A Feminised Style of Politics? Women MPs in the House of Commons
| Author | Sarah Childs |
| Published date | 01 February 2004 |
| Date | 01 February 2004 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2004.00124.x |
| Subject Matter | Original Article |
A Feminised Style of Politics? Women
MPs in the House of Commons
Sarah Childs
One hundred and one Labour women MPs were returned to the House of Commons at the 1997
general election. Constituting 24 per cent of the Parliamentary Labour Party, they were, accord-
ing to critical mass theory, a ‘tilted group’ and in a position to effect change. Drawing on 23 in-
depth interviews with Labour women MPs first elected in 1997, this article establishes that many
of them believe that women politicians practise politics in a feminised way. This claim is, however,
premised upon gender rather than sex differences and party identity is also identified as an impor-
tant determinant. The women MPs’ perception that women’s style is less legitimate than men’s is
explored through a discussion of the newly elected Labour women MPs’ loyalty in parliamentary
votes.
Introduction1
The contention that women practise politics in a different way to men is widely
held. Women are said to ‘introduce a kinder, gentler politics’, one that is ‘charac-
terised by co-operation rather than conflict, collaboration rather than hierarchy,
honesty rather than sleaze’ (Norris 1996, 93). This contention is supported by pre-
vious research. Pippa Norris, drawing on the 1992 BCS members’ survey, found
that women candidates were perceived to be ‘more caring, practical, approachable,
honest, principled, and hardworking’ (Norris 1996, 100). Catherine Bochel and
Jacqui Briggs found that the British women MPs and local councillors they inter-
viewed considered that women politicians ‘are more willing to listen to the other
side’, ‘are less adversarial [and] better team players’ (Bochel and Briggs 2000,
66–67) and two thirds of the Scottish women councillors interviewed by Fiona
Mackay agreed that women politicians behave differently from male politicians
(Mackay 2001, 108). MPs have also acknowledged a difference between women’s
and men’s styles. Clare Short MP (former secretary of state for international devel-
opment), believed, prior to the 1997 general election, that women MPs would
‘bring a change in the ‘ya-boo culture of the House of Commons’ (Lovenduski
1997, 717)2 and Sir George Young MP (Conservative Leader of the House for much
of the 1997 parliament), claimed that these women MPs did ‘make less noise in
the chamber’ (Young 2001, 8). Interviews with more than half of the newly elected
Labour women MPs in 1997 also indicated that many perceived that women MPs
employ a distinct style and language (Childs 2000).
This article reconsiders the question of gendered political styles in the House of
Commons. It examines whether Labour women MPs first elected in 1997 perceive,
© Political Studies Association, 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,
Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
4
S A R A H C H I L D S
after having been present in the House of Commons for three years, that there is
a ‘feminised’ style of politics.3 The article draws on interviews with 23 new Labour
women MPs first elected in 1997 undertaken in the summer of 2000.4 The inter-
views were in-depth, individual interviews based on an interview guide, a par-
ticularly useful approach when research aims to identify attitudes and behaviours
(Lofland, in Fielding 1993, 137). The participating women were a representative
sample with regard to a range of characteristics, including age, size of majority and
socioeconomic breakdowns of constituencies, though the quality of qualitative
research is not dependent upon generalisability (Punch 1998, 154).
Establishing whether the newly elected women MPs considered that there is a
feminised style of politics is important because it adds to our knowledge and
understanding of how women representatives experience their presence in British
politics. Moreover, their perceptions may impact on their behaviour.5 If women
MPs feel that their style is regarded as having lesser value, that they are judged as
inferior representatives and that their impact is lessened (Childs 2000; Ross 2002,
195), then it is important to establish their reactions to this; in particular, whether
they feel it necessary to adopt the norms of parliamentary behaviour in order to
be effective representatives, even though they are critical of these and identify them
as masculinised.
Critical Mass
It is also important to explore the women MPs’ perceptions of the style of politics
because it provides insights into the question of whether the presence of women
politicians makes a difference. The dominant conceptual framework that has,
hitherto, been employed to hypothesise this relationship is ‘critical mass’. This sug-
gests that once women reach ‘critical mass’, ‘political behaviour, institutions, and
public policy’ will be feminised (Studlar and McAllister 2002, 234).
Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s classic typology outlines four different kinds of groups: the
uniform group has ‘only one significant social group and its culture dominates the
organisations’; in the skewed group, the minority constitutes a maximum of 15 per
cent and is ‘controlled by the dominant group and its culture’ while the minority
are ‘tokens’; in the tilted group, where the minority is between 15 and 40 per cent,
‘the minority is becoming strong enough to begin to influence the culture of the
group’; in the balanced group with ratios of 60 : 40 down to 50 : 50 the culture
and interaction reflect the balanced nature of the group (Dahlerup 1988, 280;
Lovenduski 2001). Employing this typology the women in the parliamentary
Labour party after the 1997 general election, at 24 per cent, have been regarded
as constituting a ‘tilted group’, capable of effecting change (Norris, 1996, 94).
However, the usefulness of the concept of critical mass, at least as currently con-
ceptualised, has recently been questioned (Grey 2002; Reingold 2000; Studlar and
McAllister 2002). There does not seem to be an agreement about what figure con-
stitutes critical mass; too often it is loosely defined as anywhere between 10 and
35 per cent. There has also been a failure to recognise Drude Dahlerup’s impor-
tant distinction between critical acts and critical mass, which noted back in 1988
that critical acts might be implemented before the establishment of critical mass
W O M E N M P s I N T H E H O U S E O F C O M M O N S
5
(Dahlerup 1988, 296). Moreover, because critical mass simply counts the numbers
of biological females and males present it fails to acknowledge the importance of
party differences (Norris and Lovenduski 1995; Reingold 2000; Studlar and
McAllister 2002; Thomas and Wilcox 1998) and neither distinguishes between
sex and gender nor copes with a recognition that gender identity may vary
amongst women. Indeed, because it draws inferences simply from the numbers
of women in a given elected forum it gives insufficient acknowledgement to
the gendered context within which those women representatives operate (Dodson
2001; Duerst-Lahti 2001; Grey 2002; Reingold 2000).
The claim that women have a different style of politics is one of the arguments
employed in support of women’s greater numerical representation (Phillips 1995).
Though it is questionable whether women should base their claims solely for their
presence on this argument—it risks reproducing essentialist notions of sex and it
runs the risk that when women’s feminised style is no longer in vogue the demand
for women politicians might be reduced—if it is established that women politicians
have a feminised style of politics then this argument could be employed by those
who seek women’s greater presence in politics (Mackay 2001, 119).6
A Feminised Style of Politics
Just under two thirds of the women MPs argued that women had a different style.7
Of those who disagreed one felt that she had not seen any ‘hard evidence’ of a
women’s style,8 and a second that she did not consider that you could identify the
sex of an MP on the basis of their ‘pattern’ of behaviour.9 But the majority sub-
scribed to the view that women do have a different style of politics. Women prefer
a ‘less combative and aggressive style’.10 They ‘don’t do as much standing up, shout-
ing on the floor of the House’.11 Women are more ‘measured’.12 Another woman
MP, whilst admitting that some women are ‘shouty’, said she preferred to adopt
an approach in which one recognises that there will have been ‘some merit in what
was done before’.13 There was also a belief that the women operated not as indi-
viduals, but as part of teams. As one MP said: ‘it’s important for politicians to recog-
nise they don’t achieve things on their own’.14 A colleague felt that women were
more likely to recognise this: ‘women will step back and not say ‘look what I’ve
done for you’ they will say ... ‘look what we have done’.15 Women MPs also claimed
they spoke in a different language (Karvonen et al. 1995). Women are ‘not prone
to political babble [and] jargon’, their language is one that ‘everybody under-
stands’.16 They look at issues ‘from a personal perspective rather than just looking
at the sort of pounds, shilling and pence type of approach to things’.17 ‘Women
don’t want to know global sums ... [they want to know that] every primary school
will get between three and nine thousand pounds.’18
Many of the new Labour women MPs were also critical of the style practised by
male MPs. A shared sense in which, to use some well worn clichés, the House of
Commons constitutes ‘an old boys club’ or a ‘boys prep...
To continue reading
Request your trial