Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future, Second Edition
SUE THOMAS CLYDE WILCOX, Editors
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
WOMEN and ELECTIVE OFFICE
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Edited by S U E T H O M A S a n d C LY D E W I L C OX
WOMEN and ELECTIVE OFFICE PA S T, P R E S E N T, A N D F U T U R E Second Edition
1 2005
1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Copyright © , by Oxford University Press, Inc. First published in by Oxford University Press, Inc. Madison Avenue, New York, New York www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Women and elective office : past, present, and future / edited by Sue Thomas, Clyde Wilcox.—nd ed. p. cm. ISBN- ----; ---- (pbk.) ISBN ---; --- (pbk.) . Women in public life—United States. . Women in politics — United States. . Women political candidates—United States. I. Thomas, Sue, – II. Wilcox, Clyde, – HQ.UW ⬘.— dc
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
To Brittany — for inspiration and To Elaine Wilcox-Cook — to remind her of what is possible
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Acknowledgments
We want to publicly thank Carin Larson, Lisa Rickert, and Shauna Shames for their careful, thoughtful, and important work on this volume. Much gratitude also goes to Dedi Felman, Christine Dahlin, and Jim Cohen at Oxford University Press for their support of this topic and of us.
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Contents
Contributors
xi
Introduction Sue Thomas 1 Campaign Financing: Women’s Experience in the Modern Era Barbara Burrell 2 How the Public Views Women Candidates Kathleen Dolan 3 Women Candidates for Congress Heather L. Ondercin and Susan Welch
4 Different Portraits, Different Leaders? Gender Differences
in U.S. Senators’ Presentation of Self Kim L. Fridkin and Gina Serignese Woodall 5 Do Women and Men State Legislators Differ? Michael J. Epstein, Richard G. Niemi, and Lynda W. Powell 6 Women in Congress: Do They Act as Advocates for Women’s Issues? Michele L. Swers and Carin Larson 7 Making a Difference: Behind the Scenes Debra L. Dodson
8 Indelible Effects: The Impact of Women of Color in the U.S.
Congress Lisa García Bedolla, Katherine Tate, and Janelle Wong 9 Change in Continuity in the Geography of Women State Legislators Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox 10 Women Leading Legislatures: Getting There and Getting Things
Done Cindy Simon Rosenthal
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Contents
11 In a Different Voice: Women and the Policy Process Lyn Kathlene
12 Institutional Gendering: Theoretical Insights into the
Environment of Women Officeholders Georgia Duerst-Lahti 13 Women as Political Leaders Worldwide: Cultural Barriers
and Opportunities Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart 14 Prospects for Cracking the Political Glass Ceiling: The Future
of Women Officeholders in the Twenty-first Century Jean Reith Schroedel and Marcia L. Godwin
References Index
Contributors
The Editors
Sue Thomas is senior policy researcher at Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. She has previously served as associate professor in the Department of Government and as director of women’s studies at Georgetown University. Dr. Thomas’s publications include How Women Legislate (Oxford University Press, ); “The Personal Is the Political: Antecedents of Gendered Choices of Elected Representatives” in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research (); and “Cracking the Glass Ceiling: The Status, Significance, and Prospects of Women in Legislative Office,” in Gender and American Politics. Clyde Wilcox is professor of government at Georgetown University. He writes on gender politics, religion and politics, and campaign finance. His most recent books include Financiers of Congressional Elections: Investors, Ideologues, and Intimates (Columbia University Press, ) and Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: The One, the Few, and the Many (Cambridge University Press, ). The Authors
Barbara Burrell is associate professor of political science and associate director of the Public Opinion Laboratory at Northern Illinois University. She is the author of A Woman’s Place Is in the House: Campaigning for Congress in the Feminist Era (University of Michigan Press, ) and Public Opinion, the First Ladyship and Hillary Rodham Clinton (Routledge, ). Debra L. Dodson is senior research associate at the Center for the American Woman and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, and author of the forthcoming book, The Impact of Women in Congress (Oxford University Press). Kathleen Dolan is associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Dr. Dolan has recently published Voting for Women: How the Public Evaluates Women Candidates (Westview Press, ). xi
xii
Contributors
Georgia Duerst-Lahti is professor of political science and faculty of women’s and gender studies at Beloit College, where she has served as department chair and associate dean. She is best known for scholarship at the nexus of theory and empirical research, including her coauthored work with Rita Mae Kelly, Gender Power, Leadership, and Governance (University of Michigan Press, ). Michael J. Epstein is a doctoral student in political science at the University of Rochester. He is also an evaluator in the University’s Psychology Department and was formerly a political analyst with Global Strategy Group. Kim L. Fridkin is professor of political science at Arizona State University. She is the author of The Political Consequences of Being a Woman (Columbia University Press, ) and coauthor of The Spectacle of U.S. Senate Campaigns (Princeton University Press, ) and No Holds Barred: Negative Campaigning in U.S. Senator Campaigns (Prentice-Hall, ). Her work has also appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. Lisa García Bedolla is assistant professor of political science and Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Fluid Borders: Latino Identity and Politics in Los Angeles (forthcoming from the University of California Press). She has also recently published articles in the Journal of Politics, Latino Studies, and State Politics and Policy Quarterly. Marcia L. Godwin is visiting assistant professor of public administration at the University of La Verne. She has published research on electoral and interest group politics, including an analysis of Maria Cantwell’s election to the U.S. Senate in and a forthcoming book chapter on Senator Barbara Boxer’s reelection campaign for Roads to Congress (Nova Science, ). Ronald Inglehart is professor of political science and program director at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He helped found the Euro-Barometer surveys and directs the World Values Surveys. His books include Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political Change in Societies (Princeton University Press, ), Rising Tide (with Pippa Norris; Cambridge University Press, ), and Sacred and Secular (with Pippa Norris; Cambridge University Press, ). Lyn Kathlene is the director of the Colorado Institute of Public Policy at Colorado State University. She has published articles on women officeholders and the public policy process in the American Political Science Review, the Western Political Quarterly, Journal of Politics, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management,
Contributors
xiii
Policy Studies, and Knowledge in Society and has contributed chapters to several edited volumes. Carin Larson is a PhD candidate at Georgetown University in American government. Her research focus is political behavior and evangelicalism. Her current work analyzes the Christian Right’s appeal to racial minorities. She has coauthored a number of book chapters on religion and politics in the United States. Richard G. Niemi is Don Alonzo Watson Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester. He is coauthor or coeditor of Vital Statistics on American Politics – (CQ Press, ), Comparing Democracies (Sage, ), Controversies in Voting Behavior, fourth edition (CQ Press, ), Term Limits in the State Legislatures (University of Michigan Press, ), other books, and numerous articles on political socialization, voting, and legislative districting. Barbara Norrander is professor of political science at the University of Arizona. Her prior research on gender politics appears in Public Opinion Quarterly and several edited volumes. She also conducts research on presidential nominations, partisanship, and state public opinion. She is the president of the Western Political Science Association for – . Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Her books published by Cambridge University Press include A Virtuous Circle (), Digital Divide (), Democratic Phoenix (), Rising Tide (with Ronald Inglehart; ), Electoral Engineering (), Sacred and Secular (with Ronald Inglehart; ), and Radical Right (forthcoming). Heather L. Ondercin is a PhD candidate in the Departments of Political Science and Women’s Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include political behavior, specifically the gender gap in partisanship and vote choice, women candidates, and political methodology. Lynda W. Powell is professor of political science at the University of Rochester. She is coauthor of The Financiers of Congressional Elections (Columbia University Press, ), Term Limits in the State Legislatures (University of Michigan Press, ), and Serious Money: Fund-raising and Contributing in Presidential Nomination Campaigns (Cambridge University Press, ). Cindy Simon Rosenthal is an associate director of the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma and Carlisle and Lurleen Mabrey Presidential Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies.
