Epistemic Authority and Representation

As outlined in the introduction, effective political representation depends not only on formal inclusion but also on epistemic authority: the recognition of representatives as legitimate contributors to political judgment and decision-making. Our focus here is on the social mechanisms through which epistemic authority is distributed unequally within representative institutions.

We draw on scholarship on epistemic injustice to examine how credibility and authority are shaped by social identities and institutional norms (Fricker Reference Fricker2007; Medina Reference Medina2013; Snoek Hauan and Anker Reference Snoek Hauan, Anker and von der Lippe2021). A central mechanism is testimonial injustice, which occurs when a speaker’s contributions are assigned less credibility because of identity-based assumptions rather than their actual competence or expertise. In political institutions, this can affect whose interventions are taken seriously, whose perspectives are sought out, and whose knowledge shapes collective decisions.

At the same time, marginalization is not the only way epistemic authority is structured. Catala’s (Reference Catala2025) concept of epistemic privilege highlights how members of historically marginalized groups may be granted authority in areas associated with their perceived identity. In parliamentary settings, women representatives may thus be expected to contribute particular expertise on issues concerning gender equality, care, families, or social policy. While such expectations can create opportunities for influence, they may also narrow the range of issues on which women are recognized as legitimate political actors. Epistemic privilege may also contribute to a gendered division of representative labor: when women are present in larger numbers, male legislators may defer to them as the more credible advocates of women’s interests and correspondingly reduce their own substantive engagement with feminist issues (Höhmann Reference Höhmann2020).

This perspective shifts attention from representation as numerical presence to representation as a question of authority. In this sense, epistemic authority concerns not only who is present within political institutions, but whose knowledge and perspectives are treated as legitimate in processes of representation (Celis and Lovenduski Reference Celis and Lovenduski2018). Even where women gain access to elected office in significant numbers, inequalities may persist in whose knowledge is considered relevant, credible, and politically consequential. The challenge of parity, therefore, is not only to increase women’s numerical presence but also to transform the epistemic hierarchies through which political authority is recognized and exercised.

Gendered Institutions and the Persistence of Authority Hierarchies

Feminist institutionalist scholarship provides important insights into why inequalities may persist under conditions of formal equality. Political institutions are not simply arenas in which actors compete under neutral rules; they are shaped by informal norms, organizational cultures, and historical legacies that privilege particular ways of behaving, speaking, and exercising authority (Chappell and Waylen Reference Chappell and Waylen2013; Krook and Mackay Reference Krook and Mackay2011; Mackay Reference Mackay2014).

From this perspective, parity reforms may alter the composition of political institutions without fully transforming the informal practices through which authority is allocated and recognized. Political institutions do not merely constrain behavior; they also socialize representatives into prevailing understandings of appropriate conduct and legitimate authority (Lowndes Reference Lowndes2020). Institutions reproduce expectations about what competent leadership looks like, how political authority should be performed, and whose contributions are considered authoritative. As a result, political competence often continues to be measured against an implicit image of the “ideal politician” associated with traditionally masculine forms of leadership and authority (Bjarnegård and Murray Reference Bjarnegård and Murray2018). Because these norms developed in contexts where political power was overwhelmingly held by men, they frequently retain a masculinized character even after women’s representation increases substantially.

Research on political institutions consistently finds that women continue to encounter expectations associated with masculine ideals of leadership and credibility (Bjarnegård and Murray Reference Bjarnegård and Murray2018; Lovenduski Reference Lovenduski2005; Rai and Spary Reference Rai and Spary2018). Women may therefore be formally included while remaining disadvantaged in struggles over recognition, influence, and legitimacy. This helps explain why substantial gains in descriptive representation do not automatically produce equal standing within parliamentary life.

While feminist institutionalism has generated extensive knowledge about participation, recruitment, and institutional change, questions of epistemic authority have received comparatively less attention. Recent work has begun to address this gap by examining women’s discursive agency within political institutions (Kostovicova and Popovski Reference Kostovicova and Popovski2023) and the processes through which certain issues and forms of experiential knowledge become recognized as politically legitimate (Erikson and Josefsson Reference Erikson and Josefsson2019; Kroeber et al. Reference Kroeber, Stephan, Dingler and Montero2026). These studies draw attention to important epistemic dimensions of representation, including whose perspectives are treated as credible and whose contributions are granted authority. Building on these insights, we examine how credibility, expertise, and legitimacy are negotiated under conditions of institutionalized parity, where numerical inclusion may coexist with continuing struggles over recognition and authority.

