includes the opportunity for proxy voting for twenty-six weeks (in contrast to the UK statutory of 52 weeks maternity leave) or pairing and is certified by the speaker. The Liaison Committee is looking at how to record in the parliamentary proceedings of select committee attendance, if an MP is on

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parental leave. A locum MP was arranged for Stella Creasy MP; baby leave has been piloted through proxy voting; and the ability to carry children through the lobbies has been allowed. Indeed, Chapter 3 shows a motherhood gap, where there are less mothers than fathers in parliament as a proportion of their numbers. The lack of standardised parental leave at the time of research98 disproportionately interpellated gendered actors with caring responsibilities—as ‘problems’. Women described this arrangement as bringing about performances of having to go ‘cap in hand’ to and rely on the congeniality of the whips for ‘special treatment’ who make pairing arrangements, though pairing does not occur for smaller parties (All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in Parliament 2014, p. 41). Despite the formal rule change, discourses around the rational management of reproduction and relationships vis-à-vis embodied public service may work against this rule. Rational management is impossible, since following the 2011 fixed term parliament act, there has been two elections in advance of their timetable: 2017 and 2019, and when a General Election is called, heavily pregnant MPs may also have to campaign. Tulip Siddiq MP, who campaigned for baby leave, still invoked notions of bodily stewardship ‘[m]y maternity leave will absolutely depend on how my body feels…. I don’t want to take lots of time off, though, as I’m a public servant’ (in Urwin, Evening Standard, 18 January 2016). Maternal guilt has also been cited. Another participant rationalised having children in the summer parliamentary recess: ‘I didn’t miss much parliamentary time fortunately since he was born in June and I went back in October’.99 This compulsion (re)cites the subject position of ‘public servant’ within an embodied stewardship and Siobhan Bailie MP was criticised for taking her maternity leave at a time of coronavirus.100 The following excerpt refers to the subject position of rational manager of romantic activity: [it’s] quite important if you’re a young MP…that you broadly need to be at the stage of your life where you’re quite settled…ideally you’ve got a partner and that kind of thing…it’s quite hard to go on dates and things if you’re an MP…you’re not really going to go on Match.com are you and put your job in!101

From this discussion, accessibility is a gendered norm that is performed and permeates MPs’ daily activities. Maintaining such coherence ‘demeans the complex ways in which gendered lives are crafted and lived’ (Butler 2004, p. 1). In sum, the ‘subject produces its coherence at the cost of

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its own complexity’ (Butler 2011, p. 77). Repetitive regulated performances under the title ‘MP’ can undo the individual’s constitution. Greedy institutions ‘seek exclusive and undivided loyalty and attempt to reduce the claims of competing roles and status positions on those they wish to encompass within their boundaries. Their demands on the person are omnivorous’ (Coser 1974, p. 4 in Mackay and Rhodes 2013). The nomenclature ‘MP’ may dominate occupants’ entire subjectivity. A male participant described a deep interpellation of politics as a vocation, a ‘noble calling’,102 this is also echoed by Harman (2017, p. 373), though Harman described herself as accountable to the women’s movement—a group interpellation. One participant argued with his partner over recreational time in the relationship: ‘this is me, I am the MP’.103 He continued: ‘some MPs become caricatures of themselves’. This demonstrates how MPs can be ‘undone’ and unviable as their prior person. 5.3.2

(Lack of/) Rules About Gender: Online and Offline Accountability

In this final subsection, I explore an absence of rules about gender (Gains and Lowndes 2014) and the sorts of subject positions that emerge in formulations of public service that are degendered—meaning that gender is not treated as a significant category of analysis (Bacchi 2017). Significant scholarship that considers accountability in public life includes literature on: ethics regimes in the UK Parliament (Mancuso 1995; Gay and Rush 2004), violence against women in politics literatures (Krook and Sanin 2016; Krook 2017; Berthet and Kantola 2020), hate speech (Brown and Sinclair 2019); and Butler’s notions of self-regulation and accountability in speech (1997a). I explore two forms of contemporary political violence: offline and online, and the way in which gender (dis)appears from being a relevant category of analysis in these debates. I will firstly discuss the chamber. This is because the House of Commons is categorised in comparative legislative studies as sitting on a continuum towards a ‘debating parliament’—meaning that parliaments are public forums where opinions are contested on the floor of the House (Lord 2018). It is notable, for example, that even prayers are held in the Chamber before a sitting day—yet some spaces such as Portcullis House at the time did not have annunciators visibly on its ground floor which took the emphasis away from the chamber slightly. Whilst there are formal

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rules-in-form in Erskine May to institutionalise debate, such as: the claim that ‘good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language’ (emphasis added), often behaviour falls short of these norms of courtesies and thus defies basic conditions of a debating parliament. Informally, nonphysical acts of resistance to actors’ participation are: sneering, using inflated vocabulary and hyper-correction. But it is not just formal structures that are constitutive of performances, subjectivities are too. Butler argues that being ‘girled’ at birth, carry on throughout adult life (2011, p. xvii). A key subjectivity that was drawn upon was one of immaturity. This is insistently iterated around the estate socio-materially. Examples include: benches with ink-wells in the palace, traditional sweetshop bags displayed in canteens, rock cakes and steamed puddings at mealtimes, and indeed in intakes of MPs who have been socialised at the same schools together. Field members perform discourses of local intensity to orient themselves around the dwarfing grand architecture such as ‘back curtain’ or ‘Star Court’, ‘Speaker’s Chair’. A former Whip drew on subjectivities by suggesting: ‘some MPs sort of want to be infantilised’.104 One participant discussed how her colleague, a ‘grown woman’, was positioned: XXXX wouldn’t tell her [position to speak in a debate] and she had to…ask the Whips if she could go to the toilet and she said “I’m a grown woman, I’ve got a mortgage, I’ve run a business and I never thought that at this age…I would have to be asking if I could go to the toilet”.105

Indeed, part of the discourse critiquing Prime Ministers questions was recording decibel levels—arguably a measurement of incivility recognising and naming behaviour as juvenile and coercive ways of handling the chamber such as cutting speakers off, (re)installing hierarchies, asserting toughness and pulling faces in the chair. However, Palmer notes that ‘bullying’ can be a truncated label since it hides structural histories, and how these structural histories intersects with targets of abuse such as at black women (2019), so appeals to incivility may ignore, racist, classist, gendered histories and may be truncated. This book draws parallels with Childs who also found that ‘repetition’ and men endorsing other men was a key complaint of women MPs (2004, p. 6), whilst Puwar observed that men ‘clone’ their male leaders (2004, p. 75). Leadership was cited as a key factor in mimetic behaviour:

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they’re not well led in terms of their leadership. So in terms of the behavioural changes here… [shadow] ministers in all teams, you can see that they look at their leader. He does all that. So if he puts down women, if he’s horrible to women then… [MP gives an example of [shadow] minister replicating the public put downs to women MPs].106

This included enacting authority through sexualisation—such as using sexual putdowns by calling a backbencher ‘frustrated107 ’ and is arguably, a form of sexual harassment, humiliation and control. Furthermore, women have received sanctions for performing gender wrong, such as wearing a dress that insufficiently covered a shoulder at the dispatch box. Because the UK Parliament is a fused power system (Kreppel 2014) and the executive is drawn from the legislature, MPs are incited to adolescent incivility by Whips in informal practices such as bench duty. The practice of Whips’ ‘bench duty’—that is, making notes on performances, in the chamber, also places pressure for proficiency in public performance. It was felt that recognition was conferred to ‘male’ descriptive marks and gestures: It is the male sort of attributes that get you noticed for. Attributes that are more recognised are tribal, being very definite in your view, and skilled at the putdown.108

A regulative sanction is not listening to those without the right quips and who read from notes. All participants denounced the behaviour in the chamber but several admitted to participating in it themselves. This matters if the UK parliament is idealised as a debating parliament. The embodied nature of the chamber is striking: ‘It’s not always what people say. Some people jump, scream and point. It’s almost beyond a joke’109 and John Bercow as a Speaker frequently made reference to physiologies of anger, telling MPs to medicate. We know though that the ability to express anger legitimately differs through racialised bodies, and reflection on this might be pertinent when we consider regulations and sanctions against political actors. Chairing debates can be embodied: XXX is very good at giving you signals. So like sometimes if you’re on the order paper to speak, you know he is going to call you early as he kind of either make direct eye contact with you or when I first got here he was so kind he could tell I was nervous. I remember one day he gave a little

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smile and a thumbs up to me as if to say like: ‘it was your turn now and call you any minute110

Gender as a category in 2014, in press coverage before Jo Cox’s murder, was to ‘man up’ and ascribes a deficient ‘wounded identity’ to women MPs: ‘we need more battle-axes, fewer shrinking violets’ (Kite, Guardian, 28 November 2013). Some MPs’ responses, gave a moral subjectivity, to the demands from the public for ‘uncomplaining labour’ (Skeggs and Wood 2012)—arguably a type of feeling rule. An MP compared being an MP favourably with her previous workplace environment: Most of the violence I encountered was from partners who were largely men…I was getting assaulted spat on, kicked and punched every single day. For me, working in this environment and feeling safe, and not having to deal with that– well that’s great! I have always got my head down and done my job and try not to let things like that interfere with what I do.111

Many women responding to this category of gender, as a wounded femininity, reiterated that they were self-selected and that the narrative that women are intimidated produced them as not being able to ‘cut the mustard’112 distorted their experiences. MPs positively appraised their competences of being a ‘tough cookie113 ’. Several grounded a compulsion to repeat these violent performances in discourses of restoration: ‘[i]t’s very playground like “they started it114 ” of the group of women I came in with, all of us, if we’re getting abuse from the other side, we’re pretty able to respond and to shout back and make comments back.115

Another MP used a discourse of social Darwinism, to suggest that those with personality types that can cope with it. PMQs is the one time that people get to stand behind their leader and be really tribal and I think it’s interesting because you either can just cope with it or you can’t and I think that all of us cope with it pretty well.116

Drawing parallels with Ilie (2013), female respondents in this study also enjoyed tactile affective performances of indignation in the chamber:

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XXXX probably weren’t laughing about what I was saying because they were having a chat. And so I said [in louder aggressive voice] “And the members opposite might laugh at this but it is serious for the vulnerable people who I hear week in, week out about this” and you know [laughs] that landed them in it.117

However, for those MPs who did not tolerate the chamber, ‘uncomplaining labour’ took on another significance. Four women MPs118 discussed being conscious of not putting off future female parliamentary candidates. I was the three hundredth and something woman MP to be here and I was shocked when I found that out. I had no idea that there had been so few women in parliament and as a result, you do feel concerned if you’re painting it out as anything other than being a good place to come and work… I have bitten my tongue about some of my experiences because I don’t want to put people off which is very tough

Three MPs119 suggested that their former professional experience was negated in their everyday work. This acted to distort women’s experience of the Commons and devalue women’s professional resilience. Decontextualisation by being ‘undone’ may be particularly problematic to some women. To injure is for the addressee to suffer a ‘loss of context’ (Butler 1997a, p. 4). Because the chamber is ‘otherworldly’, this intensified concerted attempts to put speakers out of control: it’s that sniggering behind the hand [in the chamber], pointing as if they are inferring that they are saying something about you and talking loudly when somebody’s speaking, making it absolutely obvious that you think badly about what they are saying. Those are the things –because it’s about trying to undermine confidence.120 I asked question, I could see the minister looking around and he was twisting his face and I thought “what is he twisting his face at”, I thought there was something wrong about what I was asking and a few of my colleagues from my region later on said “that was hilarious he couldn’t understand a word that you were saying and he was panicking and looking at his colleagues saying “what is she asking”121 There’s a peculiar cocktail of genuine anger feeling like someone is talking absolute rubbish and 10% is outpouring. I have to force myself to go to these occasions because [first name party leader] is under attack. It’s

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not a good use of my time but I feel that I need to. I find the whole thing utterly dispiriting.122

The following observation encapsulates agency and voluntarily retiring oneself from the desire for recognition. A female MP said: they [colleagues in chamber] don’t really know me very well…they’re not quite sure what I’m about. So people sort of leave me alone a bit. So if I do stand up in parliament to say something, people do actually listen because I haven’t got gravitas as such but they think that I might! …I’m seen as quite a serious person …I don’t get gossiped about…. I’m just a bit of a loner so that suits me! [Laughs]123

This reinforces that suffering a loss of context: ‘is always partially foreclosed by never knowing precisely where one is actually located to begin with’ (Eichorn 2001, p. 300). However, this elusiveness may not be politically available to all political actors. In the absence of rules-in-form about gender accountability, two participants used identical phrasing ‘someone’s going to jump on you pretty quickly’124 to describe informal responses to gender discrimination in the party, which suggests that horizontal peer scrutiny is a rule-in-use. However, it also perhaps indicates that there is faith in the informal responsiveness to gender inequality. Two MPs have discussed becoming the category of ‘women’ through repeatedly encountering gender discrimination in the House of Commons. One MP told a House of Commons interview study: ‘It’s only since I became an MP that I realised I’m a woman’ (Benger 2015, p. 10), whilst another MP told me that she ‘became a feminist’125 upon entering parliament due to the ‘really quite shocking’ masculine setting. The lack of rules about gender placed iterative pressure on women to speak up and therefore having to be complainers. These four interview excerpts discuss voicing complaint. The first two discussed mobilising an affective interactive style to get complaint heard. It also paints women in the de facto position of having an essential predisposition to outrage: ‘I had a bit of a rant at him because on his election literature, there wasn’t a woman, it was all blokes126 ’ (emphasis added). ‘I did rather jump down his throat and say “you are asking that because I am a woman127 ”’ (emphasis added).

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‘I’ve ended up speaking to two MPs. One where an MP behaved inappropriately towards another MP…and then when another MP was firing a staff member’.128 ‘women can work for the collaborative stuff to increase and the adversarial stuff to decrease and I think that is already happening’.129

Because the House of Commons has a traditional label of a debating parliament, resistance can be couched in these terms when gendered actors working with the rules try to formally change arrangements: There’s been some sort of slightly negative comments or just perhaps sort of snidey remarks where they’re kind of like “well you’re trying to stop us from talking in the Chamber” or “you’re trying to hinder debate” and I immediately just go back and say “well no actually, I want compassion and I want conviction and I want great debate but what I don’t think we need is debate that has personal insults and abuse alongside it” …It’s not an age thing necessarily, it’s just old minded, maybe sometimes thought that we were attacking tradition and history.130

To return to Butler’s quote, gender(ed) performances can be reactive rather than chosen. Furthermore, everyday institutional equality work was made meaningful to one feminist participant through discourses of ‘confiscating the naval131 ’—that is a diversion from the proper business of running the country, a second-order issue. Thus far in this section, I have examined discourses around women’s contributions to changing parliamentary cultures in an environment when gender is not treated as a relevant category of analysis. A key aspect of more gender-equal parliaments is sharing responsibility for gender equality with men (Palmieri 2011). The Inter-Parliamentary Union discussed men’s roles to ‘shoulder’ gender equality to note the heaviness since the ‘work’ that keeps complaints going. It may be necessary to look beyond the ‘usual suspects’ to understand power relations and critical acts for gender equality (Celis and Erzeel 2015; Nugent 2019) and into such questions as to whether critical acts come with a feminist consciousness. When asking male MPs about their involvement in (managing) gender bias in everyday practices, a male MP discussed the avoidance of emotional labour: I have raised it in the past, but whether I have done every time when I have thought I should have done, the answer is no. There is also the question

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of firstly, would an MP notice – which is worrying if they did not. But secondly, do other considerations come into play such as upsetting people? Also, do you think “I’ll raise it with them later” and then later never comes132 ? (Emphasis added)

Men were respectful of women’s autonomous groups although one male MP described a women’s committee as: ‘that secret garden133 ’, and another described women who: ‘wind each other up and complain about this, that and the other’134 ’. Proactive male leadership included mentoring female candidates in (extra) Westminster elections. A former Speaker, John Bercow was cited—by some as speaking consistently135 about gender bias. He explained this as part of his own gender identity narrative: Possibly the fact that I was physically quite feeble, a relatively short little fellow, attracted me to…authoritative and aggressive…politics…I’m not saying that I had an inadequate Adam’s apple, but I think that sometimes people who aren’t fully formed and fully confident in themselves can be attracted to something which appears to give them a bit of meaning. (Khan, New Statesman, 12 September 12)

Identity-building and differentiating practices were performed by another male MP who disidentified with his male MP cohort. Most of the MPs are fairly straightforward… I thought that they were all wonderfully clever and sophisticated and were saying these peculiar things almost in ironic terms. Then I realised “they actually mean this”…People are the most insecure are the ones that police the boundaries.136 Most male MPs don’t think of the House of Commons in male dominated terms137

These excerpts iterate a ‘muscular moderniser’ subject position: being confident and reconstructed. A daring ‘give ‘em hell’ approach by ‘new men’ or ‘allies’ who are ‘up for the fight’ was cited by participants as a prosocial masculinity to support women, even if, by their own identification, it was sometimes patronising. In parliaments as specific workplaces, party loyalty can prohibit speaking out. Participants also maintained a view of performances of gendering as unseeing and protected the feelings of men: ‘I’m sure that they would be mortified138 ’, and that older male MPs may have said ‘unfortunate things’139 to younger women. Two MPs critiqued

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a teleological notion of gender equality that assumed an uncomplicated movement towards progress in understanding sexism as a more profound structure: I don’t think that there are many men in the workplace nowadays…who would say that it is not a good idea to have women there. The problem is, is that there’s a lack of recognition of what the true problem is which is institutional sexism and a lack of awareness of that.140 ‘Here I am this “new man”. I do the cooking, I do the shopping, I do most of the washing in the house etc. And a woman came across to me… dressed in jeans and a t-shirt….And I asked “who do you work for then?” And she said “Oh, I’m the MP for such and such”.141

This echoes organisation studies literature, where masculinities are mobilised liminally (Martin 2001). The participants describe the conversations around unconscious bias in the House of Commons, but a lack of discussion on structures. The enlightened male participant described an example of ‘girling’ a female MP himself. In terms of acts of gender inequality, formally, the Members’ code of conduct is de-gendered in that it does not treat gender as an analytical category. It addresses financial probity, but not gender discrimination. This matters: [A]ccountability institutions may simply have no remit for punishing officials whose actions produce a pattern of bias against women. In other words, standards of justice and of probity in the performance of duties focus on procedural correctness rather than the achievement of positive outcomes for women. (Goetz 2003, p. 55)

Paragraph 17 of the Members’ code of conduct—that MPs must not: ‘cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons’ (2019, p. 4)—could conceivably cover gender (in)equality. The lack of reference to gender equality in codes of conduct is ‘a serious weakness’ (IPU 2011, p. 69). MPs have been hostile to the perceived ‘ethics industry’, and the Parliamentary Commissioner costs trust and resources (Gay and Rush 2004, p. 25). A former Parliamentary Commissioner, Kathryn Hudson had expressed ‘grave concern’ that MPs suspected of misconduct in the constituency with vulnerable constituents could not receive formal censure (House of Commons 2014). The Parliamentary Commissioner can investigate paragraphs 10–17 but this negates

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‘private’ matters. One male MP vehemently refused to subject the ‘private’ lives of MPs—that is, matters of ‘the bedroom and the bottle’142 to assessments of ethical behaviour. Formally, the gender composition, the Standards and Privileges committees memberships have been disproportionately (white) males (Goodwin et al. 2020). Furthermore, a vocal member of the Women and Equalities committee had her support withdrawn for sitting on the standards committee. The 2010 Coalition Agreement included a right of recall, but did not specify gender discrimination and did not take into account whether it might be used more against women. This means that incumbent parliamentary candidates can stand as MPs accused of sexual harassment. Incidentally, Culhane’s report into sexual harassment at the UK Parliament explored public attitudes to harassment and found that 70% of constituents felt that an MP accused of misconduct should be removed from office and banned from running as a candidate for a period of time (2019, p. 7). This is significant, since there is appetite for change from the public. The UK House of Commons’ hybrid system of this independent commissioner and MP-led committees, such as the standards and privileges committees, has been accompanied by informal moral traditions and Parliamentary privilege. The party and the MP is not an employer/employee relationship. It’s a very, very complex and highly charged relationship, sometimes and it doesn’t necessarily react well to management.143

This also links to a conception of members as Honorable. In terms of electoral retribution, the main inhibition to improper behaviour for MPs is electoral accountability but this is every five years and voters often vote along party lines, rather than candidate lines. It was not until July 2018 that an Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme was established, containing two substantive elements. These are: (1) a behavioural code for all of those working for and within parliament; (2) two new policies: (i) the bullying and harassment policy and (ii) the sexual misconduct policy. For both (i) and (ii), there is an independent helpline. In the six month review of the scheme, ‘The story so far for the ICGS is not a wholly positive one’ and that the implementation team for the ICGS ‘did not always have the full range of experience and capability to deliver some of the key areas (Stanley 2019, p. 13). Problems included changing contractors to be advocates

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for victims. Furthermore, because this is a workplace grievance scheme, then abuse to constituents still would not be covered. It remains to be seen how far parliamentary actors make use of the behavioural code. Next, a significant part of an MP’s public life is online engagement. Formally, the conceptualisation of online activity as discontinuous with material contexts is now changing. The issue of vulnerability at constituency surgeries is being considered with greater importance by the House of Commons following the assassination of Jo Cox MP in June 2016. One former cabinet minister chased to get a response from social media companies: Within social media and online in an unregulated environment, people feel that there is no law, which is untrue… I reported both [two death threats, one of which was sexually abusive] of them to Twitter…after I had chased and chased, I got a reply saying “Oh sorry, that’s awfully bad isn’t it? Here are some guidelines on how you should behave differently144 ” (emphasis added)

Bringing Butler into focus to conceptually inform existing accounts of online abuse in public life (Committee on Standards in Public Life 2017), for what it does in everyday working life in the House of Commons—that is, how it is redoubled, in addition to what is says. Four performative effects are found. Firstly, the endogenised of these speech act(s) into teams and work productivity everyday acts of online abuse. The management of frequent and intense practices of dog-piling145 also obstructs an MP’s communication and impedes the office’s effectiveness. Violence is constitutive of descriptive marks and gesture, affecting what footwear MPs wear to constituency surgeries and office plans. Violence affects staff and so there are linkages between the two gender regimes. One staff member described how the high volume of abuse was endogenised into teams beyond the initial speech situation: It’s a full range, from sexist insults to discussions of her sex life and appearance; to explicit threats of sexual violence…I’ve seen female MPs in great distress [after] reading some of the things that are said about them… It’s disturbing for everybody, not just for her, but us as well. (cited in Saner, Guardian, 18 June 2016)

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Discussion of sex, gender and race changes the relationship between an MP and staff, weakening authority as the target is insistently and repeatedly interpellated as a victim—or as a group identity if an ethic minority, Muslim, MP who receive more abuse (Dhrodia 2018). Femininity is also disciplined in such abuse through lookism. An MP described abuse she received for having the wrong descriptive marks and gestures as: ‘a loud-mouthed, XXX party, and not a size eight’.146 Secondly, iterative abuse has become constitutive of voice in the public sphere. This troubles the designation of the UK House of Commons as a debating parliament with sovereign representatives. Butler’s idea of primordial censorship negates a ‘clean’ speech (Butler 1997a; Butler and Bell 1999, p. 171), but violence here is demonstrably regulative of speech. A male MP described a ‘looping effect’ and self-censorship. MPs transform their social media practices from meaningful communication into press releases. An attitudinally feminist MP commented: ‘you become marginalised from one of the most important parts of your life which is your ability to communicate online’.147 This makes a feminist and anti-racist subject position as difficult to occupy. Though this is not new (Childs 2008), attitudes have hardened. Dawn Butler MP was abused after speaking in support of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Therefore, violence against women intersects with identities (Kuperberg 2019) and subject areas. Thirdly, there remains a politics of (un)grievability to complaints when public discourse has hardened against politicians. Subjects have to perform a credible ‘victim’ to be taken seriously. Yet gendered vulnerability is unbecoming for MPs since copycat attacks may occur: Women in public life have a very difficult position…if you admit at that point in time that you are subject to online abuse then (a) that can fuel the situation, and (b) that can make you look vulnerable and that’s not what you want.148

This ungrievability of complaint becomes even more profound when we take an intersectional approach (Kuperberg 2019). Diane Abbott received 45% of all Twitter abuse against women in the six weeks leading up to the 2017 General Election (Dhrodia 2018 p. 383). The (un)grievability meshes powerfully with meanings that about black women’s perceived ‘innate capacity’ to cope with brutality and suffering more than others (Palmer 2019).

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Fourthly, (notwithstanding the isolating effects of violence), a Butlerian/Foucauldian lens of power reveals an unruly side effect of violence’s productivity: MPs described ‘checking in’ with each other and producing alliances (Phillips, Telegraph, 19 June 16). Moreover, violence assumes that a subject is violated by violence. Yet, the banalisation of abuse deadens its power, rendering it non-performative. One MP replied blithely when I asked her about institutional guidance for abuse: ‘Yes, I think there’s a leaflet…because I had a stalker’.149 Another MP had learnt to be discerning with violence and to distinguish between threats and violence. Overall, this reproduces parliament as a gendered workplace in four ways: violence being endogenised into offices, violence becoming constitutive of voice, not being intelligible as a victim and producing support networks. This raises fundamental questions about the notion of a debating parliament for feminist parliamentarians.

5.4

Conclusion

By travelling through the committee corridor, we can observe how the gender MPs are multiply positioned—or to use Butlerian terms—how they are ‘hailed’ in these relations as players of the parliamentary estate and problems. Players may be select committees chairs, highly connected and floor time in Commons questions, integrating into the chamber, and society with increased profile and interconnected network, they may also be competent media performers. Problems include having to insist on one’s dues for media coverage, the right to be on the estate and managing self censorship when speaking about de-gendered power relations. Returning to the central theme of the book, the chapter reminds us that gender is performed beneath democratic innovations, in informal interactions such as building relationships with committee members. In fact, the House of Commons’ culture lays emphasis on rating and institutional and media legibility. Moreover, MPs do not necessarily ‘choose’ how to perform gender, sometimes they are positioned through responding to institutional architecture that does not support them. Why does this matter? By using Butler’s notion of the performative—bringing something into being we can make broader claims about parliament. Parliamentary order comes to take the form it does through everyday gendered performances. Furthermore, drawing on notions of regulations, the chapter alluded to more general questions about the

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notion of the UK Parliament’s status as a ‘debating parliament’. This brings us to a key theme that has emerged from this book and which I will address directly in the next chapter. Gender is relational, it is performed in and through other bodies, such as committee teams and parliamentary staff as will be detailed in the next chapter. The link between MPs and the parliamentary administration is integral to how we conceive of parliaments as gendered institutions.

Notes 1. Field note, July 2014, London. 2. Interview 32, Female MP, 14 July 2014. 3. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmstords/1020/ so_1020_180501.pdf. 4. Interview 16, Female MP, 24 June 2014. 5. Field note, 15 July 2014. 6. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. 7. Interview 14, Female MP, 22 July 2014. 8. Interview 15, Male MP, 30 June 2014. 9. Interview 4, Parliamentary Researcher, 28 May 2014. 10. Interview 49, Image consultant, 24 October 2014. 11. Interview 28, Male MP, 25 July 2016; Interview 33, Male MP, 16 July 2014. 12. Interview 14, Female MP, 22 July 2014. 13. Interview 14, Female MP, 22 July 2014. 14. Interview 52, Male DCCS Member, 17 July 2014. 15. Interview 56, DCCS Male, 30 June 2014. 16. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. 17. Interview 16, Female MP, 24 June 2014. 18. Interview 20, Female MP, 18 June 2014. 19. Interview 24, Male MP, 15 July 2014. 20. Interview 23, Female MP, 22 July 2014. 21. Interview 23, Female MP, 22 July 2014. 22. Field note, Select Committee, Westminster, July 2014. 23. Interview 25, Female MP, 9 July 2014. 24. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. 25. Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, Third Report of Session 2013–14, Revisiting Rebuilding the House: The impact of the Wright reforms, HC 82 para 15. 26. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. 27. Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014. 28. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014.

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29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

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Field note, 17 June 2014. Interview 23, Female MP, 22 July 2014. Interview 16, Female MP, 24 June 2014. Interview 16, Female MP, 24 June 2014. Interview 16, Female MP, 24 June 2014. Interview 31, Male MP, 15 July 2014. Interview 23, Female MP, 22 July 2014. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. Interview 16, Female MP, 24 June 2014. Interview 23, Female MP, 22 July 2014. Interview 14, Female MP, 22 July 2014. Interview 17, Female MP, 16 July 2014. Interview 23, Female MP, 22 July 2014. Field note, July 2014, Westminster, London. Interview 14, Female MP, 22 July 2014. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. Interview 25, Female MP, 9 July 2014. Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014. Interview 28, Male MP, 25 July 2016. Field note, July 2014, Westminster, London. Interview 49, Former Female MP, 24 October 2014. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014; Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014305 Field note 17 July 2014. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014.307 Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Interview 16, Female MP, 24 June 2014. Interview 41, Male MP, 4 September 2014. Interview 20, Female MP, 18 June 2014; Interview 32, Female MP, 14 July 2014; Interview 59, Female Peer, 25 June 2014. Interview 38, Male MP, 14 July 2014; Interview 37 Female MP, 23 July 2014; Interview 34, Female MP, 18 July 2014. Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2014. Interview 31, Male MP, 15 July 2014. Interview 43, Former Female MP, 4 August 2014. Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. Response to CM’s question by female MP, Public Lecture, University of Birmingham, 21 January 2016. Interview 15 Male MP, 30 June 2014. Hoare HC Deb 16 October 2018, c544. Interview 15, Male MP, 30 June 2014.

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67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108.

Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 14, see also Flynn (2012, p. 27). Interview 65, Male Journalist, 24 July 2014. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. Interview 21, Female MP, 27 January 2015. Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014. Interview 32, Female MP, 14 July 2014. Interview 37, Female MP, 23 July 2014. Interview 42, Female MP, 9 September 2014. Interview 28, Male MP, 25 July 2016. Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Field note, April 2014, London. Interview 26, Male MP, 15 September 2014. Interview 21, Female MP, 27 January 2015. Interview 50, Westminster hotel bar tender, 27 June 2014. Interview 66, Female Political commentator, 14 April 2014. Interview 15, Male MP, 30 June 2014. Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014. Field note, 8 August 2014. Interview 25, Female MP, 9 July 2014. Interview 35, Male MP, 25 June 2014. Field note, Westminster, April 2014. Interview 49, Image Consultant, 24 October 2014. Interview 21, Female MP, 27 January 2015. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. Interview 26, Male MP, 15 September 2014. Interview 15, Male MP, 30 June 2014. Reynolds, HC Deb 1 February 2018, c.1027. Harman (2017, p. 88); Siddiq, HC Deb 1 February 2018, c.1034. Interview 31, Male MP, 15 July 2014. Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014. HC Deb 1 February 2018, c.1014–1051. Interview 43, Female MP, 4 August 2014. Forte, J. (2020) ‘Stroud MP criticized ‘mainly by men’ for taking maternity leave’ Stroud News and Journal, 29 May 2020. Interview 26, Male MP, 15 September 2014. Interview 31, Male MP, 15 July 2014. Interview 35, Male MP, 25 June 2014. Interview 43, Former Female MP, 4 August 2014. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. Interview 21, Female MP, 27 January 2015. Cameron, D. HC Deb 7 September 2011, Col 354. Interview 34, Female MP, 18 July 2014.

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109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145.

146. 147. 148. 149.

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Interview 15, Male MP, 30 June 2014. Interview 22, Female MP, 8 June 2014. Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014. Interview 17, Female MP, 16 July 2014. Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Interview 15, Male MP, 30 June 2014. Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Interview 14, Female MP, 22 July 2014. Interview 16, Female MP, 24 June 2014. Interview 25, Female MP, 9 July 2014. Interview 14, Female MP, 22 July 2014; Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014; Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014. Interview 17, Female MP, 16 July 2014. Interview 22, Female MP, 8 July 2014. Interview 15, Male MP. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014. Interview 21, Female MP, 27 January 2015. Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2015. Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2015. Interview 37, Female MP 23 July 2014. Interview 14, Female MP, 22 July 2014. Interview 32, Female MP, 14 July 2014. Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2015. Interview 28, Male MP, 25 July 2016. Interview 29, Male MP, 29 July 2014. Interview 38, Male MP, 14 July 2014. Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Interview 41, Male MP, 4 September 2014. Interview 15, Male MP, 30 June 2014. Interview 17, Female MP, 16 July 2014. Interview 16, Female MP, 24 June 2014. Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2015. Interview 41, Male MP, 4 September 2014. HC Deb, 12th March 2012, c92; Wise and Stanley discuss men’s imposition of public and private definitions (1987, p. 177). Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2014. Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2015. Dog-piling is: ‘when hundreds-or thousands…of people send you messages over a short period of time…It drills the same messages into you over and over again and isolates you from other voices’ (Phillips). Field note 12 August 2014. Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2015. Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2015. Interview 30, Female MP, 6 January 2015.

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Sjoberg, L. (2014). Feminism. In R. A. W. Rhodes & P t’ Hart (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership (pp. 72–86). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skeggs, B., & Wood, H. (2012). Reacting to Reality Television, Performance, Audience and Value. London: Routledge. Stanley, A. (2019, May 31). Independent 6-Month Review: UK Parliament Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme. Available at https://www.par liament.uk/documents/Conduct%20in%20Parliament/ICGS%20six-month% 20review%20-%20FINAL%20REPORT.pdf. Strøm, K. (1998). Parliamentary Committees in European Democracies. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 4(1), 21–59. Tinkler, J., & Mehta, N. (2016, April). Report to the House of Commons Administration Committee on the Findings of the Interview Study with Members on Leaving Parliament. Available at http://www.parliament.uk/documents/ commons-committees/admin. Tunstall, J. (1970). The Westminster Lobby Correspondents: A Sociological Study of National Political Journalism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Vernon, B. (1982). Ellen Wilkinson: 1891–1947 . London: Croom Helm Ltd. Verrier, J. (2008). An Optimum Model for the Governance of Parliaments? Australasian Parliamentary Review, 23(2), 115–134. Walsh, C. (2001). Gender and Discourse: Language and Power in Politics, the Church and Organisations. Edinburgh: Pearson Education. Ward, S., & McLoughlin, L. (2020). Turds, Traitors and Tossers: The Abuse of UK MPs via Twitter. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 26(1), 47–73. Waylen, G. (2015). Engendering the ‘Crisis of Democracy’: Institutions, Representation and Participation. Government and Opposition, 50(3), 495–520. Wex, M. (2010). Let’s Take Back Our Space: “Female” and “Male” Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures, by David Campany. Southend: Focal Point Gallery. White, H. (2015). Being an Effective Select Committee Member. Available at https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/pub lications/Being%20an%20effective%20select%20committee%20member.pdf. Wilson, S. (2017, February 14). Women on Select Committees—Has Progress Been Made? Institute for Government. Available at https://www.institute forgovernment.org.uk/blog/women-select-committees-has-progress-beenmade. Wise, S., & Stanley, L. (1987). Georgie Porgie: Sexual Harassment in Everyday Life. London: Pandora. Worthy, B. (October 30, 2018). Transparency: Negotiating Institutional Domains. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3275200 or http:// dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3275200. Wright, T. (2010). What are MPs For? The Political Quarterly, 81(3), 298–308.

