Discursive Inequity and the Internal Exclusion of Women Speakers

• Author: Edana Beauvais
• Date: 01 March 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912919870605
• Published date: 01 March 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919870605

Political Research Quarterly

2021, Vol. 74(1) 103 –116

© 2019 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912919870605

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Article

Political systems are democratic to the extent that people

are empowered to participate in political practices—vot-

ing, representing, deliberating and communicating, and

resisting—that contribute to self- and collective rule

(Beauvais and Warren 2018; Warren 2017). However, a

problem arises when structural inequalities produce

power asymmetries between social group members.

Asymmetrical power relations can entail formal exclu-

sions that prevent disempowered social group members

from participating in or influencing political practices.

Even among those nominally included in political prac-

tices, ongoing relational inequalities—inequalities of

social authority, status, and standing (Anderson 2010)—

can entail internal exclusions (Young 2000).

In this present work, I consider the problem of gender

inequality for discursive (talk-centric) political practices

and offer evidence that speakers respond to counterargu-

ments in ways that produce unjustifiable asymmetries of

discursive influence. Unjustifiable asymmetries of dis-

cursive influence—or discursive inequities—contribute

to the internal exclusion of women speakers from com-

municative processes of opinion formation. Asymmetries

of discursive influence can bolster existing patriarchal

power relations: discounting the influence of women’s

voices and enhancing the influence of men’s voices in

communicative process of opinion formation means

women exert relatively less influence in the discursive

political practices required to modify social and political

conditions.

This work links normative democratic theory and

social psychology by introducing a theoretical frame-

work for understanding the social psychology of internal

exclusion, and by outlining how discursive inequities and

internal exclusions undermine democratic practices and

reinforce harms of oppression and domination. Although

this work is theory-driven and oriented toward theory-

building, the results of experimental research are pre-

sented as empirical evidence1 for the normative concern

that discursive inequities can contribute to women’s

internal exclusion from discursive practices.

In the first section, I describe how democracy begins

with inclusion. I discuss, in general terms, how different

forms of inequality entail exclusions that prevent political

870605PRQXXX10.1177/1065912919870605Political Research QuarterlyBeauvais

research-article2019

1McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

Corresponding Author:

Edana Beauvais, Department of Political Science, Centre for the Study

of Democratic Citizenship, McGill University, 855 Sherbrooke Street

West, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 2T7.

Email: edana.beauvais@mail.mcgill.ca

Discursive Inequity and the Internal

Exclusion of Women Speakers

Edana Beauvais1

Abstract

In today’s democracies, disempowered group members are no longer formally barred from the political arena.

However, there is a concern that the historical memory of political inequality and exclusion remains as internalized

cognitive dispositions, shaping behavior even after laws are changed. Focusing on the legacy of women’s political

exclusion from the public sphere, I consider whether internal exclusions undermine women’s ability to influence

political discourse even under conditions of formal political equality. All else being equal, do women and men in

Western democracies have the same discursive influence? Are women particularly sensitive to men’s discursive

authority? I help answer these questions using an experimental research design. The results of my study offer

evidence that people are more willing to revise their opinions after hearing a man’s counterargument than after

hearing a woman’s identical counterargument. This pattern appears to be driven by the way women respond to

a man’s counterclaim. I discuss how gendered discursive inequities reinforce existing patriarchal structures, and

the role that women inadvertently play in their own subjugation. I conclude by offering suggestions for better

approximating the ideal of discursive gender equality.

Keywords

democracy, deliberation, equality, gender, women and politics, political communication