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This book addresses the problem of the underrepresentation of women in politics, by examining how language use constructs and maintains inequality in political institutions. Drawing on different political genres from televised debates to parliamentary question times, and fifty interviews with politicians between 1998 and 2018, the book identifies the barriers and obstacles women face by considering how gender stereotypes constrain women's participation, and give them additional burdens. By comparing the UK House of Commons with newer institutions such as the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly, it asks: how successful have newer institutions been in encouraging equal participation? What are the interactional procedures that can be thought of as making an institution more egalitarian? It also explores the workings and effects of sexism, fraternal networks, high visibility in the media, and gendered discourses, through detailed case studies of Theresa May, Julia Gillard and Hillary Clinton.

The devolution of powers from Westminster to the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales led to much speculation about the creation of a new political era that would herald new ways of 'doing politics'. It was thought that the new institutions would provide a more inclusive, less combative culture that aimed to include a greater proportion of women members. With the 'new' institutions now over ten years old, linguistic research into the participation of men and women on the debate floor shows that they participate more equally and that improvements have been made in relation to the extent that women feel included. However, the devolved institutions retain some of the adversarial features associated with Westminster, and women are still subject to the burden of gendered stereotypical judgements and expectations that may affect their performance and inclusion within them.

"Explores the influence of gender on political speech by analyzing the performances of three female party leaders who took part in televised debates during the 2015 UK General Election campaign. The analysis considers similarities and differences between the women and their male colleagues, as well as between the women themselves. It also discusses the way gender - and its relationship to language - was taken up as an issue in media coverage of the campaign."--

Abstract
Since the 1990s, media commentators in the UK and elsewhere have praised women for introducing a "visibly
different style of politics", one symbol of which is the alleged preference of female politicians for a less adversarial and more
co-operative style of political speech. Drawing on an analysis of the 2015 UK General Election campaign, we argue that this notion
of women's "different voice" has become increasingly central to the media's construction of prominent female politicians as public
figures, despite the evidence that it does not reflect any clear-cut pattern of differentiation between male and female political
speakers of equivalent status and experience. Though it may seem to be an advance on previous negative representations of female
politicians, we suggest that it reproduces – albeit in a "modernized" form – the long-established tendency of the media to
evaluate women in relation to gendered norms and expectations, while men are judged as individuals.