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Yates, C. (2010). Spinning, Spooning and the Seductions of Flirtatious Masculinity in Contemporary Politics. Subjectivity, 3(3), 282–302. Your Harlow. (2020). Harlow MP Robert Halfon Slams Government on Plans to Recall Parliament. Available at https://www.yourharlow.com/2020/05/21/ harlow-mp-robert-halfon-slams-government-over-plans-to-recall-parliament/.

CHAPTER 6

The House Service: ‘Servants’ and ‘Stewards’

A member of the House Service discusses recently taking some school children on a tour. She could not take them on the parliamentary terrace, upon their request. The inquisitive children asked “why?” she said that she did not have a parliamentary pass that was the right colour to confer access. At the end of the tour, she asked the children: “what did you learn on your tour today”? The dissatisfied children replied: “that the House of Commons is really unfair, Miss!1 ”

This chapter looks at a second set of actors, outlined in Chapter 3, who are integral to the everyday workings of parliaments: members of the House Service—the parliamentary administration of the House of Commons. The effective work environment of parliamentary staff not only contributes to parliamentary strengthening but makes parliaments more just workplaces. This chapter is original by analysing gendering in this working world. Furthermore, changes in the MP’s working world, as discussed in the last chapter, such as the Wright Reforms, have knockon effects to this working world. The terms ‘servant’ and ‘steward’ were chosen for the chapter title since these subject positions emphasise hierarchical binaries and were used by parliamentary actors to explain their ambivalent positionings. This chapter takes a threefold analysis of: (1) the career cycle. It looks at one recruitment process to the highest official in the House: the Clerk © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Miller, Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6_6

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of the House in 2014 and the way that gender was made both visible and invisible in the process. It then discusses issues of staff rotation in the circulation policy. The chapter then looks at (2) citizenship and the Workplace Equality Networks—key critical actors that were going through a process of institutionalisation at the time of the research. Finally, the chapter explores (3) public service. Two aspects are discussed, firstly how public engagement is considered and performed. Members of the House Service are key stewards for public engagement in the work of the Commons. Finally, in the face of bullying behaviours and ineffective rules for harassment and complaints, as outlined in Dame Laura Cox’s Report (2018), the chapter explores the unequal positions for members of the House Service to assert themselves, provide stewardship of the House of Commons confer recognition and make institutional life more ‘workable’ (Tyler 2019).

6.1

Career Cycle

The career cycle takes on a specificity for members of the House Service, because arguably, they have the longest career trajectory out of all the actors on the estate. I begin by discussing rules with gendered effects— that is the perception of a hierarchical arrangement of the House Administration in favour of procedural careers, over other careers—specifically, the decision in the Governance Committee’s report,2 to subordinate the Director General to the Clerk of the House—the highest official of the House Administration. I explore how gendered actors worked with the rules to change the governance structures and the subject positions involved. The second section explores a rule with a gendered effect: clerks’ circulation. I explore this rule, because it reflects a broader move in international parliamentary administrations (European Parliament 2020) to rotate staff to different departments. 6.1.1

Rules with Gendered Effects—The Governance of the House Inquiry

This chapter places emphasis on this formal episode of institutional change because it speaks to the central themes of the book. These are that (1) MPs have the possibility to interfere in high-profile recruitment and appointment processes, breaking the invisibility of parliamentary

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workers, which several members of the House Service value as a preference (Geddes 2019); (2) everyday cultures of institutions are linked to its governance structures; (3) theoretically, it highlights, quite vividly, Butler’s concept of regulations and sanctions discussed in Chapter 2, particularly how affects such as embarrassment could be a form of sanction; (4) it draws attention to broader questions in parliamentary studies about the functions of parliaments (Abels 2020) and the partiality of any reform arrangement (Kelso 2009). Although this episode has been discussed in (auto)biographical and academic sources (Crewe 2015; Petit and Yong 2018; Yong 2018; Geddes 2019; Bercow 2020; Meakin and Geddes 2020; Whale 2020), this book makes an attempt at applying a gender lens to make sense of power in the episode. More specifically, I draw attention to the role of gender performances in conveying meaning about the House of Commons as a workplace. To be sure, this chapter does not make a claim on the merits of the applicant outcome of Carol Mills. Instead, it employs gender as an analytical category (Beckwith 2005; Bacchi 2017) combined with Butler’s performativity (2011) and Lowndes’ gendered/gendering rules (2019) to highlight the complexity of gendering in this debate and how inequality is ‘done’ by actors working with these rules. In doing so, it shows the ambiguities and contradictions of how gender was simultaneously rendered silent in notions of common-sense arrangements, but also present in more proximate personifications of gendered actors. FDI unbounds the political (Kulawik 2009, p. 265). This means that it recognises that ‘the political’ is more than the legislative functions of parliaments and highlights the exercise of power and agency by broader categories of staff. Gendered actors worked with the governance structures and spoke from gendered subject positions. Power was de-gendered—that is, gender was not treated as a category of analysis in three articulations: (1) a hierarchy between procedural expertise and services; (2) organising out discussions of c/glass ceilings; (3) a proxy war couched in gendered ‘old war’ discourses (Kaldor 2012); whilst the applicant was gendered in two articulations: (1) gendered and xenophobic language constructing Mills as ‘stranger’; and (2) Burkean discourses that reiteratively reconsolidated both UK political traditions, and Mills as monstrous outsider. Firstly, this chapter draws attention to how functions of parliaments are debated through meanings conveyed and fought over in gendered performances and which were prioritised in this debate. There is a large literature on the functions of parliaments (Abels 2020; Kreppel 2014;

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Bagehot 1862). The first set of ostensibly unchallengeable statements was around the prioritisation of procedure over administration. Observers suggest that ‘it is procedure that distinguishes parliaments from other political assemblies’ (Palonen 2016, p. 12). Procedure is not objective but is subject to interpretation. Indeed, parliamentary staff are powerful interlocutors (Norton 2001), though may rarely be over-ridden. Resistances to decentring expertise beyond the parliamentary chamber suggests much about the institutionalisation of procedure. Parliamentary procedure attracts affective investments if the UK Parliament is respected worldwide as a ‘debating parliament’. The distinctness of procedure is embodied in dress, such as Table clerks wearing gowns. Procedure sets out the rules for debate, to control time and agenda. The nod towards objectivity feeds into a chain of hierarchical binaries such as objectivity/subjectivity, rationality/irrationality; mind/body; public/private; transcendence/immanence, which feminist theorists have critiqued (Ferguson 1984; Stivers 1993). In terms of the objectiveness of procedure, any solution is ideational and will privilege representations of problems and solutions. Speaker John Bercow and another member of the recruitment panel, the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge MP, tried to re-centre expertise needed for broader functions of parliaments and to reconfigure the career pathway around wider expertise in the parliamentary administration to facilitate this. They cited vast resources being put into non-legislative activities such as the then upcoming Restoration and Renewal programme—a major refurbishment of the House of Commons in order to value broader expertise. There had been an increasing pressure for more professionalised outreach, visitor services3 and agility towards re-prioritisations of business, security threats, constitutional changes and digital engagement. Bercow invoked professionalisation discourses to recite the norm of ‘expertise’: ‘there is another discipline and that discipline is management’.4 The sitting Serjeant at Arms also said: ‘Outside of the House, it would be almost universally recognised that the age of the gentleman amateur is past. Just as the House deserves to have a top procedural expert as its Clerk, so it needs to be managed by a trained professional’.5 The attention to dailiness—that is, the broader institutional caretaking within parliament in the evidence— was notable. A less charitable reading is that an angst was shown of the political losing its referent, in this case, law-making, to catering and

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facilities. The everyday is devalued as inconsequential, routine, unexceptional, devoid of decision-making and seemingly pre-political (Enloe 2011, p. 447). The everyday highlights an abundance of political relationships, re-territorialising agency to a plurality of parliamentary activity. In sum, ‘the everyday’ makes political life ‘common’ (Guillaume and Huysmans 2019, p. 282). My interpretation was that skills regimes were put into discussion—if not open struggle with each other quite openly in a hierarchicalised way. The second discourse was around the formal division of competencies and hierarchy between the two posts of Clerk and what was to become the Director General. This debate played on a longer attempt by Bercow to split the post into two positions, and he had failed to convince the Leader of the House Andrew Lansley and the outgoing clerk, Sir Robert Rogers. Indeed, a former Deputy Speaker suggested that the split needed to be managed in a way to keep the importance of the senior clerk of the House of Commons (in Whale 2020). The desire to rationalise and streamline parliament’s structures was understandably in part due to ‘Parliament’s sluggish nature [through] the lack of an accepted hierarchy or an identifiable, active leadership’ (Yong 2018, p. 101). However, an ambivalence is that parliaments have been conceptualised by those who take a more traditional outlook, as inimical to bureaucratic thinking (Palonen 2018a). Parliaments are simultaneously state institutions and opposed to the state’s bureaucratic core. In particular, the Director General Ian Ailles, former CEO of Thomas Cook, has discussed the constraints in decision-making in a public sector body (Doherty, 5 May 2018). Collective decision-making is fraught in the House Service if MPs can overturn decisions quite publicly on the floor of the House (Petit and Yong 2018, p. 31). Another ambivalence is that despite the articulation of democratic practices in the 2010–2015 Parliament, such as elections to departmental Select Committees, the Chair of this ad hoc select committee—that is, a committee that dissolves after completing its designated task, Rt Hon Jack Straw—was appointed rather than elected, not echoing the democratic practices of other committees and the desire to expand elections further. Formally, although the terms of reference of the Governance of the House Review have been interpreted as broad (Yong 2018 p. 86), they only mentioned precisely an allocation of responsibilities:

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to consider the governance of the House of Commons, including the future allocation of the responsibilities for House services currently exercised by the Clerk of the House and Chief Executive.6

The outcome, as constructed by some MPs, was an institutional arrangement whereby the Clerk remains head of the House Service and the Director General is subordinated to the Clerk as his/her ‘Line Manager’. The sequencing in appointments was a reflection of that: ‘there is a very clear arrangement. The Clerk is ‘top dog’. The Director General reports to the Clerk’.7 The outcome could have been a coequal leadership model but seems to have produced a ‘marzipan layer’ just below the summit. On reflecting on the process and her own treatment in Canberra, Mills says: ‘I did learn one lesson: clerks have much more influence than chief executives’ (in Whale 2020). Whilst this book does not make a claim on the empirical ‘fact’ of formal influence, it is interesting that this was a discourse that was articulated to make sense of the episode. Parliamentary reform is partial and subjective—some perspectives are organised in and others are organised out. The discursive connection between the administration of the House and parliamentary reform was a departure from the traditional reform: electoral reform, committee organisation, devolution, the upper chamber and the assertion of backbench independence. The Serjeant at Arms also stated that a ‘clerk-centric’8 leadership structure weakened ambition in other departments. A former Deputy Leader of the House, Barbara Keeley suggested that there seemed to be ‘glass ceilings’9 for women in the House Service. Indeed, clerks’ own disciplinary-specific trainings meant that members of staff elsewhere in the House Service had felt excluded (Crewe 2017, p. 48). Bureaucratic discourse has been critiqued as gendered (Ferguson 1984). Bureaucratic language arguably eclipsed other key governance issues. Bullying and harassment within and towards members of the House Service were reiterated in Dame Laura Cox’s QC Report (2018). She described the House of Commons as a ‘particularly serious case’ of bullying (2018, p. 3) and argued that the bullying and poor responses from management had ‘an obvious gendered dimension’ (2018, p. 68). She cited paternalism and reiterated that the UK House of Commons was a workplace. Furthermore, the House’s policies Valuing Others and Respect Policy had serious shortcomings in both coverage and permanence at the time of research. Crucially, the Clerk and Director General were charged with implementing the recommendations of Dame Laura

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Cox’s report. I argue that broader discourses of (career) equalities and harassment were organised out. This had the effect of rhetorically degendering—that is, removing gender as a category of analysis from the career structures of the House of Commons. A third set of statements was around the politicisation of the post, giving primary reference to men who would assumedly benefit from the proposed power arrangement. Indeed, that the Speaker chaired the recruitment panel, rather than an external person, was a departure from practice elsewhere, such as high appointments to the civil service (Riddell 2014) and so this fuelled accusations of politicisation and also has consequences for senior members of staff who may feel at the whim of a personal relationship with the Speaker (Whale 2020). Two former governance reports, the Ibbs (1990) and Braithwaite (1999), were, arguably, driven by Member dissatisfaction (Rush 2005, p. 46), whereas the Governance of the House report was driven, in part, by personality conflict. The discourse of a personality conflict that preluded the Governance of the House report presents Mills as without agency, caught between several ‘battles’ between traditionalists and modernisers, executive and parliament relations, and partisan relations. This hides the assumption that males are primary reference figures. Moments of decision-making were reduced to a proxy war between individuals who (ostensibly) remained classless, genderless and raceless. Indeed, government aides telephoned individuals in Australia to ask questions about her suitability and drawing on a football metaphor ‘played a very long game of dribbling it out and making Bercow’s life as uncomfortable as possible’ (aide in Whale 2020). These performances actually convey gendered meanings that show this was understood through a sporting fight, rather than showing any regard for Mills or for other aspirants for future posts. Feminist discursive institutionalism pays attention to the constructions of interests. The politicisation of the post with men as primary reference points featured in reductionist attributions of what it means to maximise power, interests and tactics in a given situation. A ‘powergrab’ was constructed that bolstered the Speaker’s office and contained an assumption that Mills would be a pliable actor. Gender performance— that is, the conveying of meanings—is performed in several different acts and discourses. The identity-building practices of the Speaker as a change agent—a muscular moderniser who was dragging parliament ‘kicking and screaming’ into the twenty-first century—were foregrounded and he had been elected on a reforming mandate in 2019. Antagonism

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extends to Bercow’s inter-institutional fights defending backbenchers’ rights and making parliament more visible, preventing parliament’s ‘emasculation’.10 Bercow invokes the discourses of the everyday to perform Speaker activism by stressing his quasi-private leadership preference and implied subjectivity of intergenerational justice, by insisting on chairing the Youth Parliament. To perhaps disarm some of these masculine performances, Bercow has been described as prioritising public relations in competing devalued feminine discourse of narcissism, hypertrophying the self as the absolute end (De Beauvoir 2010, p. 683). This politicisation was augmented by old war discourses which shored up UK military tradition and emphasised imaginaries of the (near) decisive encounter. This episode was highlighted by media analysts as one marked by the anticipation of conflict through ‘manifold references of controversy and clashes of opinion’ (Bednarek and Caple 2017, p. 88). Actors were hailed into iterations of a ‘realpolitik’. This included World War II ‘Dunkirk’ beach evacuations11 ; ‘firing a majestic broadside’12 ; references to the Royal Air Force13 ; ‘two camps’: ‘the chief executive-ites and the Clerk-ites’14 and also a ‘Trojan horse to pursue a personal vendetta’.15 The war discourse performed in this episode provided a striking insight into the affective life of some groups in the UK Parliament. Fineman notes that the language of battles tells us about the ‘emotional cultures’ of organisations and I would add iterability—this was one of the rounds of battles: ‘In casting competitors as enemies, it follows that they can be derided and “crushed,” and their defeat celebrated. Conversely, losing a battle is to be attended by feelings of humiliation and resentment – and then aggression to fuel a further round in the competitive “war”’ (2008, p. 3). Indeed, Bercow’s modest pause in the recruitment process was considered as a ‘climbdown’ and was seized upon in the chamber. Overall then, the prioritisation of procedure over service, the prioritisation of bureaucratic competences over equality and the politicisation of the post rendered gender invisible as a category of analysis from the debate. This is performative, since the absence of these considerations brings about material institutional arrangements. I now turn to discourses that gendered Carol Mills that acted as ‘regulations’, disciplining Mills and quite potentially future onlookers from applying for a job in the House Service. Mills was a subject who personified the discourses, but I claim that another candidate may well have in some senses been positioned similarly to Mills. The episode indicates that a duty of care as a corporate body during recruitment may be an aspect of gender-sensitivity.

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As Whale notes, ‘Mills was subject to attack in both hemispheres’ (2020). Mills was placed in a relationship of inequality by her auditors through her lack of expertise, and in her positioning as an ‘excessive outsider’ against a Burkean backdrop of gradualist institutional change. Indeed, the aforementioned procedural framing gave legitimacy to self-selected job auditors as claim makers on procedure at the parliamentary-administrative interface. Firstly, a key discourse was around Mills’ ‘lack’ of expertise. This was ostensibly her procedural expertise, but it also seeped into the denigration of her administrative expertise as an end in itself. Mills herself conveyed three times to the recruiters and then reiterated in the recruitment panel that she did not have a background as a clerk and was not a procedural expert, but was capable of learning on the job: ‘I was really clear about what I did do and what I didn’t do’ (in Whale 2020). Mills did have expertise in change management, which she had been in her previous position as Secretary of Parliamentary services in Canberra, such as better access to the parliamentary building, more transparency and more civil service type management (Whale 2020), and she met Bercow at the World e-Parliament Conference in South Korea. The recruiters said they had been tasked with looking beyond the traditional narrow scope of candidates. Developments in the MP’s world as discussed in the last chapter bear relevance for members of the parliamentary administration. Expertise of Mills requires an auditor who is positioned as an informed subject to actively engage themselves in the recruitment process and make claims at this parliamentary-administrative interface. There had been six (maleauthored) reports of the House of Commons Service, by Compton (1974), Bottomley (1975), House of Commons (1990), Braithwaite (1999), House of Commons (2007) and Jablonowski (2010). In terms of bodies and expertise in parliaments, there is a performative politics of discursive visibility on who comments on what topics and presence and absence may be gendered (Zimmerman 2020). The propensity for more MPs to act as experts in the debate was weakened by institutional factors such as the House of Commons Commission’s16 lack of visibility and leadership; the high turnover, absenteeism and an overrepresentation of men on domestic committees17 (Yong 2018); and competing parliamentary activities. The procedure committee has only received its first female chair, Karen Bradley MP, in 2020, who oversaw scrutinising of parliamentary procedure amidst the coronavirus and indeed had a narrow election

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win, with just nineteen votes more than her male opponent. In 2014, it was self-appointed experts who audited Mills’ expertise. Subject positions empower subjects to speak. However, sometimes subjects can have an ambivalent relationship to invited positions and they may retire oneself from discursive visibility: CM : What are your views on the debate that has ensued here to replace Sir Robert Rogers as Clerk of the House? Participant: It’s not something that I’ve been particularly engaged in. Because from my perspective, it’s really, well, it’s almost an employment matter if you want to look at it that way.18

In this context then, self-selection19 as experts of parliamentary administration who were hailed into the subject positions of ‘job auditors’ was important. Subsequent to the recruitment process, the newly recruited Director General’s inexperience of the public sector (Doherty, Economia, 5 June 2018) was not something that was subsequently debated in public. Mills’ ‘lack’ of expertise was also iterated by a second set of auditors. These were unsupportive media, some of who were in the parliamentary press lobby and endogenous to the institution. On 29 June 2014, the Mail on Sunday reported her candidacy. This was information that had been leaked and she was unhappy about it (in Whale 2020). The episode indicates that a duty of care as a corporate body during recruitment may be an aspect of gender-sensitivity. As Whale notes, ‘Mills was subject to attack in both hemispheres’ (2020). Indeed, over the summer months, Mills’ professional identity was represented in gendered terms, such as a ‘Canberra Caterer’ (Walters, Mail, 31 August 2014), ‘Waltzing Matilda’ (Owen and Carlin, Mail, 3 August 2014) and ‘someone who doesn’t know her ayes from her noess, let alone her elbow or any other part of her anatomy’ (Letts, Mail, 29 August 2014). Embodied metaphors foreclose expertise. More sympathetic media assigned Mills the subject position of a ‘feisty Australian woman’ (Davidson, Telegraph, 22 August 2014). In addition to the male journalists cited above, Mills’ ‘lack’ also articulated by female parliamentary actors. Betty Boothroyd, a former speaker of the Commons, claimed on BBC Parliament’s Book Talk that Mills was ‘out of her depth’,20 whilst the Clerk of the Australian Senate, Rosemary Laing, sent an email intervening in the appointment, saying it was ‘bizarrre’, ‘embarrassing’ and ‘an affront’. The identity of senior learned women was counterpoised to the inexperienced Mills, facilitating

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an infantilising construction of Mills and her capabilities. Gender was also discussed in this episode by another senior female, the chair of the Backbench Business Committee who constructed feminist interests: I am a feminist, and I would like nothing more than to see a woman take on one of the most senior positions in this country, but if the job is given to someone who is not qualified for it, it will strengthen the hand of people who think that women cannot succeed. They will say, “You see? They’re not up to it.” It will give the equalities agenda a bad name.21

Gendering discourse then is performed by both male and female actors who make claims around legitimate ‘knowledge’ and also articulate claims about feminist interests. Eventually, recruitment exercises may inject more heterogeneous meanings into women who assume leadership roles and feminist interests. A second discourse constituted Mills in the subject position of an excessive ‘outsider’. For the first time, headhunters Saxton Bampfylde were used to seek the possibility of recruiting from a pool outside those in the House Service. They located Mills in Australia. There are indeed trade union debates to be had about the fairness of recruiting from outside an organisation and bypassing its internal applicants. Who is constructed as an ‘outsider’ matters since ‘insiders’ have the power to name or misname the meaning of struggles and what this was about. As mentioned, because the problem was presented as a procedural problem, Burkean thought22 played a significant role in the identity narrative of the MP who put forward the motion to get the House’s input on the appointment process. Burke was Irish and Catholic, but widely regarded as a founder of British Conservatism and a proponent of continuity, tradition and rank. Feminist historians have lucidly illustrated that Burkean discourses of reform and their contestations have gendered subtexts (Wallach Scott 1986; O’Donnell 2019). Less sympathetic readers of Burke critique his constructions of femininity during times of transition: Edmund Burke’s attack on the French Revolution is built around a contrast between ugly, murderous sans culottes hags (“the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest of women”) and the soft femininity of MarieAntoinette who escaped the crowd to “seek refuge at the feet of a King. (Wallach Scott 1986, p. 1071)

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In the debate on the floor of the House of Commons, Mills is presented as an excessive and aural outsider: ‘there is no objection in principle to an Australian – because when a point of order is raised, the Speaker is quickly whispered advice by the Clerk’.23 The nod to Mill’s nationality is important since the UK Parliament’s procedure as an ‘ideal type’ globally and is ‘tightly interconnected with the aristocratic English gentleman ideal’ (Palonen 2018b, p. 509). This may matter symbolically also for (aspirant) employees of the House Service who are not UK nationals. The Serjeant at Arms noted that it was unprecedented that someone from a non-traditional background had occupied the position. This echoed class discussions in the interviews and a discursive practice of ‘pedigree networking’ by discussing shared university boating teams24 over lunch, a practice which universalises middle-class experience (Maycock 2016, p. 72). In-group similarities and out-group differences discursively bring about an outcome of institutional blocking (Puwar 2004). Gendering works through many addresses—or interpellations including framed organograms in the Palace of Westminster at the time of research: ‘The organogram that’s around the House framed with lots of old white men is just really dangerous messaging, they should take it down’.25 Mills claimed that she sensed pushback from the Commons human resources department about her candidacy (in Whale 2020). She herself anticipated that appointing someone from outside Westminster would attract attention, but ‘did not anticipate the full extent of the backlash’ (in Whale 2020). As mentioned in Chapter 2, bodies forcibly cite norms. Ordered bodily routines and comportment were articulated such as the clerk’s ‘constitutionally correct beard’26 and ‘countenance at the Table…of a granite detachment, unmoved by the funniest of jokes or by the most tedious misbehavior’27 ; ‘a walking “Erskine May”28 made flesh’.29 Informally, this gave cues to tacit understandings of professional identities in parliament and physical embodiment that compel and constrain embodied performances. It is harder for some bodies to approximate, even if the ‘somatic norm’ is seemingly disembodied (Puwar 2004). The following quote is interesting since it suggests that a collective identity was mobilised: the show of power by the clerkly race in their response to Carol Mills’ appointment was very interesting. So that establishment bastion still exists and is still very powerful…There has been some really interesting

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messaging from within the House and from within the media about who’s worthy of taking on this role…it’s a bit of a macrocosm of what’s happening here…she’s not of a sufficient class, she’s not the right gender. She’s an outsider, she’s not part of the club”…there’s still feeling of the Oxbridge, male pale heterosexual person who talks in Latin and whose hobbies include history and bird-watching. It’s just a very, it’s a certain type.30

Inequality through sanctions is further reinforced through dramatised affects. Mills’ application became an object of embarrassment, governance and intervention. Furthermore, formally, the UK Parliament formally consists of the crown, the executive and the legislature. There was an effort to intervene dramatically on a letter to the Queen by the Cabinet Secretary, so not to embarrass the Queen. The position is a crown appointment so that the government cannot remove a Clerk of the House capriciously. The former clerk had been spoken about affectionately in cricket metaphors and the sharing of whiskey in the Retirement debate. Affect circulated in the regret that the former clerk Sir Robert Rogers had decided to retire after a fraught relationship with the Speaker. In the Retirement of the Clerk debate of July 2014, war discourse was circulated affectionately in anecdotes of Roberts’ career biography chairing the Defense Committee in the mid-1980s. This may also be an indicator that clerking committees of high-spending government departments such as defence may lead to senior positions. Laudations of protecting ‘front line’ house services in the savings programme—a programme of savings in the administration of the House, after the expenses and financial crises—accompanied quantifications of staff couched in military terms: ‘2,000—the size of three infantry battalions’.31 Overall then, Mills entered an unfavourable discursive context where she was constructed affectively in a relation of inequality to UK parliamentary ‘insiders’ and shared institutional stories. This section has offered novel insights and a perspective on the debate on parliaments as gendered workplaces based on the discursive interplay between de-gendering and gendering. The performing of subject positions of embodied ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ at a time of institutional change reflects Lovenduski’s observation:

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the shaping of gender by public institutions privileges certain kinds of masculinity and operates to maintain its dominance during periods of change, implementing a kind of insulation process. (2005, p. 51)

This section has discussed recruitment, but what are the arrangements for careers for employees in the House Service? The next section explores this further. 6.1.2

Rule-in-Form with a Gendered Effect—Clerk Circulation

This section discusses circulation, which is a system of job rotation in the House of Commons. Three participants discussed, and an equality audit investigated this rule-in-form. The symbolic representation of women clerks has included gendered miscellany of the past such as the need for women to wear white gloves as a pre-requisite in interviews (Sharpe 2015) and low numbers of women clerks having a group identity when meeting as a self-described ‘coven’ (Crewe 2017, p. 47). Although women have made significant inroads into the Department for Chamber and Committee Services, they are lacking in the higher pay grades. Development opportunities for clerks included ‘Table Associate Clerks’ sitting at the Table of the House on a rotation basis. This is important since the Table is part of the visibly performative notion of parliaments. The rotation breaks seniority gaps and produces images of women at the Table, although at the time of fieldwork only two out of eight Table Associate Clerks were women. One participant suggested: it’s not been massively useful in terms of personal development, but it has had the desired symbolic effect of seeing women sitting at the Table.32 The role of a clerk is changing from more judicial-focused to being more service, delivery and advice-focused. Because clerks have three broad roles: managing committees, clerking the parliamentary chambers and administering parliament, they are required to be generalists: the Jack of all Trades. The rule-in-form of circulation in the Committee Office, Chamber Business Directorate and Overseas Office governs the movement of staff from grades D to Senior Commons Structure 1A. At the time of research, there were two types of circulation: bi-annual circulation twice a year and ad hoc circulation to meet a staffing change. The circulation at the time of study was picked at the Principal Clerk level and head of team. The Liaison Committee, that is the committee of select

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committee chairs, suggested that they wanted more transparency in this arrangement: We want to see more stability in committee staffing, and greater involvement by chairs in staff appraisal and appointments. We would like to see more inward secondments to the Committee Office, and recommend that it should be possible for committee clerks to be directly appointed by open competition. (House of Commons Liaison Committee 2012, p. 4)

The aims of the managed moves are to ensure business continuity; to meet flexibility, by creating a broad repertoire of skills; and to increase organisational commitment and engagement. Because there is no externally taught qualification in clerking unlike for Hansard Reporters where City University offers a postgraduate diploma in parliamentary reporting; specialist knowledge, skills and examinations for clerks are learnt on the job, so rotation through the House is important. This also allows the individual to build a profile in different work settings and so identity-building practices are important. Having briefly outlined the circulation policy, I will now discuss how this organisational arrangement allowed some women to be the Jacqui33 of most trades. To be subjected to rules differs by institutional identity. An equality analysis investigated the perceived impact on gender relations and found ‘substantial evidence’ that members of the House Service felt disadvantaged on the return from parental leave. Circulation also correlated with auditing others’ progression: They are competing for promotions so are continually looking around at their colleagues’ progress. I would not want to overstate it, but people are looking at where they are in the pecking order. Seniority in terms of time served is very important there.34

A second rule-in-use is homo-sociality. Circulation has been criticised for not being transparent. Whilst teams have ended up harmonious, the rulein-use places iterative pressure to ‘be around’ and to ‘look circulatable’ in different settings—including bars, training events and the canteen: It’s kind of “that face would fit, I could work with that person, he or she would fit well within the team”…It militates against people who are quiet, lower profile but just as hard-working and maybe tuck themselves away and get on with the job. Again we know that women disproportionately

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are the ones who are dashing off at 5 o’clock, working part-time, not propping up the bars, not coming to every training event that’s offered, not just, to be honest, being able to sit around the canteen having a high profile and looking ‘circulatable’…I think it also perpetuates this kind of ‘in the club’ mentality of – there are people who are “good to work with” and are “hot property” circulation-wise and there are people who are just like ‘nah’ circulation-wise. It’s a bit of a “being picked last in the team” school mentality.35

The ‘descriptive’ marks of ‘looking circulatable’ are again embodied, having a face ‘that fits’, ‘propping up bars’ and being visible; or otherwise building homo-social capital (Bjarnegard 2013). In terms of being read as ‘circulatable’, maternity also militated against women. A former clerk was reported as using negative language such as dividing and classifying female members of staff through a ‘fertile list’ of those in a ‘red zone’—that is, those women who might ‘pop off’ at any moment and might not be considered for promotion: I think that it is changing, but at the moment as a woman, senior management see you as a bit of a risk if you are of a child-bearing age and less of a “dead cert” in terms of promotional capacity. Less able just to give that kind of wraparound commitment – that the perception is that Members want and need, so less of a “sure bet” than a man…People coming back from maternity leave are still routinely told things like: “well, we’re going to have to give you a bit of a non-job because you’re a part-timer so that really limits what you can do”.36

Furthermore, beneath this rule was another discursive struggle. Dame Laura Cox cited an ‘obvious gender dimension’ to bullying and harassment claims (2018, p. 69). She noted the bullying on select committees and stated that the majority of allegations were made by women. Circulation became ‘reduced to two posts’ for female candidates due to a history of harassment by a committee member: I’ve known examples of women being told “well you can’t come to that committee because it has a male chair who we don’t think he should be around women and we don’t think that he works well with women so we’ll give it to a man.37

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The practice of informally managing harassment placed iterative pressure on senior male clerks who arranged the circulation and are constrained by neutrality norms, to occupy a subject position of avuncular ‘protectors’. Responses to the circulation rule in the equality analysis cited age and gender also an intersection for non-elected members. Participants reported a reluctance to bestow authority on younger women. Younger seconders into the Commons were given the impression: ‘not to worry your pretty little head’ in meetings, and one participant felt that she was ‘taken more seriously’ in meetings if she wore makeup.38 These findings were supported in the equality analysis: [there is] a tendency of senior managers to view women as young, regardless of experience and actual age, and that this may count against them in circulation (Equality Analysis, 2015, p. 5; Cox 2018, p. 70)

Opportunities at the time of the research were arguably reduced for female clerks who were discursively positioned as inexperienced or in need of protecting by avuncular men who adopted the subject position of job auditors, adjudicating in some cases that it was ‘not their turn’ (Cox 2018, p. 70). Therefore, some women could be the Jacqui of most trades. This section has therefore explored both changes in the governance structure and a rule around staff circulation to explore gendering everyday in this working world.

6.2

Citizenship

This section discusses how citizenship routinely situates members of the House Service. As mentioned in Chapter 4, Gherardi takes a more holistic notion of citizenship to incorporate a fuller notion of the person into the organisation. The section discusses the Workplace Equality Networks (hereafter ‘WENs’) that have been introduced since 2010 to make the culture of the House Service more inclusive and to convey norms of ‘diversity and inclusion’. Whilst the WENs have many advantages—namely, breaking down silos, agenda-setting and institutionalised critique—some structural, cultural and philosophical challenges still remain. In particular, I pick up upon the dominant discourse that was used at the time ‘bringing the whole self to work’, and have situated this within the parliamentary workplace.

