Women in Russian Parliaments: Will Quantity Transform into Quality? A Case of the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg

The reduction of gender inequality is one of the tasks, which should be solved by democratic countries. This work should be done not only by the state, but also by women themselves. The analysis of women's political participation has many directions. In the scientific literature, there are works about the history of the women's movement and the struggle for their right to obtain suffrage, there are articles devoted to the representation of women in governmental structures, including legislative ones. The authors highlight two important points: the lack of gender parity (the number of women is noticeably smaller than the number of men); the existence of horizontal gender segregation in parliaments (there are "women's" and "men's" commissions and committees). However, there are much fewer surveys which describe what female deputies do in parliament. The theory of "male domination" by Pierre Bourdieu and the concept of "voluntary consent to domination" suggest that female deputies will not go beyond their gender role in order to remain in politics. The reason for it is the dominance of traditionalist gender norms. In other words, female deputies are not to reconsider the traditional gender order and therefore reduce gender inequality. To test this hypothesis, an empirical research was made using quantitative methodology. The object of the research was the activity of female deputies of the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg. This regional parliament was chosen for the study because of the high proportion of women in it (24%). This is one of the highest rates in Russia. The subject of the study was the degree of representation of interests of women as a social group in the activities of female parliamentarians. The method of collecting information was the content analysis of legislative initiatives and deputy requests in 2016-2018. The results of the study confirmed that the solution of social problems and the protection of women's interests is not a priority in the activities of female deputies of Saint Petersburg parliament. Only 17% of their legislative issues are devoted to social issues, only 11% of parliamentary requests directly affect the interests of women. Thus, the quantity of women in the regional parliament did not turn into quality, which is the creation and adoption of laws in the interests of women. An important area of the future research may be a comparative analysis of women's parliamentary activities in various regional parliaments of Russia. It will make it possible to consider not only the socio-demographic characteristics of the deputies, but also the features of the region, such as the level of economic development, history, culture, denominations, etc.

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