xiv
Contributors
She authored When Women Lead (Oxford University Press, ) and edited Women Transforming Congress (University of Oklahoma Press, ). Her work has appeared in Political Research Quarterly, Policy Studies Journal, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Women & Politics. Jean Reith Schroedel is a professor in the Department of Politics and Policy and the Applied Women’s Studies Program at Claremont Graduate University. Schroedel has written three books: Alone in a Crowd: Women in the Trades Tell Their Stories (Temple University Press, ), Congress, the Presidency and Policy Making: A Historical Analysis (Sharpe, ), and Is the Fetus a Person? A Comparison of Policies across the Fifty States (Cornell University Press, ). In the American Political Science Association awarded her the Victoria Schuck Prize for the fetal policy book. Michele L. Swers is an assistant professor of government at Georgetown University. She is the author of The Difference Women Make: The Policy Impact of Women in Congress (University of Chicago Press, ). Her research has also been published in Legislative Studies Quarterly, Women & Politics, PS: Political Science, and the Japanese Journal of the International Society for Gender Studies as well as the edited volumes Women Transforming Congress; Women and Congress: Running, Winning, and Ruling; and Women and Parliamentary Representation around the World. Katherine Tate is professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. She has a PhD from the University of Michigan. She is the author of the award-winning Black Faces in the Mirror: African Americans and Their Representatives in the U.S. Congress (Princeton University Press, ), a study of how black legislators represent their constituents and what constituents think of their representatives in Washington. She is a nationally known expert on the politics and political behavior of African Americans as well as the politics of race, women, and minority groups. Susan Welch is professor of political science and dean of the College of the Liberal Arts at Pennsylvania State University. Her most recent books are Race and Place (with Lee Sigelman, Michael Combs, and Tim Bledsoe; Cambridge University Press, ), Affirmative Action and Minority Enrollments (with John Gruhl; University of Michigan Press, ), and Women, Elections, and Representation, second edition (with Robert Darcy and Janet Clark; University of Nebraska Press, ). She has published more than articles and is a past editor of American Politics Quarterly.
Contributors
xv
Janelle Wong holds a joint appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and the Program in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Professor Wong is currently working on a manuscript that focuses on the political incorporation of Asian American and Latino immigrants in the United States. She has published articles in Political Behavior, Social Science Quarterly, American Politics Research, and the American Journal of Sociology. With her coauthors Pei-te Lien and M. Margaret Conway, she recently completed The Politics of Asian Americans (Routledge, ). Gina Serignese Woodall is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Arizona State University. She is currently studying gender differences in the reliance on and effectiveness of negative advertising among congressional candidates. Her primary interests are women and politics and congressional campaigns and elections.
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WOMEN and ELECTIVE OFFICE
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Sue Thomas
Introduction
■ In this edition of Women in Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future, we offer updated perspectives on the progress of women candidates and officeholders, their challenges, and prospects for their future in light of their ongoing quest for diverse and balanced political representation. Four themes dominate the chapters in this volume: (1) although women have made progress as candidates and officeholders, they are still vastly underrepresented on the state and federal levels; (2) women make a difference in office: they bring distinctive attitudes and behaviors to legislatures, and real policy differences are the result of their contributions; (3) evidence suggests that the political playing field is not level; rather, women tend to pay a higher cost than men for the same levels of success; and (4) the higher cost and the underrepresentation can be explained, in large part, by the concept of “institutional gendering,” or persistent experiences of discrimination and structures designed to extend male privilege. The fourteen chapters that follow illuminate these themes and speak to the future of equality of political representation. ■
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. — , Politics, book IV, chapter 4 There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives. There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country. — , July 11, 1997 In the first edition of Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future, we asked what progress women had made toward storming statehouses and the national legislature and what impact they made once there. These questions are as relevant today as they were then. Since , the number of women candidates and officeholders has grown, and, as the chapters that follow attest, women have made a considerable difference in political debate and policymaking. And since we first wrote about the topic, several historically significant barriers have been shattered. 3
4
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Perhaps the most notable has been the ascension of Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Until her election in , no woman had ever served in a top leadership position in Congress. The progress women have made in electoral politics has occurred slowly and has been accompanied by significant challenges, some setbacks, and not inconsiderable costs. Still, the story told by the second edition of Women and Elective Office is in many ways a story of triumph. The contributing authors chronicle remarkable achievements made even more noteworthy by the struggles to secure them. It is also, in some ways, a story of the enduring and evolving obstacles to securing full and equal access to and participation in U.S. politics. In this edition, we offer updated perspectives on the progress of women candidates and officeholders, their challenges, and prospects for their future to all those interested in the implications of the ongoing quest for diverse and balanced political representation.
Does Gender Diversity in Elective Office Matter?
