Petra Meier is a lecturer at the Politics Department of Antwerp University. Her background and training cover the fields of political science, gender studies and social geography. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. From 2002-2006 she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. Her major areas of research and of teaching are theories on democracy and representation, electoral system design, the conceptualization of measures to promote social groups in decision-making, the position of women and of other social groups in political decision-making, feminist approaches to public policies, gender mainstreaming, the political opportunity structures of the Belgian women's movement and state feminism.
She recently published De macht van het geslacht. Gender, politiek en beleid in België (with Karen Celis, Acco, 2005) and edited Genre et science politique en Belgique et en Francophonie (with Bérengère Marques-Pereira, Academia-Bruylant, 2005) as well as Vrouwen vertegenwoordigd, Wetstraat gekraakt ? Representativiteit feministisch bekeken (with Karen Celis, VUBpress, 2004). She published in Party Politics, European Journal of Women's Studies, European Political Science, Acta Politica, Greek Review of Social Research, Res Publica, Tijdschrift voor Sociologie, Ethiek en Maatschappij and in edited volumes.