Special Events

R12 - Plenary Keynote: The Good Parliament: Reflections on Being a Feminist Change Actor at Westminster

Date: May 31 | Time: 02:00pm to 03:30pm | Location: Classroom CL 127 (15778)

Sponsor / Commanditaire : Congress’ International Keynote Speakers Fund | Queen’s Institute of Intergovernmental Relations | Canadian Opinion Research Archive

Chair/Président/Présidente : Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant (Queen's University)

Participants
Sarah Childs (Birkbeck University of London; also Centre for the Study of British Politics & Public Life)

This keynote address will be delivered by Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender and Director of the Centre for the Study of British Politics & Public Life at the University of London, Birkbeck. Childs is one of the world’s foremost experts on gender, elections, and representation. Key books include New Labour’s Women MPs (2004); Women and British Party Politics (2008); Sex, Gender and the Conservative Party (with Webb) (2012); and Deeds and Words (with Campbell) (2015).

Childs is also committed to transforming gender politics, and has become a critical actor in this regard. She has been the gender Special Adviser to the UK Parliament’s Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation (2008-10). She later advised the All Party Parliamentary Group’s Women in Parliament (2014), and spent much of 2015-16 seconded to the House of Commons, producing her ‘blueprint’ for a diversity sensitive House of Commons, The Good Parliament Report. Childs currently advises the new Commons Reference Group on Representation and Inclusion, which aims to implement the Report’s recommendations.