The questions that follow are at the heart of Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future. Each is based on the underlying assumption that having women in elective office is an important goal. Why is women’s representation important? Put another way, why are we concerned that women are represented among those who make policy decisions for our government at the local, state, and national levels? As long as elected representatives are aware of and care about the interests of all their constituents, does it matter whether legislatures, governors, and presidents are predominantly male? As the epigraphs that open this introduction suggest, having women in office matters for several reasons. The first concerns democratic legitimacy. A government that is democratically organized cannot be truly legitimate if its citizens from all races and classes and both sexes do not have the opportunity for and potential interest in serving their communities and the nation. Another reason it matters that women hold office concerns political stability. If all citizens are seen to have an equal opportunity to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, there is a greater likelihood that the polity will be stable and that citizens will have a reasonable degree of trust in and support for it. If a society is to be successful and healthy, it makes sense that all points of view and the full range of talent are available for public decision making. Increased competition created by an increased talent pool is one way this can be assured. Augmenting the potential for both sexes to contribute to the public sphere also ensures access to the range of ideas and perspectives. It is important for women to be included among our public officials for symbolic reasons as well. If children grow up seeing women and men in the political sphere, they will be more likely to choose from the full array of options when de-
Introduction
5
ciding to shape their adult lives. Thus, role modeling is important for future generations of citizens. Finally, it is vital for women to have full access to the public sphere because their life experiences differ from men’s. Because our society still operates with divisions of labor in the public and private spheres, women and men tend to have some different life experiences and points of reference. This can translate into a distinctive way of seeing existing political proposals and can lead to different or at least augmented agendas. It is important, then, that women inhabit our legislatures and executive offices so that the concerns with which they are generally more familiar make their way squarely onto policy agendas. For all these reasons, then, it matters very much that women have access to and assume elected positions. The extent to which this has been the case over the course of U.S. history is explored next.
History
Women have opened so many doors marked “Impossible” that I don’t know where we’ll stop. — Although women were not granted national suffrage until , famous suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton ran for Congress in and lost. It was not until fifty years later that Jeanette Rankin of Montana became the first women to win a congressional seat. She served twice, from to and again from to . Rankin was also the only representative to vote against U.S. entry into both World War I and World War II. Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia was the first woman senator. She was appointed in , serving for only one day.1 Ten years later, in , Hattie W. Caraway of Arkansas earned the distinction of becoming the first woman elected to the Senate in a seat to which she was originally appointed. As an indicator of the pace of societal and political change, it wasn’t until that a woman was elected to the Senate without having previously filled an unexpired term. Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas earned that honor. Nine years later, in , Barbara Mikulski of Maryland became the first Democrat to do so (Center for the American Woman and Politics [CAWP] e; Foerstel and Foerstel ). The first women in state legislative politics broke into office earlier than their counterparts on the federal level. In , Clara Cressingham, Carrie Clyde Holly, and Frances S. Klock all earned seats in the Colorado statehouse. Interestingly, their election was due, in part, to a record number of women who went to the polls; percent of eligible women voters turned out compared to percent of the eligible men.2 Foreshadowing a pattern prevalent today, once in office, these three
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
representatives made a priority of legislation related to women, children, and families. Together, they ushered legislation through the statehouse that gave mothers equal rights to their children, raised the age of consent from sixteen to eighteen, and created a home for delinquent girls (Cox ; CAWP d). In , Martha Hughes Cannon, a Democrat from Utah, became the first woman state senator. Women of color gained state legislative office a good deal later. In , Cora Belle Reynolds Anderson (R-MI) was the first Native American woman to win a state House seat. Minnie Buckingham Harper (R) became the first African American woman state representative when she was appointed to the West Virginia House in . One year later, Republican Fedelina Lucero Gallegos and Democrat Porfirria Hidalgo Saiz were elected to the New Mexico House, the first Latinas to storm a statehouse. It was not until , however, that Democrat Patsy Takemoto Mink was elected to the Hawaii Senate as the first Asian American woman in a statehouse. Mink later reprised her historically significant status in the U.S. House of Representatives in (CAWP f ). With respect to elected executive positions, Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming was the first female governor in the nation. She won a special election to succeed her husband and served from to . It was not until fifty years later, however, that the first woman was elected governor in her own right: Ella Grasso guided the state of Connecticut from until . To date, only twenty-seven women have ever served as governor. The record number of women governing simultaneously is nine, which occurred in . With respect to local executive positions, in , Susanna Medora Salter was the first woman elected mayor of a U.S. town, Argonia, Kansas. A full hundred years later, Lottie Shackleford of Little Rock, Arkansas, became the first woman of color to become mayor of a U.S. city. She served from to (CAWP f ). Many readers may not realize that several firsts occurred fairly recently. For example, in , Shirley Chisholm of New York became the first African American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In , Floridian Ileana Ros-Lehtinen became the first Hispanic woman elected to the House. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois was the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, in . And it was only in that Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas became the first woman to chair a major Senate committee. At the executive level, a very famous first was Geraldine Ferraro, who, in , was the first and, to date, the only woman to run for the vice presidency on a major party ticket (CAWP e). The long view gives us these figures: as of this writing, women (fewer than percent of the total number of members of Congress) have served in the U.S. Congress. Twenty-six have been in the Senate and the rest () have served in the House of Representatives. Of these, twenty-nine women of color have served in Congress; only one (Carol Moseley Braun) has ever been elected to the Senate. Of all the women of color in Congress, twenty have been African Ameri-
Introduction
7
can, two were Asian American/Pacific Islander, and seven were Latina. In addition, sitting Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is the first open lesbian in Congress and the only openly lesbian or gay legislator in Congress who was out when elected (CAWP f ). As the foregoing illustrates, women have a long history of breaking barriers to participation and winning electoral office. The next section explores the challenges that have accompanied their paths.