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6.2.1

Gendered Actors Working with the Rules: The Workplace Equality Networks

This section discusses the functions, potentials of and resistances to the Workplace Equality Networks in the House of Commons. There is a broader literature on gender-focused bodies in parliaments (Grace and Sawer 2016). These gender-focused bodies include standing committees in parliaments (Ahrens 2016); cross-party and intra-party caucuses (Allen and Childs 2019); and issue-based parliamentary groups (Freidenvall and Erikson 2020). There is less literature about staff networks in parliaments. WENs work to improve the working conditions in parliament; raise consciousness about inequalities; and provide performative supports to staff members. The WENs were set up by some critical actors, the Speaker and Clerk of Parliament, and were supported by a former Serjeant at Arms, and a former Head of Diversity and Inclusion, though they are separate from the House Management. The outgoing Head of Diversity and Inclusion suggested that institutionalising these had been one of her proudest achievements and so this suggests that this institutional innovation was affectively charged as being positive. The fact that they were set up by senior staff suggest that they have legitimacy. The workplace equality networks have been essential to the House of Commons’ Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, are supported by a legal framework of the Equalities Act 2010; and symbolises the UK Parliament as a champion for changes in society. These are: ParliOUT,39 ParliGENDER,40 ParliREACH,41 ParliABLE,42 and ParliON.43 Key initiatives that the WENs have introduced are: reverse mentoring44 ; holding events on substantive issues; publishing reports; panel discussions; campaigns; and AGMs. There are role models and diversity awards. The main infrastructure of WENs is staff volunteers. In the 2013/2014, 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 financial years, the total budget for the funding of the WENs has been £20,000 per annum. This is split evenly between each WEN. Staff are given time out to administer the WENs. Having set out the background of the WENs, I outline four benefits of the WENs for allowing more capacious gender performances, but three challenges and everyday resistances towards WENs as well. A primary benefit of WENs is that WEN activity could foster a politics of self-assertion by bringing ‘your whole self to work and having an embodied space to ‘talk about difference’. This recognises all staff and

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brings them into visibility. Butler asked how we can ‘shatter the epistemic blindness’ of gender inequality, by naming inequalities and making them visible (Butler 2011, p. 178). Furthermore, by bringing more of themselves to work, it avoids being ‘undone’ by their institutional position. The WENs provide a forum where subjugated knowledge can be heard. This exercises citizenship since it enacts performative tensions within workplace citizenship by showing that citizenship is not equal or accessible to all, if left to the status quo. They engage in a number of citizenship acts of group-assertion such as flying flags, joining marches, declarations and email signatures. Diversity awards provide positive feedback to people who have tried to make the parliamentary workplace an inclusive environment. It is also notable from the House of Commons’ social media activity that statements are being made on behalf of the ‘parliamentary community’, for example, in response to the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Secondly, in the light of formal organisational complexity, the WENs have the potential to break down silos in the House Service, highlighted by Geddes (2019, p. 78) and for groups to share and learn about expertise. The notion of boundaries has been traditionally characterised as masculine for encouraging turf wars between departments. This institution may break down pedigree networking as discussed in the previous section by coalescing discourse around other activities. Invites are displayed around the parliamentary estate such as ‘What’s On in Parliament’ noticeboards, since some staff, perhaps in catering and security, might not have daily access to a computer. Equality issues can theoretically be a site of alliance for different workers since the WENs provide a coalitional framework for employees across the House to appear together and for cultural translation to occur between members (Butler 2015, p. 27). The ‘institutionalisation of participation’ (Kanter 1996, p. 198) could in theory have a subversive effect on silos—but only if all staff feel welcome to join. The Governance Committee argued for ‘more and better ways for staff and Members to get to know and understand each other’ (2014, p. 63). Two WEN members’ responses coalesced around the benefit of being in a WEN as the opportunity for contact and community: [it’s] quite selfishly, just a really good way to meet some really engaged, switched on people from around the organisation and to also appreciate the work that goes on, on the Members’ side. We don’t often get to see what

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Members of Parliament and their staff, especially what their work looks like so professionally, it’s very useful for me to understand the ‘Member world’ slightly better. Knowledge is shared within departments…Between departments, knowledge isn’t shared so effectively, we’re quite siloed…I’m now aware of a wider working world through being a member of a Workplace Equality Network that’s more cross-cutting and a more corporate experience from other departments.45

Intersectional practices in the Workplace Equality Networks are important for giving recognition to multiple inequalities and to allow for mutuality, co-operation, and identification. The WENs meet in an ‘omni WEN’ once a year, which may allow for coalitional organising, but collaborations also include sharing stalls together, for example at UK Black Pride. Collaborations also include partnerships and panel discussions with community groups. Since the fieldwork was conducted, a ParliREACH intersectionality forum has been set up. Thirdly, the WENs have informally developed an agenda-setting capacity. The WENs have a positive role in data-gathering, contributing to inquiries, requesting equality audits, and campaigning on equalities issues. They may provide a space for parliamentary actors to organise and politicise rules-in-use about gender such as the ‘reduced to two post’ rule discussed in Sect. 6.1.2. In this sense, given the ‘insider’ knowledge of how the UK House of Commons works, physical presence on the estate and networks they have they can conceivably mobilise around inequalities (see Berthet (2019) for a discussion of staff mobilisation in the European Parliament). They have also campaigned for changes to the workplace, such as a trial distributing free period products on the estate, in some toilets. ParliGENDER members contributed to the Gender-Sensitive Parliament Audit through focus groups. The influence of the WENs has spread beyond the House of Commons precinct into research synergies (Childs and Challender 2019). This challenges norms of institutional authorship whereby men have been over-represented as ‘chroniclers and interpreters’ and ‘agents of consciousness’ of parliamentarism and power (see also Shore 2000, p. 26). WENs have legitimacy and have been instrumental in pursuing gender-equal change. They also share opportunities to participate in scrutiny, such as inquiries from the Women

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and Equalities Select Committee, All Party Parliamentary Groups, and MPs who have organised backbench business debates on relevant topics. Fourthly, the WENs also show how Parliament can be responsive to and lead on changes in the norms of society, such as the acceptance of LGBTQI rights and anti-racism as norms. ParliOUT has gained external recognition for its work and a recent innovation was buying and flying a rainbow and then progress pride flag over Portcullis House during Pride celebrations. The networks have been highly commended, and attention that the WENs receive from other Civil Society Actors, such as Stonewall, shows that they may be institutionalised and difficult to revoke. Fifthly, the networks provide space for expertise beyond management rationalities: we are contractually apolitical and to actually have a political outlet in some form – that is not only allowed but is supported by the organisation, is a great and wonderful thing to be involved in, I think. We spend all of our time ordinarily being professional bureaucrats and thinking “well what’s expensive and what’s cheap, what’s efficient and what isn’t” and we never actually get to think about what’s right and wrong or what’s good or bad and in a moral sense very often.46

Because the House Service is apolitical, making political suggestions to MPs is discouraged and so the WENs provide a forum to discuss gender equality. However, challenges to the WENs remain. The first challenge is formal and structural and around capacity-building. Institutions require ‘active maintenance’ (Streeck and Thelen 2005, p. 30) and succession planning to ensure longevity and effectiveness (Albert, 16 September 2016). Although the WENs were prioritised at the highest level and so had legitimacy, sanctioned from the ‘top-down’ by Sir Robert Rogers, who was a Diversity champion,47 and Speaker Bercow asked to free up time, at the time of the fieldwork, WENs were not always well resourced and are seen as ‘additional’ to everyday workplace tasks: CM : What’s the biggest challenges for the Workplace Equality networks? P: Making the largest possible difference with finite resources and finite time. I think that’s the main challenge. We don’t—collectively as a group of individuals on the committee and by the wider membership… there’s not that much time to go around and do an everyday job, they’re all doing this over and above. The challenge is to make sure that we put

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our efforts into things which actually pay off and that make a difference, rather than making it the talking shop where this kind of thing is often seen as and can so often become as well48 (emphasis added). P: The challenges are that everyone is busy and they need more time to commit. We also want to make sure that they remain as a structure outside of the House structure.49

Furthermore, a field member felt that it was staff facilities, rather than MP facilities that were the most vulnerable to make space for equalities initiatives, rather than Member facilities such as the rifle range. She lamented: ‘[t]hey’ve turned a staff bar into an Officer’s crèche’.50 WENs then may benefit from redistributive resources in addition to being supported for their role in increasing recognition. Secondly, whilst 73%51 of participants to a House Service survey had heard of the WENs and 20% were WEN members, Members (Staff) were less informed. Parties have their own equalities sections. At the time, the awareness levels were low in the interviews and one MP thought that it was something for IPSA to promote. When discussing how much influence the WENs had to the Members’ world, one MP said: CM : Have you had any dialogue with ParliXXX? P: The what? CM : The Workplace Equality Network for MPs, staff and house staff for XXX? P: Yes I spoke at one of their events, I think eighteen months ago. CM : Do you know how the network is progressing? P: No I don’t52

This interview excerpt suggests that there are less institutionalisation and sustained engagement with the WENs from MPs and their staff. Although equalities networks have been set up, the engagement with them at the time of fieldwork was mostly by the House Service. For example, a senior BAME parliamentary researcher at the time of the research had not heard of ParliREACH.53 The third challenge for institutionalising the WENs is cultural and bottom-up. Badge acquisition such as Investors in People Status, whilst reviewed in a rolling system, can produce cultural problems. Many feminists have been sceptical about the non-performativity of a diversity ‘boom’ and the deployment of ‘difference’ as a discursive resource

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by businesses, since it may overlook broader structural power relations (Puwar 2004; Ahmed 2006). Such awards are texts in themselves (Shore 2000, pp. 60–62) since they may place emphasis on individual minority success in workplaces. A working-class member of the House Service suggested: ‘I’m a very lucky boy to do this job’, again the indirect rule reminder about how people are supposed to feel, similar to the rule reminder discussed in Chapter 7. Silences within this discourse can overlook the pain and thick contingency that comes with reaching these posts. However, ‘passionate attachments’ to professional values can ‘undo’ us if they override other (gendered) contingencies. Like parallel findings of resistance from managers in the Swedish parliamentary administration (Freidenvall and Erikson 2020 pp. 7–8), informally, indirect resistance to the WENs came from some line managers who were not entirely convinced of WENs because of the need for resources and personnel, and also given the formal seals of equality in certifications, the attitude was ‘aren’t we there already’,54 and some individuals saw WENs as a ‘distraction from work’.55 Whilst departments have been instructed to release time for WEN members, informally, for some WEN members, it was ‘the first thing to be bumped’ from their diary56 if a ‘more important’ meeting came up. Equality was culpable of being seen as a ‘wishy-washy’ feminised ‘soft’ activity, a less valued institutional space. These acts served as informal resistances to a consciously gender-citizenship: It’s been quite often seen here as a wishy-washy nice thing that is going on and probably conforms with what a lot of people that work in this kind of area full time would say. You come up against things. As well as there being a dismissiveness of it, I think that there’s a large embrace of it that’s all lip service. I think that everyone’s happy to trumpet and fly the flag of diversity and inclusion and gender equality until it gets difficult. Until it is inconvenient or causes tension with either individual self-interests or collective interests. It will generally be the first thing that falls away.57

The excerpt infers that there is also a danger of a corporate identity of the ‘happy institution’ (Ahmed 2012, p. 10) and the discursive profiling of ‘model minorities’ in the workplace. A tension was of moving away from diversity ‘initiatives’ to mainstreaming.

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The fourth challenge is around the philosophy of WENs—that is with regard to narrative coherence, when there are spectral parts of identities that are difficult to narrativise outside of dominant discourses (Butler 2005). The formal discourse promulgated at the time of research was to ‘bring your whole self to work’. This incitement might alienate some actors, though may empower others, since in ParliREACH’s survey, only 56% respondents stated that they felt comfortable being themselves in the workplace and that there was a ‘need to be invisible’ resulting in a ‘death to self’ whilst at work (ParliREACH 2019, p. 2). Furthermore, it may be argued that people do not have ownership over their bodies, which they then bring to the public world (Beasley and Bacchi 2000, p. 343). Indeed, these networks might be the place where parliamentary actors might develop coherence and it might be that that incoherence is the most fruitful place (Tyler 2019, p. 113). Some individuals have a weak sense of self. Bringing an ‘authentic’ identity to work negates how identity is a fragmented institutional effect and many people inhabit split subjectivities. A final challenge is around visibility. Whilst benefits of visibility were discussed, Fraser considers: ‘those who choose not to be (made) seeable and who may therefore be excluded from a politics that lends itself to visibility’ (1999, p. 124). One parliamentary researcher avoided a WEN because he had ‘heard talk’ about getting an email signature and was concerned that the name ‘ParliOUT’ favoured members who are ‘out’. Another MP cited risks of engaging with ParliOUT. He suggested that he had stopped engaging with ParliOUT because newspapers intimated that he had a sexual interest in the group.58 Therefore, the potential for media interest in these Workplace Equality Networks makes them specific unlike staff networks in other professional fields. The particular construction of his sexual identity by a negative press mediated his ability to engage with the network and shows that identity matters in the ability to engage in workplace citizenship on the estate. Overall then, as gendered actors working with the rules, WENs provide a space where members can bring more facets of themselves to work and to display solidarity with traditionally under-represented groups in the parliament. Their existence is a form of institutional stewardship— making the parliament more open and accessible to work in. However, these WENs will have to adapt to change to new settings such as a postCOVID work environment, and with changing parliamentary actors, such as different Speakers, Clerks of the House, Leaders of the House and

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Commissions. The next section analyses the performance of public service for members of the House Service.

6.3

Public Service

Why do members of the House Service work in parliament, rather than the private sector? Public service is important since institutions are held together through everyday acts of professional integrity, justice and democratic linkage. Public service is a key way through which members of the House Service interpret their role in parliaments (Geddes 2019, p. 83). These actors have been identified as important actors who make claims on behalf of parliamentary democracy (Judge and Leston-Bandeira 2018) and are indeed its stewards. Most employees in the House Service have a proud identification with the House and felt fortunate to work amidst both the ceremony and the dailiness of the parliamentary process. To ensure that the confidence of MPs is gained, the House Service is integrated based on a public service ethos, professionalism, impartiality and expertise. This was not perceived to be a gendered construct: There is strict impartiality. That is a common core commitment. There has been strong pressure put on Members of the House Service. We are sitting in private meetings and have to be very clinical, poker-faced.59 It’s not gender based, it’s a professional qualification for the job. Some people are better or worse at it, male and female. Whether they are different in private with their views – that’s a different matter.60

When performing public service, a discursive struggle encapsulating two subject positions of ‘servants’ and ‘stewards’61 was reported. This section discusses how members of the House Service occupied and re-worked these subject positions. The first section examines discourses of deference and how rules partially about gender,62 the Respect Policy and Valuing Others Policy were ineffective and fell into disuse. The second subsection explores ‘stewardship’ and how gendered actors working with the rules in the House are reciting this norm towards gender equality.

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Inadequacy of Rules-in-Form with Gendered Effects: Valuing Others and Respect Policy

Formally, power in the House of Commons is skewered towards MPs because MPs are elected and so the House of Commons is memberled. There is a greater ratio of staff to MPs and there has been a greater emphasis on service. Whilst a ‘good will element’, a high pressure environment and a fluctuating business schedule are not dissimilar to other workplaces, a segmentalist employment structure, the high ratio of staff in supportive roles to MPs, an environment of ruling and party competition, a representative function, a law-making function and a UNESCO heritage site combine to produce the House of Commons as a unique workplace. The House Service facilitates parliamentary functions for MPs through providing both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ infrastructure (Erikson and Joseffson 2020). Its existence relies on MPs’ usage. This constitutes a structural power relationship. Informally, the organisation of the relationship between the House Service and MPs had produced a discourse and subject positions of members of the House Service as servants rather than stewards: MPs can tend to forget that this is a workplace for staff, because it’s their club if you like.63 If this were a hotel, services might be withheld from a particularly obstreperous MP, but that would be going against everything that the House Service exists to do. It has never, ever been contemplated.64

Some participants suggested that interactions with MPs and the House Service are contemporarily more egalitarian. 1997 was cited by two respondents as a turning point, when: ‘people would hold the doors open for you rather than letting them close in your face’.65 Part of everyday service is performing localised acts of intuition—that is, knowing about committee members’ interests, needs, motivations and preferences, or knowing in the catering department that an MP likes chips rather than French fries.66 The likelihood of rude behaviour sat on a continuum by the degree and context of how ‘member-facing’ employees were and at what time of day. Incidences of illicit acts or rude behaviour towards the House Service were reported by five participants, two67 had experienced comments or an approach and three knew a colleague who had, one of which was on a select committee visit.68 One participant had

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received ‘a couple of little comments here and there by older men’ in his early twenties, but was reluctant to say he felt ‘harassed’. However, he pointed to an environment where there was a ‘ permissiveness of people in power’.69 Allegations of such behaviour, were put more firmly on the agenda, following a Newsnight inquiry (Cook and Day 2018), and raise questions about whether House staff are respected. A rule-in-form potentially about gender: the formal harassment policy: the Respect Policy agreed in 2011, was proven to be ineffective and had fallen into disuse. It had a formal and informal section. The formal part was removed in November 2012 because Members had no appeal. MPs felt ‘under siege’70 post-expenses scandal and feared further reputational damage. For 18 months, there was no formal policy. A formal process of accountability was reassuring to participants: actually MPs knowing that they can be held to account for their behaviour. I think that it would be helpful.71 we had a situation on our team and were just told: “well look there’s nothing really in place at the moment and you’ll have to wait until one has developed”.72

Furthermore, the Respect Policy had issues of coverage and did not cover Members’ Staff, contractors or Lords staff. It has also not been devised specifically for sexual harassment, although arguably this did need its own policy. This coincided with a ‘mend your own fence first’ fragmented approach where due to time pressures, individual departments dealt with their own issues. The House Service has different trade unions from Members’ Staff. A rule-in-use prior to the formal policy was having a ‘quiet word’ with the Whips, but referring to Whips, a participant suggested: ‘they are essentially the same people’. A participant said: They’ve been terribly defensive about the recording of incidences and near misses …There’s lots and lots of small instances, lots of people upsetting a little bit all over the place and it’s not being recorded… it’s got to be incumbent on managers…to report and to record it rather than leaving it to someone’s wishes.73

Cumulatively, this led to the institutional minimising of complaints (Cox 2018). Institutional silences are performative. There was stigma around

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invoking the policy as a sign that employees could not handle MPs. A complainant in the House Service discussed how inequalities were sustained by feeling rules: Throughout my career, I’ve been trained to be resilient and ‘fine’, so when I made the complaint, colleagues would ask me all the time “how are you?” And I would say “I’m fine” because that was a way of proving that I wasn’t weak and submitting to being treated badly because I was a bit of a failure. (Staff member, Newsnight, 23 March 2018)

Furthermore, not all MPs had been formally briefed about the revised Respect Policy. Non-reporting and negative language around reporting74 is also an iterative act (Butler) that brings about an effect of a gendered organisation. Furthermore, demeaning acts might exceed formal definitions of harassment and lay on a spectrum. A female clerk lamented: ‘a lot of micro-management: “have you done this”’.75 This suggests a lack of trust and under-estimating of abilities. Members of the House Service operate in a subject position as ruleenforcers. Sometimes this has to be done in public; for example, staff had to handle the MPs who protested when Speaker Bercow was due to leave his chair after the proroguing of parliament. A participant described performances of respecting feelings and emotional labour when imposing rules: if you impose rules… it always has to be quite sensitively done because they will build up relationships with the Members quite quickly: “I’m with so and so”…and they can be quite sneaky. You would only do it if you realised something iffy was going on but they can be very hot-headed. 76

For members of the parliamentary administration as gendered actors working with the rules, there is a balance between recognition and unwanted publicity. Geddes notes that being ‘hidden’ (2019) is a preference for members of the House Service since their advice does not become politicised. A female clerk regretted that a female colleague who had received overbearing and undermining behaviour in select committee meetings was named in a newspaper as an ‘attractive clerk’ and had become disengaged and less effective on the committee. A duty of care may have prevented this being circulated in newspapers. The clerk had been ‘girled’ by receiving inappropriate questions about her private life.

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A confrontational interface with an individual MP was discussed by a member of staff when his department had been criticised in a newspaper for acting on an equalities issue: [shows a press cutting]. Because I went against an MP’s wishes he’s then started a massive, great: “have a go at X” campaign… So yes they do bully.77

Participants felt their formal job descriptions were collapsed into one ‘constitutive other’ of a more generalised servant relationship: the culture of deference …[is] hard to shift. Members think we’re here as a kind of butler or assistant who, they don’t really distinguish very well between different jobs…they have in general quite a kind of, a style of summarily calling for you to do whatever is at the top of their list is.78 a male MP in a cafeteria spills a cup of coffee over his papers when paying and he [perhaps feeling awkward?] groans and walks off, leaving the woman operating the till to mop the floor.79

The material surroundings of the palace also affected subjective experiences of gender. A participant from the House Service told me that she was positioned amongst decorous ‘bling’ that made her feel like ‘a chambermaid in a posh hotel’80 when going about her daily work. This corresponds with Puwar’s analysis of the ‘interpenetration and superimposition of bodily acts from interwoven social spaces’ (2004, p. 84). Another participant described her subjectivity through a ‘masters and mistresses’81 discourse. Therefore, heterosexual norms of service to an individual are imposed through cultural interpellations of summoning. Deference is not always hostile and met with conflict. It is not solely: ‘cold respect, the formal bow of submission, the distant smile of politeness: it can also have a warm face and offer gestures small and large that show support for the wellbeing and status of others’ (Hochschild 2012, p. 168).

A gentleman’s club culture is structurally compounded by the social composition of House Staff (see Chapter 3). A participant stressed: ‘it is important to see how power is skewered in the House’.82 A male participant interpreted this through a double structural relationship, a classic binary of dominance, by asking me: ‘Who is at the bottom serving,

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Cherry? Women and staff from minority ethnic backgrounds’.83 Yet, despite this statistical pattern, the performance of the deferential servant reached the top of the hierarchy, albeit in less informal familial performance. Deference was also observed in white, male, middle-class and formal relationships. A male participant regretted his boss’ inability to convey advice as an authority rather than a servant: XXXX was sucking up to XXXX and as our leader… I was thinking “you should hold your head up–you are a member of XXXX, not just a servant of XXXX… it’s the reluctance to stand up to the MPs and say “sorry, you’re wrong”.84

Bureaucratic hierarchical power feminises staff, by producing submissive impression management strategies (Ferguson 1984, pp. 95–98). To respond to the servant positioning, House staff use a reverse, coping discourse of ‘handlers’ or ‘minders’ for MPs’ irrationality and ‘foibles.85 Therefore, their aged, responsible ‘selves’ are constituted in opposition to foibles—again citing discourses of immaturity mentioned in Chapter 5. But discourses of ‘reason’ can also be gendered. Furthermore, in gentleman’s club cultures: ‘[t]he “gentleman” expects women to be “caring and moral” and if they behave appropriately they are rewarded by warmth and concern’ (Maddock and Parkin 1993, p. 4). Personalised service was discussed in three interviews. The television documentary ‘Inside the Commons’ showed how women are integrated within the emotional life of parliament, when an MP described a member of the staff as ‘just the most adorable woman’ (Wollaston, Guardian, 4 February 15). Coherence then is drawn between, femininity as virtuous and passive, ‘men’ allowing ‘women’ in their place of work as ‘motherly’ and nurturing.86 At the time of the fieldwork, a member of staff said: they’re [MPs] pretty much waited on hand and foot by a nice group of devoted ladies that look like an old, what are they, the old tea-rooms?87

Service labour and emotional labour were also discussed by a male bartender who worked in one of the bars in the Westminster area. He suggested an informal practice as part of his service is that he attends to guests’ feelings and engaged in tactile flirtation. A participant described how he (re)enacted esteem for MPs in flattering performances and also discussed a more playful, postmodern sexuality:

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If MPs are trying to impress a lobbyist, they do expect a little puffing from you. You do a quick Google “Oh, that’s a fantastic article that you wrote for X magazine… older gay MPs would come in for banter. We looked quite camp in our uniforms so I would always respond by playing the arch-gay stereotype and entertain them because I am not insecure about my sexuality.88

In Gentleman’s club cultures: ‘those who have least power have little choice but to collude with cultural norms and are often resentful of other women who rebel’ (Maddock and Parkin 1993, p. 3). Two women MPs regretted that camaraderie could be dampened by restrictive gendered performance. One said: I’m sad to say this, but…women …are much nicer to the men…. they say [puts on a softvoice] “Oh good afternoon Mr so and so, would you like a biscuit with that?” And it’s all very motherly whereas for the women it’s like “yeh 65p” and you don’t feel any camaraderie with them. You don’t feel any female-female thing, it’s as if they don’t think that you should be there.89

My etic reading of this excerpt is that class politics may still be an issue between women, and that women may bear social mobility in a qualitatively different manner from men. This differs from instances where class structures that threaten to divide men can be healed through gender politics in organisations (Cockburn 1991, p. 158). Upon leaving the field, problems of bullying and harassment within and towards members of the House Service were further foregrounded in Dame Laura Cox, an esteemed employment lawyer’s Report (2018) where she described the House of Commons as a ‘particularly serious case’ (2018, p. 3) alongside other workplaces that she had examined. She further argued that the bullying and poor responses from management had ‘an obvious gendered dimension’ (2018, p. 68). She cited paternalism and women being patronised. She reiterated that the UK House of Commons is a workplace. Furthermore, the House’s policies: Valuing Others and Respect Policy had serious shortcomings and it was recommended that they were abolished. Since leaving the field, a behavioural code was introduced for all workers on the parliamentary estate, but this might not specify gendered practices.

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The key point of this discussion is to illustrate that governance is also important in terms of leading on issues of stewardship, free from sexual harassment. Crucially, the Clerk and Director General will be in charge for implementing Dame Laura Cox’s report, but senior management were criticised in Dame Laura Cox QC’s report. The commitment to reform can arguably become unstable in turbulent terms—for example, when discussing replacing the Speaker who had been accused of bullying, Margaret Becket MP suggested that ‘Brexit trumps bad behaviour’.90 The slowness to implement some parts of Cox’s report consolidated power relations by showing the House’s inertia. Arguably there were also strategic problems with the overall response for bullying and harassment in the House of Commons by it being fragmented into different reviews. Contemporaneous staff in the parliamentary administration wrote open letters to the House of Commons Commission calling on them to implement Laura Cox’s recommendations. This act was notable since it eschewed invisibility in spite of invisibility that is a valuable norm. 6.3.2

Gendered Actors Working with the Rules: Stewardship: Public Engagement

Parliaments are key points of contact for civil society actors and organisations, and are one source that can provide recognition on political subjects to participate in the political process. Public engagement as a norm positions members of the House Service, across different departments, as key actors in a politics of recognition—they are hailed into helping those who engage with the political process to develop political subjectivities and voice and feel like they are bodies that ‘matter’. We know from political systems around the world that this may be particularly important for lower-income groups who have asymmetric access to information to hold their politicians accountable (Taylor-Robinson 2010). As mentioned, members of the House Service are custodians of parliament as ‘proactive institutional claims makers’ (Judge and Leston-Bandeira 2018, pp. 164–165). Institutions have an educational role (March and Olsen 1989, p. 118). Public service can invoke a ‘democratic spirit’. Participants were concerned about the corporate image of parliament: the experiences of those who engage with the structures and practices of parliament; the artwork; and creating a more epistemologically diverse parliament—through witness selection on select committees.

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Firstly, attempts have been made to open the estate to the public in a variety of facilities, activities and practices. An Education Centre hosts school-children, cultural events and exhibitions. There has been a professionalisation of public engagement (Leston-Bandeira 2016). Beneath this professionalisation, many discretionary public service behaviours made the Commons a welcoming place for visitors, such as cloakroom attendants playing ‘bingo’ with numbered discs with school-children91 —a group in high visibility jackets who would inject liveliness into the surroundings. However, at the time of fieldwork, the House did not collect diversity data on who visits parliament92 so it is likely that our ‘democratic gaze’, that is, the public presence and ‘democratic oversight’ of parliament (Housley and Wahl-Jorgensen 2008, p. 733), may be gendered numerically. Additionally, the capacity of committee rooms meant that more forceful93 guests attended meetings: There is a crowd around the door when a select committee comes out of its private session. Two teenage girls who have patiently waited, do not get to enter, as they are overtaken to the door by more pushy older, mostly male, guests or women with older male guests and aides.94

As mentioned in Chapter 5 on the discussion of select committee rooms in Portcullis House, ethnographers of parliamentary spaces have noted the difference between ‘conceived space’ and lived space (Lewicki 2017, p. 53) drawing on the work of Lefebvre (1991). Conceived space is space as intended symbolically by the architect. Lived space is how it is lived. Despite the airiness, the piston looking modern architecture, it is perhaps remarkable that the name ‘Portcullis’ House actually symbolises closure.95 Incremental adjustments are continuously made to the parliamentary estate to make it more inclusive such as laying carpets and re-designing and repositioning signage to make the environment more accessible, but there is now more potential with the Restoration and Renewal project to be bolder. Even in spaces formally about promoting gender equality, three participants mentioned dissatisfaction with some contributions and it was felt some events could be ‘a bit token’.96 Sometimes implementing rules could be done belligerently. One family had a door shut abruptly on them so they did not cross the Speaker’s procession route.97 The second way that public service was discussed was in the representation of gender in the artwork and commemorative settings around

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parliament98 and citing the ‘ten year dead rule’ which, since the fieldwork, was changed to ‘two terms gone’ rule, but remains still arguably restrictive. Displays encountered on a daily basis on familiar parliamentary routes were cited in the interviews as ‘antiquated’ such as individuated, self-referential Toby Jugs of former politicians that were deemed worthy of sustained recognition: The toby jugs around the estate are completely antiquated. The UK Parliament could learn from the New Zealand Parliament. Each room is designed around a theme such as diversity and there’s a ‘Women in Parliament’ Select Committee room. We have so much amazing women’s history around the estate such as the broom cupboard that Emily Wilding Davidson hid in and we don’t bring it out enough.99

Parliamentary power may be ‘framed’ symbolically in pictures. Women appear in paintings as subsidiary characters. Parliament has a large topographical collection that documents the development of the buildings, since some visitors may find interest in this work. Parliament is a pedagogical setting; artwork could show different modes of political agency in addition to these actors that are connected to the electoral chain. For example, discussion of Emily Wielding Davison could also include discussion of narratives around the dailiness and burn out of those actors behind the scenes of the Suffragette movement (Purvis 1995), to highlight that gender/sex hierarchies still remain. Women’s suffrage is a narrative based upon attainment, but democracy is sustained most by its unattainability and ceaseless contestation (Butler and Athanasiou 2013, p. 156). Gendered norms are reproduced by the selective story-telling that emphasises certain features of the artwork: ‘you don’t have to tell the story that the wall paintings tell you, you can tell the story behind that wall painting and at that point, you can tell an inclusive history…You can add women’s history into any of those pictures.100

Adding photographs101 or lighter watercolour portraits next to heavy hanging frames and oil paintings of men might make women appear subordinate. Class differences and ethnicity also need to be attended to and the need to have portraiture as a form of artwork. A member of the House Service commented on what they perceived to be difficult in displaying BAME and working-class history in the format of portraiture:

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Parliament gives you more opportunities to address gender rather than ethnicity because you are more likely to find a portrait of women who were society women and had that level of influence. Working-class history is much harder to do historically because they never sat for portraits.102

Since the fieldwork, the Works of Art Committee commissioned an exhibition: First Waves in 2019 representing communities and the impact of race relations legislation in the UK and the House is reviewing the 9000 artefacts and how to present the imperial colonial past. A third area where gendered actors worked with the rules was around select committee hearings. The Liaison Committee introduced public engagement into the core tasks of select committees in 2012 and so therefore envisages select committees as potentially core engines of public engagement. This is important since if committees gain in influence, then it attracts stakeholders to engage with them, so gender is important. This has included a number of innovations such as an increasing social media presence of select committees since 2012; holding UK roadshows; the Northern Ireland Committee holding semi-structured interviews with Northern Irish fishermen; the Health and Social Care committee conducting a citizen’s assembly; the Work and Pensions Select Committee using an online forum for Personal Independence Payments recipients to discuss their experiences; and the Science and Technology and the Scottish Affairs committees looked to the public to ‘crowdsource’ ideas for committee inquiries. Diversity of select committee witnesses has been formally collected since the 2015–2016 parliamentary session when official records began. Select committees face a number of other constraints in choosing witnesses, such as the overriding importance given to political balance of evidence and calling time-pressured inquiries. Moreover, select committees cannot do anything—on their own and in the short term at least—about the gender balance of non-discretionary witnesses, nor, indeed, about the gender balance of people working and/or researching in the policy areas under the select committee’s purview. The Liaison Committee suggested: Through engaging with diverse voices, listening to experts and those with lived-experience and by gathering public opinion, we are able to engage with the public as well as produce well-evidenced reports.103

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Gendered acts were present in select committees in (1) the call for evidence; (2) selection of witnesses; and (3) the format and experience of witnesses. In terms of calls for evidence, this in itself is an interpellation: who is constituted and can respond to the hail and thus how particular versions of gender are organised and compelled (Butler 1997). For example, there was a notable lack of buyer-witnesses in the Home Affairs Select Committee into prostitution (Bennett, Guardian, 11 September 2016). Therefore, at this stage, the committee teams are responsible for the constitutive representation of witnesses. Because we are linguistic as well as material beings, wording is important and subsequently, witness diversity statements on webpages have been presented: The process begins quite early on. It begins at the very early discussions, the wording in the call for evidence. I think there should be a line in there saying we have a policy of seeking [diverse witnesses] because the call for oral witnesses is built on who submits written evidence and that’s where you need to act.104

The format of evidence may also be interpreted as being gendered. For example, audio-visual evidence cannot be submitted as written evidence. This is fraught from a feminist perspective, since voices are taken out of their embodied locations to convey the whole range of communication. This contrasts to the Citizens’ Assemblies on abortion in Ireland, where embodied testimony was played into proceedings. In terms of witness selection, for discretionary witnesses, whilst MPs can be gatekeepers, by ‘inviting chaps’ who were their friends to give evidence in inquiries.105 Committee staff also suggest witnesses. Therefore, indeed, the gender composition of committee membership may be important. A participant regretted that gender tends to be treated as an ‘add on’ consideration and was overlooked by expediency,106 and the need for quick turnaround.107 There are also non-discretional witnesses that they could not control the gender composition for, such as government ministers. A male clerk was concerned about the inclination for organisations to send representative to ‘speak for’ others and those voices are barred from entering ‘the realm of serious speech acts’ (Ferguson 1984, pp. 136– 137). Individual members of the House Service have attempted to assist people to engage with the structures and practices of democracy. A participant was concerned about an ‘old boys’ network’108 of representation

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through committee members inviting witnesses. Some teams reported informal peer-reviewing with regard to witness selection. At the time of the research, two female participants agreed that the House Service would be reticent for quotas, but that ‘light touch’ measures would not work. A staff member noted contradictions and struggles over the institutional representation of parliament: an email… went round recently that because witness panels are so often televised, we must not leave our coats and bags on the chairs and it “looks bad on the news”. And you think… “why don’t they realise that it looks bad if they’ve just got all male panels or all male attendees or all male MPs?”109

This participant eschews formal managerial designations of bodies ‘looking bad’ and reconstitutes bodies ‘looking bad’ to include the lack of female bodies. One witness sometimes felt ‘I’m there because I tick their box because I’m a female expert in this area’.110 In terms of the experience of witnesses,111 concern was expressed with ‘brow-beating’ witnesses, such as asking personal questions and getting parliamentary researchers to trawl through witnesses’ social media accounts. This may affect: (1) the quality of evidence; (2) the safety of the expert witness, if they are giving evidence on a highly politicised topic and are heavily exposed; and (3) the ability to recruit different witnesses: What is shown on television may be seen as off-putting, take XXXX’s questioning, it may suggest that a male voice carries more weight and that it is a rough and brutal environment112

Some committee members’ interactional style included the tendency to ‘bark questions’, shutting down discussion, and resisted soft skills training.113 I spoke with three114 female select committee witnesses. One felt that ‘male academics can get a real pasting’115 but that there was inequality amongst women who were not regular witnesses and were not familiar with practices around witness support, such as that witnesses could telephone a clerk and ask for likely questions to help with preparation, though MPs can still ask narrow questions that are outside of the specialisms of witnesses. In general, legal and scientific research is treated with reverence, whilst humanities is treated as subjective (Crewe and Sarra 2019, p. 9). Timing of comments and a lack of introductions in

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some hearings were also noted—a female witness was asked why she had offered her resignation ‘before I had even sat down’.116 A candidate in a pre-appointment hearing was also asked how she managed her work and family. Representatives from the media can attend high-profile sessions. In one, there was standing room only, and so a female journalist was busily stood up and tweeting with her back against the wooden panel. One witness found that being integrated on the basis of performing with a panel and committee membership of male ‘Radio 4’ listeners who were versed in ‘committee language’ was exclusionary117 (see Charlesworth 2000). As mentioned in Chapter 1, parliaments are not disembedded from the economic structure and other bureaucracies and so who is admitted into the real, of serious speech acts, matters (Ferguson 1984). Book recommendations from a chair to an early career female academic had been interpreted by the witness as the chair potentially asserting his dominance. Relative seniority gaps between older male MPs and younger academics also produced gendered scenes. A female clerk was embarrassed when a female academic was integrated into proceedings by being encouraged to ‘be assertive’.118 Her subjectivity was ‘girled’ since she ‘felt like a girl doing a school project’. When asked by myself about discourteous behaviours in committees such as Members talking behind their hands and playing on electrical devices,119 a clerk found it difficult to instruct MPs about personal conduct, because clerks were seen by some MPs as ‘boring old farts’120 and it was also concerned that discussion of committee etiquette could introduce a more formal dynamic to select committee proceedings. Because attendance on Select Committees is not whipped, this can also undo the effort of committee teams: You have a really high profile evidence session with a big name witness who you’ve worked hard to get and then Members don’t turn up. You end up with a Member with really strong views on the subject not being able to come to a meeting where their non-attendance and non-participation affects the outcome in some way.121

The engagement with the committee can also conflict with the expectations of witnesses who may have travelled far; may have assiduously prepared for the session and have invested time by asking other colleagues for advice who had appeared before; and may have observed a higher attendance in previous sessions when a minister was a witness, which,

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combined with the division bell and exodus for voting, as well as the observations of many MPs drifting in and out of committee proceedings, gave the impression that their contributions were less valued and in Portcullis House, the committee doors make a squelchy noise. Furthermore, lower numbers of Members allow the session to be hijacked by one sometimes belligerent Member. Discourteous conduct can be performative. This is because: (1) it can bring about an effect to the report, and (2) because committee members did not always liaise with each other, it was incumbent on the Chair or the committee team to phone around to ensure that there was a female member present if there was a panel on a sensitive gender-related topic, which was done with varying levels of success in the parliament. As well as behavioural performances, descriptive representation was also cited as problematic. Two female clerks suggested that Members’ low attendance and the decline of courtesies towards the end of parliaments made them feel uncomfortable as they often embodied the only women on the committee. This demonstrates that multiple gender regimes in the House of Commons interact. A female clerk discussed the limits of her participation that resembled a ‘seen but not heard’122 embodiment whereby she was a spectator to (male) political power: ‘I am the only woman sat in the horseshoe at the heart of power and I cannot speak’.123 She did not critique not being able to speak, but the imagery that this evoked. Collecting evidence can also happen off the parliamentary estate. As Select Committees are purveyors of knowledge claims, another clerk was concerned about the credibility of ‘knowledge’ during select committee visits and how she was positioned as embarrassed to discuss women’s empowerment as a gendered actor working with the rules: When…meet[ing] women, often to talk about extremely sensitive issues to do with sexuality, violence, oppression, I’m often the only woman in the room and I’m not a Member. It’s extremely embarrassing, it sets a bad example, it undermines our credibility when we’re spending a lot of money in this area supporting women’s empowerment and then we don’t have women MPs and an adequate balance of representation in parliament.124

This shows that stewardship is affectively performed whereby the member of staff is personally embarrassed on behalf of the institution on the disconnect between policy and practice on gender equality.

