Alangkar or Ahangkar? Reserved-Seat Women Members in the Bangladesh Parliament

This chapter investigates the role of reserved-seat women parliamentarians in Bangladesh—those elected indirectly to the parliament, now numbering 50, using the notions of descriptive representation and substantive representation developed by Pitkin Empirical evidence shows that the ‘quota women ’ are not as docile as people often tend to assume; they have, in fact, fared better than the popularly elected women parliamentarians in performing parliamentary functions. Several factors, however, still discourage them to play a major proactive role. This paper identifies those factors, based on a review of secondary literature as well as in-depth interview with several women MPs and examines the implications for empowering women in parliament.