The gendered leeway: male privilege, internal and external mandates, and gender-equality policy change

Male MPs, electoral vulnerability and the substantive representation of women's interests

“…However, it is plausible to assume that men and women might adapt their parliamentary behaviour for different reasons: Whereas men decide to represent women's interests to win additional votes, women rather speak more on behalf of women since they fear to lose votes. As explained above, the theory of a gendered leeway (Bergqvist et al 2018) assumes that female MPs might be blamed by the media and the voters if they do not engage in women's substantive representation. Thus, if female MPs are faced with an uncertain re-election, they vigorously represent women's interests to avoid this potential criticism which could cost them additional votes on election day.…”

“…In order to hypothesize about the conditions under which it is electorally beneficial for male MPs to represent women's issues, we build on a synthesis of previous contributions from the literature on feminist institutionalism and women's substantive representation, and to a great extent draw on the concept of a gendered leeway which was recently introduced by Bergqvist et al. (2018).…”

“…Due to their linked fate with other women, it is expected that female MPs will have a specific mandate to represent women's interests through their legislative activities (Bergqvist et al. 2018).…”

“…In other words, ‘[f]emale politicians are blamed if they do not pursue “women's issues” while male politicians get credit if they do ’ (Bergqvist et al. 2018: 581). By conceptualizing male MPs as rational, vote‐seeking actors, we therefore hypothesize that men are more likely to speak on behalf of women if their electoral security is low and they are forced to fight for additional votes to be re‐elected.…”

When Do Female MPs Represent Women’s Interests? Electoral Systems and the Legislative Behavior of Women

“… 13. This corroborates the notion that female MPs might not be the only actors in the substantive representation of women and emphasizes that men can also be “critical actors [who] act individually or collectively to bring about women-friendly policy change” (Childs and Krook 2009). The findings suggest that male MPs might not be blamed if they do not represent women’s interests, but that they can gain additional credit if they support women’s issues (Bergqvist, Bjarnegård, and Zetterberg 2018). Thus, male MPs will become more likely to speak on behalf of women if they have to fight for additional votes to get re-elected (see Conclusion). …”