The representation of female politicians has been the subject of numerous studies within feminist media research. They almost unanimously report a numerical underrepresentation of female representatives and more emphasis on their appearance, age, and family life. This generates two primary effects that are detrimental to a modern democratic society. First and foremost, underrepresentation harms the evaluation of officeholders and candidates and, by extension, their chances of election victory or the preservation of their elected office (Goodyear-Grant, 2013). Second, the absence of role models in political roles makes it more likely for adolescents to stay alienated from seeking political office. The result will be ‘a continuation of political underrepresentation for the foreseeable future’ (Goodyear-Grant, 2013). Although there are many recent studies on the subject, most of them focus solely on the representation of women candidates in an electoral context (Lühiste & Banducci, 2016; D’Heer, De Vuyst, and Van Leuven, 2021). This paper wants to address these shortcomings by conducting an indepth quantitative content analysis of 4,298 individual mentions in 3,528 articles from five different Flemish newspapers about nine ministers during three distinct periods of the legislative cycle. We find that the numerical underrepresentation of women is less evident than in previous research. In terms of substantive media representation, female politicians’ private lives, age, and personality traits are not referred to more often than those of their male colleagues. However, we do notice a strong focus on women’s gender throughout the entire political cycle and their physical appearance during the election period.