4 - Women’s Linguistic Participation in the New Devolved Assemblies of the UK

Summary

This chapter starts with an ethnographic description of the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales based on archival, historical and ethnographic data (observations and interviews) between 2009 and 2011. A quantitative assessment of the speaking turns and a close analysis of the debate floor shows that unlike the House of Commons, men and women in all three ‘new’ institutions take both legal and illegal turns in proportion to their overall representation. The interactional details that may contribute to a more egalitarian culture in debates are characterised by flexibility and informality of proceedings and additional mechanisms to regulate the debate floor. The analysis of the debate floor also leads to the differentiation of ‘spontaneous’ and ‘allocated’ turns in debates and allows an analysis of the effects of having different proportions of these types of turns in institutions. I conclude that although some gains have been made in relation to increasing the numbers and participation of women in the new devolved parliaments, women politicians still identify the main barrier to their progress in politics as their high visibility in the media, sexism and the negative effects of gender stereotyping.