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6.4

Conclusion

By speaking with those who work in the parliamentary administration, by observing a window of open struggle around governance arrangements, WENs and discussions over bullying and harassment and public engagement, we can get a richer sense of how members of the parliamentary administration are positioned on a daily basis and we can assess parliament as a gendered institution. Members of the House Service are situated between two categories of service and stewardship that can reproduce sex/gender hierarchies. Service can produce overbearing behaviours towards staff and they are foreclosed and summarily called. Staff find space to enact public service behaviours in stewardship that is being re-signified to take into account outreach work to broaden the lessons about gender that emanate outwardly from the Commons. To return to the central theme of the book, gender is performed beneath formal rules, for example, clerk circulation, as well as open struggles around the appointment of the Clerk of the House. The chapter found gendered resistance to the proposal to change the leadership structure of the House to one that would have attributed equal value to other forms of parliamentary expertise in the UK House of Commons. Members of staff are not able to respond to criticism publicly and so therefore this cements a power imbalance. Emotional management is also something that inflects this world to show impartiality in public spaces. Subversive agency was exercised where members of the House Service deviated the chain of stewardship towards telling broader stories of the institution and to speaking out publicly. The delays in implementing Dame Laura Cox’s recommendations further speak towards the institutional minimising of complaints and show the interdependence and power structures between the parliamentary administration and elected members.

Notes 1. Field notes from interview with sculptor, 7 August 14. 2. House of Commons Governance Committee, House of Commons Governance (HC 2014–2015, 692). 3. There were 200,000 commercial visitors in 2014/2015. Natzler (2015) in House of Commons Commission Annual Report 2014–2015 (p. 6). 4. Parker, G. (2014, September 2). Attempt to Split Commons Clerk Role Is No ‘Power Grab’, Financial Times.

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5. Ward, sitting Serjeant at Arms, in his evidence to the Governance Committee’s inquiry into House of Commons Governance (17 December 2014, HC, 692, Ev 19, para 16, para 23). 6. House of Commons Governance Committee, House of Commons Governance, 17 December 2014, HC 692 2014–2015, p. i. 7. Norman, HC Deb 22 January 2015, c454. 8. As described by Lawrence Ward, in his evidence to the Governance Committee’s inquiry into House of Commons Governance (17 December 2014, HC, 692, Ev 19, para 16, para 22). 9. As described by Barbara Keeley MP, a former Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, in her evidence to the Governance Committee’s inquiry into House of Commons Governance (17 December 2014, HC, 692, Ev 38, para 9). 10. For example, see lecture to the PSA ‘Politics in an anti-politics age’ PSA Annual International Conference (2019) Nottingham. 11. Blunt, HC Deb, 1 September 2014, c64. 12. Norman, HC Deb, 22 January 2015, c440. 13. Thurso, HC Deb, 22 January 2015, c428. 14. Heath, HC Deb, 22 January 2015, c450. 15. Davies, HC Deb, 10 September 2014, c1031. 16. The body in charge of the administration and services. 17. The internal committees of the House of Commons and the channels to feed up to senior staff. 18. Interview 3: Female Minority Opposition MP, 9 September 2014. 19. In the Retirement of the clerk of the House debate, 17 MPs spoke including the Speaker. 1 was a woman, Angela Eagle in her ex officio capacity as Shadow Leader of the House. In the September 10 debate, 37 MPs spoke, 7 women, all were Labour women MPs, perhaps because of their longer tenure as MPs or to support Margaret Hodge MP who was on the recruitment panel. On the 22 January 2015 debate, 5 out of 21 participants in the debate were women. This was more proportional to the representation of women in the House, but they were all from the Labour Party. 20. BBC Online (2014). Commons Job Frontrunner ‘Totally Out of Her Depth, BBC Online, 18 August 14. 21. Engel, HC Deb, 10 September 2014, c 1031. 22. Jesse Norman MP described Burke as ‘the Paul Scholes of modern politics’ HC Deb, 22 January c442, a UK footballer. 23. Rees-Mogg HC Deb, 10 September 2014, c1047. 24. Interview 55, Female DCCS Member, 31 June 14. 25. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 14, see also HC Deb 16 July 2014, c889, c890, c893 c.904 for discussions of subordination to female authority, Blackadder, sailing, shooting and cricket, proficiency in languages, heroic leadership and wigs.

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26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42.

43.

44.

45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51.

Hague (HC Deb 16 July 2014, c887). Tapsell (HC Deb 16 July 2014, c891). Erskine May is the UK Parliamentary Rule-Book. Rees-Mogg HC Deb, 16 July 2014, c903. Interview 5, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 14. Tapsell (HC Deb, 16 July 2014, c891). Interview 1, Male DCCS Member, 6 June 14. Jacqui is a female name in the UK. Interview 52, Female DIS Member, 16 May 14. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 14. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 14. Interview 2, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 14. Interview 3, Female DHRC Member, 4 June 14. ParliOUT is the Workplace Equality Network for LGBTIQ people in parliament. ParliGENDER is the Workplace Equality Network for Gender in Parliament. ParliREACH is a Workplace Equality Network (WEN) established to increase awareness and appreciation of race, ethnicity and cultural heritage issues in Parliament. ParliABLE is a Workplace Equality Network (WEN) in support of disabled Members and Peers, their staff, staff of both Houses, and others who work on the Parliamentary Estate. ParliON is the Parliament Opportunity Network, a Workplace Equality Network (WEN) to promote inclusion and equality of opportunity across Parliament, and to raise awareness of issues around socio-economic inclusion. An initiative where staff in a lower pay band mentor a member of staff in a higher pay band. This might be where a BME woman mentors a white male in a higher pay band. Interview 50 Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014. Interview 56, Male WEN Member, 12 September 2014. One of my respondents suggested that due to a small number of BME staff it was ‘uncomfortable’ having a white senior clerk as a race champion. Interview 60, Female DHRC Member, 4 June 14. Interview 56, Male WEN Member, 12 September 2014. Interview 57 Female WEN Member, 27 July 2016. House Service DIS member Personal conversation with CM, 7 August 2014. House of Commons (2015). Review of Diversity Scheme 2012–2015, p. 7, available at https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commonschief-executive/MBPapers/2015-03-12%20Review%20of%20Diversity% 20and%20Inclusion%20scheme.pdf.

6

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

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Interview 31, Male MP, 15 July 2014. Interview 13, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 14 June 2016. Field note, personal conversation with WEN Member, 1 March 2015. Interview 55, Female DHRC Member, 4 June 2014. Interview 9, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015. Interview 56, Male WEN Member, 12 September 2014. Interview 35, Male MP, 25 June 2014. I asked the respondent explicitly whether they thought that having to maintain a ‘poker face’ was a particular gendered pressure after a contemporary ethnographer discussed his experience of this (Geddes 2016). The response of ‘clinical’ was interesting with connotations of precision, sanitisation, formalised languages and goals. When the respondent returned the transcript of our discussion with corrections, I felt like my own vernacular was messy and imprecise in comparison with her very logical and meticulous prose. Interview 57, Female DCCS Member, 27 July 2016. Interview 60, Female Member DHRC, 4 June 2014. The rule-in-form is about general harassment, but for exposition here, I will include the Respect Policy as a rule about gender. Interview 52, Female DIS Member, 16 May 2014. Barron, HC Deb, 14 July 2014, col 642. Interview 59, Male DCCS, 1 May 14, see also Interview 9, Male Researcher, 12 October 2015. Interview 51, Male DfF Member, 8 May 2014. This was dealt with by the valuing others policy. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014. Interview 56, Male DIS Member, 12 September 2014. Interview 52, Female DIS Member, 16 May 2014. Interview 51, Male DFF Member, 8 May 14. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014. Interview 51 Male DFF Member, 8 May 2014; Interview 52, Female DIS Member, 16 May 14. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014. Interview 53, Female DCCS Member, 5 May 2014. Interview 51, Male DFF Member, 8 May 14. Interview 51, Male DFF Member, 8 May 2014. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014, see also Interview 56, Male DIS Member, 12 September 2014. Field note, 11 June 2014. Interview, 55, Female DCCS Member, 31 June 2014. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014. Interview 53, Female DCCS Member, 5 May 2014. Interview 58, Trade Union Side Member, 1 May 2014.

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84. 85. 86. 87.

88.

89. 90.

91. 92.

93.

94. 95. 96.

97. 98. 99. 100. 101.

102. 103. 104. 105. 106.

Interview 51, Male DFF Member, 8 May 2014. Interview 51 Male DFF Member, 8 May 2014. See also Lovenduski (2014, p. 18). Interview 51, DFF Member, 8 May 2014; see also Interview 43, Former Female MP, 4 August 2014 The Westminster Hotel Bartender is not a part of the House Service, but this is a good example to include to show that deference and service are performed by men as well. Interview 64, Male Westminster Hotel bartender, 27 June 2014. Whilst the Westminster bar tender is not a member of the House Service, I thought it was useful to include this vignette to demonstrate that deferential behaviours are not just performed by women. Interview 18, Female MP, 14 July 2014; Interview 19, Female MP, 23 May 2014; Field note, 7 April 2014. Field note, 16 July 2014. BBC Radio 4, 16 October 2018, available at https://www.bbc.com/ news/av/uk-politics-45884222/dame-margaret-beckett-says-brexit-iss ues-trump-bad-behaviour. Field Note, 15 May 2014. Visitors to the gallery are required to fill out a ticket to sit in the public gallery, so collecting diversity statistics for the gallery could easily be done. This is accentuated because consumption of parliaments can be based upon individualism and improving individual cultural subjectivity (Craik 1997, p. 126 in Housley and Wahl-Jorgensen 2008, p. 731). Fieldwork Diary, 13 July 2014. Interview 59, Male DCCS Member, 1 May 2014. Interview 60, Female, Department for Human Resources, Interview 59, Male DCCS Member, 1 May 2014, Interview 43, Female Academic Select Committee Witness, 27 August 2014. Fieldwork Diary, 16 April 2014. Women in Parliament APPG Improving Parliament Report (2014, p. 20). Interview 55, Female DCCS Member, 31 June 2014. Interview 48, Female DIS Member, 18 July 2014. Suggested by interview 37 Female MP 23 July 2014; see also Interview 30, female MP, 6 January 2015, Women in Parliament APPG Improving Parliament, 2014, p. 20. Interview 48, Female DIS Member, 18 July 2014. Liaison Committee, The Effectiveness and Influence of the Select Committee System, 9 September 2019 HC 1860. Interview 45, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014. Interview 18, Female MP, 22 July 2014. This prioritisation of expediency could be re-appropriated to build up a wider pool of female experts who they can expediently consult. Childs

6

107. 108. 109. 110. 111.

112. 113. 114.

115. 116. 117. 118. 119.

120. 121. 122. 123.

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has suggested that a more ‘diverse rolodex’, greater corporation of contacts across departments and getting existing witnesses to identify potential witnesses might ameliorate this issue (2016 p. 29). Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 31 June 2014. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 31 June 2014. Interview 45, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014. Interview 62, Female Expert Select Committee Witness, 27 August 2014. Emma Crewe discusses her subjective feelings in her appearance before the Governance Committee manner: ‘I was pre-occupied with three aspects of my identity: appearing well-informed and independent, downplaying my anthropology, and being a woman. All three played a part in my performance as a witness. MPs would not have taken my ‘evidence’ seriously unless I was seen as authoritative. While claims of knowledge and independence would fortify my position, I worried that anthropology might be misunderstood as frivolous. My gender may have made little difference to them, but I could not shrug off the feeling that as a woman I was an imposter in a man’s world’ (2015, p. 34). Interview 56, DCCS Male, 30 June 2014. Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014. Two in an interview format, one in personal conversation, 30 July 2015. One belonged to local government, two were academics: one from an organisation and one from a university. I also spoke with Ministers who had appeared before Select Committees. Interview 62, Female expert select committee witness, 27 August 2014. Personal conversation with female select committee witness, 30 July 2015. Interview 61, Female expert select committee witness, 21 April 2014. Interview 58, Female DCCS Member, 15. May 2015. Playing on phones and ipads, although looking rude towards the witness is sometimes because a Member is tweeting about a session or consulting their research briefing. Sometimes this can also involve clerks engaging in prolonged whispering to the Chair behind their hands. Interview, Male DCCS Member, 17 July 2014. Interview, Male DCCS Member, 17 July 2014. Interview 54, Male DCCS Member, 6 June 2014. CM’s phrasing. Interview 53, Female DCCS Member, 5 May 2014. This corroborates Sara Ahmed’s discussion of what it is like to embody diversity in organisations and to provide those organisations with diversity (2009). Interview 50, Female DCCS Member, 17 September 2014.

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References Abels, G. (2020). The Powers of the European Parliament: Implications for Gender Equality Policy. In P. Ahrens & L. Rolansen Augustin (Eds.), Gendering the European Parliament, Actors, Structures (pp.19–34). USA Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Ahmed, S. (2006). The Nonperformativity of Antiracism. Meridians, 7 (1), 104– 126. Ahmed, S. (2009). Embodying Diversity: Problems and Paradoxes for Black Feminists. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 12(1), 41–52. Ahmed, S. (2012). On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham, NC, USA: Duke University Press. Ahrens, P. (2016). The Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the European Parliament: Taking Advantage of Institutional Power Play. Parliamentary Affairs, 69(4), 778–793. Albert, M. (2016, September 16). Case Study: House of Commons. The Power of Staff Networks. Available at https://www.thepowerofstaffnetworks.co.uk/ single-post/Case-Study-House-of-Commons. Allen, P., & Childs, S. (2019). The Grit in the Oyster? Women’s Parliamentary Organisations and the Substantive Representation of Women. Political Studies, 67 (3), 618–638. Bacchi, C. (2017). Policies as Gendering Practices: Re-Viewing Categorical Distinctions. Journal of Women, Politics and Policy, 38(1), 20–41. Beasley, C., & Bacchi, C. (2000). Citizen Bodies: Embodying citizens – A Feminist analysis. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2(3), 337–358. Beckwith, K. (2005). A Common Language of Gender? Politics and Gender, 1(1), 135–169. Bednarek, M., & Caple, H. (2017). The Discourse of News Values: How News Organisations Create Newsworthiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Benger, J. (2014, March). Report to the House of Commons Management Board on the Findings of the Pilot Interview Study with Members and Their Staff About House Services. Available at http://www.parliament.uk/docume nts/commons-committees/admin-committee/Members-andMembers-staffinterview-project-doc.pdf. Bercow, J. (2020). Unspeakable: The Autobiography. London: Orion Publishing Company. Berthet, V. (2019, July). Mobilization Against Sexual Harassment in the European Parliament: The MeTooEP Campaign. ECPG Conference paper, Amsterdam. Bjarnegard, E. (2013). Gender, Informal Institutions and Political Recruitment: Explaining Male Dominance in Parliamentary Representation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Bottomley, A. (1975). House of Commons (Administration), HC 624 1974–75. London: HMSO. Braithwaite, M. (1999, July 26). Review of Management and Services: Report to the House of Commons Commission, HC 745. http://www.publications.parlia ment.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/cmhccom/745/contents.htm. Butler, J. (1997). The Psychic Life of Power. California: Stanford University Press. Butler, J. (2005). Giving an Account of Oneself . New York: Fordham University Press. Butler, J. (2011). Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limitations of Sex. London: Routledge. First Published 1993. Butler, J. (2015). Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Charlesworth, S. (2000). A Phenomenology of Working-Class Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Childs, S., & Challender, C. (2019). Re-Gendering the UK House of Commons: The Academic Critical Actor and Her ‘Feminist in Residence’.Political Studies Review, 17 (4), 428–435. Cook, C., & Day, L. (2018, March 8). Bullying and Harassment at the House of Commons. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43338305. Crewe, E. (2015). Commons and Lords: A short anthropology of Parliament. London: Haus Curiosities. Crewe, E. (2017). Magi or mandarins? Contemporary Clerkly Culture. In P. Evans (Ed.), Essays on the History of Parliamentary Procedure (pp. 45–66). London: Bloomsbury Academic. Crewe, E., & Sarra, N. (2019). Chairing Select Committees: Walking Between Friends and Foes. Parliamentary Affairs, 72(4), 841–859. Cockburn, C. (1991). In the Way of Women: Men’s Resistance to Sex Equality in Organisations. Ithaca New York: ILR Press. Compton, E. (1974). Review of the Administrative Services of the House of Commons. Report to the Speaker by Sir Edmund Compton, HC 254, HMSO, 1974. Cox, L. (2018, October 15). The Bullying and harassment of House of Commons Staff: Independent Inquiry Report. Government of the United Kingdom, UK. Available at: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/damelaura-cox-independent-inquiry-report.pdf. De Beauvoir, S. (2010). The Second Sex (H. M. Parshley, Trans.). London: Picador Publishing. First Published 1948. Doherty, R. (2018, June 5). A Day in the Life: Ian Ailles. Economia. Available at https://economia.icaew.com/features/june-2018/a-day-in-the-life-ian-ailles. Enloe, C. (2011). The Mundane Matters. International Political Sociology, 5(4), 447–450.

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Erikson, J., & Joseffson, C. (2020). The Parliament as a Gendered Workplace: How to Research Legislators’ (Un)Equal Opportunities to Represent. Parliamentary Affairs, 0(00), 1–19. European Parliament. (2020). Mobility Policy. EP Intranet (Internal Document). Evans, P. (2018). Essays on the History of Parliamentary Procedure. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Ferguson, K. (1984). The Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Fineman, S. (2008). Introducing the Emotional Organization. In S. Fineman (Ed.), The Emotional Organization: Passions and Power (pp. 1–14). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Fraser, M. (1999). Classing Queer: Politics in Competition. Theory, Culture and Society, 16(2), 107–131. Freidenvall, L., & Erikson, J. (2020). The Speaker’s Gender Equality Group in the Swedish Parliament—A Toothless Tiger? Politics, Groups and Identities, 8(3), 627–636. Freidenvall, L., & Krook, M. L. (2011). Discursive Strategies for Institutional Reform: Gender Quotas in Sweden and France. In F. Mackay & M. L. Krook (Eds.), Gender, Politics and Institutions: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism (pp. 42–57). Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Geddes, M. (2019). Dramas at Westminster: Select Committees and the Quest for Accountability. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Grace, J., & Sawer, M. (2016). Representing Gender Equality: Specialised Parliamentary Bodies. Parliamentary Affairs, 69(4), 745–747. Guillaume, X., & Huysmans, J. (2019). The Concept of ‘the Everyday’: Ephemeral Politics and the Abundance of Life. Cooperation and Conflict, 54(2), 278–296. Hochschild, A. (2012). The Managed Heart: Commercialisation of Human Feeling. Berkley: University of California Press. House of Commons Commission. (1990). House of Commons Services: Report to the House of Commons Commission by a team led by Sir Robin Ibbs (Parliamentary Papers, 1990–91, vol. IX, HC 30–41). London: HSMO. House of Commons Commission. (2007, June 18). Review of Management and Services Report by Sir Kevin Tebbit KCB CMG (HC 685). London: TSO. House of Commons Liaison Committee. (2012). Select Committee Effectiveness, Resources and Powers, (HC 2012–13, 697), p. 4. Housley, W., & Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2008). Theorising the Democratic Gaze: Visitor’s Experiences of the New Welsh Assembly. Sociology, 42(4), 726–744. Ibbs, R. (1990). House of Commons Services: Report to the House of Commons Commission by a team led by Sir Robin Ibbs. Parliamentary Papers, 1990–91, vol. IX, HC 30–41. London: HSMO.

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Jablonowski, A. (2010, January 15). Report on the Implementation of the Tebbit Review Recommendations. Paper by the external board member. https:// www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-commission/Commons-Manage ment-Board/Jablonowski-Review-and-Management-Board-response.pdf. Judge, D. (1983). The Politics of Parliamentary Reform. London: Heinemann Education. Judge, D., & Leston-Bandeira, C. (2018). The Institutional Representation of Parliament. Political Studies, 66(1), 154–172. Kaldor, M. (2012). New Wars and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kanter, R. M. (1996). The Change Masters: Corporate Entrepreneurs at Work. London: International Thomson Business Press. First published 1983. Kelso, A. (2009). Parliamentary Reform at Westminster. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Kreppel, A. (2014). Typologies and Classifications. In S. Martin, T. Saalfeld, & K. W Strøm (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Legislative Studies (pp. 82–102). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kulawik, T. (2009). Staking the Frame of a Feminist Discursive Institutionalism. Politics and Gender, 5(2), 262–271. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell. Leston-Bandeira, C. (2016). Why Symbolic Representation Frames Parliamentary Public Engagement. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 18(2), 498–516. Letts, Q. (2014, August 29). Unspeakable! Bercow Wants to Hand Vital Jobs in Parliament to an Unknown Aussie-Just Because She’s a Woman. Quentin Letts Says This Latest Crass Arrogance Could Finish Him Off. Mail [Accessed 22 June 17]. Available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ article-2737296/Unspeakable-Bercow-wants-hand-vital-jobs-Parliament-unk nown-Aussie-just-s-woman-QUENTIN-LETTS-says-latest-crass-arrogance-fin ish-off.html. Lovenduski, J. (2005). Feminizing Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lovenduski, J. (2014, February 24). Prime Ministers Questions as Masculinity’ PSA Political Insight. [Accessed 22 June 17]. Available at http://www.psa. ac.uk/insight-plus/blog/prime-minister%E2%80%99s-questions-masculinity. Lowndes, V. (2019). How Are Political Institutions Gendered? Political Studies, 68, 1–22. Maddock, S., & Parkin, D. (1993). Gender Cultures: Women’s Choices and Strategies at Work. Women in Management Review, 8(2), 3–9. March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1989). Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: The Free Press.

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Maycock, E. (2016). Gender Shrapnel in the Academic Workplace. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Meakin, A., & Geddes, M. (2020). Explaining Change in Legislatures: Dilemmas of Managerial Reform in the UK House of Commons (pp. 1–20). Political Studies. Niemi, H. (2010). Managing in the ‘Golden Cage’: An Ethnographic Study of Work, Management and Gender in Parliamentary Administration (PhD thesis). Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki. Norton, P. (2001). Playing by the Rules: The Constraining Hand of Parliamentary Procedure. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 7 (3), 13–33. O’Donnell, K. (2019). Effeminate Edmund Burke and the Masculine Voice of Mary Wollstonecraft. Journal of Gender Studies, 28(7), 787–801. Palonen, K. (2016). The Politics of Parliamentary Procedure: The Formation of the Westminster Procedure as a Parliamentary Ideal Type. Toronto, ON, Canada: Barbara Budrich Publishers. Palonen, K. (2018a). Parliamentary Thinking: Procedure, Rhetoric and Time. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Palonen, K. (2018b). Westminster Procedure, Not Mere Games. The Political Quarterly, 89(3), 508–510. ParliREACH. (2019). Stand in My Shoes: Race and Culture in Parliament: A ParliREACH Report. Internal Workplace Equality Network Report (Unpublished). Petit, S., & Yong, B. (2018). The Administrative Organisation and Governance of Parliament. In Exploring Parliament. Politics Home. (2019, March 4). The New Clerk of the Commons on Transforming Parliament’s Culture. Available at https://www.politicshome.com/ news/uk/political-parties/house/house-magazine/102231/new-clerk-com mons-transforming-parliaments. Puwar, N. (2004). Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place. London: Berg. Riddell, P. (2014, August 29). Commons divisions. Institute for Government. Available at https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/commons-div isions. Rush, M. (2005). Parliament Today. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scott, J. W. (1986). Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis? The American Historical Review, 91(5), 1053–1075. Shore, C. (2000). Building Europe: The Cultural Politics of European Integration. London: Routledge. Stivers, C. (1993). “Sharpening a Knife Cleverly”: The Dilemma of Expertise. In C. Stivers (Ed.), Gender Images in Public Administration: Legitimacy and the Administrative State (pp. 35–55) London: Sage.

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CHAPTER 7

Parliamentary Researchers ‘Second Brains’ and ‘Tea-Getters’

A popular (shadow) cabinet member addresses a crowded staff network event, held in the basement of a pub in the Westminster area, and free Peroni lagers, sponsored by a business, are flowing. Amidst the vertical drinking. Amidst the vertical drinking, the front bench politician warms the crowd up with jokes describing his old clunky mobile phone as a “two hand job”. He also flatters the crowd: “I am sure that there are many future secretaries of state in this room tonight” and there is an audible groan from a researcher who I attended the event with. She tells me how he is ignoring the thick contingency that comes with such a career e.g. networks and resources. Furthermore, his assurances are an avuncular ‘rule reminder’ that of course, wouldn’t everyone like a job in frontline politics?1

Given the importance of parliamentary researchers for democratic representation, who: provide research assistance to MPs; (develop) the political pipeline; and are present for longer hours on the parliamentary estate, it is surprising that there is little academic discussion of these actors and the ongoing gendering in their working worlds. This chapter works towards filling this gap. The chapter takes a threefold analysis in which identity is scripted across and gender is performed in order to sustain a workable life (Tyler 2019). These are: (1) the career cycle, (2) citizenship and (3) public © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Miller, Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6_7

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service. Overall, the chapter argues that whilst there is significant gender conscience, if not consciousness amongst some of these actors and open struggles around gender, parliamentary researchers are also curtailed, structurally, discursively and affectively when they experience unequal treatment at work and much gendered ‘work’ is performed to keep complaints going.

7.1

Career Cycle

The career cycle is important for parliamentary researchers because as the vignette above shows, it has been imputed on researchers that they are on an elevated career trajectory and that there is an instrumental purpose to a parliamentary placement. Being a parliamentary researcher was once seen as a ‘brokerage career’ to becoming an MP. Brokerage careers have been traditionally gendered as masculine, such as within the traditionally male-dominated Trade Union movement (Lovenduski 1996), albeit less so now. There is a 25–30% annual turnover of staff in MPs’ offices, with an average tenure of between 18 months and 2½ years.2 Parliamentary researchers have short career ladders in the House of Commons and their career cycle often rotates through tasks, accumulating knowledge and skills, such as a budget, the Queen’s speech and press releases, or a select committee or public bill inquiry. This section explores: (1) how parliamentary researchers are recruited; (2) how they are appraised; and (3) intra- and inter-office relationships that are necessary for them to carry out their everyday tasks. 7.1.1

Rules with Gendered Effects—Informal Recruitment Processes

The position of parliamentary researcher is highly coveted and is ‘a hugely prized goal for graduates’ (Evans 2013, p. 35). Each job advertisement for an MP’s office can receive between 150 and 300 applications (Dale 2015b). Many MPs are first-time employers and are under pressure themselves and are in a self-start job, especially if they are frontbenchers, but the rules-in-form that support recruitment for MPs to hire their staff do not acknowledge this. Formally, parliament has traditionally had a Personnel Advisory Service (hereafter PAS), that provides tailored advice to MPs and staff to assist with advertising, shortlisting and recruitment decisions and has issued a good practice guide for MPs. However, at the time of the research, this was an elective service and a key finding of this

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book was that PAS could be engaged with in a piecemeal manner as a fall back option to depoliticise decisions between two or more candidates who may know each other. Recruitment by open competition is not compulsory and MPs do not need to advertise. MPs enjoy considerable latitude, since they act on information and need to have confidence in research assignments and trust a candidate to be discreet with personal and political details. The lack of open competition originally protected the principle of hiring ‘connected parties’ of which 25% of MPs did in 2014–2015 (Childs 2016, p. 19). The ability to employ connected parties was taken away in IPSA’s revision of the rules in 2017, however seeking assistance when hiring staff remained optional at the time of research. Most MPs take a fairly structured approach by advertising staff positions on ‘W4MP,3 ’ on their own social media and constituency website. The nomenclature, Work4MP, formally suggests posts advertised for a workplace. Because each MP hires their own staff, without properly pooled data on applications for jobs, we cannot assess whether there is a gender supply problem within applications to work for an MP. ‘Previous parliamentary experience is essential’ features in most W4MP adverts and is a significant material obstacle for candidates. This black box of ‘getting in’ or getting experience is confounded by a lack of photographs or positive case studies on W4MP of researchers engaged in a typical working week, although this could be problematic for safety concerns (Lowry et al. 2015). Education and credentialism are a proxy for competence, involving a static and narrow notion of merit. This forecloses other skill sets, such as caring responsibilities and experience of navigating public services. From the demand side, it is impossible to recruit on merit because the role is ‘too complex and multi-faceted to allow for a precise identification…and thus measurement of…tasks’ (Young 1990, p. 202). Furthermore, researchers are political appointments who share the unscientific ‘aims and values’ of parties or causes; therefore, the recruitment process is fraught with subjectivity. CVs and cover letters are often asked for in the job description, but this process, rather than general application forms, may discourage applicants from minority backgrounds (Hillier, Times, 25 October 2019) Informally, from the demand side, recruitment could be used by MPs as an identity-building practice in some offices since informally games of ‘staff top trumps’ were played: ‘size matters’ for staffing teams since MPs with more staff were interpreted as indicating a potential leadership bid. Offices informally compete for status by commanding more

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resources. Qualities to ascertain the ‘fit’ for an office may be arbitrary such as personal identification, a shared cultural competence or a shared educational institution. Interview exercises included writing a short press release, a speech or prioritising an in-tray. However, some interview exercises were reported as exploitative, such as campaigning weekends. Beauty also structured (lay evaluations of) everyday hiring practices: a male MP…is renowned for only employing slim brunette identical looking researchers. It’s uncanny! The current one…would have got the job anyway, but… if this story got back to HQ…It would undermine her credibility at large.4

This lookism is a hyper-gendering practice and can also be discriminatory for those who fall outside these narrow and Western standards of beauty. The ‘prior assumption [embedded in this] that if a woman’s sexuality is present at all, she must be receiving unfair consideration’ (Mackinnon 1979, p. 39). PAS could play an oversight role in short-listing and recruitment decisions across the board. This would respect a researcher’s right to work without accusations of lookism. In addition to MPs not seeking support when hiring staff, recruitment, shortlisting decisions and managing subordinates can be devolved to researchers with little formal experience. A former researcher claimed: ‘I found myself responsible, overnight, for four staff members at the age of just 23’ (Anonymous, Telegraph, 18 December 2015). Taking a proactive approach to these matters was not compulsory: Someone who is just here from University for the first time, they don’t take it as seriously as I do…I don’t take people on Friday for work experience if I’m here on my own…because I would not want to be caught in a compromising position…We consider these issues actively whereas I don’t think that other people necessarily do.5

This informalisation could permit unprofessional behaviours. Upon compiling a shortlist of candidates, a male participant’s boss jested to him: ‘do you have a sexual interest in this candidate?’6 Therefore, looking at the practice of recruitment from the demand side, we can see that gender ‘works’ through a lack of oversight, lookism, homosocial behaviour and identity-building practices as a team.

