Wirls is a professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
For most of the nation’s history, members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been addressed as “Congressman” or “Congresswoman.” By contrast, a senator is referred to as, well, “Senator.”
These gendered terms for House members dominate in journalism, everyday conversation and among members of Congress.
The name Congress refers to the entire national legislature, composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Gender identity aside, congressman and congresswoman are fundamentally inaccurate terms.
In the Constitution, Congress refers to the legislative branch as a whole. When discussing the membership of Congress, the Constitution uses “Representatives” and “Senators,” but also “Members” in reference to both. “Congressman” is nowhere in that founding document.
One of the foremost scholars of Congress, the late Richard Fenno, wrote, “a House member’s designation, as prescribed in the U.S. Constitution, is not Congressman, it is Representative.”
As a scholar of Congress and particularly the Senate, I am interested in the differences between the two chambers and how that affects American politics. In my investigation of the origins and evolution of congressman and congresswoman, I combed the records of colonial and state legislatures, as well as records related to the country’s founding and newspapers from the end of the 1700s to the mid-1900s.
Even if the current era were not one of justified sensitivity to gender neutrality and diversity, these two terms for House members are not just dated, they are wrong. Representative is the correct but rarely used term.
Historical use
How did this terminological oddity come to be?
Congressman was used as early as 1780 in a poem by a British loyalist to refer to members, formally known as delegates, of the single-chamber and Senate-like national legislatures that preceded the Constitution’s establishment of a two-chamber legislature.
From 1788 onward, the gendered term was sometimes applied to members of Congress in general but increasingly to representatives in particular.
The central linguistic logic at work in early 19th century use of the term congressman stemmed from the reporting of election results. Newspapers reported the choices for governor, lieutenant governor, assemblymen, congressmen and senators. The only elections to Congress, however, were for members of the House, in contrast to senators, who were selected by state legislatures.
So, senators referred not to the occupants of the U.S. Senate but to the state senate. U.S. senators would not be directly elected by citizens for more than a century. In this and similar reporting, it was unambiguous to refer to the election of “congressmen.”
The common usage, which was firmly in place by the end of the 19th century, was bolstered by the arrival of congresswomen, starting with Jeannette Rankin in 1917. That political breakthrough ironically reinforced the gendered terminology associated with this office. The few early congresswomen were eventually joined by the first elected female senator, who was referred to as Senator.
Indeed, senators are invariably referred to by their gender-neutral and constitutional title.
Few parallels elsewhere
The use of titles that are both unnecessarily gendered and inaccurate is almost restricted to the United States Congress. There are surprisingly few parallels and no true equals at the state or international levels.
The gender-neutral term designated in the Constitution already exists. The title Representative is used in certain formal but limited circumstances by journalists and others. For example, the widely used Associated Press style guide for journalists instructs that “Rep. and U.S. Rep. are the preferred first-reference forms when a formal title is used before the name of a U.S. House member.” But the style guide also advises that “congressman and congresswoman are acceptable,” and those terms dominate in most circumstances in print and television journalism.
And the use of congressman and congresswoman dominates even among representatives and senators themselves. Some members even seem to go out of their way to avoid the constitutional term, including Sen. Mitt Romney. Romney recently referred to former President Donald Trump’s communications with “Republican senators and congresspeople.”
And the use of congressman and congresswoman is at odds with other contemporary adjustments to circumvent or replace sexist or binary language, including personal pronouns. The application of gender neutrality through the constitutional title evades neologisms like congressperson, which is as clumsy as it is unnecessary.
Reminder of civic virtue
Even as the Senate has lost some of its prestige and luster, the House is seen as a lower rung on the ladder of U.S. politics. Perhaps the inferiority complex that attaches to membership in the House versus the Senate also encourages the use of congressman. Being a member of Congress – and therefore a congressman or congresswoman – may seem more prestigious in its focus on the institution as a whole.
But it doesn’t have to be that way; the House could instead embrace its official title.
Richard Fenno, quoted earlier, can finish his point: “Whereas ‘congressman’ or ‘congresswoman’ tends to call our attention to a House member’s Capitol Hill activities and to his or her relationship with colleagues,” Fenno wrote, “‘representative’ points us toward a House member’s activities in his or her home district and to relationships with constituents.”
Members relish their connections to their districts, their constituents and the democratic virtues that role conveys. And part of this is the implicit contrast with the Senate, with its undemocratic origins and enduring elitist pretensions.
As well as being gender-neutral and institutionally accurate, the original title is a powerful reminder of the civic virtue and founding purpose of the House of Representatives. It’s not just politically correct, it’s constitutional.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.