Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender
In 1997 an unprecedented number of women MPs – 120 – were elected to the UK House of Commons; 101 of these came from a single party. So ‘what difference’ did women’s presence make?’ An easy question to ask, but one that is now widely recognised to hide more than it reveals. Politics is not like physics – there is no magic point (critical mass) where women MPs are suddenly able to transform (or in more academic language) ‘feminise’ politics. Looking back over the New Labour years in Government, it is evident that Labour’s women MPs entered a House not only over-represented by men but one which was famed for its historic traditions dominated by masculinised structures and norms. The new women MPs arriving in Westminster in 1997 found themselves negotiating a ‘gendered institution’.
