Women's substantive representation: defending feminist interests or women's electoral preferences?

To what extent does the inclusion of marginalized groups in policymaking institutions influence policy outcomes? This article examines whether and under which conditions female legislators are more likely to represent women's interests compared to male legislators. Building on the literature on women's substantive representation, it is argued that the advocacy of women's interests by female representatives depends on a number of factors, namely party affiliation, contact with women's organizations, electoral district, and seniority. This argument is evaluated using vote level fixed-effect models based on a unique dataset from a direct-democratic context which combines representatives voting behaviour, women's voting preferences, and recommendations from feminist groups. The findings show that female legislators defend feminist interests more than their male colleagues but that they only marginally respond to women's electoral preferences. Moreover, gender has its most visible effect within the populist party