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. (shrink)

In this contribution we confront the results ofa research on the Flemish Parliament with two hypotheses regarding the request for more wamen in parliament. First, we ask whether female MPs do defend wamen's interests. The research indicates that taking care of women's interests was indeed part of the task of female MPs. Supported by other scholars, we argue that the actual and future role of male MPs in defending women's interests deserves further empirical investigation. Second, we focus on the often-assumed (...) difference that female MPs would make regarding their role orientation. Although there were major similarities in the role orientations of female and male MPs, a number of relative differences were found with regard to representational style, priorities and conception of the relations between majority and minority. (shrink)