Why Women MPs Talk More Like Men the Longer They Serve

🔎 The Puzzle

Politics mixes two opposing pressures for female legislators: a male‑dominated institution that pushes women to blend in, and growing numbers of women in parliaments that could allow them to stand out by keeping a more feminine style. This study tests which incentive wins out across 24 democracies from 1987 to 2022.

🧾 What Was Measured and How

• Dataset: 6.8 million parliamentary speeches from 24 democracies, 1987–2022.
• Measurement: machine learning models used to quantify how feminine a speaking style is.
• Design note: analyses control for the topics of speeches to separate style from subject matter.

📌 Key Findings

• A clear socialization effect: female MPs adopt a more masculine speaking style the longer they remain in office.
• This shift toward masculine style persists even after controlling for speech topics.
• The effect is strongest for women in socially progressive parties, not just conservative ones.

💡 Why It Matters

These results portray parliaments as gendered workplaces that shape communication norms. Despite increased female representation that might permit stylistic distinctiveness, institutional incentives push women toward the male norm over time. Understanding this dynamic clarifies how career pressures influence the ways women represent women in legislatures and the limits of descriptive representation.