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From the perspective of the supply side—that is, the researchers applying for jobs—some participants discussed an informalisation of recruitment. Four participants referred to hearing of job openings informally through social networks. This has the potential to reproduce a job in parliament around ‘insider’ bodies and the gender dyads through which posts are communicated may rest on friendships. It also shows the importance of parliamentary friendships, information networks and citizenships. Two women presented being asked to apply or given the preapplication ‘heads up’ of an opening and informalisation as correcting a supply problem in differences in confidence to apply for jobs, though this happened with men as well. One female participant said: ‘I wouldn’t have thought that I would have been ready for years and years’.7 However, the perception of making informal pre-application approaches was supported by two participants’ comments: A guy heard that there was a job going in our office and he was quite cocky by emailing ahead to set up a time to meet. I saw him in Sports that evening really drunk and he was like “I’ll see YOU tomorrow!”8 Twenty years ago, it was “who do you know?” to get in here like “my Uncle’s an MP”. Now it’s “who do you want to know?” You go to a constituency surgery and schmooze the MP. You then start to build connections and there you go.9

It is clear from the preceding quotes that a hierarchy is (re)inscribed between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ applications. Another participant alluded to relationships: ‘sadly connections still matter.’10 A rule-in-use was accumulating employability capital through intra-party opportunities. MPs seek applicants who are proven and can ‘hit the ground running’; therefore, they are typically risk averse in their employment practices. A participant told me: ‘experience matters more in this place than merit’.11 Accumulating marketable skills included: phone-banking; working in Parties’ Head Quarters; working on the Scottish Independence referendum campaign for SNP researchers; and working temporarily—often being underemployed or unpaid for a succession of different offices. Hiring practices and applying for jobs are underwritten by a linear and uninterrupted career. Despite overworking, taking a personal toll by juggling two positions: at a Party HQ and for an MP, a participant feared that ‘an opportunity like this might not come around again’.12 This shows that opportunities are interpreted as precarious, zero-sum and limited.13

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One participant counter-identified from conceptions of ‘choice’ and cited opportunism as the fit for jobs rather than merit: In an ideal world, I would have liked this opportunity a few years later and would probably be better at my job in three years’ time. But people don’t have a choice when they get jobs here.14

When asked about their career journeys into parliament, class was a latent discursive category for researchers and they accounted for their position as normal: hard work or serendipity, and counter-identified with ‘a silver spoon thing’15 making comparisons with ‘better off’ friends in other graduate professions. An entrepreneurial approach combined with professional patronage involved ‘sponsored mobility’ (Kanter 1993, p. 181) from elite occupational members such as MPs and university professors. This may foreclose candidates without these networks. Therefore, on the demand side, there are few rules about recruitment and there is much room for subjectivity. The section has shown the crucial informal role of more senior researchers as building the pipeline and bringing people through. In terms of the supply side, the performative acts that bring an applicant into viable employable existence can be those of an ‘entrepreneurial insider’ with confidence, networks and an uninterrupted career trajectory. 7.1.2

Rules with Gendered Effects—Appraisals of Pay Levels and Quality of Work with MPs

This section discusses the dyadic model of appraisal that researchers are located within. MPs are accountable to IPSA for their staffing budget and have to anticipate the future workload of the office. The MP has flexibility of how they will spend their staffing budget. Figures from 2019 showed that IPSA increased MP’s pay by 2.7%, but their staffing budget was increased by only 1.5%. As such, researchers can be recruited on short-term contracts or can be ‘shared’ between two offices. One researcher had the potential of her contract changing without being informed. Researchers saw themselves to be in a precarious position, having to go through probation first. Formally, IPSA drafts template contracts that MPs can adapt. Contracts are held between the Member and the Member’s Staff. Other than rubber-stamping, IPSA has no formal dealings with the contract.16 Both MPs and researchers gave a positive

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appraisal of this arrangement because IPSA cannot appraise for the fluctuating brief of the constituency, or a Ministerial brief, or the efficacy of staff. Formally, MPs can apply for a contingency payment if a member of staff goes on parental leave but this can be bureaucratic, and at the time of research, IPSA did not have adequate arrangements for caring leave.17 Holiday is organised informally (and usually harmoniously) in teams without HR resource, but this can blur professional boundaries and can be problematic when they need to be re-instated. Furthermore, staff members reported making purchases for the office with their own bankcards, which is then reimbursed but requires personal contingency. Precarity has been described as a gendering structural situation because it is based upon women’s historically tenuous absorption into and out of the labour market (Morini 2007). Furthermore, precarity is managed affectively by a degree of indebtedness. This reduced the space to articulate demands on pay and conditions. There is a commanded identification with a job in parliament as one of enjoyment and gratitude. Because the Member sponsors the parliamentary pass, this can engender discourses of loyalty and also what Kanter referred to as ‘status contingency’ (1993): a relationship whereby one’s sense of worth and value is attached to their boss, as well as for material references: CM : How do different employers differ? Participant: ‘XXXX makes you know that he has done you a huge favour and treated me like his “pet”. He reminded me regularly how devoted I was or should be to him. Your boss is like your Dad in here he’s literally everything and it all depends on whether you get on well with them… It’s dangerous though because you’ve done so well to get in here, you never feel that the system is against you and it’s hard to complain’18

These ‘rule reminders’ (Hochschild 2012) as performative acts can bring subjectivities of gratitude into existence: for example, participants privatised bad career news from their families and felt a sense of shameful individualised failure. Subjectivity is not just affectively managed by MPs. Offices can be at physical distances from the MPs or from the office manager, especially if the MP is a Minister. This means that gendering can take place ‘out of earshot’ of formal supervisory chains: I asked for a pay raise last week. I didn’t do it in the way that I should have done but because things are done quite informally here, I haven’t had a sit down formal meeting to discuss “this is how you’re getting on”:

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an appraisal meeting…I didn’t want to formalise one and turn it into a thing. So I thought I would just ask in conversation and asked the senior researcher in the office “oh is there any chance that you could put in a good word for me in getting a pay rise” and it was met with “are you effing kidding me?”…I felt like I had offended them was like “Oh great, I’ve made myself look I’m just money hungry now” and that I wasn’t enjoying it.19

The participant worried that she had caused ‘offence’ when asking for a pay rise, and she had to perform respectability by not being ‘moneyhungry’, as well as performing emotional labour that she was ‘enjoying it’. The participant shied away from the performativity of asking—that is ‘turning it into a thing’. Furthermore, the participant identified as being from a working-class background. A researcher may be earning more than their family and friends and may find their work meaningful and fulfilling, and so asking a pay rise might be subjectively perceived as being ‘money hungry’ and undeserving. A male participant compared two different employers discursively through a continuum of control and affect. One employer was ‘from the landed gentry’ and was ex-military, polite and gentlemanly, and it was ‘like working for Prince Charles’ whilst another was a ‘micro-manager’ and would not allow the researcher to develop idiosyncratic systems for completing tasks.20 Along this same continuum, a counter-intuitive finding was a ‘refused identification’ of power relations which could be problematic where MPs wear authority with difficulty. Both men and women MPs feeling embarrassed or unable to give clear instruction, and the lack of clarification of expectations left the researchers feeling less effective. Examples included a researcher fearfully stood at the post box because she had posted a letter prematurely, and a researcher finding his drafted press release in the bin. Therefore, we can see that appraising work may not just be done by the MP, but MPs’ staff may be informally involved in appraisals or whether to go for a pay rise. 7.1.3

Gendered Actors Working with the Rules—Intraand Inter-Office Relationships

Building respectful interactions in intra- and inter-office relationships is important to create a workable life. However, as one participant described it:

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when you’re going into a normal work environment you’re all building a team; whereas in Parliament, essentially you’re trying to win the argument against someone else so essentially it’s a lot more of a hostile environment in general than your typical workplace so I think it’s less inclusive as a result.21

This suggests an affective atmosphere, ‘an environment’ that envelopes and creates certain kinds of mobilisations. Office space is designated by the Whips—in a privilege system since it shows the space(s) that MPs are able to command. However, although it is occasionally possible for researchers to work from home, MPs have greater facility than researchers to choose a workspace away from microaggressions, such as their flat, the library or the Members’ Centre. Some MPs call into the office just to ‘touch base’ and so often researchers work with high levels of autonomy, especially if they work for Ministers. MPs set the tone of the office. Sanctions and reminders about how ‘we like to do things’ are presented such as a house style guide for communications. However, it can vary by the factors listed in Table 7.1. A challenge facing parliamentary offices is the elevated cost of miscommunication to constituents or high-profile stakeholders. Therefore, within the offices’ everyday routines, MPs can eschew delegating strategic tasks to researchers. Ferguson (1984, p. 173) identified a feminised identity as ‘the depoliticized status of reactive spectato[r]’ and this identity can be produced through dichotomised relations of activity and passivity. Additionally, researchers can be ignorant of ‘small p’ political decisions such as who their boss’ voting preferences in a Select Committee election. Rather than co-professionalism, this inhibited fuller integration into a professional culture: ‘I think that we miss out on that slightly’22 and produce a subject position of a passive, ‘reactive spectator’. Gender could also be a category performed with pleasure ‘[g]ender is what is put on, invariably, under constraint, daily and incessantly, with [both] anxiety and pleasure’ (Butler 1988, p. 531). Another feminist female researcher didn’t mind giving her male boss’ daughter relationship advice despite acknowledging that this could be a conservative deployment of gender. In terms of agency and subjectivity, the women that I spoke to were generally cognisant of gender and presented their position as being in a power struggle, rather than as being a victim. When discussing the performance of sex as an identity category, a female researcher spoke about her identity category as a woman as allowing her to be ‘choppy’ in conversation with a male colleague.23 However,

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Table 7.1 Factors affecting the tone of an MP’s office Factors relating to the MP

Factors relating to the MP’s portfolio

Factors relating to the constituency

Factors relating to staff

Factors relating to the parliament

– Personality – Professional background and experience in leadership positions – Experience in recruitment, hiring and giving direction – Career ambitions – Longevity in parliament and stage in career – Day-to-day involvement in the parliamentary office – Health of the MP – Political orientation and relationship with Leader’s Office – Expertise and policy interest - Legislative programme – Government or Opposition MP – Gender regime of the industry related to the portfolio – Electoral majority – Casework concerns – Representation of party at local level – Composition of staff (age, sex) – Professional experience of staff – Number of passes issued for researchers – Whether staff are located in Westminster or the (often marginal) constituency – Staff for APPG tasks or schemes such as internships, Speaker’s Placement or volunteer schemes in the constituency office – Opportunities to take the babies through the division lobbies, provision of childcare, disability infrastructure, hard infrastructure, such as the provision of ICT support

a participant described the sticky and institutionally devalued identity of a ‘tea-getter’: ‘it’s kind of stuck like I am the ‘tea-getter’ which is annoying’, she said: CM : What do you think would happen if you said ‘I’m not going to be the ‘tea-getter’ you get your own tea?’ Participant: I would just get laughed at. They would be like ‘Why are you doing this- Why are you trying to make a feminist statement… because

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they’re aware that I am interested in feminism and stuff they would be like “oh you have read something and now you don’t want to make the tea for us”…They would be like “Why are making such a political point about the tea?’24

When exploring power in everyday office relationships, Glick’s distinction between ‘hostile’ and ‘benevolent sexism’ shows that power can work without conflict. Sexism was only remarked upon if it was hostile rather than ‘benevolent sexism’. Benevolent sexism is a chivalrous disposition whereby women are seen as emotional rather than agentic (Glick 2011). A female researcher is helping her male boss to shut down a fundraiser. A male PPC [prospective parliamentary candidate] kept hanging around the group and would not leave. The male boss repeatedly told the female’s group loudly that he was paying for her journey home, emphasising kindness.25

This was a micro-performance of domination that reinforced the MP’s power and dominance in front of her friends. Benevolent sexism that worked in favour towards male parliamentary researchers was eclipsed. Football also provided opportunity for male members of staff to socialise with (frontbench) MPs. Two male participants remarked on female team members as emotional.26 Composure, the ability to be reliable in testy situations and ‘not losing your cool’, was cited as an emotional rule, for parliamentary researchers. This conflicts with the notion that the job of a party political parliamentary researcher is to be ‘committed’ and empathetic to the party cause—evaluated as a positive temperament. Two male participants described being ‘second brains’ to their MPs, thus performing a strategic identity aligned with the Cartesian disembodied brain—the normative referent in a binary analytic with embodied service labour. However, this negated intimacy as part of the ‘second brain’ subject position, such as managing Twitter communication between MPs and constituents. There was a (perceived) benevolent sexism that some MPs exercised towards female researchers, such as not overburdening them with smaller tasks, brought about a backlash from male researchers and kept the gender norms in play: I think that there’s a reverse sexism [towards men], women may not be asked to work late. A male MP won’t mind shouting at a man or

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saying “right I want you to do this, this and this” whereas with a woman, they may be too scared to stress them out. But then women may not be promoted because they are not invited to the boss’ house.27

A gendered division of labour in parliamentary offices remains contested (Anonymous 18 December 2015 Telegraph; Evans 2013, p. 35). It is acknowledged that constituency offices have more women workers. Emotional labour takes on arguably a more profound performance in constituency offices: ‘X has died, better write a card’ if a constituent has passed away. Furthermore, those who work in constituency offices correct literature on what rhetoric would be in tune with the constituency. We can therefore see both positive and negative passionate attachments to a stable gender identity as caseworkers may maintain local constituency organisations in a gendered affective way. Men and women in parliamentary offices equally reported undertaking ‘softer’ tasks.28 A high work volume prohibited gendered task discrimination. Minding MPs’ children was shared between the sexes, showing overlap (Millar, Sunday Post, 1 October 2015) but may be changed with children under five being able to go through the division lobbies. The identity was discussed as contractual: ‘Some MPs see women more as a PA than as Mum. Because if it’s Mum, it’s like: “thanks Mum”’. If it was a PA, it’s like ‘well I’m paying you to do that’29 ; thus, the researcher is subordinate in a power structure rather than a gender structure (Kanter 1993), although this hierarchical and transactional power structure may be inherently gendered (Ferguson 1984) and submits the researcher to perpetual consent to poorly-defined work assignments. Researchers for Parliamentary Private Secretaries may perform administrative work such as routinely calling offices asking Members to submit departmental questions with soft tonal accents that neutralised instruction: ‘if X MP could possibly submit his question by Wednesday?’30 Power works then through descriptive marks and gestures. Two female participants reported difficulty when entering maledominated teams. One suggested that the most exaggerated masculine performances were out of the earshot of the MP: ‘I am treated like a secretary. I am told to type and prepare emails for colleagues. It’s like “this girl has come in and has spoilt all the fun”’.31 The subjectivity expressed here is an infantilised ‘girl’ and also of a killjoy. Another female participant suggested: it was ‘more the extra-‘relationship’ things that were pushed a bit’.32 Examples included being called late by an MP’s partner and

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organising birthday parties for bosses, and providing homemade cakes to increase the morale of the office (Kanter 1993, p. 69). These repeated everyday acts bring about an ‘origin’ of a ‘feminine’ female researcher. During the fieldwork at lunch, a female researcher updated us regularly on how she was performing emotional labour by supporting the interns in the conjoining office when the MP who they were based with was not treating them very well. Precarity may inhibit researchers when trying to cultivate credibility to external sources. Epistemic authority—that is, the authority of knowing one’s professional area—can be undone by ‘girling’ through third-party sexism. The low recognition and status of the position of researcher might have a particular effect on women. Third parties hailed female researchers back into intelligibility as secretaries by asking to speak to males or female researchers’ superiors. Three female participants discussed third parties in meetings who dismissed their presence.33 There were multiple iterations of ‘tea-getters’ and one participant felt particularly under-utilised in her skills and that she was capable of contributing more. Men discussed behaving like junior partners in the office, were a proxy for bosses and were mistaken for their bosses.34 Women spoke of men having more exaggerated body language in some Ministerial team meetings, who dominated questions and made the introductions. However, as mentioned, gender was in struggle, one woman was cognisant of these patterns, so much so that she made an extra effort to make introductions. Similar clothing camouflages power differences. Power and credibility then are not seen as domination, but as mutual identification (Pringle 1989, p. 70) which can mean that women’s contributions may be ignored when relaying information: I was making a point to my MP and he [a male from and another team] came in and cut me up just to repeat the point that I was making… even though what I was saying was perfectly relevant. It was just that he felt that he was better able to say it to my boss.35

This corresponds with homo-social reproduction (Kanter 1993, p. 63) whereby due to uncertainty and communication pressures, team members rely on people like them to impart information quickly, reliably and effectively. Bosses could lessen this by recognising contributions for work:

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My boss is really good. He will say in front of other MPs “thanks for doing this piece of research for us, XXXX”…. [Another] MP was half listening and half playing on his phone. It was only when my MP introduced me as his ‘colleague’ that the MP started to take me seriously as well and we could have a three way meeting.36

Sexist incidents were not just witnessed towards researchers but to other actors in the parliamentary estate. Examples included exclusions from after-work socialising; third-party sexism—such as unwillingness to engage with women employees; and the marginalisation of gender equality within political parties. Therefore, responding to gendered performances in intra- and inter-office relationships may stymie a workable life in the UK House of Commons. 7.1.4

Gendered Actors Working with the Rules—Role Models for Professional Development

In this section, I outline researchers’ relationships with two sets of actors in the organisational hierarchy: MPs and (s)pads who can provide access to information and who confer legitimacy, be a friend, cheerleader, confidante advocate and place credibility onto political aspirants. Childs (2008) and Evans (2013) have both investigated role models in their research on MPs. High-profile women such as Harriet Harman have rejected the idea of role models for putting some women above others. Notwithstanding this, there is an appraisal looping effect; therefore, gender can come from below as well as from above. MPs have projected a political career onto researchers and potential protégés as the vignette at the beginning of the chapter showed. It is an example of what Hochschild calls a ‘rule reminder’ about desires for a career in politics that can be disguised as statements about what researchers are supposed to feel about their futures (2012). Women researchers simultaneously witnessed empowered performances of femininity, where they appraised the authority of ‘icons’ and working on an MP’s leadership campaign (leading to questions of whether it is only high-profile women who are identified as role models); therefore, positive appraisal feedback loops were cited. However, some have discussed local role models such as office managers in group WhatsApp chats: ‘one woman who has worked for two MPs over 25 years and she is “on fire” she normally responds within three minutes with materials’.

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So there are broader role models for different relationships. However, parliamentary researchers noted a material disparity in clothes and income, between researchers and other parliamentary actors who are ‘visible achievers’ (Pringle 1989, p. 71) such as journalists. Direct communication styles were positively appraised over tentative communication styles: There are many inspirational women here and massive icons but when I am in meetings with women MPs, they are also more likely to prefix their question with “You may have noted this already but” – or “I know that this is a silly question but have you thought about this”? In departmental meetings, men are more likely to make introductions for each other, to dominate strategy and to set the agenda.37

How senior women get spoken about cements their reputations and keeps categories of gender circulating. Participants regretted that negative appraisal loops of bad employment practices—in the media and in anecdotal gossip—were skewered towards women. One female participant described ‘temper stories’ iterated in the field about women and others described sharp practices more related to women.38 This alludes to women not being able to display irritation, whereas men’s loss of temper can be associated with conviction (Hochschild 2012). Another participant discussed ‘familiar tropes’ of women and their professional ‘rating’: I have heard of female MPs being called “bitches” if they are not particularly rated and the conversation soon descends onto positive or negative comments about the way that they look. You are in a context where you are around quite a lot of that and so I probably don’t notice a lot of it. But I do have regular moments where I think “oh come on!” or “hmm, that would not have been said to a man [emphasis added]”.39

This particular quotation is notable also since the participant describes what Wise and Stanley call instances of ‘ordinary sexism’ where ‘we often fail to notice their occurrence in any conscious way (1984, p. 1). Furthermore, the low numbers of women might make women’s practices more remarkable (Kanter 2015); and that women are differentially confined by the expectation of care; and are ‘presumed incompetent’ (Puwar 2004). Male participants generally reported working with greater ease and humour alongside ‘entertaining’ or charismatic male bosses—who they assist to duck and dive through absurd everyday travails, experiencing the

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office vis-à-vis the constraining parliamentary estate—such as the management of dress codes, locating a suit at the last minute to wear in the chamber and buying lottery tickets. Indeed, the locating of the suit is an interesting act that conjures up the duty to perform obligation, conformity and constraint, for chamber duty, like the school uniform, where one learns to dress with the collective. Therefore, there is fun and pleasure beneath the rules around dress codes. The data provided abundant evidence of a ‘compulsory jocularity’ (Pringle 1989, p. 93) at parliament. Humour is a gendered discursive resource that serves diverse functions. Humour provided a male participant with versatility when disclosing his sexuality to his boss. Displaying a tolerance of humour provided a space to preserve his masculinity in a heterosexual frame. A ‘sense of humour’ (W4MP, advert reference, 53756, 27 November 2015) has also featured as a prized characteristic in job adverts. A female researcher discussed her response to jocularity—that she did not challenge it, in order to be recognised as a colleague of equal worth and as an active equal participant in the office: ‘[m]y office do crack jokes and I’m one of the feminists who can just accept and laugh at jokes like that’.40 Jocularity served as a social lubricant to support, subvert and foreclose the underlying power arrangement of the charismatic MP’s position, even if humorous performances could still be coercive—since the MP has the ultimate control of the space for joking. In terms of citational chains, field notes showed that male and female researchers would mirror the body language and sometimes the dress of their MP, thus carrying the performance on through their own descriptive marks and gesture. This ‘inter-corporeality’ keeps gender performances in play. Pringle suggests that ‘mirror games’ and mutual identification apply for female-female relationships too (1989) such as an MP and staff wearing matching Alice Bands and simultaneous ‘mirror like’ femininity. Professional identity-building practices could also be learnt from (s)pads. Gendered appraisals of (s)pads also circulated in a citational chain. Each department has two or three (s)pads: one for policy and one for communication, although the jobs may intersect (McBride 2013, p. 279). A researcher exclaimed: ‘XXX’ has 4 pads! (Special) Political Adviser is the zenith of an informal pecking order. Indeed some political parties have pushed decision-making away from MPs and towards undemocratic actors. As such, (s)pads have agenda-setting capacities as policy gatekeepers, have the ear of frontbench politicians, and have opportunities to gain civil service experience. Yong and Hazell’s figures show that there

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have been twice as many male (s)pads than female (s)pads since 1979 and that both coalition partners had more male Spads. This has gendered implications, when we think of Spads and power around government. This power is not totally exogenous from the parliamentary estate since the ups and downs of Spads careers were discussed informally (Table 7.2). Hochschild notes that emotional labour can be performed by both men and women, for example men being hired for aggression to wield anger and make threats towards those who break the rules (2012). Indeed, a former Treasury advisor Sonia Khan was unceremoniously marched out of Downing Street in by a Number 10 Strategist, Dominic Cummings, as a penalty for allegedly breaking rules and being in touch with her former team. One researcher further elaborated on the performance of affect: Advisers are probably more macho and they need to be because they are dealing with the press and they’re having to be – probably not sly, but a bit clever and coy about things. The culture of advisers has a lot to do with the bars as well. That’s obviously not how everyone gets into these positions but from my experience, the advisers will all hang out in Strangers a lot with their MPs and they’re mainly male.41

Endurance norms of being under seige hailed (s)pads and researchers into being agentic. Performances were observed when attending a party induction event for researchers. A male (s)pad in a light blue, tieless shirt with his buttons open showing his chest hair, addressed a researcher induction using imagery of being under siege and ‘winning’ the news everyday: Table 7.2 Gender of special political advisers’ by party 1979–2013

Party

Conservative Labour Coalition (Con) Coalition (Lib Dem) Total

No of male (s)pads

No of female (s)pads

% female (s)pads

153 205 66 24

28 92 40 18

15.5 31.0 37.7 42.9

448

178

28.4

Source Yong, B. (2014): ‘Who are Special Advisors’ in Yong, B. and R. Hazell (eds) Special Advisors: Who they are, what they do and why they matter, Oxford: Hart Publishing (p. 40)

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‘they [the media] were making hits on us…now we get 200 invites a day’.42 Two male researchers valorised these performances through a statecraft modus operandi. Energetic discussions revolved around agentic performances: ‘putting X up for media’; getting ‘media hits’; exclaiming: ‘that was my policy he announced’ and ‘getting such a kick when they deliver the line I gave them’. This affective atmosphere of being under siege was objectified in rules-in-form: a formal interview exercise for a party headquarters was to dig as much dirt on a [shadow] minister to find that he had called for his own job to be abolished. Another participant spent time trawling through a Member’s Hansard record to find quotes from ten years ago—where the Member had undermined their own position. Therefore, we may question the norms that hail researchers into feeling agentic. ‘Blokey’ and ‘laddish’ (Annesley and Gains 2010, p. 919) performative acts were iterated in multiple environments. (S)pads entertain MPs and lobbyists in recreational arenas that involve alcohol and coarse and sexualised language. A barman in the Westminster area had been given ‘full permission’ by his boss to evict (s)pads and their guests due to sexist performative acts of one group towards female East European staff.43 Female (s)pads have been positioned as soothing factions (Walsh 2001, pp. 100–101), as too highly remunerated by the press (Hardman, Spectator, 20 December 2015, see also Wise and Stanley 1987, pp. 142– 143), and can experience gendered tasks—such as applying party leaders’ makeup for ‘set pieces’ and embodying a division of labour amounting to ‘strategy and legislation…for the boys, and sandwiches and logistics…for the girls’.44 This is not dissimilar from other feeder-routes to Westminster such as women arranging events at think tanks. Female (s)pads have the double burden of being role models to aspirant women. One female participant observed female (s)pads being spoken to inappropriately about sex, periods and relationships.45 Another female participant hinted that sexuality is more likely to undermine female (s)pads’ credibility (Pringle 1989, p. 94) as role models: If they’re not men and they’re advisers then they tend to date the males which is…I don’t know whether that just happens because they spend a lot of time together. But the women that I know all tend to be in relationships with other men that are advisers or at least work here….And they haven’t got that same sort of camaraderie about them by going for drinks and I wouldn’t be invited as much.46

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Therefore, in appealing to superiors for credibility, development and guidance, it seems that white middle-class males may be more likely to have access to superiors who can lend credibility. However, two researchers resisted this interpellation—both male and female did not aspire to this subject position of ‘the politically obsessive’ (s)pad, both stressing that they wanted to be able to put their phones down at the end of the day.47 This sub-section has shown how gender performances are replicated in citational chains along a continuum of seniority between researchers, (s)pads and MPs.

7.2

Citizenship

Now that we have examined the career cycle, we can explore how researchers’ identities are scripted across citizen/gender acts. Gendering occurs in three ways: (1) the repetitive checking of passes that can ‘girl’ women and be exclusionary; (2) the imperative to gain professional visibility outside of core business hours that disadvantage those with caring responsibilities; and (3) responding to workplace sexuality as a discursive category. Citizenship for parliamentary researchers is important since they spend a long time on the parliamentary estate; the compulsion to network is felt most acutely for this group who have the least networks. 7.2.1

Rule-in-Form with Gendered Effects—The Pass System

Stratification is constitutive of researchers’ everyday experiences of parliament. Formal induction rhetoric consists of discourses of role glorification for parliamentary researchers. Researchers are delegated authority by various seniors and their embodied identification is hailed: ‘you are the eyes and ears’ for security risks; ‘what you do is really important’; ‘this is your one stop shop for materials that you may need at your disposal’; or described as ‘unsung heroes’ (Bercow in Dale 2015a, pp. IX–XXI). However, this glorification discourse does not always materialise in formal rules or everyday practice. A female MP who expressed dissatisfaction that her staff could not sit down outside the chamber to pass her papers said: I’m not somebody who feels the need to push against every rule but I do question sometimes why they are so numerous and I wonder – is it about stratifying classes of person in parliament so that the MPs can in some ways can go where they want and have this freedom… It feels more

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like enforcing certain boundaries on individuals, than it does about good conduct.48

The participant feels the need to justify her credibility by ordinarily being rule-abiding. The pass system as a rule-in-form invites a political discourse about ‘passing’ in a Butlerian sense (2011)—more specifically, who is ‘girled’, who doesn’t ‘pass’? The term originated in discussions of racial passing, but arguably also is productive when applied to professional passing and the labour needed to pass and then to account for one’s presence (Ahmed 2017, pp. 116–126) and how this interacts with gender and even more so with race and gender. Being under question precariously reproduces and destabilises subjectivity: one MP commented that she was often mistaken for a researcher…She cited examples of police and security staff constantly asking to see her pass, and making condescending remarks. She reported that this had had a detrimental effect on her work, because…“Confidence is everything in this place and if getting from your office to the chamber involves all this stopping, checking, being talked down to, by the time you get there you’re flat”. (Benger 2014, p. 15)

‘Rigid’ rules were also mentioned by another MP and as something that contributed, in her view, to ‘maleness’: the way in which parliament operates…It’s quite hierarchical. It’s quite male in that sense, so you know there’s rigid rules.49

Insistent iterations of hierarchy were located in a chain of: the pass system; ‘Reserved for Members only’ signage and the strong vertical segregation of women and minorities in servicing roles in the House Service. Researchers remarked upon a rigidity of rule enforcement for access. Rule-mindedness is heightened where ‘powerlessness coupled with accountability…provokes a cautious, low-risk, play-it-safe attitude’ (Kanter 1993, p. 192). Levelling performances were observed in the fieldwork. My etic view is that this was in response to the hierarchy. Researchers could recite another tier of hierarchy by discussing interns in gendered infantilising ways. The ‘victimised intern’ was hailed into many interpellations in the field: ‘interns are so naïve, they see everything so short-term’.50 Increasing tiers of territoriality also applied to tourists: ‘when you’re queuing in

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Tesco’s or around the outside of the building it is either us or tourists. So it “us against them” and there is a slight impatience like “this is our world.”’51 The pass system makes strangers of constituency staff, or those who are employed to work on an APPG. An MP has 96 paid trips for constituency staff annually to Westminster from the constituency. However constituency staff could feel ‘out of place and a burden [at Westminster], as they had to be escorted around all day’ (Benger 2014, p. 18). A constituency member of staff felt that Westminster was ‘a different kettle of fish’ and she felt ‘under-dressed’ visiting there. Furthermore, chauvinistic interactional styles were reported from the public towards researchers who see the Houses of Parliament through the interpretive lens of ‘power over’ and where market and political preference collide (Rai 2011, p. 285). A participant was called a ‘pig’ by a member of a tour for being on his phone in a public area.52 This third-party harassment through hierarchy is difficult to report because parliamentary researchers have separate bosses from the House Service. However, participants simultaneously described the pass system as instilling place, prestige and status, and made them feel like a ‘VIP’.53 In this sense then, the pass system also provides affirmative subjectivities and pleasure. If communities are imagined, then counter-factually, would there be a way of re-creating the pass system if it didn’t exist though, since events are already being advertised ‘for passholders’: How would researchers imagine their community and sense of workplace perks, without passes? There was also a legitimising rhetoric of business need for the pass system and researchers stressed that individual MPs who pushed in front of queues or revolving doors were ‘bad apples’ rather than exemplars of a structural problem of some bodies being positioned as queuing differently. Researchers also responded to territoriality and disciplining by befriending doorkeepers who leant them a lighter application of the rules if a constituent wanted a photograph on the parliamentary terrace (see also Kanter 1993, p. 193). Elsewhere, MPs and the House Service have suggested that women have their passes checked at a higher rate; therefore, rule-mindedness may play out along gender lines. A contradiction in the research is that parliamentary researchers have a short career ladder but yet the job is still described as very hierarchical compared to other positions. From the above discussion, we can see that the pass system is a rule-in-form with gendering effects that may instil hierarchy through differentiation, though there are variations in responding to this. The

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types of interactions with the enforcement systems though necessary were experienced as antagonistic. This could just be people doing their job, but I think more tellingly, it highlights the different worlds and milieus that security staff and researchers occupy and that the worlds were very siloed. 7.2.2

Obligatory Rule-in-Use with Gendering Effects: Acquiring Visibility Through Inter-Office Performances

This section discusses inter-office performances in places of consumption on the parliamentary estate. Lowndes discusses obligatory rules learnt through observation and replication and sanctioned through displays of disapprobation or social isolation (2019). Obligatory rules let actors know what performative acts are approved or disapproved of within a particular setting. In the absence of other alternative spaces, territoriality was shored up in ‘lunchtime fraternities that went for lunch in groups of five or six’.54 The lunch table is seen as rehearsing partisan lines and camaraderie. For working-class interns who may not have any other connections, then building connections in social spaces may be important to sustain a workable life, and therefore, it is difficult to opt out of the citizenship in this form. The Pedigree Networking as discussed in Chapter 6 did not extend to networking between working worlds: I went to University with an MP that’s down the corridor. We say hi a bit, but there’s not really that much intercommunication, despite the fact that we’ve been friends for years. So it’s kind of a bit strange in that sense, but that’s just the way that the building operates.55

Organisational citizenship behaviour might mean attending events to provide research insights to the rest of the team, to be aware of initiatives in the pipeline or to develop personal effectiveness. In many ways, the parliamentary precinct fosters Habermasian communicative subjectivities and performances. Researchers are included as agents of political and learning consciousness, since third-sector organisations host their events in London. The gender of experts and expertise is noteworthy. One researcher showed me a positional artefact—his Chatham House membership card, before he attended a foreign policy seminar. This descriptive mark of a public persona, bearing another institution’s symbol, was part of the researcher’s gender identity. Opportunities to participate in activities on the precinct include campaigning organisations’ meetings and

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receptions. However, the following excerpt from my field notes may be a mundane instance, but reveals a lot about hierarchy and power within inter-office events on the estate:

‘Timothy [Male researcher who is over six foot tall] and I attend a high profile event organised by a defence think tank to hear a former adviser speak. The room is full so we are instructed to fill up the seats from the front row in the bottom of the horseshoe. I sit in the seat that I have been allocated by the organisers. I feel a tap on my shoulder by a man, who is my age, sat in the row behind us gesticulating with hand in a dismissive directing sweep for me to move because he “cannot see”. Because of this disruption, the whole of the horseshoe, composed of MPs, former party leaders and Lords looked at me, I am assuming quite sheepishly, because they could see this rude behaviour, but perhaps this is an over-generous assumption and it was my body that had caused discomfort, rather than the man’s. Timothy mouths under his breath to me “what a pr*ck” and we share a smile with each other’.56

Out of the two bodies in his field of vision, the man chose the descriptively weaker of the two bodies to gesticulate to move, rather than moving himself. My etic reading is that these performative acts may have been an effect of being in close proximity to a powerful public speaker. The manner of his gesticulation also suggested that I was pliant. I embodied (a very narrow) difference at this male-dominated event. This was redoubled by the mostly male occupants within the horseshoe observing what it was like to be a female visitor to their discussions. Isolated, this may not have been noteworthy. It builds into a longer citational chain of practices around knowledge sharing. All-male panels have been criticised around the estate (Childs 2016, p. 40). A female academic was on a panel and a male academic arrived late, and the chair exclaimed: ‘ah – the academic has arrived!57 ’ Therefore, the gender of invited intellectualised expertise is performative since it brings about knowledge practices that can be important for policy-making.

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The former Serjeant at Arms layered new rules to address the lack of space afforded to researchers by opening up a rooftop terrace. However, the gendered division of labour on the bars around the estate is noteworthy and plays a constitutive role in researchers’ everyday world. At the time of research, the lower prestige Sports and Social bar employed mostly female younger staff who are unlikely to have children. ‘Strangers’, the MPs’ bar and slightly more prestigious have barmen who are older and are more familiar and were narrated as more trustworthy to MPs. The Press Bar, Moncrieff, opened later and shut early, allowing those with caring responsibilities to work there. The bars are quite idiosyncratic on the estate and are not necessarily an open environment because the Sports and Social bar is located by the bins and has a sturdy door with no glass or windows, so visitors cannot see inside. This is not welcoming for the uninitiated. In contrast to other parliaments, such as the European Parliament, where bars that assistants drink in are in open squares, Place du Luxembourg, the Sports and Social club is situated inside the parliamentary precinct. Passholders can invite a guest in, but this bar is nominally closed to the public unlike bars outside, such as the Red Lion pub. Peer relationships can be pedagogical in practices of advice-giving about ways to ‘get on’ in this structure. Lessons were communicated by peers about socialising for career prospects. One male researcher was advised to drink alcohol by a male friend: ‘I’ve been told that if you drink, people are more likely to be open with you and if you don’t drink, people are more closed and suspicious of you.’58 The participant did consume alcohol regularly by the end of the fieldwork period. This brings about problems for (religious) non-drinkers as well as those with care-giving responsibilities and renders them abject from citizenship. A bar worker suggested that researchers were hankering after an ‘old pub fantasy’59 but that this was anachronistic and not representative of the UK since pubs were shutting down daily, with much of the UK’s social infrastructure struggling at the time of research. A female participant’s responses contradicted this a bit since she discussed what has been described elsewhere as millennialising the workplace alongside sociohistorical notions of fitness. She suggested that eschewing the drinking culture was generational: We’re like ‘oh, let’s have a green shake and go to the gym!’60 Therefore, there was heterogeneity amongst researchers’ attitudes to drinking.