Women as Candidates for Electoral Office: Successes and Challenges
Despite the gains made by women over the course of history, they are vastly underrepresented in elective office compared to their proportion of the U.S. population. As Table I. shows, as of October , women made up . percent of members of Congress, . percent of members of state legislatures, percent of governors, . percent of all statewide executive officeholders, and only percent of mayors of the hundred largest cities in the United States (CAWP c). The contributors of the second edition of Women and Elective Office explore the factors that account for these imbalances. The first wave of scholarly attention to this question uncovered evidence of overt discrimination against women by a variety of sources. It was not uncommon, for example, for early women candidates to experience significant differential treatment at all stages of the electoral process, including lack of backing by political party elites, campaign contributors, and voters. Differential treatment by party elites included conspicuous failures to support candidacies, lack of recruitment, and directing women to seats in which they were sacrificial lambs. Taking their cues from party organizers, campaign contributors were reluctant to back women candidates. Mirroring or perhaps driving disparate treatment of women by those in political power, as Kathleen Dolan explains in chapter , voters, too, exhibited hostility toward female candidates. In the past, substantial percentages of citizens felt that a woman’s place wasn’t in the statehouse or the Congress, and even fewer citizens felt that women should inhabit executive positions (Mandel ; Van Hightower ; Diamond ; Tolchin and Tolchin ; Carroll and Strimling ; Gertzog ). In contrast, the most recent studies of women’s experiences as candidates for elective office suggest that such discrimination has diminished considerably. As explicated in chapter , although it is true that some citizens are still somewhat less supportive of women than of men candidates, the proportions of the population feeling this way have shrunk dramatically. Further, even when such feelings persist, they are often overcome by party loyalty or incumbency status (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Burrell , ; Carroll ; Duerst-Lahti ; Duke
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Table I.1 Women in the U.S Congress and State Legislatures, 1993 – 2004 Women in the U.S. Congress, 1993 – 2004
Year
Number of Women in the House of Representatives
Number of Women in the Senate
Total Number of Women in the U.S. Congress
Women as a Percentage of Congress
103rd
1993 – 1995
47
7
54
10.1
104th
1995 – 1997
48
9
57
10.6
105th
1997 – 1999
54
9
63
11.8
106th
1999 – 2001
56
9
65
12.1
107th
2001 – 2003
60
13
73
13.6
108th
2003 – 2005
60
14
74
13.6
Congress
Women in State Legislatures, 1993 – 2004
Year
Number of Women in State Legislatures
Proportion of Women in State Legislatures (Percentages)
1993
1,524
20.5
1994
1,526
20.6
1995
1,535
20.7
1996
1,546
20.8
1997
1,593
21.5
1998
1,607
21.6
1999
1,664
22.4
2000
1,672
22.5
2001
1,666
22.4
2002
1,680
22.6
2003
1,645
22.3
2004
1,661
22.5
Note: Figures for the 107th Congress include Representative Patsy Mink (D-HI), who died on September 19 before the 2002 elections. None of the figures include nonvoting delegates from Washington, DC; the Virgin Islands; or Guam. Source: The data for this table come from the Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University.
; K. Dolan ). This evidence has impelled party elites to improve their chances of party victories by providing increased opportunities for women candidates (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Burrell ; Carroll ; Duke ; see also Sanbonmatsu a for difference by party). Finally, as Barbara Burrell indicates in chapter , women are now as successful as or more successful than men as campaign fund-raisers at every stage of the process, from early money
Introduction
9
through the general election. The results: whereas women may once have lost seats more often than their male counterparts, that is no longer the case. Women’s share of the vote, controlling for party and incumbency, is now equal to men’s (Duerst-Lahti ; Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Burrell , ; Carroll ; Duke ; Seltzer, Newman, and Voorhees Leighton ). The message is increasingly clear: If women run, they win. The electoral arena is most certainly changing. Because women, in the aggregate, win electoral contests as often as men and because several sources of disparate treatment have been reduced, it is tempting to conclude that the playing field is level. Yet, scholarly exploration of women’s candidacies compared to men’s also suggests that although women can and do win elective office, they are not running in numbers equal to men or at a rate consistent with their participation in the professions that feed politics. The most persistent questions in modern women officeholder scholarship are: What accounts for this pattern? Is systematic inequality at least part of the reason for continuing imbalances? Indeed, the most recent scholarship in this area points to at least three types of disparate costs borne by women candidates: disequilibrium in political opportunities, unequal political treatment, and gender-based sociocultural choices, attitudes, and responsibilities. With respect to inequalities in political opportunity, the historical success rate of incumbents and high-level officeholders seeking reelection means that any newcomer group to politics has a hard time breaking in (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Carroll ; Jacobson ). This is certainly more serious for national than state and local offices, but it is a significant concern at all levels. Low incumbency turnover also may discourage otherwise interested and qualified women from seeking elective office. Electoral structures may also contribute to low proportions of women in office. Research indicates that women have more success in multimember districts than in single-member districts (Welch and Studlar ; Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Matland and Brown ; Rule and Zimmerman ). Theories about why this is true suggest that when voters can make several ballot choices rather than one, they are likely to want to balance and diversify those choices. Because the trend in U.S. politics has long been toward creating single-member districts out of formerly multimember ones, women candidates are rarely in a position to take advantage of the more favorable structure.3 Analysis of the effect of electoral structures is also particularly relevant with respect to female candidates of color. For example, African American women face a number of barriers to access that differ from those of white women legislators. At the state level, structural impediments such as at-large elections, lower levels of registration and voting among black populations than white populations, difficulties financing campaigns, and gerrymandering have been and remain obstacles to greater access (Darling ). In chapter , Lisa García Bedolla, Katherine Tate, and Janelle Wong report that
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
black members of Congress, including black women, have overcome some of these barriers by running in new and existing majority-minority districts created as a result of the Voting Rights Act of and its amendments. Despite reduction in overt discrimination against women candidates by party elites, voters, and fund-raisers, differential treatment of women and men on the campaign trail is still operational. Two areas in which scholars have uncovered evidence of higher costs borne by women candidates are fund-raising efforts and media treatment. In chapter , Barbara Burrell notes that part of the reason women candidates are competitive with men is their reliance on alternative fund-raising sources such as EMILY’s List and WISH List. These organizations were created to overcome the obstacles women encountered raising money throughout the campaign season, especially during the crucial early months of campaigns. The existence and success of EMILY’s List and WISH List has, to a great extent, trained our gaze away from evidence that women still have a harder time raising money from traditional sources and raising large sums. That they can raise amounts equal to men’s does not extinguish the reality that they often have to attract a larger number of individual givers, thus working longer and harder for their campaign war chests (Fox ). In short, the costs of success may be higher for women than for men. Another disproportionate cost of campaigning borne by women is their treatment by the media. As Kim L. Fridkin and Gina Serignese Woodall comprehensively document in chapter , studies of media treatment of women and men on the campaign trail show that women, especially those running for high-level offices such as the U.S. Senate, receive less coverage than men, and when they are covered, it is in a negative fashion. Emphasis is placed on low probabilities of success rather than on issues or candidate appeals. Further, the press is more likely to cover the policy priorities of men (the priorities of both sexes are detailed later) and more likely to highlight the personality traits emphasized by men. Together, fund-raising hurdles and distasteful and detrimental treatment by the media may account for the relatively lower rate of women seeking office (see also Fox ). Disparities in sociocultural choices, attitudes, and responsibilities also translate into a different and unequal playing field for women candidates. The widely examined social eligibility pool (SEP) is one aspect of these inequities. At the heart of the SEP are citizens’ expectations about the background of preferred candidates, including occupational choices, military service, educational accomplishments, and type and number of previous electoral experiences. Not surprisingly, preferred backgrounds are those that still define men’s lives much more than women’s. A recent study conducted by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation found that “voters ‘give men credit for experience outside of public service but don’t give equal credit for women’s comparable private sector experience’” (Pappano ). Additionally, women are still less likely than men to come to office from legal careers and are more likely to have entered politics from community volunteerism or
Introduction
11
P RO F I L E : Patricia Schroeder (and Work and Family) Former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, who retired in 1996 as the longest-serving woman in Congress, readily admits that she was not a “traditional” housekeeper. “In the 1950s when I was in high school, home economics was a required course,” says Schroeder, a Harvard Law graduate, adding, “It was my lowest grade.”1 As one of the first women elected to Congress with young children, Schroeder bore the brunt of performing the difficult juggling act of work and family in full (often critical) public view. In her lively memoir, Schroeder recounts story after story of run-ins with the media over her “family values.” In her earliest run for Congress, a reporter asked how she could be both a member of Congress and a mother, and she generated a firestorm of controversy with her reply: “I have a brain and a uterus, and they both work.”2 She scandalized those seeking conventional domesticity with her unusual gardening practices (involving silk flowers that “bloomed even in the dead of winter”3) and the cooking tips she offered when asked her to submit her favorite recipe: “A Schroeder Breakfast: Find a bowl. If it’s on the floor, wash it because the dog has probably used it. Find some cereal. Hopefully, it will be sugar-coated so you don’t have to go on a scavenger hunt for the sugar. Then get milk from the refrigerator. But it is imperative that you read the spoil date before using. When these items have been located, assemble.”4 By running headfirst into the brick wall of the public’s gender expectations, Schroeder broke through many of the barriers mothers in office used to face. Unfortunately, many remain; the work/family divide (a holdover of the persisting public/private split) continues to structure women’s decisions about what type of public office to seek—and, more fundamentally, whether to run at all. Yet, as Pat Schroeder always answered when asked why she was running as a woman: “What choice do I have?” Written by Shauna Shames 1
Pat Schroeder, 24 Years of Housework . . . and the Place Is Still a Mess (Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel, 1998), 137. 2Ibid., 128. 3 Ibid., 192. 4 Ibid., 191.
