Abstract

This contributions tests the hypotheses that women MPs have a specific potential to 'construct' the represented female citizen. This ste rns from the combination of two theoretical propositions: the thesis that representatives 'create' the represented in the course of the representational process and the statement that women MPs might contribute in a unique way to the substantive representation of women due to a 'shared' life experience. A detailed reading of the interventions of women and men MPs in favour of women over eighty years of budget debates in the Belgian Lower House, learns that women MPs indeed did broaden the construction of the represented women. lndependently from the dominant vision with in the parliament or their parliamentary party, they contributed to the construction of the female citizen as mother and wife, with a female specific role in society, and in particular to the construction of women as individuals with equal rights.