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Levelling performances were iterated in gossip to perform identity capital. This included discussions performing proximity to MPs and controlling the fates of older men and women. A researcher told me that he was bemused by a researcher’s boastful performance: ‘I can make someone a PPS in a text message’61 and another suggested that he had a frontbench politician of the ‘big four’ offices of state saved in his phone. Instrumental patterns of association were important for the elicitation of networks and excluded men as well as women. Therefore, citizenship can involve mundane performances of staging ‘one-upmanship’. This led to practices of self-exclusion by one male participant who felt that he had ‘nothing to bring to the table’. He discussed an ill-fated theatre trip with the staff network as there wasn’t that much appetite for activities beyond the estate.62 One participant’s discourse, when describing the status contingency of a researcher to the MP, resonated with feudal discourse: ‘if your MP is old and retired [presumably stepping down or from the front bench], then that is your life here as well.’63 The use of the word ‘life’ is suggestive—showing a broader and more encompassing dimension of the workplace than the simple exercising of responsibilities. Formally, there is no dress code for researchers. Colebrook highlights the relational character of the everyday (2002, p. 687). Some researchers resisted interpellations into dominant figurations of the cosseted Westminster researcher (see Grace, Guardian, 14 May 2015). As field members, they are: bearers of a special status by virtue of their association with the state… [We can ask]… how they also present their particular institution and position within and outside the bureaucratic hierarchy. What tone, language, and manner of dress do they adopt in different contexts, and how is that linked with power and authority? (Sharma and Gupta 2006, p. 20)

Dress was identified by participants as a crucial pivot of how ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the Westminster Bubble they wanted to convey themselves as being. Some men counter-identified with parliament and modelled their performances on (imagined) working-class masculine aesthetics, such as baring flesh, cultivating gym-sculpted muscles, sitting in lunchtime fraternities, and engaging in drinking and karaoke. Others consumed street fashion to look ‘less identikit’, whereas some dressed ‘OTT’ for the job, even if they were not in meetings.

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Future career ambitions and subject positions factored into corporeal presentation—and parliamentary ethnography allowed for the opportunity to discuss career ambitions over time and observe the struggles and agency to actualise these. One researcher discussed remaining ‘authentic’—but instead of negotiating his ‘one’ identity into this working world, he discussed split subjectivities and the demand for narrative coherence: ‘I’ve got so many layers of my identity, I wouldn’t know how to fit them into a coherent package’.64 He discussed his consumption of ‘street fashion’ to look less uniform, through ‘real’ designer labels, again a performance of ‘authenticity’ but ultimately this performance was one of ‘acceptable difference’ such as changing his shoelaces throughout the seasons. In addition to an iterative presentation of self around the estate, professional identity is also performed in digital labour in active social media accounts such as LinkedIn and Twitter—where researchers can hone their own political following using metrics such as connections, Twitter followers, and re-tweets. A researcher with political ambitions described his responsible stylisation of his body in different environments. He cropped a champagne glass out of an online photo through fear of appearing profligate.65 Therefore, a gender identity is inseparable from an identity of social mobility. It also highlights the digital labour involved in a potential career in politics. The digital labour was tied to his boss’ online presence by asking friends to retweet and like his boss’ tweets. Therefore the performance of career success and productivity was iterated online too. Smart dress coincided with the MP’s career path and engagements. A pressure on ‘passing’ was present at the early stages of career. Researchers’ image investment included a male removing his earrings and designing their identity to meet, what is elsewhere described as ‘acceptable difference’ (Durose et al. 2012). Temporal dressing is aligned with weekly business. One researcher said ‘there is definitely a ‘Westminster style’ around the estate’. One female researcher enjoyed occupying her gender identity and space or ‘cruising around the estate’ and gaining ‘power with’ with her accomplished female MP66 (Allen 1999). But inverted images of freedom were also observed. Staff need to be agile, to meet physical needs—such as getting into tight spaces to take photographs at meetings. Furthermore, descriptive marks and gesture were cited:

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There’s definitely a code for walking: a “Westminster walk”, where you’re ever so slightly behind your MP’s shoulder. The MP’s shoulder will get to the door first, the lift first or the visitor first.67

Fenno asserts: ‘it is precisely this view from over the politician’s shoulder that is now missing from academic research’ (1990, p. 2), and the description of the MPs’ shoulder reveals much about citational and morphological performances of hierarchy that are conveyed inter-agentially in the House of Commons, in addition to formal rules. 7.2.3

Gendered Actors Working with the Rules: Navigating Workplace Sexuality as a Discourse in the UK House of Commons

As mentioned in Chapter 4, Gherardi’s notion of gender citizenship takes a holistic approach to the person, attending to gender relations (1995). So how does workplace sexuality as a category take on a particular significance in parliaments? A concern of feminist state theory is how the state is eroticised (Cooper 1995). The scale of potentially coercive, uniformed armed police officers, and routinised security risk assessments, iterates the legitimate monopoly of violence possessed by the state.68 Gendered actors on the estate are close to official neo-Weberian symbols of state power, status and materiality such as ceremonial clothing, high-profile visitors, relics of an empire and terror levels displayed on annunciators. A female researcher discussed almost getting ‘mowed down69 ’ by a Ministerial car when performing the ordinary routine of leaving her office. Parliamentary offices are located in the Norman Shaw buildings—that are former police stations—and former policing shields are displayed in everyday spaces such as above the bar in the Sports and Social pub. London is home to many physical locations of monarchical, judicial and political power and authority. Collectively, in terms of the materiality of spaces, these examples feed into the vertical authority and imaginations of the state. Foucault suggests that researchers should: ‘account for the fact that it [sex] is spoken about, to discover who does the speaking, the positions and viewpoints from which they speak, the institutions which prompt people to speak about it’ (Foucault 1980). Indeed, anecdotal history of sexual activities on locales around the estate such as ‘Ugandan discussions’, sexual rumours, innuendoes and sexualised blogging sites combined to keep discourses of workplace sexuality in play. Researchers

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were interpellated into sexualised clichéd office narratives that maintain imaginary relations of gender. Suggestive comments included: ‘Nice dress – a bit short, is the boss in today?’ This comment is doubled, since it not only surveys bodies, but also presupposed for whom the researcher is dressing for. Again, sex as a discursive category can be used as a levelling device: People have always needed to make subjects of their rulers. Engagement with them and what they stand for, in a sense, demands it. Who are they? What are they? How similar to or different from us? What would it be like to be (with) them? Sex and sexual attraction is something we share with them. Imagination is a great leveller. (Vout 2007, p. 240)

Participants in the study described persistent levels of actual and perceived sexual activity. One participant described sexual activity on the estate as a ‘rite of passage’.70 This phrase is revealing because it points to an illusory origin of an ‘essential’ parliamentary researcher—that a novice would become, if they followed these pre-determined acts and also the relative durability of the term. This works as Lowndes notion of narratives that operate within the setting to situate characters in relation to choices and settings (2019). Feminist literature discusses innumerable factors that are constitutive of persistent sexual activity. Researchers reported a confluence of structural factors that made such behaviour more likely. Structural factors included: an absence of clear parameters on consensual relations; the availability of alcohol; late hours and access to the estate; working in close proximity; shared interests; pleasure from highly charged exhilarating working environments; and ‘amenities’. The habitual rhythm of the working week was seen to result in heavy drinking on a Thursday evening when MPs had travelled back to the constituency. Other rhythms and acoustics outside the working day included sedate piano playing at the end of the day and singing in the mornings from a postwoman. Three participants cited the ‘Sports’ as having a sexualised atmosphere. A citational chain of sexualisation was reinvigorated by many actors such as bar staff being shown indecent images on smartphones and propositioned (see also Smith 2017). This weakens female staff’s performances of female authority (Wickham, Spectator, 26 September 2015). However, agency was displayed by the bar staff such as wearing glitter face-paint and a more informal service. This supports Pringle’s (1989) argument that it is not easy to identify where ‘male’ power ends and ‘female’ power begins. However, it also

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shows the emotional and aesthetic labour involved in creating a fun affective atmosphere and trying to put customers at comfort and ease. It should be noted, as has been by others of informal drinking spaces around parliaments (Lewicki 2017, p. 52) that some informal political spaces are designated for younger staff and thus read as implicitly sexualised, and this can occlude our attention from the performance of sexuality in other spaces. In terms of the discussion of sexuality, rather than being tokens (Kanter 1993), two female researchers suggested that numerically their male friends were more likely to be gay. Unlike other workplaces, rather than hetero sexuality being assumed as the norm for (male) sexuality, two male gay participants suggested that they had never experienced homophobia at parliament. Parliament was described as an inclusive workplace which meets Butler’s concern for ‘fundamentally more capacious, generous and “unthreatened” bearings of the self in the midst of community’ (1995, p. 140). Some participants discussed a playful subversive reverse discourse of a gay community at parliament as the ‘The Gafia’: a play on the extra scrutiny that gay parliamentary actors receive which presupposes a disproportionate amount of power to that which the actors actually have. However, despite this one participant described ‘coming out’ as a recursive process and could be a compulsory and ‘confessional’ need to classify individuals. A participant, for example, described an intrusive situation where he was asked by a member of the House Service if he was gay in front of the office’s intern.71 In addition to the regulatory (subjective) demand to perform an ‘out’ sexual identity, a finding was that sexual identities in researchers’ gender regime can interact with Bjarnegard’s ‘gender-based trust’ in the MP’s gender regime (2013, p. 192). A participant said: I wouldn’t come out now because of the fact that I had hid it seen as a weakness – a crack and it might damage my career because I hadn’t been honest in the first place. It is more the that I won’t be trusted. They’ll [party hierarchy] think “well about that, what else is he lying about?”72

would be prospects lying and if he lied

My etic reading is working in a male team and being dependent on male candidate selectors in his immediate and future line of work; working in a more politically conservative two-party system (Juvonen 2016); and the emphasis placed on ‘gentlemanly agreements’ in the Westminster system

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with its unwritten constitution; meant that subjective feelings of trust might be accentuated. The researcher intimates that he felt a compulsion to perform a seemingly coherent ‘true’ narrative of self in the workplace throughout his career. Following Foucault’s advice about accounting for how sex is spoken about and who does the speaking, one of the most memorable encounters was in a bar and then followed up by an interview with a researcher, who I will call Ryan, whose performances were interpreted as provocations (Binder and Wood 2014). He self-identified as being from a lowerincome background, gay and attending a non-Russell Group University and remarked upon informal opprobrium when he spilt ketchup down his work shirt whilst eating breakfast. In the interview, he sat and pointed at the passers-by: ‘He’s in the closet, and so is his boss: “gay, gay, gay”’, which shows that for him, sexuality is still a relevant category of analysis. His interview performances centred on possessing an active sex drive. Dating-app use was reported on the estate, such as Tinder and Grindr. Ryan described this banality by calling Grindr the ‘Office Communicator’, and indeed, the usernames reported were surprisingly lively for a high-profile workplace. This technology has interesting analytical linkages to citizenship since both apps are place-based apps. My etic interpretation of Ryan’s interview and workplace performance is that he seemed to parody his party, the parliament and their regimes of manners and problematised the imitative structure of respectable middle-class gender and sexual identities. His subjectivity of being antihypocrisy was centred in his interview performance. He suggested: ‘[p]eople in here won’t tell you they’ve had sex on the estate, but we’re human’73 (emphasis added). This discourse recites white-collar discourse of (powerful) actors having ‘urges’ and links power, nature and sex performatively. This coalesced with discourses of middle-class liberated professional sexual subject, erotic confidence and developmental maturity. This neglects a power relationship—that erotic fantasy may be an effect of power rather than having an ‘origin’ in nature. However, the subversion was double-edged. He simultaneously portrayed an undermining of his own intellectual abilities, stressing that he went to a non-Russell Group University and that MPs approached him because of his sexual attractiveness, having a close approximation to hegemonic masculinity,74 rather than for his intellect. Ryan also articulated a backlash against Workplace Equality Networks discussed in Chapter 6. He counter-identified with affirmative groups by

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placing a boundary between his own subjectivity, grounded in a confident sexual journey that had occurred exogenously from the estate, and those sexual subjectivities formed in the parliamentary precinct, where alternative preferences and practices could be articulated. He said: ‘I’m not homophobic, I’m femmephobic..ParliOUT75 is for people who are not out’.76 This repudiation of the feminine construes a ‘homonormativity’, whereby heteronormative assumptions are upheld (Duggan 2002, p. 179). When subjected to theoretical and empirical scrutiny, sex as a discourse in parliament is not surprising, but it becomes harmful when it is mixed up with structural power relations between different actors, presented through narrow gendered tropes and when it can harm others through harassment.

7.3

Public Service

Public service encapsulates a sense of daily interactions with accountability, rules, speaking out against injustice and campaigning and whose actions take on a performative efficacy when speaking out on injustice. Though some parliamentary researchers hold elected institutional positions on councils or within their local parties, they are very much in the shadows of public service. Where the relationship works well with the MP, a researcher can add new perspectives and even agenda-set on the campaigns that an MP pursues, such as one researcher who put gay to straight therapy, on the MP’s agenda and another researcher putting gender equality on the agenda of her male MP by explaining the division of care in households. This section discusses two issues that arose in the fieldwork: (1) rules around gender violence and (2) balancing party campaigning in elections with the parliamentary position. 7.3.1

Gendered Actors Working with the Rules Around Gender Violence: Informing Strategies and Discourses

The fieldwork took place prior to #MeToo of 2017 that exerted exogenous pressure on the parliamentary authorities and Leader of the House to act on sexual harassment and bullying on the estate. It is extremely noteworthy that these claims and knowledges were not subjugated knowledges and were characterised by wilful ignorance—that is, a systematic misrecognition of sexual harassment, despite the fact that formally, parliamentary researchers are employees and are covered by law, except for

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incidences of third-party harassment which was removed from the Equalities Act in 2010 by the then incoming coalition government. This shows policy ineffectiveness since parliamentary researchers have clearly been subjected to third-party harassment. There had already been at least one wave of highly publicised complaints, three years earlier culminating in an investigative Channel 4 documentary ‘The Palace of Sexminster’ (see Meredith, Huffington Post, 11 April 2014), and therefore, sexual harassment was well known in the House of Commons. This investigation found that a third of male researchers had experienced sexual harassment. An allegation of a rape on the parliamentary precinct by a parliamentary aide was also made in 2016 (Wilkinson, Telegraph, 10 October 2016). Expert analysis has also drawn attention to testimonies of parliamentary workers who have been sexually harassed in political life (Culhane 2019; White 2019). The gender and politics literature on (women in) the House of Commons enumerates several examples of sexual harassment towards MPs, including: ‘Melons gestures’, and the effects of bobbing in the chamber (Lovenduski 2005; Sones 2005; Childs 2016, p. 37) and accusations of sexual favouritism in cabinet appointments as mentioned in Chapter 5 (Crewe 2015, p. 116). This shows an inability to see women’s advancement in anything other than sexual terms. Catherine Mackinnon has discussed the representation of gender within this particular narrative, as a response to quid pro quo forms of sexual harassment, and argues: Rather than deriving unfair advantages because of their sex, perhaps they had to meet unfair requirements because of their sex…[and] To the extent they are true, then, these stories document a point seldom made: men with the power to affect women’s careers allow sexual factors to make a difference. (1979, p. 39)

In 2017, consciousness-raising around sexual harassment took on a global momentum and resurfaced again and an Urgent Question was tabled by Harriet Harman to the then Leader of the House, Andrea Leadsom. However, although there were some resignations, including from the Cabinet, overall, it has been claimed that this has not taken on the same status as a ‘crisis’ compared to the parliamentary expenses crisis of 2009 (Maltby 2018). So how can we make sense of gender violence in parliaments through a feminist discursive institutionalist perspective? There are three ways: (1) examining whose actions and complaints do take on a performative efficacy, when they try to ‘lead’ on issues; (2) whilst attending to identity, a

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feminist discursive institutionalist perspective moves beyond the harassertarget dyad and explores more fully the multidimensional discursive and material institutional constituents of sexual harassment, and the processes of subjectification which shape the types of sexual encounter in parliament; and (3) with inadequate rules, discourse may be a principal vehicle in which sexual harassment is made meaningful and contested. The politics of (feminist) discursive institutionalism is then ‘a struggle for the representation [if not constitution] of needs, problems and identities’ (Kulawik 2009, p. 265). This includes prevailing institutional discourses on gender relations and violence. This section discusses the prevalence, institutional constituents and struggles around informing strategies. Estimating incidences of sexual harassment is fraught with complications.77 In my small sample of parliamentary researchers, 3/8 men had experienced sexual harassment and had witnessed it. The five women had not experienced or witnessed it, but all participants had heard about it. Examples of sexual harassment included: non-reciprocated propositions for dates; commenting on men and women’s bodies in sexualised ways; ‘rummages’ at bars; and horseplay to demonstrate masculine prowess. In terms of the prevalence of harassment, 24% including 51% of women MPs say they have been personally aware of sexual harassment or abuse happening in parliament.78 Men in my sample were also more likely to have witnessed sexual harassment around the precinct. This included witnessing a woman being asked whether she was a ‘coffee slut’ and bar staff being presented with sexual materials on smartphones. One respondent confined her understanding of sexual harassment to purely sexual approaches, because she described an MP bumping past her and kissing her forehead79 in the Sports and Social bar, but was disinclined to conceptualise this as sexual harassment since she did not see it as sexual—which suggests in her emic conception that sexual harassment is more about sex in itself than power or boundaries; it might also be contextual since she said she was with a crowd of researchers, rather than alone and she felt safe. I will now discuss some of the discursive constituents towards this behaviour. It is the contention of this book that doing sexual harassment in workplaces is simultaneously doing gender–sexual harassment, like other gender violence may be made more powerful through particular constructions of heterogender (Epstein 1997). Sexual harassment is pedagogical, by policing actors into normative gender positions: ‘the harassment of gay men (and of men perceived to be gay) is not a separate

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issue… and is an important aspect of policing culturally produced boundaries of both gender and sexuality’ (Epstein 1997, p. 158). In my study, a male researcher was subjected to gender policing when he wore lycra and therefore did not perform his gender in a strict binary frame. He received re-iterative horseplay by a fellow male researcher on his corridor. Likewise, a participant described his physical stature and his identity on the estate to explain his lack of experience of sexual harassment by referring to his potentially coercive physicality: ‘I’m big, I’m loud, people around here know me’.80 A discourse enabling harassing behaviours was a leisure and entertainment script, whereby sex is consumed on the job for entertainment. In this script, mundane ‘everyday’ inter-office performances of sexuality were observed to pass time and to entertain. A male MP ‘drop[ped] by’ another male MP’s office: ‘Tell X [researcher] that I am wearing the pink tie that she likes.81 ’ One participant described these performative acts as becoming anticipatory—that is: ‘you are in a culture where you are expecting quite a lot of that’ (emphasis added). Sexual scripts were also citational: a ‘Top Totty’ beer sign displayed in Strangers Bar not only subjected bar workers to sexual comments, but was also the same utterance to a journalist by an MP. At the time of the research, there was a sign displayed outside the Sports and Social club which said: ‘Whatever happens here, stays here’. Overall several performative acts, in both structures and discourses, produced sexualisation as a norm. Leisure was iterated in ‘high jinks’ purchasing of vibrators, playing Sudukos and playing Candy Crush in select committees: I’m a bit invisible, older women here are invisible but if you’re a younger woman, you have to work harder because they just assume that you’re, because there is a clique of people who assume that all younger women, the point of them is there to be like ogled and looked at so ‘if that’s not what they’re there for then why are they here?82

‘Play’ has broader ways in which it shapes social relations, including gender and play with beliefs. The problem is that the ‘play’ or ‘banter’ is seen as a form of exchange and reciprocal communication, but often it is one way because of power relations and women or men with non-hegemonic masculinities are seen as entertainment (Krook 2018, p. 67). Furthermore, the ability to laugh at jokes may have implications for sexual harassment being characterised as non-reciprocated. Lechery,

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another phrase circulated in the field, also comes from the word ‘leik’ which means play, and feeds into a ‘caricature quest for sex’ (Brant and Too 1994, p. 10): These letches are well known. They are given nicknames, laughed about and the rumours spread with a boyish excitement… One staffer tried to complain to his boss about a male MP who kept hitting on him. He was told not to worry as, “he does it to everyone”. Such behaviour has been normalised thanks to an environment in which the desire for political advancement takes precedent and a lack of structure makes accountability impossible. (Anonymous, Telegraph, 18 December 2015)

The quotation highlights a hybridity between tolerating sexual activity and career advancement. Two researchers discussed a structural problem (see also, Grant 2017) with researchers’ pay and being ‘promised nice things’ in subtle quid pro quo approaches83 since white middle class men are over-represented as wealthier MPs. Two participants found this behaviour explicable by an instrumentalist and zero-sum conception of power as dyadic and dominant: ‘It just comes down to the power that you have here and the dominance that you can exert over people’ (emphasis added). This reproduces a superordinate/subordinate script of power. However, McLaughlin et al. (2012) note a further paradox of power whereby female superiors may be equally susceptible to sexual harassment, which shows that ideas of power matter in addition to structural power (see also Wise and Stanley 1987, p. 147); for example, a scheme was developed to rate women MPs by chocolate bars. The active women then become passive objects of auditability through a (male) gaze that exerts dominance in an everyday ritual. Power takes on a performative authority in everyday acts of the auditors who ‘rate’ the women. I will now discuss institutional responses. An emic concern coalesced around the inadequate reporting systems in the parliament. The Speaker institutionalised a hotline in 2014 to discuss—rather than to report, bullying and harassment. Whilst the independence was welcomed, most interviewees remained critical about the hotline’s ability to resolve rather than to bury issues. It was described by a selection of parliamentary actors as a ‘bollocks, knee jerk media reaction’, and a ‘PR exercise’.84 Furthermore, this intervention initially had a low receptiveness (Anonymous, Telegraph, 18 December 2015). Therefore, studying the endogenisation of institutional initiatives into the everyday through parliamentary

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ethnography can show disconnect. As mentioned in Chapter 5, there is now an Independent Grievance and Complaints system, though this is imperfect. There were questions around the institutional mishandling of complaints—such as confidentiality breaches when reporting to the party HQ and the Whips as well as treating information as bargaining chips and whips being restored to those who had committed gender violence for contentious votes. Informing strategies are more complicated for gay members of staff who have experienced sexual harassment and may feel uncomfortable outing themselves or others when reporting it. Parliamentary researchers had three routes of redress: (1) failed party processes; (2) failed parliamentary processes; and (3) failed legal processes. Beneath ineffective formal complaint systems, keeping complaints going required much gender ‘work’. Advocacy-seeking to other MPs and an expectation on women MPs to intervene in bullying and harassment cases was an informal response (see Simons, Huffington Post, 26 February 2013). This requires the performing of emotional labour by women MPs who come to ‘own’ the issue—or to take some initiative for it. Advocating can be problematic for women who face ‘an enormous amount of resentment anyway’85 and can become ostracised in their parties for progressing complaints, especially in marginal seats (Wollaston, Telegraph, 14 March 2014). This forces women into the gendered subject position of ‘unwilling arbiters of boundaries’ (McDowell 2010, p. 653). Once attributed the identity as ‘manager of the problem’, it can prohibit them from being elected to certain institutional positions, such as the standards committee, or the Speaker in the case of Meg Hillier MP whose candidacy for Speaker in 2020 was around bullying and harassment. Gender is performed as a category since it works to recite a ‘truth’ of women as essentially interested parties. Although male MPs have also intervened to ‘own’ the debate by challenging individuals publicly and privately on issues (Hughes 2016, Telegraph, 29 November 2016), the subject position of ‘protectors’ of victims, and hugging the topic, may be an uneasy subject position for male MPs to occupy. Women parliamentarians shared their own abuse stories in the hope of encouraging other victims to come forward. Therefore, women embody a potential gendered interface between these two working worlds. In addition to desiring to help victims, affect also surfaced in visceral subjectivities towards the perpetrators. Two female MPs have both

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described their discomfort and insinuated about the lack of management of risk of harassers still on the estate in the narrow voting lobbies and being squashed next to an alleged harasser of a researcher (Black, Channel 4 News; 19 September 2019, Phillips, Guardian, 17 December 2017). One MP, Jess Phillips MP, discussed her embodied subjectivity, how repulsion registered in her flesh and therefore inscribed in a physical state (Brennan 2004), when encountering a harasser up close: I was squished on one of those stairwells, forced into almost full bodily contact with a man I know horrible stories about. Every fibre of my body feels repelled, I close my eyes, hold my breath as if preparing to dive into deep water. (Guardian, 17 December 2017)

When reporting gender violence to whips, participants discussed how the encounter was heavily managed by affect, which made the complainant feel inefficacious. When reporting concerns, participants were met with politeness strategies—or ‘strategic friendliness’ that ‘carries with it a strong manipulative element’ making it difficult for the complainant to advance claims of injustice (Pierce 1995, pp. 71, 73). Affect here is associated with privilege. The following quotation is remarkable—complaint becomes inaudible simultaneously to its articulation. A participant met with a whip to discuss gender violence said: I had a meeting with the MP’s own Whip… Now they were exceptionally polite, they were exceptionally receptive to the points that I was making, but at the same time, I did not get a single inkling that they were going to be moved by anything that I had said to do something about it.86

The researcher is performing public service in a way that bears relevance in a whole host of institutional encounters, since she also criticised the MP’s behaviour on a select committee who had been accused of gender violence. However, this participant found support exogenously in charities and activist groups who sanctioned the legitimacy of her complaint and their responsiveness had been catalysed by other media coverage of abuse of power in political parties. In both cases, it was senior and older researchers who had better networks, and external employment from the House of Commons, who took complaints forward. Researchers were critical of the institutionalised ways of evaluating problems such as party handlings of contentious policies and media

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management as tactical miscalculations ‘free hits’, ‘politically and strategically nonsensical’. Indeed, a researcher discusses ‘morality’ five times.87 Researchers also formed WhatsApp groups to warn of violence in the estate. Performing public service in immanent critique by speaking up against gender inequality is identity-contingent, uneven and difficult. The fieldwork found hyper-vigilant performances, subjectivities of responsibilisation, as a response to the continual iteration of stories. A male researcher had developed his own feeling rule of hyper-vigilance to respond to the lack of structure: Parliament is a goldfish bowl. Everything that you do is judged to the nth degree so as a general rule, I tend to get really anxious about everything because I don’t want to be in a disaster.88

This introspection could be harsh.89 We know that non-alignment between values and practices of political parties can be a stressor for MPs (Flinders et al. 2018), but this is also the case with researchers. Office managers can elect to go on training provided by IPSA on mental health of their staff but this is elective and they might be the harasser. There is ambiguity for researchers about ‘where you draw the line in terms of a public interest matter’.90 Two etic observations were made. Firstly, Ahmed suggests that the construction of knowledge around harassers contains ‘their vice is our virtue’ discourses (Feminist Killjoy, 3 December 2015). I interpret this as intersecting with age, where tolerance of sexual harassment is also a performance of ‘handling’ office politics. A second etic analysis drawing on Phipps is that reporting sexual harassment is problematic in an environment where discourses of career advancement, success and meritocracy converge (Phipps 2014, p. 24), because damaging an elevated career is intimidating, even if the perpetrator is damaging a victim’s career and wellbeing in the workplace. Feminist discursive institutionalism draws on intertextuality when analysing gendering. I will now discuss how the harassment itself was made intelligible in the debates that surfaced in 2017. In terms of the UK Parliament as a workplace, those who have hegemonic positions often define, order and make sense of these behaviours. Indeed, these can serve to fix constructions of gender relations as dominant. If performativity is the continual resignation of gender identity, then it is important to investigate whose authority is conferred by daily appearances on the radio,

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social media and newspapers, and how their words can narrow the debate on gender violence. The first discourse was the metaphor of a gender pendulum epitomised by Westminster Journalist Charles Moore who argued that: ‘this scandal shows that women are now on top’91 (Telegraph, 3 November 2017). The metaphor of the gender discrimination pendulum swinging back to women puts women as opposite to men where it has now ‘swung back too far’ and ‘the middle’ is where gender equality can be achieved (Connell 2006). The gender pendulum also worked through discourses of intertemporal preferences to women: that the behaviour would have previously been acceptable. Teleological discussions of sexual harassment have been criticised in a post-feminist society women are seen to be ‘up for it’ and so it is harder to complain (Bacchi and Jose 1994, p. 50). This discourse was also evident in witch-hunt discourses and an emoting towards those accused of harassment such as throwing an MP a ‘welcome back’ party who had been accused of sexual harassment. The second discourse was the trivialisation sexual harassment performed over several iterations, for example (1) Michael Gove MP, joking in an interview about Harvey Weinstein (Radio 4 Today, 28 October 2017); (2) commodification of gender discourses, where women are expected to voluntarily ‘Man up’ (Kite 2013), and not be ‘wilting flowers’ (Roberts 2017) a discourse that reproduces trauma as the only intelligible response to sexual harassment—notwithstanding the importance of this as a discourse; and (3) ‘sex pest’ discourse and the ‘Pestminster’ language that individualises the harasser as a localised irritant. A third discourse was the paternalistic ‘daughters in danger’ language. In this discourse, addressed to parents, rather than the victim, women are excluded from sexual initiative. This appeals to an immediately recognisable framework whereby sympathy to victims is contingent upon familial bonds and protective parenthood. Hunt suggested: there are Mums and Dads who have daughters who are politics students and are hoping to get a job in Westminster and they must be able to be confident that if they get that job, their daughter will not be subjected to some of these behaviours that we’ve been seeing. (Jeremy Hunt MP, The Andrew Marr Show, BBC, 29 October 2017)

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This description makes sexual harassment intelligible through male-onfemale sexual harassment and is addressed to middle class and to politics students, who are assumed not to venture into male worlds without parental protection and support behind them. The effect of this discourse is that it is likely to render visible some types of harassment over others. The fourth discourse is around evidentiary standards of harassment. A former Conservative aide appealed to evidentiary standards assigned by a Cabinet Office Inquiry that her account of harassment was ‘plausible’. In this plea, the ‘right’ kind of knowledge bypasses the immanence of her account and is attributed to outside it. Therefore, the circulation of knowledge claims about gender violence matter. These discourses reiteratively consolidated gender and mediate the environment in which researchers can practice critique and complaint in. Furthermore, the discourses make some forms of harassment intelligible whilst hiding others. There are broader discourses of gender, structures, and power that participants and the media can draw upon,92 but were collapsed into (1) the gender pendulum, (2) trivialisation discourses, (3) daughters in danger discourses and (4) discourses externalising evidentiary standards. Fricker researches hearing in institutional life and conceptualises ‘gross epistemic dysfunction’ as where some voices are foreclosed (2007, p. 294), and in the case of sexual harassment, the voices making the complaints arguably did not take on a performative efficacy. 7.3.2

Party Campaigning—Rule-in-Use, the Obligation for Parliamentary Researchers to Campaign During Dissolution

In the final section of the chapter, I turn to an extra-parliamentary activity: campaigning. This shows how power can also be performed in extraparliamentary settings that parliamentary researchers are nested within. A black box in the life of a parliamentary researcher is informal obligations around party and referendum campaigning during dissolution, and for constituency office workers, this can be in local, mayoral and PCC elections that fall in-between. The fixed-term parliament act is a formal rule, but General Elections have been called in 2015, 2017 and 2019. A formal parliamentary rule-in-form is that researchers cannot undertake party political tasks in their communications.

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Informally, there are grey areas. When performing party service, researchers can be relocated to assist in (sub) national elections and stay in party members’ homes since the accommodation cannot be IPSA funded, since it is party activity. This is beneficial since personal costs are not incurred such as travel and free time for those with caring responsibilities. However, it may be a little uncomfortable for the party workers who may want to rest or might need further accommodations for disabilities. Several MPs also give up their home to accommodate activists, who help out in the constituency. This can be difficult for care-givers. One MP described crying in her bedroom because she had guests staying with her and so could freely emote.93 During this period, researchers are not subject to contractual terms of employment. During dissolution, members of Westminster staff cannot access their offices and must work either from home or from the constituency, which could cause problems for those who access childcare around the Westminster area. An informal expectation on researchers to campaign outside of core business hours and to attend election counts to sample ward boxes, sometimes in winter elections with dark weather, especially in Scotland, and close to family holidays, as a reserve army of labour developed originally because of prior structural problems in political parties producing an uneven supply of party activists (Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation, p. 33), though this may be changing where the SNP and Labour saw unprecedented increases (Bale et al. 2019). The institutionalised silence—they are not allowed to campaign in paid time, and the fact that party service is affectively managed makes complaint difficult to articulate. Parties can pay regional organisers and can offer support to campaign-intensive marginal seats, but resources are not always distributed effectively, for example with the critique of resources being put into trophy seats in 2019 by Labour. This contribution is performed over and above Members’ Staff’s day-to-day jobs. The gendered division of labour for constituency staff is likely to be particularly acute across different stages of the electoral cycle. Party service is also where the subject positions of the ‘campaigner’ are passed down. Following high-profile allegations against a senior party organiser on a Road Trip campaign, the Conservative Party uploaded a volunteer code on their website. Discourses of celebrity and prowess circulated around Mark Clarke, the Tatler Tory. The desire for professional recognition is undergirded by the fact that parliament is a pedagogic workplace, where the emulation of role models is present and future

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subject positions can be imagined. Clarke, a senior organiser embodied discourses of criminality by hatching a blackmail plot; he embodied celebrity, since he had been positively appraised in ‘Tatler’ magazine; and sexual prowess located in an ‘IIP’ strategy towards women: ‘Isolate, Inebriate, Penetrate’ (Letts, Spectator, 12 December 2015). The Labour Party Headquarters itself experienced allegations of a misogynist and racist culture as part of a ‘labour leaks’ report being investigated by Martin Forde QC. Whilst the conduct of these party staff is concerning, we should not treat this as an isolated case but part of a broader culture. Therefore, the conduct of activists and Party HQ in the wider political arena is of analytical importance when understanding how gender regimes are (re)produced in the UK House of Commons because they are overlapping. When Rupa Huq MP was ‘manhandled’ in Ealing constituency when campaigning in 2015, party activists concealed their faces and aggressively forced party literature into her face and the cameras. This resonates with conceptions of the state as dominant, vertical, rather than horizontal and facilitative. The Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation (2010, pp. 80–81) recommended that each party had a formal code of conduct for campaigning and so safeguarding, campaigning codes of conduct. Labour Women’s Network has also recommended the introduction of a comprehensive policy of sexual harassment for party workers and activists (2016) and have a safeguarding policy. However, any attempt to address gender bias must engage with the discourses and embodiments of dominance, celebrity, prowess and criminality around party service, in addition to formal policies. New campaigners can receive scarce briefings and may be overwhelmed by the established skills of ‘old hands’. Power can accumulate around bodies and expertise, training and information may be withheld, such as the ability to produce leaflets; and there may be a lack of transparency, such as the need to ‘get things signed off’ from an anonymous body in regional office. This underlying dynamic can re-inscribe ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ identities: It’s interesting because in the youth wing of the party and in student politics, feminism is a big thing now and social issues and race, whereas in constituency parties especially outside London, there can sometimes be entrenched and old fashioned views in constituency parties who have been doing it for years and years, especially in the hard left…I had a discussion with somebody about this last week who said “I’m not a feminist, I’m an egalitarian”.94

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Whilst a rule-in-use is not entering homes, a constituent may want to show a structural problem indoors. Researchers reported being left alone in unfamiliar areas and raised concerns about personal safety in door teams (cf. Trumpington 2014, pp. 179–180). Campaigners can confront hostile and challenging behaviours such as being told to ‘get a job’, called paedophiles and are spat on. Safety is incumbent on the leader of door teams. One researcher suggested: ‘[t]here is a tendency for individual to be given stacks of leaflets and a map and told to come back for more’.95 They can also face trolling on social media platforms when photographs are posted, and this affects actors with non-hegemonic and stigmatised attributes. Gender is particularly acute when it combines with party identity vested in moral criteria: ‘we are the good ones, they are the bad ones’ and elections re-iterate lines of enmity and alliance. Gender and racial identity ‘matter’ in party service. Normative whiteness on the doorstep can prohibit BAME campaigners being intelligible as campaigners. One BAME researcher described how an elderly constituent mistook him for a burglar and another felt that could unwittingly intimidate on the doorstep.96 Two participants suggested that women campaigners have greater difficulty being taken seriously on the doorstep.97 However, one female researcher enjoyed a positive identity as a female campaigner that made her relatable and constituents were more prepared to have a conversation. Butler describes categories of ‘men’ and ‘women’ being ‘undone’ positively (2004, p. 1). Interactions between parliamentary researchers and the broader party personnel in campaign contexts bring about an epistemic undoing and remaking. Party members are generally seen by the ‘demand’ side as an asset, rather than a liability (Bale et al. 2019); though in the 2019 election, this was tested in Remain and Leave cleavages on the doorstep and newly mobilised activists in the General Election. Whilst the party membership is unrepresentative in terms of class and race, inter-generational interactions with older constituency members can be empowering. Activists and constituency staff have a deeper sense of place and are integrated into their communities, their constituency party associations, and provide encyclopaedic knowledge to parliamentary staff. As such, better integration between Westminster staff and constituency staff has been recommended elsewhere (Petit in Benge 2014, p. 5). This would contribute to ‘power with’ (Allen 1999). Activists, who are not in an employment environment, may speak ‘truth’ to ‘power’ with greater ease but inequalities between (un)paid campaigners, organisers and party

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remain, since campaigning can incur personal cost in terms of travel. A caseworker described her close relationships with fellow female party members warmly, including herself in the entourage: ‘the real Housewives of XXXX constituency party’.98 This suggests that gender identities can be performed as points of inclusion as well as points of exclusion in the constituency.