Republican Universalism, Pluralism, and the Epistemic Double Bind

To understand these dynamics in the French National Assembly, it is necessary to consider the competing normative traditions that shape expectations of political representation.

The first is republican universalism, a tradition that conceives representatives as acting on behalf of the nation as a whole rather than representing particular social groups. In this view, political legitimacy rests on the ability to transcend particular identities and pursue the general will. French parity reform was largely justified within this framework: women’s exclusion from political office was interpreted not as a problem of insufficient diversity, but as evidence that the Republic had failed to fulfill its universalist commitment to equal citizenship (Bereni and Lépinard Reference Bereni and Lépinard2004; Scott Reference Scott2019). Proponents of parity argued that democratic representation could not legitimately claim to speak for the nation while excluding half of its citizens from elected office. Parity was therefore presented as a means of restoring the universalist promise of citizenship rather than advancing a group-based claim (Bereni and Lépinard Reference Bereni and Lépinard2004; Scott Reference Scott2019).

This framing was also politically strategic. Earlier efforts to introduce gender quotas had been criticized as incompatible with the constitutional principles of republican universalism, leading parity advocates to argue that reform constituted a fulfillment rather than a rejection of republican ideals (Bereni and Lépinard Reference Bereni and Lépinard2004; Scott Reference Scott2019). Women’s exclusion was thus taken as evidence that the supposedly universal representative had, in practice, been implicitly male. Parity sought to correct this democratic inconsistency while preserving the ideal of a common political community in which women and men participated equally in representing the nation (Murray Reference Murray2013).

The second is a pluralist understanding of representation associated with scholars such as Young (Reference Young1989), Phillips (Reference Phillips1998), and Mansbridge (Reference Mansbridge1999). This perspective argues that social groups occupy different positions in society and therefore possess distinct experiences and forms of knowledge. Inclusion matters not only because it broadens access to office but also because it expands the range of perspectives represented in political decision-making. Yet parity’s institutionalization did not resolve the tension between these two traditions. As women’s presence in elected office increased, the question remained whether representatives should be recognized as gender-neutral citizens or as carriers of distinct social experiences.

These traditions imply different expectations regarding gender and political authority. Republican universalism encourages representatives to downplay identity-based distinctions and embody a universal political role. Yet critics have long noted that republican claims to neutrality have often rested on implicitly masculinized norms of political authority (Scott Reference Scott2019; Sénac Reference Sénac2015). Historically, political competence and public authority were associated with male experience, while women were assigned a complementary role outside the political sphere (Bergès Reference Bergès2019). As a result, standards of political competence that appear neutral often reflect masculine experiences and modes of authority. Women may therefore be expected to embody universalism while simultaneously being judged against norms that emerged in institutions from which they were historically excluded (Puwar Reference Puwar2004).

Pluralist approaches place greater value on representatives’ ability to articulate experiences rooted in social position, including gender. We argue that women deputies in parity systems may find themselves frequently located at the intersection of these competing expectations. On the one hand, they are encouraged to demonstrate neutrality and universality in order to be recognized as full representatives. On the other hand, they are often expected to contribute specifically gendered perspectives and to act as representatives of women as a social category. This raises the question of whether a more inclusive form of republican representation is possible, one in which gender remains politically relevant without becoming the defining basis of authority.

To capture this tension, we develop the concept of the epistemic double bind. The epistemic double bind refers to a structural condition in which women deputies must simultaneously conform to universalist expectations that render gender irrelevant and to pluralist expectations that make gender politically salient. Neither position fully resolves the problem of authority. Suppressing gender may facilitate recognition within existing institutional norms but can require conformity to historically masculinized standards of legitimacy. Conversely, emphasizing gendered experience may generate authority precisely because women are assumed to possess distinctive knowledge derived from their social position. Yet such recognition can confine them to a narrower range of policy areas and representative functions. Women deputies may thus gain authority as representatives of women while finding it more difficult to be recognized as authoritative representatives in general.