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
women’s groups. The ripple effect of these differences may impel women to run less often than they might otherwise and may deter others from encouraging them to do so. Although the effects of the SEP have lessened over time and although women candidates are competitive with men, the differences in these factors point toward differential obstacles to candidacies (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ). One ramification of men’s and women’s different backgrounds and credentials is that rather than seeing a range of qualifications as appropriate for public office, women view themselves as viable candidates less often than men do. The very socialization that impels fewer women to seek out careers in corporate business positions or law firms is the socialization that results in their lower levels of confidence about becoming candidates for political office. Even among those women who are part of the traditionally defined eligibility pool, sex role socialization may play a part in diminished candidacy levels. In two recent studies, Fox, Lawless, and Feeley () and Fox and Lawless () found that, in pools of eligible candidates in New York State and across the nation, women considered running for office less frequently than men. This is due, in part, to the women’s harsher judgments of the quality and depth of their substantive credentials and previous political experience. Even among those with similar levels of experience and achievement, women tended to perceive themselves as less qualified than men to run. Finally, although external support can help wavering potential candidates take the plunge, women were less likely than men to receive that support. Disparities in sociocultural responsibilities may also contribute to women’s greater reluctance to run for elective office. Despite the effects of the modern women’s movement on opening public-sphere opportunities to women, its effects in achieving either institutional accommodation to two-parent workers or reversing millennia of socialization of women’s proper private-sphere roles have been limited. Research across professions shows large and consistent imbalances between women and men in private-sphere responsibilities (Thomas ; Hochschild and Machung ; Holtzman and Williams ; Cooper and Lewis ; Hewlett ). Does this imbalance disproportionately affect women’s willingness to seek elective office? Some evidence suggests the answer is yes. In New York State, among those women who fit in the pool of expected candidates and who have considered running, “traditional family structures and historically socialized gender roles may continue to discourage women from seeking public office” (Fox and Lawless , ). Consequently, the proportion of women in office may be inconsistent with the proportion of those otherwise interested and prepared to serve. In sum, when women run, they win. But playing fields, be they political or private spheres, are not yet equal. Sociocultural obstacles to women’s representational equality are still operational and help account for the low levels of women running for office relative to men and relative to their status in the professions from which politicians typically emerge. To illustrate these points on the aggregate level, in chapter , Heather L. Ondercin and Susan Welch investigate conditions
Introduction
13
under which women are likely to be candidates for and win seats in Congress. They find that, all else being equal, districts with women candidates tend to be those with open-seat opportunities, those outside the South, and those with a history of female candidates and representatives.
Women Officeholders: Their Status, Effectiveness, and Prospects for the Future
Once women achieve elective office, what are their experiences and impact? What challenges and successes do they encounter? What sorts of positions do they hold? As Tables I. and I. indicate, as of October , women hold seventy-four seats in the U.S. Congress (. percent). Fourteen women serve in the Senate, including both California seats (Democrats Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein), both Washington seats (Democrats Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell), and both Maine seats (Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins). These three pairs of women are joined by Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). Sixty women hold House seats, eighteen of whom are women of color, including eleven African Americans and two Latinas.4 With respect to party breakdown, fortyeight women serving in the th Congress are Democrats and twenty-six are Republicans. Women also serve in key leadership positions in the th Congress. The highest position so far achieved by a woman is House minority leader, held by Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). In addition, five other women serve in House leadership roles5 and five women serve in Senate leadership positions (CAWP e). In , . percent of state legislators were women; that is, they held , of the , state legislative positions. In terms of chamber divisions, . percent of state senate seats and . percent of lower chamber slots were held by women. Of all women state legislators, were women of color (. percent); all but seventeen of them were Democrats. African American women made up the largest proportion of women of color in statehouses (). With respect to gender diversity in legislative leadership, in , forty-eight (. percent) leadership positions nationwide were held by women, with three serving as senate presidents and seven serving as senate presidents pro tempore, five as speakers and six as speakers pro tempore of state houses; (. percent) committee chairs across state legislatures in the United States are women (CAWP d). A fair amount of variation in the proportions of women across states has long been evident (CAWP d). Presently, the ten states with the highest percentages of women in statehouses are Washington (.), Colorado (.), Maryland (.), Vermont (.), California (), New Mexico (.), Connecticut (.), Delaware (), Oregon (.), and Nevada (.). The ten states with the lowest
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Table I.2 Women of Color in Legislatures, 1993 – 2004
Year
Number of Women in Congress
Party Breakdown in Congress
Number of Women in State Legislatures
Party Breakdown in State Legislatures
1993
14
13 Democrats 1 Republican
202
196 Democrats 6 Republicans
1994
14
13 Democrats 1 Republican
206
201 Democrats 5 Republicans
1995
15
14 Democrats 1 Republican
221
210 Democrats 9 Republicans 2 Independents
1996
16
15 Democrats 1 Republican
223
211 Democrats 9 Republicans 3 Independents
1997
18
17 Democrats 1 Republican
230
224 Democrats 5 Republicans 1 Independent
1998
18
17 Democrats 1 Republican
232
226 Democrats 5 Republicans 1 Independent
1999
18
17 Democrats 1 Republican
250
241 Democrats 9 Republicans
2000
18
17 Democrats 1 Republican
253
245 Democrats 8 Republicans
2001
20
19 Democrats 1 Republican
267
259 Democrats 8 Republicans
2002
20
19 Democrats 1 Republican
277
268 Democrats 9 Republicans
2003
18
17 Democrats 1 Republican
299
281 Democrats 18 Republicans
2004
18
17 Democrats 1 Republican
305
288 Democrats 17 Republican
Details of 2004: Of the eighteen women of color in Congress in 2004, eleven are African American and seven are Latinas. Together, women of color are 24.3 percent of women members of Congress and 3.4 percent of the total members of the U.S. Congress. Of the 305 women of color in state legislatures, 288 are Democrats and 17 are Republicans. Two hundred and fifteen are African American, twenty-three are Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, fifty-eight are Latinas, and nine are Native Americans. Together, women of color are 18.4 percent of women state legislators and 4.1 percent of state legislators overall. Source: The data for this table come from the Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University.