7.4

Conclusion

By travelling from offices, to bars, to the campaign trail, this chapter has examined the shifting subject positions and performative acts of gender of parliamentary researchers. Paradoxically, parliamentary researchers in both categorisations: the second brain and tea-getter, perform a sense of intimacy to their bosses, both through catering to bodily needs and through mediating intimacy with constituents and colleagues through politicians’ communications. To return to the central themes of the book, the UK House of Commons is produced as a gendered workplace. Though many of the practices and performances are similar to experiences in nonparliamentary workplaces, I would suggest that the elements that interact quite uniquely with gendering in the parliamentary workplace are as follows: (1) the degree of personalisation of MPs as employers and therefore the intensified level of status contingency; (2) the political environment based on agonisms and antagonisms; (3) the unique socio-material job setting in proximity to power; and (4) the job has an entry-level salary, but has parliamentary experience as a prerequisite. Consequently, the job of parliamentary researcher is managed both structurally and affectively/discursively. Why does this matter? This chapter has sought to show what these discourses ‘do’ and the subject positions that they make possible for gendered actors. The three discursive institutions that make the UK House of Commons workable are hung together in mutually contradictory ways. There was a perceivable gender consciousness on the estate from gendered actors, even before the #MeToo debates of 2017. However, progress on making this world more accessible and ‘workable’ has been slow. This matters, not only for social justice, but also to allow parliamentary researchers to be able to use their skills and abilities to the best effect, which is better for parliamentary scrutiny, representation and democracy overall.

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Notes 1. Field note, May 2014, London. 2. Analysis from Westminster Professionals: https://westminsterprofession als.org/how-long-to-work-for-an-mp/. 3. Work for MP. 4. Interview 12, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 February 2016. 5. Interview 1, Male Researcher, 27 May 2014. 6. Interview 2, Male Researcher, 27 April 2014. 7. Interview 12, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 February 2016. 8. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. 9. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. 10. Interview 12, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 February 2016. 11 Interview 8, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 23 September 2015. 12. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. 13. Although parliamentary researchers are in precarious positions, I take Emejulu and Bassel’s (2018, p. 110) concern onboard that graduate precarity needs to be interpreted in context of different precarious situations. 14. Interview 8 Male Parliamentary Researcher, 23 September 2015. 15. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014; Interview 7, Male Researcher, 20 August 2015. 16. In the Welsh Assembly and the European Parliament, contracts are held with the Assembly and Parliament instead of the Member. In Local Authorities, Councillors do not employ their own staff but local government staff are non-political. 17. See Gardiner, B. (2011) submission to IPSA Consultation and Equality Impact Assessment March 2011 (Keeley, HC 10/11/15, Col 47WH). 18. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. 19. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014. 20. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 September 2015. 21. Interview 1, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 May 2014. 22. Interview 3, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. 23. Interview 11, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 January 2016. 24. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014. 25. Field note, 26 June 2014. 26. Interview 4, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 28 May 2014; Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. 27. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015; see also Cockburn (1991, p. 153). 28. This included arranging personal appointments, being chaperones and buying lottery tickets. Interview 9, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015. 29. Interview 8, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 23 September 2015.

280 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

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Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014. Interview 11, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 January 2016. Interview 10, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014, Interview 10, Female Parliamentary Researcher, Interview 12, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 February 2016. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014. Interview 12, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 February 2016. Interview 12, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 February 2016, see also Interview 10, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015. Interview 10, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015. Interview 12, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 February 2016. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014. Field note, Induction, Westminster, London, April 2014. Interview Male Hotel Bar Worker, 27 June 2014. Hazarika, A. Progress, 5 March 2016, see also Hardman, I Spectator, 20 December 2015. Interview 10, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014. Interview 9, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015; Interview 10, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015. Interview 42, Female MP, 9 September 2014. Interview 19, Female MP, 23 June 2014. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. Interview 9, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. Interview 8, Parliamentary Researcher, 23 September 2015. See also Interview 3, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 25 April 2014, Interview 7, Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. Interview 13, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 14 March 2016. Interview 1, Male Researcher, 27 May 2014. Field note, June 2014, London. Field note, 11 July 2014, see also field note, 18 June 2014. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. Interview Male Hotel Bar Worker, 27 June 2014. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. Interview 8, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 23 September 2015. Interview 6, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 30 July 2014. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. Field note, May 2014, Westminster, London.

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67. Interview 9, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015; see also Grace’s discussion of burning eyes, Guardian, 14 May 2015. 68. At the time of research, the candidness of Sally Bercow, the Speaker’s wife doing an interview in a bath towel saying that she found living at Westminster to be ‘sexy’ for example in the Metro, and she received a difficult time for and was arguably humiliated, but perhaps she was being more open and outspoken than others. 69. Interview 6, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 30 July 2014. 70. Interview 13, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 14 June 2016. 71. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. 72. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. 73. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. 74. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. 75. ParliOut is the Workplace Equality Network for LGBTQI staff in parliament. 76. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. 77. Poststructuralist accounts of sexual harassment argue that it is very difficult to align definitions or incidences since reality is multifaceted. Approaches that ‘define and quantify’ sexual harassment are incomplete and subtleties are left out of discussions. Both men and women researchers may want to see themselves as powerful and ‘able to cope’ in a situation (Halford and Leonard 2001, pp. 148, 155; Hearn and Parkin 1995, p. 45). Furthermore, one respondent bemoaned the worldlessness of media reports on sexual harassment whereby identities pre-existed the harassment without a more contextual explanation. ‘I hate to use the word victim, because it gets reported as a short-term thing but it’s built up over longer relationships’. Furthermore, there has been ‘grabs and gropes’ forms of sexual harassment to illicit sexual acts (Bordo 2002, p. 226) or whether ‘sexual violence more commonly grinds on with a numbing banality’ (Franzway et al. 1989, p. 104). A key issue of analysis is also the issue of split subjectivities and not feeling destabilised by sexual harassment (Beasley and Bacchi 2000). 78. Young Women’s Trust (28 February 2018) https://www.youngwome nstrust.org/what_we_do/media_centre/press_releases/747_half_of_w omen_mps_know_of_sexual_harassment_in_parliament. 79. Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014. 80. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015. 81. Field note, 28 April 2014. 82. Interview 18, Female MP, 15 July 2014. 83. Interview 7, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 20 August 2015; Interview 5, Female Researcher, 10 June 2014. 84. Interview 51, Male Department for Facilities, House Service, 8 May 2014; Interview 5, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 10 June 2014.

282 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

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Interview 6, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 30 July 2014. Interview 6, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 30 July 2014. Interview 6, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 30 July 2014. Interview 1, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 May 2014. Interview 1, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014. Interview 6, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 30 July 2014. Moore, C. (2017). This scandal shows that women are now on top. I pray they share power with men, not crush us. Telegraph, November 3, available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/03/scandalshows-women-now-top-pray-share-power-men-not-crush-us/. For example, broader discussions of misogyny and the Anita Hill Clarence Thomas case. Field note, 19 May 2017. Interview 12, Female Parliamentary Researcher, 11 February 2016. Interview 13, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 14 June 2016. Interview 2, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 27 April 2014; Interview 13, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 14 June 2016. Interview 9, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 12 October 2015; Interview 10, Female Researcher, 12 October 2015. Personal conversation with CM, 28 May 2014.

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Dale, R. (2015b). How to Survive as a Parliamentary Researcher: Top 10 Tips. Total Politics, October 9. Available at: https://www.totalpolitics.com/ articles/news/how-survive-parliamentary-researcher-top-10-tips. Duggan, L. (2002). The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism. In R. Castronovo & D. D. Nelson (Eds.), Materialising Democracy: Toward a Revitalised Cultural Politics (pp. 175–194). Durham, NC. USA: Duke University Press. Durose, C., Richardson, L., Combs, R., Eason, C., & Gains, F. (2012). ‘Acceptable Difference’: Diversity, Representation and Pathways to UK Politics. Parliamentary Affairs, 66(2), 246–267. Emejulu, A., & Bassel, L. (2018). Austerity and the Politics of Becoming. Journal of Common Market Studies, 56, 109–119. Epstein, D. (1997). Keeping Them in Their Place: Hetero/Sexist Harassment, Gender and the Enforcement of Heterosexuality. In A. M. Thomas & C. Kitzinger (Eds.), Sexual Harassment: Contemporary Feminist Perspectives (pp. 154–172). Buckingham: Open University Press. Evans, E. (2013). Gender and the Liberal Democrats: Representing Women?. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Ferguson, K. (1984). The Feminist Case Against Bureaucracy. USA: Temple University Press. Fenno, R. F. (1990). Watching Politicians: Essays on Participant Observation. Berkeley: IGS Press. Foucault, M. (1980). The History of Sexuality: Volume 1: An Introduction (R.Hurley, Trans). New York: Viking (First U.S Edition 1978). Franzway, S., Court, D., & Connell, R. (1989). Staking a Claim: Feminism, Bureaucracy and the State. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gherardi, S. (1995). Gender Citizenship in Organizations. In S. Gherardi (Ed.), Gender, Symbolism and Organizational Cultures (pp. 164–184). London: Sage. Glick, P. (2011). Sexism, Role of Power in. In K. Dowding (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Power (pp 598–599). London: Sage. Grant, M. (2017). The Unsexy Truth About Harassment. The New York Review of Books, December 8. Available at: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/ 12/08/the-unsexy-truth-about-harassment/. Halford, S., & Leonard, P. (2001). Gender, Power and Organisations. Palgrave Macmillan. Hardman, I. (2015). Should Ministers Spend so Much on Their Advisors?, Spectator, December 20. Available at: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/12/ should-ministers-spend-so-much-on-their-advisers/. Hazarika, A. (2016). Power Behind the Throne. Progress, March 5. Available at: http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2016/03/05/power-behind-thethrone/.

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CHAPTER 8

Beneath Mainstream Approaches

There is widespread international interest in the ‘genderedness’ of parliaments in both their policies and their practices and in considering—in discursive terms what a gender-sensitive parliament might look like (Galligan and Meier 2016). Parliaments are taking a central role in the international feminist political science agenda as key institutional arenas that reproduce the contemporary gender order—materially and discursively. Parliaments remain central institutions in democratic life. In the UK, this remains so, despite challenges to liberal democracy, shared by many parliaments around the world. This is because the UK House of Commons is still an unparalleled recognisable arena of representative democracy and is one arena where gender relations have the potential to become politicised. The book’s title ‘gendering the everyday’ sought to conceptually consider as well as to make empirical engagements with what gendering might involve, using Judith Butler (2011) and Carol Bacchi’s (2017) discussions of gendering. The book’s subtitle, ‘beneath the spectacle’, designates how it took a less ceremonial approach to gender, though not discounting the clear importance of ceremony, given the typology of the debating parliament and indeed the so-called dignified aspects of parliamentary debating culture (Bagehot 2003). Discursiveness involved capturing gender as an analytical category in the parliamentary © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Miller, Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6_8

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workplace—that is, how it was articulated and performed in different meanings, whilst also attending to material structures, ensuring that a critical discursive politics does not entail social weightlessness (McNay 2014). Each chapter sought to analyse how (in)formal institutional arrangements interpellate parliamentary actors as gendered actors in multiple ways. The chapter titles were structured by unequal categorical pairs to show how some bodies and work were evaluated as mattering more or less. A particular theme throughout the book is that parliaments as political arenas contain overlapping working worlds and actors. To this end, the book has detailed interactions between broader staff who have so far, arguably remained largely spectral to the main Westminster story, and who remain woefully understudied (cf. Laube et al, 2020). In spite of the many studies on gender and the UK House of Commons, less political science studies are available academically that explore the gendered terms of arrangements between different working worlds at the institutional capillaries of the UK House of Commons. This is an opportunity to rethink in political science how we conceive of and investigate a co-professional gendered institution. Whilst not disputing that parliamentarism matters (Palonen 2018, p. 5, cf. Busby 2013), this book has sought to attend to key specificities of a parliamentary workplace. This final chapter draws the threads together, to reflect upon the three research questions posed in the introduction. I close by identifying and assessing the potential of this framework and approach and its potential for travelling to different parliaments.

8.1 How Is Gender Reproduced and How Does Parliamentary Ethnography Help Us to Understand This? This book is part of an emerging literature that places discursive studies of gender firmly in the sub-disciplinary agenda of parliamentary studies and those studies that specifically work with Butler (Rai and Spary 2019). Feminist approaches to parliaments look beneath the mainstream by taking a holistic approach of the power relations and the practices within parliaments that law-making takes place within. Parliamentary actors are made (un)intelligible through the threefold canopy of the career cycle, citizenship and public service. Through these broad meaning structures, everyday parliamentary working life hangs together through

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rules and performances and is performatively supported. To analyse each working world, each chapter followed this threefold structure to examine forms of gendering. The terms of institutional arrangements get placed under pressure in different contexts and with evolving understandings and experiences, so there may now be different issues at stake to the ones foregrounded at the time of fieldwork. 8.1.1

‘Rules About Gender’ in the UK House of Commons

Like many parliaments internationally, actors in the UK House of Commons are layering rules to create a more gender-equal working environment following several reports (Palmieri 2011; Childs 2016). FDI builds on this by ‘consider[ing] the gender ideologies found in the institutional discourses focusing on how ideas about women and men and masculinity and femininity are present in its rules’ (Lovenduski 2011, p. xi). This is in both rules about gender and rules with gendered effects. Rules about gender do not necessarily guarantee progress and there have been indications of back-sliding on gender equality. It is vital to examine the institutional infrastructures that support gendered bodies. Chapter 5 discussed the embodied aspects of being an MP. Issues around the comprehensiveness and coverage of the rules remained an issue, such as the problem of general elections, where MPs are no longer MPs but are party candidates. Furthermore, parental leave may be undone by gender discourses and subjectivities of embodied public service, and the rational management of family life, and so MPs take less baby leave than they are entitled to. Therefore, these discourses and performances run contradictarily alongside the layering of rules. When layering rules about gender, delay and obfuscation was an issue. It has been widely acknowledged that transformative change has not materialised in the House of Commons; following the bullying and (sexual) harassment allegations of 2014 and 2017. There was delay in implementing Cox’s third recommendation: to establish an entirely independent means for adjudicating a complaint, though now active, and bullying and harassment have not stopped. Calls to strengthen parliament as a democratic actor and to make it an equal place to work need to pay attention to its staff. When assessing rules about gender, parliamentary actors are subject to a new behavioural code that underpins an Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, but at the time of writing, it is too early to tell how effective it is. Initially, the six month review

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of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme found that the implementation team was under-resourced in terms of skills and capacity (Stanley 2019), though this had been improved upon by June 2020 (Willows, 2020). It is unknown how far the changes in remote working have changed power relations in the UK House of Commons and whether it posed new challenges in terms of bullying and harassment, such as preserving the ability to switch off digitally. Informal rules about gender included devising alternative rules to navigate through the environment such as senior women telling others to keep out of the bars. Chapter 6 included the informal ‘reduced to two posts’ rule where some clerks would not be placed with two select committee chairs due to a history of bullying that was denied by some participants, but expressed in an equality audit of the circulation procedure. This matters because gender features as a category within these rules as having to ‘protect’ women, whilst not dealing with the perpetrator—removing the victim, not the harasser. This is performative—it brings about an unequal institutional subject position of ‘the Jacqui of most trades’ for women and affects their careers and experiences of circulation. The existence of these informal rules operating in the UK House of Commons, combined with Butler’s work on speech and self censorship (1997), marks an interesting contrast to the very ideal of a ‘debating parliament’. Finally, in places there were a lack of rules about gender, invoking one of Bacchi’s typologies of de-gendering, where gender has not been treated as a relevant category (2017). Subject positions of being heard as insistent or as problems were articulated when trying to bring gender into view. When contemplating public service as a discursive institution and the responsibilities of being a public servant, the lack of sexual harassment rules and bullying rules until very late reinforces the view that public service as it is designed and practiced, is insufficiently gender-sensitive. There is a lack of rules about gender on prospective parliamentary candidates and histories of gender violence. During the ethnography, prospective parliamentary candidates attended events around the Westminster area. Therefore, to explore parliamentary candidates is not necessarily exogenous to parliament, as several are already heavily connected to the settings and people. Using Butler’s performativity argument, rules can become ‘about gender’ performatively when certain actors take the lead, even if white males might be beneficiaries as well.

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‘Rules with Gendered Effects’ in the UK House of Commons

Parliaments are not static and long-term democratic changes within parliaments, their empowerment, and the types of functions that they prioritise may create qualitatively different and shifting gender arrangements. Parliaments are always reforming and strengthening—though not irreversibly and consistently (Kelso, 2009), as political actors institute changes to make parliaments work in a more democratic and effective way. The Wright reforms as new rules recalibrated gender relations both positively and negatively. The House of Commons is arguably different from several other workplaces, since MPs have to vote on several leadership positions at the beginning of the parliament, but also throughout the parliament as chairs become vacant. Following O’Brien’s observation that newly elected MPs in particular may work in low information environment, even in by-elections to committee chair positions, the performance of gender matters in these dynamics, especially when there is a new intake, since MPs must make decisions very quickly—and even after four years into the parliamentary session. This coincides with a culture that laid emphasis on ‘rating’. Schemes of recognition then in a Butlerian sense who gets noticed for their work is important. Chapter 5 also showed a lack of rules with gendered effects, for example the lack of a job description. In place of this, MPs used discourses between/with/against workplaces, for example meeting the desire for ‘uncomplaining labour’, performed through gendered meanings of belligerence, strength and embodied stewardship. Covid 19 may change ideas about embodied stewardship and presentism, notwithstanding that embodied contact in informal spaces in parliament is also imporant. Chapter 6 examined the governance of the House reforms and how gender was ignored as a salient category of analysis but the candidate, Carol Mills was simultaneously situated as a gendered subject. I propose that had gender been treated as a salient category of analysis, there may have been more robust reform of these governance arrangements. The treatment of Mills matters, since she was cast as ‘other’ through her accent, nationality and social distance from cricket metaphors. The replacement of the Clerk of the House could have catalysed democratic linkage with those who may seek a non-partisan engagement with parliament (Müller and Sieberer 2014, pp. 324–325), but instead it was characterised by intra-institutional fights. Objective 2 of the House of Commons and Parliamentary Digital Service D and I Strategy 2019–2022

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is to involve and inspire the public. Paul Evans, a clerk of parliaments, critically contemplates the ‘rules of the game’ by critiquing instances when the House’s deliberations over procedure may ‘fail to engage their [the public’s] interests and emotions or earn their confidence – to appear human’ (2018, p. 18). Parliaments as gendered workplaces are irrevocably linked to gendered skills regimes of the wider population and therefore this episode could have been responsive to this. Chapter 7 explored parliamentary researchers and showed that in the absence of rules around recruitment and misconduct or insufficient rules, then Hochschild’s ‘feeling rules’ were a subjective replacement (2012) and some researchers held onto hyper-vigilance with regard to socialising and who they could be seen with on the parliamentary estate. The issue of citizenship was particularly acute for parliamentary researchers, since the need to network and to establish contacts was pertinent. Furthermore, norms of drinking and social media hailed researchers in as parliamentary citizens which could be exclusionary. 8.1.3

‘Gendered Actors Working with the Rules’ in the UK House of Commons

This book makes an original and distinctive contribution by looking more closely at the gendered actors who work with the rules—how they think of and experience their everyday life at parliament. The book not only provided a descriptive picture of gendered actors in the House of Commons in Chapter 3, but has also explored the interpellative fabric of parliaments—that is, how parliamentary actors are ‘called’ into gendered subject positions everyday. Actors are hailed in relationships and bodies are differentially supported by institutional architecture. A key argument in this book is that we need to consider the spectral nature of parliamentary actors, for example some journalists and those actors who make regular citations to elected politicians’ identities through providing research and recognition and how gender relations are upheld by this arrangement. We know from conceptual discussions in Chapter 2 that MPs rely on staff for their identity as an office-holder because they help them to successfully complete tasks. The book sought to examine the models and channels of communication between these worlds that links them together—such as the domestic committees, WENs and harassment rules. The domestic committees provide a key conduit between MPs and the

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House Service and so are important for internal communications. The interdependency of parliamentary actors working in the UK House of Commons, as outlined in Chapter 3, was vivid in the fieldwork. When looking at the House of Commons as a gendered institution, we can see that gender is in struggle. Gendered consciousness and a recurring gender binary evoking categories of ‘men’ and ‘women’ as hierarchical groups derived from their numbers was prescient in the House of Commons—symbolic representation was derived from descriptive representation. An example is women ‘firsts’ and the perception of ‘male arrogance’ on select committees, as well as the place ‘feeling very male’. However, there was also some symbolic discussion such as female researchers contending with ‘that secretary image’. As Butler suggests: The act that one does, the act that one performs, is, in a sense, an act that has been going on before one arrived on the scene. Hence gender is an act which has been rehearsed, much of the script survives the particular actors who make use of it, but which requires individual actors in order to be actualized and reproduced as reality once again. (Butler 1988, p. 526)

As mentioned in Chapter 2, recent institutionalist work attends to ‘actors with real human heads and hearts, who engage critically and strategically with institutions rather than simply playing pre-assigned roles’ (Lowndes and Roberts 2013, p. 145 emphasis added). When exploring gendered actors working with the rules, the book has argued that subjectivities, identifications and affects are key to understanding gendered actors working with the rules and how they might have an ambivalent or ambiguous relationship to them. As mentioned, the disagreement over Carol Mills’ appointment provided an interesting lens into the affective culture of the House, tieing together the working worlds outlined in Chapter 3 with repeated rounds of conflict between the Speaker, staff and MPs. Furthermore, struggles around this rule change showed that affects, such as embarrassment could be mobilised as a sanction in the form of discourses of governance and intervention. The episode showed, arguably, how more proximate personifications of gendered actors could disguise rules with gendered effects, such as the hierarchicalisation of skills regimes in career structures in the House. Feminist discursive institutionalists suggest that actors’ desires, preferences and interests are constituted by institutions rather than pre-existing them; therefore, it may be necessary to probe this interaction further.

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Subjectivities of accomplishment and affective resonance with like-minded people may prohibit change, as one parliamentary researcher told me ‘you’re made to feel like you’ve done well here1 ’. Puwar suggested ‘[t]o be in a career, you have already been part and parcel of the practice of endorsement’ (Puwar 2004, p. 121). Therefore, a critical discursive politics might involve questioning passionate attachments, or drawing on less subordinating modes of attachment. The targets of desire are also notable. In the select committee, it was felt that men directed their attention towards showing off to other men. This supports Martin’s analysis of homosocial behaviour (2004) but also expands and further genders Rai’s discussion of who the audience of a performance might be (2014). Furthermore, MPs have little training as employers and so beneath this lack of training the career for parliamentary researchers is affectively managed around feeling rules, loyalty and jocularity. Power is performed through mutual identification and mirroring, as well as through structural power. Age, a lack of seniority and the low occupational status intersect problematically with gender. Gendered actors working with the rules include Women’s Parliamentary Organisations as arenas—for example the Workplace Equality Networks. WENs are political because they are declaratory: that inequalities exist. WENs provide recognition, mutuality and the activities can have excitable effects, such as activism in parliaments. There are a number of benefits to WENs but at the time of fieldwork, gendered actors with the rules faced informal resistances, such as being seen as ‘wishy-washy’ and the need to ideally retain the separation of WENs from management in order to be able to hold management to account fully. The WENs provide a space where members can bring themselves to work, rather than being ‘undone’ by their institutional positions. It will be interesting longitudinally to see how WENs conceive of themselves fitting in and acting with/in the parliament. This has been seen as a positive development; however, they need maintenance. 8.1.4

How Does Ethnography Help Us to Explore This?

This book has overall provided a thicker empirical discussion of gendering beneath the spectacle in the UK House of Commons. The book contributed to intra-methodological discussion on the different types of ethnographies that can be conducted to answer research questions on

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gender and parliaments and what is at stake when we select a framework (see Miller 2020). As mentioned in Chapter 2, anthropologists had a chilly reaction to institutionalism, though not necessarily feminist institutionalism. This is worth reflecting on, since the analytical choices when conducting an ethnography are consequential. Notwithstanding this, I now discuss how ethnography can be a particularly powerful pairing with feminist institutionalism. In terms of exploring rules about gender, ethnography can facilitate trust building to discuss informal rules about gender, such as the reduced to two post rule and the informal office rules to navigate an institutional environment. Situated observations can also explore the reception and mood of the creation of rules about gender, such as whether institutional actors feel that an intervention is a publicity stunt for the symbolic representation of the parliament, or for a certain office to show leadership. Parliamentary ethnography also allows us to see how a rule can become about gender when institutional actors take ownership of it. Furthermore, to institute is what Ahmed calls a ‘sweaty’ (2017, p. 13) verb and parliamentary ethnography allows us to enter into a more fine-grained study of the struggles around instituting these rules. In terms of rules with gendered effects, parliamentary ethnography allows researchers to see how interpellations of gender may occur in rules not about gender, for example discussing how being ‘circulatable’ might be embodied in the parliament. Furthermore, when examining rules with gendered effects, ethnography allows the researcher to submit their own body to see if their own gender identity has an effect on the rules existing, such as the pass system. It also allows researchers to analyse categories of masculinities and femininities that help to endogenise rule changes or to subvert formal rule changes and how parliamentary actors experience rule changes on the ground. In terms of gendered actors working with the rules, parliamentary ethnography provides us with a thicker picture of the actors at the capillaries who are ‘interminably spectral’ (Butler 2004, p. 34) and who may not be made immediately known from an interview study. Chapter 6 sought to show the actors, content, and the processes through which WEN members seek to act for gendered members of staff. The book joins scholars (Schumann 2009; Crewe 2015; Judge and Leston Bandeira 2018; Crewe and Sarra 2019; Geddes 2019) who have situated parliamentary and political actors in multiple arrangements and relationships to each other. Doing parliamentary studies differently and beneath the

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mainstream would also involve speaking with cleaners, and those who are on the very lowest pay grades and who also work anti-social hours. Parliamentary researchers and caseworkers in the constituency, for example, have been found to have an informal role in bringing people through the parliamentary structures such as interns and volunteers. These then are key actors in terms of recruitment and supply of parliamentary staff. They are also important actors for public service, since develop formal and tacit classification systems to handle casework. In terms of research, this demands a closer in-depth examination of these actors. Indeed, often these actors are mistakenly placed as a constitutive outside of MPs as those bodies that do not ‘matter’ (Butler 2011). How they understand and perform gender and power and the categories of men, women, masculinities and femininities that are operative in the UK House of Commons matters. Ethnography can be perspective transforming in understanding how parliaments are gendered, by putting familiar disciplinary concepts under scrutiny in applied practice. Ethnography allows us to write the body into parliamentary studies. If gender is conceptualised as a ‘stylised repetition of acts through time’ (Butler 1988, p. 520, emphasis added), then time spent with these parliamentary actors matters. Ethnography is also helpful to elicit power and responsibility by turning the gaze upwards to those who escape scrutiny (Nader 1972). Although ethnography can provide a thicker analysis, it is not comprehensive and is always contingent on the positionality of the researcher and the access achieved. The empirical chapters did not cover the performative acts, rules and practices of the career cycle, citizenship or public service, in their entirety. Different access would inevitably have shown more heterogeneity in these working worlds. The presentation of the fieldwork in each chapter is not strictly symmetrical; therefore, further research could be undertaken in order to make a qualitatively richer comparison of the terms of arrangements in and between these working worlds.