The concept of the epistemic double bind therefore provides a framework for understanding how authority is negotiated in institutionalized parity institutions. Rather than assuming that parity automatically produces epistemic equality, it directs attention to the contradictory expectations through which women seek legitimacy, recognition, and influence within formally inclusive political settings. In doing so, it highlights how institutionalized parity may transform patterns of exclusion without necessarily eliminating them, generating new tensions around who is recognized as a legitimate knower and representative within democratic institutions.

From Inclusion to Marginalization: The Second-Class Deputy

Empirically, the “default” second-class deputy role was expressed through recurring experiences of exclusion from influential networks, limited access to informal arenas of power, and a persistent need to establish credibility and legitimacy. These experiences were reported across parties and levels of seniority, although their intensity and expression varied between deputies, suggesting that formal inclusion through parity does not automatically translate into epistemic authority.

Women we interviewed reported exclusion from informal spaces where real influence is exercised. One newly elected deputy described enduring “networks of cronyism,” where “contracts are signed and political proposals are made … from which we women are excluded” (Female Deputy, Left #20). Such exclusionary networks confer homosocial capital to men while sidelining women (Bjarnegård Reference Bjarnegård2013).

Such marginalization is reinforced by outdated parliamentary informal rules, which continue to reflect a male-dominated political culture. One deputy observed:

Many deputies described a persistent need to “justify” their presence and noted how disagreement could trigger gendered attacks. “As soon as people don’t agree with you,” one senior deputy said, “they very quickly slip into misogynistic attacks” (Female Deputy, Right #1). These dynamics reflect testimonial injustice, whereby women’s credibility is questioned and their contributions are accorded less authority (Catala Reference Catala2025). Even deputies in senior positions described the culture as “sexist,” “masculine,” and at times “brutal.” One newcomer summed it up: “[There is] a lot of sexism in the National Assembly, a lot of aggression, which is very visible … Even though some women reach some important positions, it is still very masculine and ‘rough’ and not very open to women” (Female Deputy, Left #14).

This questioning of credibility extended beyond the Assembly. Women of color described intersectional exclusion, facing both racism and sexism in the form of public harassment and threats. One deputy recounted receiving racist letters while working on immigration policy: “So the fact of being a woman, of being black … In fact, sometimes it is complicated.” She also recalled getting a lot of “insults” when making interventions in the hemicycle that criticize the far-right party Rassemblement National (Female Deputy, Centre #08). Such experiences underscore the intersectional nature of political exclusion. As Puwar (Reference Puwar2004) argues, women of color may represent a “double threat” to the traditional white, male norm — making them especially visible targets and more likely to fall into the role expectation of the second-class deputy within gendered institutions.

A gendered distribution of leadership roles further illustrates the power hierarchy in the National Assembly. While symbolic breakthroughs like Yaël Braun-Pivet’s election as the first woman president of the National Assembly in 2022 were celebrated, many women remain concentrated in lower-prestige roles. While they have attained positions of authority in large numbers, these positions tend to have less influence and visibility, such as vice-presidencies (compared to presidencies) and secretarial posts, which, although leadership positions within the Assembly Bureau rather than clerical roles, remain less visible than the institution’s most prestigious offices.Footnote ² Their leadership is more common in committees focused on social affairs or gender, rather than high-status areas like Finance, which has never had a woman president (Assemblee-nationale.fr). This pattern reinforces the perception that women’s expertise belongs in “feminine” policy domains, limiting their broader authority and career advancement (Murray and Sénac Reference Murray and Sénac2018).

Still, some experienced deputies described a gradual change in their status. Senior women recalled being interrupted more often early in their careers and encountering more blatant sexism in the 1990s. They noted some improvement over time, particularly in the visibility of women’s issues and increased recognition of women’s presence. One deputy noted that the gendered dimensions of parliamentary life were more visible and more frequently discussed than in the past (Female Deputy, Right #24). While some of the observed change may be attributed to women’s presence becoming normalized, and to women’s active resistance against discriminatory practices, it may also reflect the improved individual experiences of senior women, whose longer tenure may have earned them greater expertise, respect, and confidence. This may have limited some of the challenges and discriminatory practices often encountered by less experienced and younger women deputies (Erikson and Josefsson Reference Erikson and Josefsson2022). In fact, several newcomers expressed frustration at navigating institutions not built with them in mind, and some had already considered leaving politics. Others, by contrast, managed to avoid the second-class role by aligning with dominant norms, claiming epistemic privilege, or embodying a more modern version of the republican deputy. These alternative roles — and their costs and opportunities — are explored in the sections that follow.

