Designing Feminist Institutions: The Making of the Good Parliament

Is it possible to design and build a feminist parliament? If so, how can we do this – and who can do it?

In her new book, Designing Feminist Institutions: The Making of the Good Parliament, Professor Sarah Childs draws on her research and experience at Westminster to ask what ‘The Good Parliament’ would look like. Through observation, interviews, analysis and vignettes, she draws wider lessons about redesigning and refashioning feminist institutions, and explores the roles of allyship, resistance, and backlash.

In this event, Professor Childs will be joined by Natasha Walter (author of Feminism for a World on Fire), Sophie Harman (author of Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women’s Health and the BAFTA-nominated film Pili) and Rainbow Murray (author of Gendered Electoral Financing: Money, Power and Representation). They will ask what it means to ‘design feminist institutions’, and explore the obstacles and opportunities in the making of ‘The Good Parliament’

Speakers:

Sarah Childs is Professor of Politics and Gender at the University of Edinburgh. She was seconded to the UK Parliament in 2015, and her subsequent report – The Good Parliament (2016) – made 43 recommendations on equality of participation, parliamentary infrastructure and the culture of the House of Commons. She was also an advisor to the Scottish Parliament’s Gender-Sensitive-Parliament Audit Board and a member of the GSP Advisory Group. Her books include Women, Gender, and Politics: A Reader (2010), Feminist Democratic Representation (with Karen Celis, 2020) and, most recently, Designing Feminist Institutions: The Making of the Good Parliament (2026).

Speakers: 

Natasha Walter is a feminist writer and human rights activist. She is the author of five books, including Feminism for a World on Fire (2026), Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism (2010) and The New Feminism (1998). She is a founder of the charity Women for Refugee Women and has appeared regularly on Newsnight Review and Radio 4’s Front Row.

Sophie Harman is Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary, specialising in global health and gender politics. She was a founder-member of the Gender and COVID-19 working group, wrote the BAFTA-nominated film Pili in 2019, and is the author of Sick of It: The Global Fight for Women’s Health (2024 – an Observer Book of the Week); Global Health Governance (2024) and Governance of HIV/AIDS Responses: Making Participation and Accountability Count (2009).

Rainbow Murray is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London, and an expert on representation, political institutions, gender and diversity. She has a particular expertise in French and British politics. Her books include Gendered Electoral Financing: Money, Power and Representation in Comparative Perspective (2019), Parties, Gender Quotas and Candidate Selection in France (2010) and Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling: a Global Comparison of Women’s Campaigns for Executive Office (2010).

Robert Saunders (chair) is deputy-director of the Mile End Institute and is currently researching the history of women’s enfranchisement and entry into Parliament.