Gendering the Saeima examines the impact of a large increase in women's parliamentary representation in Latvia that occurred despite the absence of institutional mechanisms for ensuring gender equality.

Focusing her political ethnography through a feminist lens, author Laura A. Dean reveals how women members of Latvia's parliament, the Saeima, perform gender in formal and informal political institutions that were designed by men. After the 2018 Saeima elections, Latvia skyrocketed from 124th in the world for women's representation in governance to 44th. Despite this greater visibility in the nation's foremost political institution, cultural and institutional barriers have continued to sideline women members of parliament from formal institutions and key positions of power. The Latvian path to gender equality thus reveals how a large surge in descriptive representation has produced small, incremental gains in substantive representation, where progress was not linear.

Tracing the everyday political lives of Latvia's women politicians, which comprise political recruitment, electoral forces, parliamentary dynamics, and representation alongside violence and bias, Gendering the Saeima offers a nuanced analysis of the story of women's experiences gendering politics in Latvia.