Introduction
15
percentages of women in statehouses are South Carolina (.), Alabama (), Kentucky (.), Mississippi (.), Oklahoma (.), Pennsylvania (.), Virginia (.), New Jersey (.), South Dakota (.), and Arkansas (.). In chapter , Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox examine the historical and current factors associated with the proportion of women in state legislatures. They find that women are now more likely to be present in legislatures in those states with the strongest eligibility pools (higher levels of professional women and women in the workforce) and the greatest levels of liberal public opinion, Democratic voters, and financial support for women candidates. On the executive level, in , women held . percent of statewide executive offices (eighty women), with nine women as governors. Women were most represented among lieutenant governors, at seventeen positions held. Of elected executives, five women (. percent) were women of color. This constitutes . percent of all statewide elected executive positions. As of June , the most recent date for which data are available, among the one hundred largest U.S. cities in the United States, fourteen had women mayors. One of these is African American; one is Latina. Of cities with populations over ,, thirty-seven had female mayors (. percent). Of these women, four are African American and four are Latinas. In cities with populations of , or more, there were women mayors ( percent; CAWP f ). The comparative perspective offered by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart in chapter shows that, as of this writing, out of nations worldwide, there are only nine women heads of state or government, and fewer than percent of the world’s cabinet ministers and . percent of elected officeholders are women. Although equal levels of representation by and for women is a problem worldwide, Norris and Inglehart show that the highest rates of women in government are generally correlated with high levels of development, secularization, and, especially, egalitarian attitudes toward women. Despite that finding, the United States rates poorly compared to other nations. In chapter , Jean Reith Schroedel and Marcia L. Godwin suggest that the shift in religious adherence in the United States away from liberal Protestant sects toward socially conservative ones accounts for a share of this result.
Women Officeholders: Who Are They?
Beyond the numbers, who are the women officeholders? What are the contours of their public and private lives? What do they seek to achieve while in office, and what is their impact? What challenges do they face based on their status as women, members of a minority of officeholders, and relative newcomers to electoral politics? Answers to these questions come from the legislative level, mostly due to a sufficiency of numbers with which to conduct analysis.
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
To start, women officeholders have tended to come to their positions from somewhat lower levels of education than men; from different, usually less highstatus and high-paying professions; and from less high-status political experiences. For example, men make up a greater portion of legislators who are college graduates and who complete graduate and professional school. They are also more likely to come to legislatures from professional or business/management positions, whereas women are more likely to join legislatures from teaching and social work. With respect to prior political experience, men are more likely than women to have served on city councils or as mayors, whereas women are more likely to have served on school boards (Kirkpatrick ; Diamond ; Carroll and Strimling ; Dodson and Carroll ; K. Dolan and Ford , ; Gertzog , ; van Assendelft and O’Connor ; Thomas a, ; Dodson ; Takash ; García Bedolla, Tate, and Wong in this volume). With at least one exception, these patterns hold true for subgroups of women as well as the whole. For example, Prestage () found that African American women state legislators have become more highly educated than their male counterparts. The private-sphere lives of female and male legislators also reflect genderbased dissimilarity. Legislative women are less likely than men to be married and more likely to be childless. Of those legislators with children, women tend to have fewer offspring than men. Further, delayed entry due to child rearing is notably more common for women (E. Werner , ; Kirkpatrick ; Githens ; Mezey ; Carroll , ; Carroll and Strimling ; Dodson ; Dodson and Carroll ; K. Dolan and Ford ). Many of the patterns found among women as a whole are equally, if not more, prevalent among women of color. For example, Takash () reports that the tension between family responsibilities and political service is especially serious for Latinas with political aspirations. Further, García Bedolla, Tate, and Wong (in this volume) found that fewer black women members of Congress are married than their black male counterparts or white women and men. Fewer than half of the Latinas in the th Congress have children. If women’s educational and occupational opportunities and choices differ from men’s, does it follow that women have diminished levels of political ambition compared to men? This was once the case (Costantini ; Stoper ; Sapiro and Farah ; Githens ; Gertzog ), but among current legislative women in general, and among African American women, gender-based ambition level differentials have all but disappeared (Carroll , ; Prestage ; Carey, Niemi, and Powell ; Bledsoe and Herring ; Palmer and Simon ; García Bedolla, Tate, and Wong in this volume). Indeed, as Michael J. Epstein, Richard G. Niemi, and Lynda W. Powell make clear in chapter , women are more likely than men to display “careerism.” It appears that social inequities have constrained individual choices and societal opportunities, but they have not dampened women’s interest in politics or their ambition to contribute to the
Introduction
17
public sphere. Indeed, K. Dolan and Ford () discovered that differences in ambition among women are related in the expected direction to age, the presence of minor children, intentional political careers, and previous officeholding. This is indicative of the juxtaposition of interest and ambition, on the one hand, and opportunity on the other.
Legislative Women: What Has Been Their Impact?
