Misfits: Gender, COVID-19 and the Body Politic

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant changes in many workplaces across the world, and Canada’s legislative assemblies were no exception. Bound by Westminster tradition and usually cautious when implementing new protocols, Canada’s parliaments were required to make substantial and far-reaching operational alterations in a short period of time in order for parliamentarians and parliamentary staff to continue to fulfill their democratic responsibilities. In this article, the author examines how such changes affected this unique workspace for women. She employs and adapts the concept of “misfits” from critical disability studies to demonstrate how a work environment not initially established to accommodate women’s bodies suddenly made all bodies “misfits” as social distancing and capacity limits changed longstanding practices. The author concludes that the response to the pandemic demonstrates that parliament’s gendered traditions could be changed and such a dramatic and blunt method to implement change was arguably more successful at altering the gendered culture of this system than the long term increase in the presence and participation of women in parliament.