We conduct experiments to investigate whether differences in behavior between men and women in political settings might contribute to the lack of diversity in many political decision-making bodies, focusing on decisions to become candidates and choices about campaign communication when group members’ payoffs depend on selecting the best member to complete a real effort task. We find that candidate decisions depend on the selection mechanism: men and women are equally likely to volunteer when the representative is chosen randomly, but that women are less likely to become candidates when the representative is chosen by an election (even controlling for task ability, beliefs, and risk preferences). With respect to campaign messages, the evidence is mixed: women tend to be more ambiguous and men tend to exaggerate more when the message space is unconstrained, but differences disappear when the message space is restricted.