For approximately thirty years, scholarly investigation into whether women officeholders have made a distinctive impact on public policy and political representation has revealed that, on a variety of indicators, the answer is yes. Moreover, women’s contributions can be felt throughout the legislative process and in an array of representational activities. A foundational set of indicators of women officeholders’ distinctive orientation is their political perspectives and stances. A multitude of evidence shows that women representatives tend to be more liberal than men and more supportive of women’s issues, defined either traditionally or from a feminist perspective (Diamond ; M. Johnson and Carroll ; Dodson and Carroll ; Dodson ; Thomas , a; Barrett ; J. Dolan ; Carey, Niemi, and Powell ; Poggione a; Epstein, Niemi, and Powell in this volume). These trends hold across party and ideology, yet differences among women are also evident. For example, with respect to race, Barrett () concludes that African American women officeholders are more liberal than either white women or men. Party also matters—especially recently. Mirroring the more conservative trend in U.S. politics beginning in the mid-s, Carroll () found that, while women in state legislatures in were more liberal than men, Republican women were more conservative and more like their male counterparts than they were in the s. In chapter , Debra L. Dodson illuminates the perspectives of female Republican members of Congress elected in the aftermath of the “Republican Revolution” ushered in by Representative Newt Gingrich. Her point that party and ideology, not just gender, matter is echoed in Kathleen Dolan and Lynne Ford’s () chapter in the first edition of Women and Elective Office. They found differences between women state legislators who self-identify as feminists or nonfeminists. In their study, feminists were more likely to () include women’s issues among their priorities; () identify personal autonomy issues (such as physical abuse, reproductive rights, health care, child support, and balancing career and family) as among the greatest challenges facing modern women; and () engage in mentoring behaviors to encourage other women to enter and succeed in political careers. Another way in which women’s distinctive ideology and attitudes are exhibited in their representational roles is the extent and focus of their constituency service. Studies of the topic show that legislative women put more energy into
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
constituency work than men do, and they are especially attentive to women constituents in their districts or states and beyond (Diamond ; Thomas , a; Richardson and Freeman ; Carey, Niemi, and Powell ; Reingold ; Carroll ; Epstein, Niemi, and Powell in this volume). These efforts are shared across groups of women legislators. For example, Takash () and Prindeville and Gomez () find, respectively, that Latinas and American Indian women pay particular attention to women in their constituencies. Providing constituency service and focusing attention on women constituents is one aspect of representational roles. The aspect that tends to garner the greatest amount of research focus is lawmaking itself. If women’s ideological proclivities or issue positions are to be translated into policy, female representatives must be active and fully participatory at every stage of the legislative process. Research studies suggest that they are. At both the state and federal levels, women are as active as men in bill introduction, committee work, legislative bargaining, and floor presentations (Blair and Stanley a, b; Friedman ; Thomas a; Norton ; Tamerius ; K. Dolan and Ford ; Shogan ; Wolbrecht ; Swers ). García Bedolla, Tate, and Wong in chapter provide concrete examples of participation by congressional women of color at various stages of the legislative process. How do political preferences and legislative participation translate into distinctive policy influence and success? Priorities must first be created that are aligned with preferences. The good news is that numerous scholars have documented that although women legislators’ interests span issue areas, they are more likely than men to make priorities of women’s interest legislation (Saint-Germain ; Thomas a; Dodson and Carroll ; Vega and Firestone ; Tamerius ; Dodson , ; K. Dolan and Ford , ; Swers ; Bratton and Haynie ). Studies concentrated on additional aspects of the process also indicate that women’s priorities are pursued systematically, continuously, and successfully. The first step in the process of policymaking is shaping the agenda. Women’s contributions here have been twofold. First, as stated above, women are more likely than men to introduce legislation on women’s interest areas. Second, women are central to agenda expansion. Whether by bringing previously private-sphere issues to public agendas (such as domestic violence), transforming issues long hidden from public view from whispered conversations to public crimes (such as sexual harassment), or expanding the education of men and influencing their policy choices on topics with which they are unfamiliar (such as funding for research on breast cancer), women have made strides in creating space for public consideration of issues that, in an earlier time, were hidden from public view (Levy, Tien, and Aved ; Kedrowski and Sarow ; Walsh ; Norton ; Thomas a; J. Dolan ; Dodson ).
Introduction
19
Scholarly research has also increasingly been focused on women’s impact on committee review of legislative proposals, floor debate and floor amendment activity, and voting choices. The most prolific research in these categories has analyzed differences between women’s and men’s roll call voting records. Results indicate that women’s support for women’s issues is greater than their male counterparts’, even when taking party and ideology into account (Frankovic ; Welch ; Saint-Germain ; Thomas , a; Norton , ; J. Dolan ; Vega and Firestone ; Tamerius ; Clark ; Dodson ; Swers ; but see Barnello ). As in the case of gender differences in political ideology and attitudes, differences in voting behavior exist among women. For example, Clark () found that the replacement of Democratic women in the House of Representatives in the rd Congress with Republican women diminished the degree of difference between the voting records of women and men on issues of women, children, and the family, but the difference persisted. Beyond voting behavior, the most detailed and extensive study available on women legislators’ propensity to advocate for women’s issues is profiled in chapter of this volume. Michele L. Swers and Carin Larson offer compelling evidence that female members of Congress have been more likely than men to advocate for women’s issues bills, particularly feminist bills, throughout the legislative process. The prevailing political environment, such as the Democrat-controlled rd Congress compared to the Republican-controlled th, affects the extent to which women demonstrate their support, but changing political winds have not eradicated that support. In sum, whether it is bill introduction, committee mark-up, floor scheduling, or floor action, women are instrumental at all stages of the process, and their energy, effort, and effectiveness are clear. In chapter , Lyn Kathlene offers deeper insight into the antecedents of women’s distinctive approach to policymaking and the results of applying this approach to specific policy problems. She finds that, in addition to introducing and successfully supporting legislation of interest to women, children, and families, women officeholders may bring a new dimension to policymaking itself. In Kathlene’s study, female representatives were more likely than their male counterparts to conceptualize public policy problems broadly and, as a result, seek different types of solutions. The example reported in chapter concerns crime. Whereas male officeholders tended to view the problem as one of individual flouting of legal mandates, female representatives were more likely to search for societal antecedents of criminal activity. Hence, women’s legislation is more likely than men’s to address the roots of the problem rather than its most recent symptoms. With the abundance of evidence of women’s distinctive impact, scholars have increasingly concentrated attention on the conditions under which that impact will be most potent. One set of questions relates to theories of critical mass. That
20
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
is, are women more likely to have an impact or a stronger impact in legislatures with higher proportions of women? The evidence is somewhat mixed. Some studies show that the presence of either a formal women’s legislative caucus or a relatively high percentage of women in the legislature is associated with higher rates of bill introduction or passage on issues of women, children, and families or higher level of policy output on a variety of women’s issues (Thomas a; Hansen ; Berkman and O’Connor ; Crowley ; Poggione a). However, other studies find little or no difference (Tolbert and Steuernagel ; Reingold ; Bratton ). Part of the discrepancy across research findings is attributable to differences in the number of states, time periods, research designs, and issue areas under study. It may also be that women’s impact is mediated by institutional circumstances, such as level of majority party control, extent to which committees operate independently, and the level of professionalism of the legislature (see especially Poggione a). Whatever the full answer, in light of women’s still small proportions in most legislatures, it is important for research of this kind to continue so that a fuller understanding of the circumstances surrounding women’s impact becomes available.6 Another set of influences women can bring to their representation roles is as legislative leaders. As women have moved increasingly into committee and institutional leadership positions, questions have arisen about their styles and priorities. Scholars have uncovered evidence that women leaders are more likely than their male counterparts to share power rather than using power to dominate their domains. For example, Whicker and Jewell () found that women at all levels of state legislative leadership, more than men, exhibit a consensus rather than a command and control style. Furthermore, despite the gender differences, it is the consensus style that is prevalent in legislatures across the country, suggesting that women’s style of leadership is preferred. Similarly, in chapter , Kathlene reports that female committee chairs in Colorado were more likely to facilitate open discussions among hearing participants, whereas men were more likely to use their position to control hearings. These behaviors persist among subgroups of women. For example, women tribal leaders on American Indian reservations have been found to be inclusive managers who are more likely than men to compromise (Prindeville and Gomez ).7 Demonstrating that women’s leadership styles include effective goal setting, in chapter , Cindy Simon Rosenthal reports her findings concerning women’s task orientations. Analyzing a mail survey, focus groups, and individual interviews with committee chairpersons in state legislatures, she found that women were more task-oriented than men. While they did not slight interpersonal skills, female chairpersons perceived themselves as harder-working and more focused on accomplishing goals than their male counterparts. Rosenthal suggests that this task orientation is one way women can overcome marginalization they experience in male-dominated political environments.
