Transforming Representation? The long-term impacts of gender quotas on the French parliament and Understanding the Political Representation of Men (MENSREP)

12 March 2025

Please outline the work you lead and how it relates to progressing gender equality

I look at gender equality and diversity within political representation.  I am particularly interested in political careers (who gets access to power, and why power is concentrated in the hands of privileged groups) and the impact this has on representation (which groups get represented and in what ways).  I am completing a project looking at the impact that gender quotas have had on representation within parliament over a twenty-year period.  And I am starting a new project looking at the representation of men, including which men are included in (and excluded from) the representative process, and what kind of claims are made on behalf of men.  My normative positioning is that gender equality is beneficial for both men and women, but needs to be inclusive of people from diverse social groups.

What has inspired and motivated you to progress this work?

My research and work on EDI within universities have always gone hand in hand.  As an undergraduate, I was a sabbatical Women’s Officer in my students’ union, and this helped to fuel my interest in the academic study of gender equality.  During my time at QMUL, I have held leadership roles in EDI at various levels, including being the inaugural Senior Diversity Lead for the university, and the first Faculty Lead for EDI within HSS.  Seeing the difference that this work makes to people’s daily lives, alongside the ongoing challenges that they face, motivates me to keep going.  My research agenda focusing on men’s representation was inspired in part by feedback from male students on my gender and politics course.

How do you hope that this work will make a difference to promote gender equality and have you seen any impact so far?

I hope that my academic research will continue to deepen our understanding of how gender shapes representation and leads to unequal outcomes, alongside encouraging better practice to increase gender equality.  Alongside academic publications and conferences, I try to disseminate my findings through blogs, social media, meetings with practitioners, and using it to inform the EDI work that I have done within QMUL.  For example, I show that getting more women into parliament is not enough if they are still unable to access power on equal terms to men. And I show that, even though men are over-represented in nearly all areas of political power, the men in power are not sufficiently diverse, meaning that some men are still not represented adequately within politics.

What did you enjoy most about this piece of work and do you have any plans going forward?

I enjoy making new discoveries and sharing them with the world!  I also like challenging the way that we think about things and inviting people to look at old problems from new angles.  I am currently completing my work on gender quotas in the French parliament, but my project on men’s representation is just starting and will continue for the next five years.

Please share any publications or resources from your work that would like to highlight

1. The Substantive Representation of Men: Intersectionality, masculinity, and men’s interests. European Journal of Political Research 2024 https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1475-6765.12684
2. It’s a Rich Man’s World: How class and glass ceilings intersect for UK parliamentary candidates https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01925121211040025