Legitimacy Through Conformity: Adhering to the Male Norm

Many interviewees described adapting to established parliamentary norms as a way of gaining legitimacy and recognition. Rather than being excluded outright, they sought acceptance by demonstrating that they could meet institutional expectations of what a competent deputy should be. In practice, this often meant embracing norms rooted in a historically masculine political culture (Itzkovitch-Malka and Oshri Reference Itzkovitch-Malka and Oshri2024; Murray Reference Murray2026).

These expectations were particularly visible in interviewees’ descriptions of parliamentary work, which reflected long-standing informal rules about what it means to be a “real” deputy. In the National Assembly, this meant treating the role not as a job but as a lifestyle — marked by constant availability, personal sacrifice, and dual presence both in Paris and in the constituency. Deputies recounted how they must be visible, accessible, and present — at all hours and across all domains. During interviews, we observed fold-out beds in parliamentary offices, while deputies complained of a lack of childcare and limited parental leave. These are not just logistical challenges; they are institutional signals that success depends on subordinating personal life to political life.

The strain on family life was widely acknowledged. Both men and women spoke of the deputy role’s incompatibility with caregiving, but the cost was higher for women, who still carry the greater share of domestic responsibilities in France. Coping strategies varied: some postponed careers until children were older, others relied on a supportive spouse, and some chose not to have children at all. “You must sacrifice your family” or “You must be able to leave your life behind,” as quite a few deputies stated (Male Deputy, Right #22; Male Deputy, Right #10; Female Deputy, Left #18). As another noted, “Taking care of the family is a ‘profession’ for women, but we don’t talk about that” (Female Deputy, Left #18). One male deputy talking about his colleague simply said: “She manages because her husband and the grandparents are there to back her up. But the demands of the job—what I do as an MP—make me wonder if a woman with family responsibilities could handle it in quite the same way” (Male Deputy, Left #12).

Adapting to the male norm may help women deputies survive politically but often requires downplaying gendered knowledge and experiences. While most senior deputies highlighted the need for developing expertise in a given topic to become an indispensable resource in the National Assembly, it was argued that this area of expertise should not be on women’s rights. Several senior women deputies warned against focusing too much on such topics, noting that doing so could hinder rather than help a political career. A male parliamentary assistant remarked, “I do not think that, unfortunately, dealing with gender equality is a competitive advantage for MPs” (Male parliamentary assistant, Centre #19). These issues were frequently dismissed as “niche” or disconnected from voters’ priorities (Female Deputy, Right #1), making them less attractive for deputies aiming to build influence and longevity in the Assembly.

While downplaying women’s gendered knowledge, some women deputies were seen as actively “acting like men” in order to prosper in parliament. As stated by one woman deputy: “… I think there are many women who do politics the way men do, in order to be co-opted, to be accepted into that masculine world. And it works very well for them; they get excellent positions…” (Female Deputy, Right #1).

This strategic assimilation can foster survival and even influence, but it reinforces rather than transforms existing power structures. Deputies may gain credibility, but only by disavowing or downplaying gendered knowledge, and by internalizing a model of political endurance that continues to marginalize caregiving and other “non-normative” life paths. The pathway offers epistemic authority — but on highly constrained terms.

Privileged but Bounded: Performing Gendered Expertise

The role expectation of strategic specialization was evident in interviewees’ accounts of issue ownership and political responsibility. Deputies frequently described a strong obligation to advocate for women and advance gender equality, even within a political system that officially rejects identity-based representation. Many women, along with one male colleague, emphasized that promoting gender equality was a core part of their work. As one deputy put it, “As long as we haven’t achieved equality, until everyone is finally at the same level, we must continue the fight.” Deputies identified abortion, gender-based violence, and parental leave as central concerns, but noted that these topics are still typically raised by women alone.

