When and why do men speak up on women’s interests? While women politicians consistently champion women’s concerns, men do so selectively. In this paper, we focus on one key mechanism that prompts men’s engagement: when women’s issues become highly salient in public debate. Building on work showing that men represent women when it is electorally advantageous, we argue that issue salience creates strategic opportunity for engagement. Following high-profile events that bring issues disproportionately affecting women into the centre of public and media attention, both the informational costs of participating and the reputational rewards for speaking out are heightened. In these moments, men can signal attention to women’s concerns with maximum visibility and minimal effort. Using data on UK parliamentary debates and print news media coverage tracking fluctuations in attention to women’s issues between 2010 and 2025, we compare men and women MPs’ attention to women’s interests during “ordinary” periods and in the aftermath of salient events. We anticipate that women MPs’ advocacy for women’s interests is consistent, while men’s is conditional on the visibility and attention paid to them on the national agenda.
