>First, ministerial silencing. When a female MP joins the Council of Ministers, her individual speech time drops because ministers represent the government rather than their constituency. This is a real drag, and it affects whichever party is in government (most of our window for the BJP, briefly for the Congress). Yet the BJP over-voices through it, which makes the Congress under-voice harder to explain away.
>Second, selection and support. Parties that field women in unwinnable seats, or in constituencies where the party machinery is thinner, give those women less briefing, less research support and less floor time once elected. The Congress’s steady decline as a parliamentary force across the three Lok Sabhas may itself be part of the story. A thinner backbench means less room for any single back-bencher, and women are still mostly back-benchers in both parties.
>Third, whip culture. Parties that systematically allocate floor time to senior front-benchers crowd out junior back-benchers, even when the back-benchers have something to say. The asymmetry between the two national parties is telling here. The BJP runs its parliamentary business from a broader bench that rotates more question-hour and debate turns through first- and second-term members, a disproportionate share of whom, statistically, are women. The Congress’s parliamentary business is concentrated in a much smaller set of senior men.
IMO this is related to the bigger problem as to why are women in developing countries more right-wing than the men
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TLDR
>First, ministerial silencing. When a female MP joins the Council of Ministers, her individual speech time drops because ministers represent the government rather than their constituency. This is a real drag, and it affects whichever party is in government (most of our window for the BJP, briefly for the Congress). Yet the BJP over-voices through it, which makes the Congress under-voice harder to explain away.
>Second, selection and support. Parties that field women in unwinnable seats, or in constituencies where the party machinery is thinner, give those women less briefing, less research support and less floor time once elected. The Congress’s steady decline as a parliamentary force across the three Lok Sabhas may itself be part of the story. A thinner backbench means less room for any single back-bencher, and women are still mostly back-benchers in both parties.
>Third, whip culture. Parties that systematically allocate floor time to senior front-benchers crowd out junior back-benchers, even when the back-benchers have something to say. The asymmetry between the two national parties is telling here. The BJP runs its parliamentary business from a broader bench that rotates more question-hour and debate turns through first- and second-term members, a disproportionate share of whom, statistically, are women. The Congress’s parliamentary business is concentrated in a much smaller set of senior men.
IMO this is related to the bigger problem as to why are women in developing countries more right-wing than the men