The expectation of epistemic privilege (see Catala Reference Catala2025) can enhance voice in certain areas, but it also marks those issues as peripheral to the political core. Interviewees repeatedly said that women deputies were the ones who raised these issues. “Unfortunately, the vision about gender equality wouldn’t be there without women and that is sad” (Female Deputy, Centre #11). Another deputy observed:

These accounts point to a gendered specialization of representative labor. As women come to be seen as the most credible and authoritative voices on gender equality, responsibility for these issues increasingly falls to them. Rather than expressing overt opposition, male deputies may defer to their female colleagues rather than engage with feminist concerns themselves, a dynamic also observed in the German Bundestag (Höhmann Reference Höhmann2020). In this sense, epistemic privilege can produce a specialization mechanism: the very recognition of women’s expertise strengthens expectations that such issues belong primarily within women’s representative domain. As one male MP commented: “Women bring their own specificity. Of course, women are often much more concrete and close to things and people. Look at men sometimes, they’re not… very nice. And so I think it would be good if there were women” (Male MP, Right #10).

At the same time, several deputies emphasized that women’s lived experiences had brought previously neglected concerns onto the legislative agenda. One recalled:

The recognition of women’s experiences represents significant progress by bringing long-neglected issues such as abortion and gender-based violence into the institutional agenda. This acknowledgment challenges previous patterns of exclusion and contributes to meaningful shifts in legislative priorities. Nevertheless, there is a risk that women’s authority becomes confined to these gendered policy domains, thereby limiting their broader epistemic influence within political institutions.

As noted earlier, these issues are rarely viewed as prestigious or conducive to political career advancement. This marginalization is institutionalized in committee hierarchies, where gender and family policy committees are among the least influential (Murray and Sénac Reference Murray and Sénac2018). Female deputies who focus on these areas risk being permanently confined to them. As one warned, “you don’t want to make this element the only campaign topic” (Female Deputy, Centre #11). Although many female deputies viewed the promotion of gender equality as an important responsibility, they often emphasized that their role was not to act as delegates for women alone. As one deputy stated: “… If we’re only fighting for women, forgetting the society that goes with it, we’re lost. If it’s a societal project in which everyone has a role to play, well, I think that’s something that’s expected” (Female Deputy, Centre #02).

The epistemic privilege associated with this pathway is therefore highly conditional, which many female deputies were aware of. While deputies may gain credibility on gender-marked issues, they simultaneously risk being pigeonholed as single-issue actors. This tension exemplifies the epistemic double bind: asserting authority through gendered expertise grants some recognition but constrains broader legitimacy and influence. Ultimately, this strategy reinforces a hierarchical division of expertise in which women gain authority on gender equality while remaining less likely to be recognized as authoritative across the full range of parliamentary concerns. They are thus positioned as representatives of the particular rather than the universal.

Toward Embedded Equality: Enacting Modern Republicanism

The modern republican deputy emerged less as a description of existing parliamentary practice than as an aspirational model of representation articulated by a smaller group of interviewees. Rather than viewing authority as dependent on conformity to established norms or on claims to gender-specific expertise, these deputies described a form of representation in which gender remains politically relevant but does not determine the scope or legitimacy of one’s authority. Particularly among women elected after the 2017 parity-driven turnover, several interviewees envisioned a more inclusive form of republican representation in which deputies are recognized as legitimate contributors across policy domains regardless of gender.

From these accounts, we identify three normative principles that characterize this vision. First, acknowledging inequality without essentializing identity: while republicanism treats identity as formally irrelevant, institutions must recognize how gender continues to shape access, participation, and credibility. Universal representation therefore requires confronting unequal starting points. Second, supporting difference without reducing individuals to it: deputies should be able to bring their full experiences into political life without being defined or confined by particular social identities. Third, rejecting policy segmentation: no domain of governance should be coded as masculine or feminine, and all deputies should be regarded as legitimate participants across policy areas. Together, these principles point toward a modern republicanism that incorporates difference into shared democratic institutions without making it the defining basis of political authority. As one deputy explained: “I do politics in relation to who I am. I am a woman, a mother who lives in a difficult suburb […] I come with all that. There is no way I am becoming a man” (Female Deputy, Left #20).