8.2 How Do Political Actors Respond and What Are the Opportunities for Change? Institutions can be re-gendered (Beckwith 2005), but how? Following Bacchi (2017), this section contributes conceptually to what it might mean to undo gender in some practices and what this might mean. Regendering in this book means to undo fixed categories of ‘men’ and ‘women’; to allow more plural ways of performing masculinities and

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femininities; and for them not to be valued in hierarchical binaries. The workplace perspective developed in this book took a threefold analysis of the institutions that order the everyday in the UK House of Commons: the career cycle, citizenship and public service. Parliamentary actors have to engage with these discursive institutions in order to make institutional life ‘workable’ (Tyler 2019) and they are hung together by a range of gender performances. What room do parliamentary actors have to resist, or recalibrate the rules of the game and how can change come about? Endogenous change in parliament requires the development and negotiation of knowledge claims and practices within parliament, as well as learning how the institution works (Berthet 2019). Feminist work can push for direct changes as well as more diffuse, discursive contributions (Childs and Dahlerup 2018). Feminist discursive institutionalism suggests that change might be identity-contingent. Certain actors in their performances are more empowered to pursue change. As shown in Chapter 6, securing change may involve a power struggle (Celis and Lovenduski 2018). If parliament is to be addressed as a gendered workplace, then we know that institutions are ‘not monolithically resistant to gender’ (Mergaert and Lombardo 2014). As mentioned, feminist discursive institutionalist approaches seek to bring the actor back in and to have a relational conception of gender (Friedenvall and Krook 2011). Both material and discursive change is needed. Drawing on the analytical framework presented in Chapter 2, I will now pose at least five entry points for change. Four of the entry points (1, 2, 4 and 5) are discursive and one (3) is material (Fig. 8.1). 8.2.1

Level 1 and 2: Troubling the UK House of Commons’ Contingent Foundations

The first type of Butlerian change considers the big ‘why’ questions—that means questioning what passes as ‘necessary and unalterable’ (Tyler 2019, p. 2). Butler’s project of politicising ‘contingent foundations’ (1995) is a key form of agency. This involves dislodging ‘mundane rituals of truth’— that is, questioning the norms and ways of working that enjoy presumptive common-sense status in the UK House of Commons. In some senses, these big questions indeed have come about through endogenous shocks. In the UK Parliament, rapid change has been narrated as difficult due to the ‘small c’ conservative British Political Tradition. We know

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Fig. 8.1 Revisiting feminist discursive institutionalism

that parliaments are multi-functional bodies and stress different functions at certain times (Kreppel, 2014; Abels 2020). The ‘mainstays of parliamentary reform’ are the select committee structure, Lords reform and the repeatedly unearthed question of whether to write a constitution, but other reforms could be considered beyond the usual shopping list. An example is asking why, for example voting has to be done in person? Feminist institutionalists see the separation between exogenous and endogenous change (Lowndes 2019) as untenable. Contingent foundations could be understood through comparative parliamentary studies

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to explore best practice elsewhere. Such practices are noted in IPU’s innovation tracker that shows there is not an inevitability of rules and practices being performed in the same way. There are four opportunity structures. Firstly, it may be easier to gain support for a new framing of an issue, rather than for rule change (Erikson 2019). Parliaments as workplaces and parliamentary workers as a subject position through which to fight inequalities and cut through the disenchantment with UK politics, appears in some senses to be a felicitous frame. Other scholars suggest such discourses can alleviate the gaps between citizens and parliamentarians (Busby 2013). The UK House of Commons could potentially occupy a leading and symbolic role in how a workplace should operate. A workplace approach is not uncontentious: legislatures should be recognised as ‘an institution that wields substantial power, authoritatively allocates vast resources, and sets the boundaries for many key values such as those associated with civil rights…[A workplace] approach under-estimates the coercive power of law-making bodies’ (Duerst-Lahti 2002, p. 371), and indeed, parliaments nest political parties and their relations of antagonism and agonism. Media discourses and public opinion after #MeToo did, in some ways, interpellate the House of Commons into accountability discourses as an employer, not least from the three QCs who were commissioned to investigate the working cultures but as such, these hails have not as yet proven to be transformative—or caused significant ‘trouble’ for power regimes. For example, allegations continue to emerge of sexual harassment. This is despite clear public support for reform (Culhane 2019). The Women’s Equality Party stood parliamentary candidates in seats of MPs who had been accused of sexual harassment. This subverts power’s narrative because it holds the candidates accountable. Civil Society Organisations have written letters in support of victims. It is yet to see how far issues of race and ethnicity will become addressed in parliaments, following the increased visibility of the Black Lives Matter movement. Secondly, COVID-19 has led to rapidly changing parliamentary workplaces worldwide and may indeed be a catalyst for change, especially as it shifts the staffing arrangements to support parliaments. Parliaments have had to be agile to allow shielding MPs and vulnerable staff to work from home. Parliamentary actors have been challenged to craft responses that fulfils representation, policy-making, linkage, oversight, care of the workforce and leadership on gender equality. The move to the hybrid parliament has raised questions about what the ‘functions’ of

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parliaments might be and how these are practiced everyday. COVID-19 may improve techniques for public engagement, since select committees before did not take so much video evidence, and allows witnesses to participate from around the country in the comfort of their own homes— though the emphasis on facial expressions through digital evidence may be even greater. Thirdly, a permissive discursive opportunity—though was more volatile and short-lived—was in 2019; when the UK Parliament was unlawfully prorogued. There were internal conflicts about how to defend an imperfect institution—and from a gender lens, an unease with a de facto defence of this institution. Therefore, parliament needs reforming, in order to be able to count on groups defending it against executive power and the distinction between parliament and the executive should be better communicated. It was also notable that the Speaker upon return to Parliament on 25th September 2019 said: ‘colleagues, welcome back to our place of work’.2 Therefore, the workplace frame can be invoked in moral terms and strategically, but this discourse can also be used regressively, such as the initial decision to require shielding MPs to vote in person during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, there is the restoration and renewal project, whereby change can occur to make the parliament more inclusive since as the empirical chapters demonstrate, gender performances occur within and through space (Childs 2016; Cotter and Flinders 2019); however, renewal will be embedded in historical discourses of the ‘debating parliament’ perhaps conceived very narrowly. The fire at Notre Dame cathedral in 2019 was perhaps a reminder that urgent change needed to be made to the physical structures of the parliamentary workplace. However, as Chapters 5 and 6 show in relation to the Debate Artwork in the select committee room and Portcullis House, there inevitably becomes a gap between conceived space and lived space—spaces can be performed differently from their original design. 8.2.2

Level 3—Changing the Rules-In-Form and Rules-In-Use of the UK House of Commons

Following Butler, change can involve rule-based change to the ‘performative supports’ of working life in the UK House of Commons across the career cycle, citizenship and public service. Individual offices and departments may have rules-in-use which can then be institutionalised. In terms

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of rules about gender, material changes need to take place undoubtedly in the UK House of Commons. Recommendations for rule change have been provided in the Good Parliament Report, 2016, and subsequent Gender-Sensitive Parliament Audit of 2018. This might require enforcement bodies, such as IPSA, the Electoral Commission and the police. It might also be based on voluntary approaches, where those who do not sign up to them are made visible. In terms of rules about gender, a recommendation was made in the Gender-Sensitive UK Parliament Audit that Erskine May should have a chapter on gender-sensitivity. This would be a reflexive exercise for both the clerks engaged in the writing process and those who engage with parliamentary procedure. There has been some discursive reforms linked to sex and descriptive representation such as the standing orders. Further rules about gender for institutional change may include compulsory intersectional trainings in parliaments. Innovative feminist pedagogies allow parliamentary actors, to reflect on the opacity of themselves and their relative privileges. As the chapters show, institutions are held together affectively. A fragility exists around discussing liberal complicity in promulgating inequality—especially in parliaments that are ostensibly ‘other-regarding’ environments of public service. If affect is a medium of non-discussion then critical race pedagogy shows us how parliamentary actors can be a ‘good’ person but also unconsciously sexist, racist and cause harm by reproducing structures, so learning from behaviour is not an attack on someone’s whole character and a good/bad binary should be deconstructed whilst at the same time resolving to learn from behaviour and change institutional arrangements (Diangelo 2018). Resistances to trainings include pre-empting hostile media coverage of the cost, the presumption of incomprehension and uncertainty and necessity of trainings; that it interferes with mandates; and that it implies a lack of ‘common sense’. In terms of rules with gendered effects, old institutional changes have been appealed to change the tone of the debate such as a separation of powers (Hardman 2018) so that Ministers are not chosen from their floor performances and are less incentivised to make partisan attacks. Increasing the powers of parliament to create behavioural change was also cited during the Wright Reforms. However, patriarchy and misogyny must be considered in order to investigate whether parliamentary actors participate in these structures on equal terms. There has been an ongoing suggestion to create a House Business Committee. This was in the Coalition

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Agreement, but was shelved and majority governments came in. If this committee does ever come into fruition, it will be notable to see how gender is operated in its creation and priorities. For the House Service, there are periodic reviews of the governance structures and so it can be assessed how well the new structures bedded in and whether employees in the whole of the administration felt their careers were supported. The status inversion practices through reverse mentoring schemes could be more widespread. There have also been discussions about how far graduate employment is needed in the House Service. Overall, when making rule changes, it is important to consider that parliaments are not untethered from political economy and (societal) structures (Rai and Spary 2019; Lowndes 2019; Goodwin et al. 2020). It is important to embed Parliament within non-parliamentary institutions such as the education system and indeed the union societies of Oxbridge and Russell Group Universities that dominate. For parliamentary researchers, ‘parliamentary experience’ is a pre-requisite of working for an MP, because of the need to start quickly. There could be greater reflection on what a meritocracy for this position might look like and whether such skills of drafting and consuming parliamentary materials such as press-releases, oral and written parliamentary questions, as well as scenarios such as if an MP wants to secure a backbench business debate, or has been assigned to a committee, could be taught exogenously in schools. This could be paid for by IPSA and provided by extant parliamentary researchers. Rule change may involve inter-institutional articulations of institutions and geography, such as empowering local government and moving parliament’s institutions beyond London. This may change as a result of Covid 19 and the temporarily increased visibility of Metro Mayors and local government in performing crisis leadership. When considering rule change, Parliament should be more transparent for academic researchers too. It was difficult during the fieldwork, for example to access staff surveys from each year, and much information was gleaned through freedom of information requests. In terms of gendered actors working with the rules, more resources could be given to institutionalise Women’s Parliamentary Organisations such as Workplace Equality Networks and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Women in Parliament. There are some informal arrangements such as MAPSA who can lobby for access to a Chief Whip. The Labour Party Women’s PLP may also be a key player.

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In terms of men’s participation discussed in Chapter 5, because a key tenet of feminist discursive institutionalism is that change is identity-contingent, men may have greater influence through their subject positions. Furthermore, they should share in the labour of bringing about gender equality. However, ally discourse invoking male capability and female vulnerability is problematic if only white middle class males take leadership of ameliorating inequalities.3 Allies discourse can rest on a binary of zero-sum power and ‘good’ men—and some women giving up their primary power, levelling down and having a ‘pedestal effect’ that needs to be matched with accountability (Messner et al. 2015, p. 135). In terms of bystander intervention, reputational damage amongst peers replaced formal sanctions but self-regulation relies on a group having ‘fairly homogenous values’ that is unlikely in a legislature (David-Barrett 2015, pp. 523–524). It also builds into the notion of a logic of iterability in Chapter 2 that gendered actors working with the rules, such as male allies, may not consistently act in ‘feminist’ ways— and that gender-equal improvements are plural and contested. Whilst the energy of ‘commitment carriers’ (Ahmed 2012, p. 130) is valuable; with weak institutionalisation, gender equality is vulnerable to reversal (Goetz 2003, p. 59). We know from feminist institutionalism and organisational studies that rule-based change is not always straight forward, for at least five reasons. These are: (1) rule change might require a more discursively felicitous and ‘permissive opportunity’ for institutional change, such as an election of a post, where candidates can be lobbied for change or governance reviews and might be abandoned in turbulent times; (2) there may be a recalcitrance and resistances to institutional interventions and training (Mergaert and Lombardo 2014); (3) actors might not have the material coercion, occupy the right subject position or have political influence to bring about rule change; (4) rule change and leaning into the institution assumes shared normative values; and (5) if there is a rule, it then becomes incumbent on weakly positioned parliamentary actors to make use of it—institutional responsibility can be seen to stop there. 8.2.3

Level 4 Everyday Performances in the UK House of Commons

How can political actors respond to their multiple subject positionings in parliamentary working life, and how does this shape opportunities for re-gendering parliaments? In some parliaments, parliamentary actors as

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‘insiders’ have mobilised for change, using their knowledge of the institution (Berthet 2019). Given the constraints for rule change outlined in the previous section, opportunities for change then may for some be immanent within and against the grain of the institutional structure in smaller actions. Butler notes that: power is not stable or static, but is remade at various junctures within everyday life; it constitutes our tenuous sense of common sense, and is ensconced as the prevailing epistemes of a culture. Moreover, social transformation occurs not merely by rallying mass numbers in favour of a cause, but precisely through the ways in which daily social relations are rearticulated, and new conceptual horizons opened up by anomalous or subversive practices. (2000, p. 14)

Everyday life in parliaments is a space of both normativity and difference. However, this requires attention to the contributions and limitations of a conception of agency connected with the performativity of gender. The contributions and opportunities are that because parliamentary actors are multiply positioned, there are multiple subject positions to seek change from, in the career cycle, citizenship or public service. Butler mirrors a bricoleur conception of change and argues that: ‘[t]here is only a taking up of the tools where they lie, where the “taking up” is enabled by the tool lying there’ (2007, p. 199). Change then may occur through several acts and practices, rather than singularly as a critical juncture. Parliamentary actors’ agency is not found outside the discourses and performative supports of the career cycle, citizenship and public service but in the ability to repeat them differently and symbolically. This relates to the critical acts literature by being necessarily opposed to it but raises questions of feminist consciousness, elsewhere as liminal acts. The limitations are, firstly, that resistance is identity-contingent and might reify the agency of weaker actors, relying on them to solve structural problems. Speaking out, for example, requires iterative practice to become more confident each time and bring subjectivities into being—or muscle memory to use a fleshy embodied metaphor. This does not nullify the type of agency, but might require reflection on how one can advocate with/for others. Indeed, as Butler suggests:

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[I]f I were to argue that genders are performative, that could mean that I thought that one woke in the morning, perused the closet or some more open space for the gender of choice, donned that gender for the day, and then restored the garment to its place at night. Such a wilful and instrumental subject, one who decides on its gender, is clearly not its gender from the start and fails to realize that its existence is already decided by its gender. (2011, p. ix)

Table 8.1 details a thicker exploration of the interactive relationships with rules and the performance of subject positionings. Some tactics that were emic from the field and etic from literature can be used immanently to move across from different subject positionings and be signified differently as well as undoing power centres. These are only speculative and many different articulations could be more subversively performed. It has been suggested that the everyday may be a place that lacks reflection. Furthermore, repetition of critical, or rather liminal acts, might reduce their politicisation as well as strengthening and naturalising them. Finally, the career cycle certainly for low-income and precarious actors has more immediate material effects and possible sanctions for speaking out cannot be ignored. Table 8.1 Subversive agency Career cycle

• Speaking at meetings, taking up more space, sitting at the front and centre • Asking minorities, juniors and women first for input and amplifying their good ideas • Publicly acknowledging others’ contributions • Making career and life references from experiences that are exogenous to the parliament • Sitting in between men at meetings, if it is safe to do so, and breaking up circles in male networks. Inserting oneself into hierarchies, insinuating oneself into others’ worlds • Humour as resisting power’s narrative (Rai 2014, p. 1187) • Imagery, such as rolling out a chair from underneath a meeting table, to find a baby seat there • Laughter as a distancing tactic • Sharing resources • MPs could answer the phone, visit their teams at their desks and perform some tasks practised by staff

(continued)

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Table 8.1 (continued) Citizenship

Public Service

• Choosing how to present/absent oneself in parliamentary space • Planning socials, rather than having them ad hoc, so that everyone can join • Using social media to make parliament and the power relations more accessible • Side-stepping comments, not being able to be drawn into discourses • Spatialising tactics—avoiding the total institution. This is difficult when parliamentary actors move to London • Creating a narrative for oneself with the help of others to make sense of what has happened, actors’ achievements and values • Boring harassers who make approaches, if it is safe to do so • Asking the political actor to repeat comment for them to hear and assess the logic of it • The use of absurdity to express a view of unequal institutional arrangements

8.2.4

Level 5: Knowledge Change

The final form of change discussed here is change based around knowledge practices and claims making. To return to the discussion about the WENs in Chapter 6, Butler asked how we can ‘shatter the epistemic blindness’ of gender inequality, by naming inequalities and making them visible (Butler 2011, p. 178). The book raises clear questions about intentionality, agency, sentience, unconscious bias and political will. If parliaments are not passive actors but are sites for politicisation, then power/knowledge should be investigated. Furthermore, knowledge change for broader actors on the estate is important, so that agency is not reduced to sympathetic discussions in private between those who are already conscious of gender inequalities. Two participants from the House Service suggested that ‘hearts and minds4 ’ change needed to accompany formal policy. Knowledge change is important. Designing new regulations has to be accompanied by work to build and embed some shared normative commitments and new discursive frames. However, there is a thorny question of whether actors know and whether there is an institutional will not to acknowledge—an institutionalised wilful ignorance, or whether parliamentary actors are genuinely unaware of their actions. This shares similarities with creating a culture of women’s interests and spaces, but this can include gender equality. It also shares similarities with very

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traditional approaches, such as the ‘informing’ function of parliaments— whereby parliamentary actors are disposed to knowledges that they are not ordinarily (Bagehot 2003) and shape knowledge and practice. Knowledge practices are already occurring such as record keeping of diversity data, for example select committee witnesses as mentioned in Chapter 7. Indeed, IPU, the Good Parliament Report (2016), EIGE and UN women all provide toolkits on how to make parliaments more gender equal. The reports by both Dame Laura Cox QC and Gemma White QC also provide knowledge on the culture of the House of Commons as a workplace. The very exercise of a self-assessment tool can stimulate discussion. The House of Commons Service does participate in some indices, such as Stonewall Equalities Index though indices and external benchmarks but it cannot tell us what is happening beneath and between what is captured in these. It is also important to assess where knowledge claims and analyses of protected characteristics are not integrated as analytical categories. ParliREACH suggests: ‘People were seen to be much more comfortable discussing protected characteristics such as disability, sexuality or gender than they were discussing race’ (2019, p. 3). Furthermore, broader structural knowledges could be advanced. For example, bullying needs to be seen in broader structural racist contexts (Palmer 2019). Furthermore, ‘gendered change is often initiated by feminist actors who have engaged with new gendered ideas’ (Erikson 2019, p. 27), therefore links to the women’s movement and broader social movements could be fostered even more. In terms of gendered actors working with the rules, key engines or critical actors with specialist knowledge are the Workplace Equality Networks; the Women and Equalities Select Committee; library subject specialists; and the POST office—to help with knowledge change. It is important to assess how far these actors discursively and materially have status in the parliament (Ahrens 2016). Likewise, if foreclosure, occurs and actors and knowledges deemed not to matter, is reiterated, then a feminist discursive institutionalist approach explores these foreclosures over time. Actors could also do follow ups to find out about people’s experiences of who engages with parliament. A duty of care as a corporate body during recruitment to select committee witness, to the position of parliamentary researcher, or to posts in the House may be an aspect of gender-sensitivity. Feminist discursive institutionalism read as/with performativity moves from iterative gender performances to performative—to explore what work gender ‘does’ in everyday power struggles in the House of

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Commons—that is, the movement from gender as an analytical category, to gender as a process (Beckwith, 2005). These performativities or materialisations may be collective feelings, policy regimes and some careers sustained over others, orders and patterns in the House of Commons the performative of ‘what discourses can ‘do’ in political life’ (Friedenvall and Krook 2011, p. 48). When looking at what discourses do, parliaments’ outward societal links should be considered. Butler argues that there is ‘a life to discourse that exceeds the subject’s own temporality’ (Butler and Bell 1999, p. 166). The implications of Butler’s conception of inheritance and citation of discourse (1997) and her ‘logic of iterability’ (2011, p. 69) provide pregnant ground for considering gendered legislative ethics, the promulgation of affects, and discursive responsibility. Butler suggests: the citationality of discourse can work to enhance and intensify our sense of responsibility for it. The one who utters hate speech is responsible for the manner in which such speech is repeated, for reinvigorating such speech, for reestablishing contexts of hate and injury… Responsibility is thus linked with speech as repetition, not as origination. (Butler 1997, pp. 27, 39).

A wider notion of discursive responsibility is iterated over Butler’s accounts (2005). To be sure, discursive responsibility does not entail bringing people into shared norms, whilst this may be desirable. Rather than accountability as responding to external directives only, for Butler, responsibility might be achieved in subjectivity too, through knowing one’s speech could be excitable and re-cited by others, as well as an understanding of co-professionalism or: ‘power with’ (Allen 1998). Furthermore, the actions of sets of actors and leaders in parliament bear relevance for others and so the promulgation of affective atmospheres and their material effects has become a matter of concern. Emphasis can be placed on a non-instrumental will to knowledge in how discourse ‘matters’. This undertaking may involve disciplinary expertise from linguists, affect theorists, violence in politics researchers, combined with women’s Civil Society Organisations to chart plausible transitions between rhetoric and action, for example sharp rhetoric, the cultivation of affective atmospheres, death threats citing similar language to that expressed in the chamber, and the assassination of an MP and how those minorities who enter parliaments or any workplaces become embroiled in a discursive web, woven by others—they become bearers of institutional legacies that preceded them.

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The second way that FDI might look at the performative could be the link between institutional practices, contestations over gender, and policy regimes. Whilst a substantive analysis of policies was not undertaken in this study, the book concludes that a will to knowledge of parliament’s own workplace practices may be fruitful for policy development and the conferral of recognition of and redistribution in response to inequalities in the contemporary workplace. It is true that most legislation is drafted in Whitehall, but parliamentarians can have impact through various means: EDMs, select committees, debates and private members bills (Russell and Gover 2017). When gendered policies have been investigated from an institutional perspective, it has been from the perspective of institutions as obstructing critical actors in practical terms (Annesley and Gains 2010), rather than institutional behaviours as affecting knowledge practices to then represent these interests. A vivid link between power/knowledge is the UK’s sexual harassment policy regime. In 2011, third-party harassment was removed from the Equalities Act 2010 by the coalition government, but this practice was arguably happening daily in the UK Parliament. Since #MeToo, harassment has been taken up in Select Committee Inquiries on: (1) sexual harassment in the workplace; (2) sexual harassment of women and girls in public spaces; and (3) nondisclosure agreements on discrimination cases. Third-party harassment is something that has been indirectly alluded to in the behavioural code which applies to visitors who visited the estate. Furthermore, given the fieldwork experiences and how class was foregrounded in the field, then this begs the question of how the Socio-Economic Duty also did not come to be implemented in the Equalities Act 2010 and socio-economic background is not a protected characteristic. Some scholars have yielded meaningful linkages and have put conceptual stepping stones in place to explore this connection (Bedford 2009).

8.3 What Does a Feminist Discursive Institutionalist Approach to Parliaments Look like? Recent work in the field of feminist institutionalism has made important progress in furthering our understanding of gender and institutions (Krook and Mackay 2011; Waylen 2017). However, this book fleshes out this body of research by exploring more fully how identity-building

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practices are political. Power inheres in identities and they are both structurally and organisationally arranged. Whilst feminist institutionalism has made important steps to understand how institutions are gendered, at present, identity is too under-developed in feminist institutionalist literature. Whilst networks, resources and rules are important, it cannot tell us about lookism, or peer on peer harassment by colleagues who are ostensibly at the same organisational level. A feminist discursive institutionalist approach stresses that professional identity is not an extension of the person, but something that is socially instituted. It shows that people’s identities matter in a way that people are situated unequally in relation to networks and resources. A general approach to power does not engage with material specificities of the bodies of different men and women. This is not to disregard the important work that has come before, but moves its empirical focus more firmly towards these ends. This book joins the exciting frontier of more interpretive approaches to parliaments (Leston-Banderia 2016; Crewe 2015; Rai and Spary 2019; Geddes 2019). Using Burke’s distinction between ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ performances in Chapter 2, I moved away from perhaps thicker ‘symbolic’ and ceremonial performances towards ‘thinner’ everyday conception of performance. The book has also attempted to get at subject formation closer, through the concept of undoing. It also explores actors’ relationships with each other. This book has looked more closely at the acts that build a workplace and through which gender is performed. FDI can still incorporate claims making in the ways ‘which rules unfold’ (Rai and Spary 2019, p. 15). Gender is more complex and iterative. Feminist discursive institutionalism explores even more closely how institutional situations require different performative acts. It also joins scholars who are developing more symbolic-discursive analyses of parliaments (Galligan and Meier 2016). This was not a systematically intersectional analysis, but given the clear class and race inequalities that are entrenched in this book and intersect with gender (Puwar 2004), then more focused interventions are needed. This book has read feminist discursive institutionalism with/as performativity, fleshing out both analytical frameworks with an empirical focus on the everyday, derived from ethnographic research of the UK House of Commons. Gender performativity is ‘not a singular “act”’ but is ritualised in the compulsory repetition of norms’ (Butler 2011, p. xxi). There is an emerging movement of scholars who see Butler’s questions as ‘profoundly organizational questions’ (Tyler 2019) since Butler has been

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moving across to study the labour market and precarious labour (Butler and Athanasiou 2013). I would add that these are profoundly parliamentary questions too—especially given her focus on assembly (2015). This book joins scholars who have sought to read Butler as a theorist of organisation (Tyler 2019; Rai and Spary 2019) to ameliorate the gap where political science has been untroubled by Butler’s work (Smith and Lee 2015). Butler’s themes of recognition, power and organisation are accentuated in elite workplaces, such as parliaments that are mediatised, and attract both horizontal and vertical spectatorships. In sum, Butler provides a more fine-grained study of power that inheres in conferrals of recognition in and by institutions, through concepts such as descriptive marks and gesture, performative efficacy and a logic of iterability. It adds to more interpretivist conceptions of parliamentary studies, by exploring everyday ‘acts’ of gender. Discursive institutionalism so far has looked more at policy debates, rather than practices (Friedenvall and Krook 2011, cf. Berthet and Kantola 2020) and this adds to how identities are mobilised around practices in parliaments. Finally, to conduct an analysis of the genderedness of parliaments, a feminist discursive institutionalism also looks at how parliaments are articulated with other institutions, assessing not only their relationships, but learning from alternative practices, be they caring institutions, social movements, worldwide parliaments, or local and sub-national political structures such as local councils.

8.4

Generalisability to Other Parliaments

UK parliamentary studies was until recently criticised for being methodologically nationalist (Judge 1983). In terms of the generalisability of the approach taken to other parliaments, on the one hand the book opens up exciting insights for a whole host of issues within and beyond the purview of the UK Parliament. However, on the other hand, different parliamentary systems may nest different types of parliamentary administrations, career opportunities, party competition, concepts of gender, histories, behavioural norms and practices and indeed gendered actors who work with the rules. The House of Commons as a debating parliament puts priority on different actors, officers and departments of the House. Furthermore, intersectional inequalities may travel differently between parliaments.

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In terms of the career cycle, because the House of Commons is a debating parliament, rather than a working parliament (Lord 2018), this makes everyday tasks in the career cycle qualitatively different. This affects staffing, careers and administrative arrangements. Committee membership is less formalised than in other parliaments, such as the European Parliament or German Bundestag, where there are substitutes for example; however, this is changing (Liaison Committee 2019, p. 27). Unlike in other legislatures, including the German Bundestag and Scottish parliament, there is no ‘committee day’ or plenary free time scheduled in Westminster, in part reflecting the fact MPs commonly spend Fridays in their constituencies. Given the drive for staff mobility in other parliaments, the issues raised by the discussion of clerks circulation may be fruitful for other parliamentary administrations. The House of Commons is also a fused power system, meaning that the executive is drawn from the legislature, which alters career pathways. Furthermore, parliaments sit in different interparliamentary settings and actor constellations, affecting the range of actors to be engaged with in everyday working life. In terms of citizenship, the UK Parliament also has a genealogy of a club, which makes citizenship take on a specific character and the MPs are present on the estate for long hours, because the government controls the floor time and so a vote can take place at short notice. Furthermore, other parliaments contain different governance arrangements for politicians to participate in, such as the quaestor system in the European Parliament. Transnational parliaments may also house different cultures and the same etic liberal framework of gender may not capture the nuances of gender in their entirety. Therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to parliaments and this makes the need for qualitative ethnographic research even more pertinent. I envisage even greater cooperation and the sharing of innovative practices by feminist political scientists working on parliaments as workplaces. In terms of public service, the discussion of abuse relates to global debates about the relationship between hate speech, gender, accountability and politics. Different parliaments have different contexts such as the use of tear gas in some parliaments depending on parliament’s relationship with society. There have been some comparisons of Westminster systems and gender equality (Collier and Raney 2018). Indeed, it is more common for European parliamentary administrations than for Congress to necessitate neutrality in its organisation (Pegan 2015), which may

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make it harder to advance discussions of gender equality, seen as ‘political’. Constituency service, discussed in Chapter 5 takes on a particular specificity in UK parliamentary democracy, where there is fully developed constituency service, rather than in Nordic countries where there is constituency ‘effort’ rather than ‘service’ (Arter and Raunio 2018). In the USA, there is also a very intensive relationship with the district (Fenno 2003). In contrast to the US congress, the UK Parliament ethics architecture is a fairly recent institution and is hybrid, operated by both independent expertise and self-regulation. Furthermore, in the UK House of Commons, the Equalities Act 2010 provides a legal backing to address some inequalities, whereas other parliaments will rely on qualitatively different equalities and labour legislation.

8.5

Conclusion

To return to the central theme of the book, in order to assess how the UK House of Commons might be a gendered institution, it is important to explore different working worlds and how categories of ‘men’, ‘women’, ‘masculinities’ and ‘femininities’ are created in relation to each other— and how attendant hierarchies with material effects are reproduced. There are different working worlds in the UK House of Commons, all of which have thrown up processes that share similarities and differences: MPs are highly visible actors and the cost of making mistakes is high; parliamentary researchers are arguably present on the parliamentary estate for the longest and so citizenship becomes accentuated; whilst members of the House Service have the longest careers and so the functions of parliaments are accentuated for the career cycle. The empirical chapters have shown that gendered identity is an essential component of working life and power relations in the House of Commons. In terms of equal participation of political actors in the UK House of Commons, at the time of the fieldwork, it was suggested that some bodies were condemned to disappearance by being ‘deemed not to matter’. Change in parliaments to make them more gender equal is identitycontingent. Feminist discursive institutionalism analyses how different types of agency may be graspable to different actors. Different types of intervention are needed to make ‘trouble’ for these power arrangements, for situated actors. This chapter has offered four entry points for change. However, it must be foreseen that the informal can impede institutional change (Waylen 2014) and much ‘work’ is needed to keep

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reform going. Finally, the focus on discourse, identity and institutional rules, is not particularistic, but something that is shared across many professional fields and workplaces and may bring parliaments closer to citizens (Busby 2013). As such, feminists could ask productive ‘parliament and/with’ questions and twin this with policy change or best practice in other workplaces.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

Interview 8, Male Parliamentary Researcher, 23.09.1. Hansard Deb 25 September 2019 Vol. 664, Col 651. Field note, 13 June 14. Interview 51, Male DFF Member, 08 May 2014.

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Index

A Abbott, Diane, 168 Abélès, M., 40 Abuse, 157–169 Access, 54–58 Accountability-feminist notions, 151, 157–169 Advice-seeking, 236, 243 Affect, 21, 27–29, 34–35, 37–38, 153, 160, 162, 190, 221 Age, 71, 88, 132, 151, 158, 163, 198, 199, 238, 244, 257, 272, 294 Agency, 2, 3, 7, 8, 38 Ahmed, Sara, 31, 37 Ailles, Ian, 187 Anthropology, 3, 8, 40, 295 APPG Women in Parliament, 11 Artwork, 134, 140–142

B Baby leave, 156

Bacchi and Ronnblom, 22 Bacchi, Carol, 157 Backbench Business Committee, 193 Becoming feminists, 162 Bercow, John, 124, 190, 203 Bjarnegard, E., 133 Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME), 123, 128 Boothroyd, Betty, 66, 91, 192 Bureaucratic discourse, 188 Butler, Judith, 106 C Campaigning (party), 274–278 Career cycle, 106–108, 122–138, 184–199, 236–253 Change, 3, 13, 296 Channel 4 News Documentary, The Palace of Sexminster, 266 Cheese, Chloe The Vote Office, 140–151 Childs Report, 6, 9, 55, 152, 155, 237, 289, 300

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. M. Miller, Gendering the Everyday in the UK House of Commons, Gender and Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64239-6

319

320

INDEX

Circulation, 61, 196, 312 Citationality, 34 Citizenship, 109–111, 138–151, 199–207, 253–265 Civil Society, 299, 308 Class, 25, 33, 41–42, 62–66, 85–86, 132–133, 147, 158, 242, 259–260, 264, 269, 310 Clerk of the House, 130–131, 134, 135 Clerks, 3, 63, 183 Committee on Standards, 167 Complaint, 149, 158, 162, 163, 168, 210, 270, 271, 274–275, 289, 290 Compulsory jocularity, 250 Congress, USA, 35, 53, 65, 69, 111, 129, 312 Constituency, 274, 275 Covid-19, 13, 154, 299 Cox, Jo, 160 Credentialism, 237 Crewe, Emma, 21, 37, 40, 52, 53, 56, 57, 61, 62, 63, 65, 85, 123, 129, 130, 149, 185, 188, 196, 219, 227, 266, 295, 310 Critical actors, 163

D Dame Laura Cox Report, 12 Debating parliament as typology, 122, 157, 159, 163, 312 (Deputy) Leader of the House, 186, 188 Descriptive representation, 6, 64, 69 Disability, 24, 25 Discursive institution, 106 Discursive responsibility, 13, 114, 307–308 Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, 200 Domestic committees, 144, 145, 147

E Elite interviews, 57, 60 Embodiment, 7, 24, 32–33, 125, 142–143, 152, 154, 156, 159, 194, 221, 245, 252, 270–271 Emic/Etic, 3–5, 112, 132, 213, 254, 257, 263, 264, 267, 269, 272, 305, 312 Emotional labour, 111, 136, 163, 210, 212, 247, 251, 270 Employers (MPs as), 152, 193 Employment (previous), 152 Endogenous change, 35 Equality Act 2010, 114, 200 Equality and Diversity Strategy, 200 Erikson, Josefina, vii, 9, 65, 106, 299, 307 Ethnography, 51, 52, 54–58, 62, 71, 76, 81, 83, 87, 88, 91 Everyday, 21, 22, 51, 57, 63, 68, 303 Exogenous change, 298 Expenses, 64, 112, 152, 195, 209, 266 F Feeling rules, 139, 160, 210, 241, 248, 272 Feminism, 5, 128, 145, 151, 245, 276 Feminist discursive institutionalism, 2, 20, 307 Feminist institutionalism, 2, 7, 20 Fieldwork diary, 60 Friendships, 111, 133, 239, 245, 256, 260 G Gains and Lowndes, 27 Galea, N., 53, 56 Geddes, M., 21, 53, 65, 123–125, 130, 133, 152, 185, 201, 207, 210, 225, 295

INDEX

321

Gender Citizenship, 201, 261 Gendered actors working with the rules, 214, 261 Gendered Division of Labour, 246, 275 Gendering, 25 Generalisability to other parliaments, 311 Gherardi, Sylvia, 261 Girling, 25, 147 Governance Committee, 187, 201 Greedy Institutions, 152, 157

IPSA, 204

H Hansard Society Audit of political engagement, 113 Harassment, 265 Hardman, Isabel, 148 Harman, Harriet, 149, 157 Hochschild Arlie, 136 Hodge, Margaret, 128, 138 Homo-social bonding, 133 pedigree networking, 194 Hotline-bullying, 269 House of Commons Commission, 191, 214 House of Lords, 53, 79, 109, 111, 208, 256, 297

L Language use, 33, 134 Leadership, 6, 113, 123 Leston-Bandeira, Cristina, 207, 215 Liaison Committee, 122, 155, 196 Logic of iterability, 30, 31 Lovenduski, Joni, 195 Lowndes, V., 27

I Independent Grievance Process, 270 Informal aspects of gendering, 26, 243 Insistent – heard as, 149 Intakes, 144 Interns, 69, 72, 247, 254, 256, 296 Interpellation, 36, 42, 292 Interpretivist Parliamentary Studies, 11, 20, 76, 84, 311 Intersectionality, 41, 62, 87, 168, 199, 202, 301, 310, 311

J Job description, 152 Journalists, 11, 56, 74, 110, 138, 142, 147–151 K Keeley, Barbara, 188 Kenny, Meryl, 2, 8, 20 Knowledge change, 257, 309

M Mackay, Fiona, vii, 2, 7, 37, 53, 61, 114, 152, 157, 309 Male domination, 2, 293 Materiality of parliaments, 109, 122, 143, 145, 158, 261, 300 McNay, Lois, 20, 41, 42 Men as allies, 31, 164, 303 ‘Men’ as referred to as group, 140 Mills, Carol, 192, 196 Ministers, 73, 110, 159, 218, 227, 243, 301 Mistake anxiety, 126 Muscular modernizer masculinity, 164 N Nader, L., 3, 296 Newsnight, 209

322

INDEX

O O’Brien, Diana, 123, 291 Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), 111 Insiders/Outsiders discourse, 191, 195, 202, 239, 240, 255, 276 P Parenthood, 64, 156, 273, 289 Parliamentary Commissioner on Standards, 165 Parliamentary researchers, 1, 235 composition, 69 Partisan logics of legislative organisation, 146, 274 Party leaders, 146, 164 Pass system, 254 Performance, 27 Performativity, 29 ‘Pest’minster discourse, 273 Pleasure, 243, 250, 262 Policy Regimes, 309 Politicisation, 5, 287 Positionality, 89 Prime Minister’s Questions, 6, 8 Procedure, 186 Professionalisation, 107 Public engagement, 109, 214–221, 292 Publicity, 210 Public/private divide, 166 Public Service, 112–115, 151–169, 207–221, 265–278 Puwar, Nirmal, 126, 294 R Race, 189, 217, 277 Racism, 6, 168, 254 Rai, Shirin, 20 Recognition, 132, 150 Recruitment, 189

Reform–perspectives on, 301 Regulations, 34, 131, 147, 157, 159, 168, 169 Resistance, 35 Respect Policy, 207, 209 Restoration and Renewal, 300 Right of Recall, 166 Role models, 137, 248 Rules, 27, 28, 147 Rules about gender, 289 Rules with gendered effects, 184, 196 S Sanctions, 35, 159, 185, 243, 256, 293. See also Regulations Select committee chair, 129 staff, 130 witnesses, 133 Serjeant at Arms, 188 Sexual harassment, 6, 12, 114, 152, 155, 159, 166, 209, 214, 265–274, 276, 289–290, 299, 309 Sexuality, 25, 65, 85, 212–213, 221, 238, 250, 252–253, 261–264 Spads, 251 Sports and Social Club, 75 Staff, 3, 64–71, 183, 235 State (the), 5, 259, 261 Stewardship, 214 Strangers Bar, 142 Subjectivity, 36 Sultana, Zarah, 126, 145 Swagger, 127 Sweaty concepts, 31, 295 Symbolic ‘firsts’, 66, 107, 128–129, 293 T Tea-Getters (Researchers as), 244, 247 Tea room, 143

INDEX

Temporality, 30 Thick description and analysis, 2, 4, 40 Third Party Harassment, 266 Time, 124, 139 Time Management, 139 Trade unions, 193, 209 Twitter, 75, 110, 126, 167, 168, 245, 260, 278 Tyler, Melissa, 22 U UK House of Commons, 5 UK Labour Party Headquarters, 276 Uncomplaining labour, 160 Undoing, 157

323

V Valuing others policy, 188 Vertical drinking, 143 Violence, 168

W Whips, 156, 158, 159 White, Gemma Report, 307 Women and Equalities Select Committee, 124 Women MPs as employers, 249 as referred to as a group, 164 Workplace Equality Networks, 200 Wright Reforms, 124–126