This chapter starts by giving a theoretical definition of gender and its relation to language. It gives the rationale for the focus of the book on women politicians and a critical overview of work in the field of gender and language research investigating language and gender in the professional workplace. It also critically reviews linguistic research into political discourse and the much smaller body of work relating to gender, language and politics. In doing so it highlights the originality of the book’s focus on gender and the interactional details of political discourse in political institutions. The chapter also explains relevant theories and empirical research on women’s representation in politics from the discipline of political science. It describes research into the descriptive and substantive representation; examines current re-evaluations of the ‘critical mass’ theory; and examines the ‘different voice’ ideology relating to expectations about gender and communicative styles. It concludes by citing calls from political scientists for additional methods from a wider range of disciplines with which to measure women’s substantive representation and describes the overall structure of the book.

The chapter examines the link between upper echelons gender composition and firm sustainability performance. Gender composition is considered as the level of women on TMTs and boards. Specifically, it is considered whether presence of three or more women on company boards as well as TMTs influence sustainability performance. Thereby, the study incorporates new theoretical developments by conceptualizing gender level using critical mass concept. The sample also consists of top performing 100 firms in Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) known as BIST 100. A dataset containing information of BIST 100 companies’ TMT members, board of directors, CEOs, as well as firm size, profitability, sustainability performance, and industry among others were constructed by using the data provided in PDP (Public Disclosure Platform). The findings of the study indicate that critical mass of women on board of directors is important for sustainability performance. In line with token theory and critical mass proposition, in the present sample, having three or more women directors on boards of directors improves the sustainability performance of companies.