This claim to both authenticity and universality challenges long-standing assumptions about political neutrality. It affirms that representing the nation need not require the erasure of gender, background, or lived experience. One senior woman put it this way: “I didn’t see being a woman as an argument in itself … It’s just part of who I am” (Female Deputy, Right #1). Her account underscores how gender may be ever-present without being defined.

Deputies pursuing this path often sought to broaden the scope of epistemic authority, taking leadership on issues such as finance, digital policy, and public safety, but not by setting aside their lived experiences. In doing so, they challenged dominant hierarchies of credibility and expanded the institutional boundaries of who is seen as a legitimate knower and what knowledge gets attention. Gender awareness, for many, was not siloed into specific topics but integrated into broader portfolios. One deputy, for instance, used agrarian politics as an example for why it is important to gender-decode knowledge:

Another deputy illustrated the importance of gender decoding by pointing to deepfake regulation, arguing that the gendered consequences of emerging technologies can easily remain invisible when policymaking proceeds from ostensibly neutral assumptions. The broader point advanced by these respondents was that many policy questions contain gendered dimensions, making a gender perspective relevant across a wide range of political domains. From this perspective, masculinist gatekeeping fails to represent the general will because it excludes experiences and forms of knowledge that are necessary for understanding social reality in its entirety. Yet realizing this modern republican vision requires that men as well as women assume responsibility for gender-conscious representation. Otherwise, the burden of institutional transformation remains unequally distributed and difficult to sustain.

This model envisions embedded epistemic equality: a political space where women do not need to perform masculinity to be taken seriously, nor limit themselves to gender-marked issues to be heard. Instead, gender is a naturalized dimension of democratic representation. It is present but not determinative. Deputies’ authority flows from their contributions, not from how closely they conform to a historically masculinized norm. Crucially, embedded equality also requires that men share responsibility for all domains of policy, including those traditionally coded as “women’s issues.” Topics such as childcare, reproductive rights, or gender-based violence are not peripheral concerns, but core challenges of national governance. A truly universalist assembly must recognize these issues as matters of public interest, demanding the engagement and accountability of all representatives, regardless of gender.

Yet despite its transformative promise, the modern republican pathway appeared primarily as a normative aspiration rather than a fully institutionalized mode of authority. Deputies themselves acknowledged the absence of a shared blueprint for how to “do” this role. Institutional practices still reflect masculine legacies, and women continue to be marked as deviations from a presumed norm. This role, then, is best understood as a normative horizon and a model toward which democratic institutions might evolve, rather than one fully enacted in the present. Its emergence in deputies’ narratives suggests that parity has expanded the imaginative terrain of representation, even if formal inclusion alone cannot achieve epistemic equality. Realizing embedded parity demands not only individual strategies but structural transformation — and a redefinition of what counts as universal in the first place.

Nor was this emerging model of authority described as developing uniformly across the institution. Deputies pointed particularly to tensions between more experienced and recently elected members, alongside growing party-political divisions associated with the increased presence of the far right — and sometimes far left. These tensions were not simply generational: while age sometimes overlapped with parliamentary experience, deputies primarily described a divide between those familiar with established institutional norms and those less socialized in them. Some of the deputies representing the established parties were concerned about the destabilizing effect on republican values stemming from the electoral success of both the Renaissance and the far right and left. As one deputy put it, the “New World” positioned itself against the “Old World,” but while the latter was “grounded in history—in a solid historical track record, including within the National Assembly,” the former “believed everything had to be swept away” (Male Deputy, Left #12). This suggests that the emerging modern republican pathway is shaped not only by changing gender relations, but also by broader struggles over the sources of legitimate authority within the institution.

Still, while the tensions between more established and newer ways of exercising parliamentary authority could be negotiated within the institution, party-political divisions between the far right and the others appeared more difficult to bridge. This was particularly evident in deputies’ accounts of the far right’s engagement with gender equality. A member of the Delegation for Women’s Rights described working relations with the far right in the following way:

These tensions illustrate the fragility of institutional change and the challenge of the modern republican pathway; new norms have to survive both resistance from established insiders and discontinuity across parliamentary terms.