Introduction
21
As members, as leaders, as public advocates and behind-the-scenes influences, women in state and federal legislatures have made a policy difference. The next section assesses the degree of difficulty of this task.
Legislative Women: What Are Their Challenges?
Thirty years of research into gendered legislative activity has confirmed that, with few exceptions, women make a difference legislatively, from agenda creation and definition through policy modification to policy outcomes. And yet, women’s still small numbers relative to men raises questions about their paths to success. Do women officeholders face distinctive challenges in their work? As is the case with women candidates, is the playing field level? Do women bear disproportionate costs for success? What are the consequences of any differences? Scholarly investigation into these questions indicates that once women win electoral contests, they navigate different and more difficult paths to legislative success. The first inequality women face concerns experiencing discriminatory treatment in the conduct of their business. Early women legislators consistently reported differential treatment based on sex (Mandel ; Diamond ; Tolchin and Tolchin ; Carroll and Strimling ; Gertzog ). To achieve the same level of success as men and to be perceived as effective and credible, they had to produce more, display more patience, pay greater attention to detail, and deliver higher levels of preparation for daily tasks.8 And the political arena has not changed as much as might be expected. For example, a recent study of women and men state legislators asked an open-ended question about benefits and hurdles experienced in careers. Fully one quarter of legislative women responded by introducing discussions of discrimination; no men responded similarly (Thomas ). Additionally, the available literature on within-group analysis strongly indicates that gender-based discrimination is intensified for women of color. As García Bedolla, Tate, and Wong articulate in chapter , isolation beyond that experienced by white women or men of color makes the experience of atmospheric discrimination doubly palpable (see also Cohen ). As Gill (, ) notes, “Not only would their [African American women legislators’] efforts not be rewarded, but their invisibility would result from a country that viewed African American progress as male and feminist progress as white. Theirs had been the struggle within the struggle.” Evidence of disparate costs borne by women for legislative participation and effectiveness is also available from female representatives’ analyses and critiques of legislative operations. Women officeholders have consistently reported feeling out of sync with routine operations. In particular, women operationalize power less as “power over” and more as “power to” (Cantor and Bernay ). They envision a standard under which influence is used for responsiveness to colleagues
22
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
and constituents rather than for personal gain. Specific examples of the type of structure under which women feel they can achieve optimal effectiveness are available from interviews of state legislators (Thomas a). Responses revealed that women emphasized long-range planning, considered the views of others equally with their own, and looked out for what is good for their constituencies rather than just their own self-interest. In this volume, Epstein, Niemi, and Powell find that women state legislators report that they spend more time than men keeping in touch with constituents, helping constituents solve their problems, and coalition building. These orientations are interpreted as conducive to cooperation. It may also be that Fridkin and Woodall’s findings in chapter that men take more credit in press releases than women for favorable policy outcomes and are more likely to blame others for policy favors are indicative of gendered approaches to power. Persistent experiences of atmospheric discrimination and structures suggest that the higher costs of women’s success may be systemic. A leading theoretical perspective to emerge from recent research on legislative women concerns the impact of gendered institutions on women’s participation and effectiveness. As both Georgia Duerst-Lahti (chapter ) and Debra L. Dodson (chapter ) illustrate, gender adheres not just to individuals but also to the organizations and institutions to which they belong. Those structures and behaviors that conform to the gendered expectations (the male norm) of the institution—in this case, legislatures—are rewarded. Further, to the extent that women’s preferences are distinctive, they are likely to be devalued and attenuated (Duerst-Lahti a, b; Kathlene , ; Kenney ). As Duerst-Lahti (b, ) explains: [Analysis of gendered institutions] can turn the gaze toward the institution itself if formal and informal structures, practices, norms, rules tenaciously block congresswomen’s desired policy outcomes. Because sometimes women and men do have different policy preferences, cite different life experiences based upon gender, or different assumptions about appropriate behaviors, rules, and practices, institutions predicated upon masculinity are not as responsive to women as to men. Masculine ideology functions as a cultural system that curtails women’s capacity to represent. . . . Thus, even when women win a place in the institution, they remain outsiders. In chapter , Kathlene illustrates the application of these concepts. She found that legislative women were more likely than men to be contextual in their political outlook (the perception that people’s lives are interdependent, based on a continuous web of relationships). Men were more likely to be instrumental (seeing people as autonomous individuals in a hierarchical, competitive world). Consequently, when formulating policy solutions, legislative women relied on differ-
Introduction
23
ent and more sources of information and created prescriptions that reflected not just an individual aberrant action, but also the impact of societal opportunities and lifelong experiences. The complexity of their legislative proposals and their contextual nature also meant lower success rates for bill passage. As Kathlene notes, women’s approach was “at odds with the instrumental institutionalized discourse” that devalued or marginalized contextualism in legislative institutions. The costs of institutional gendering may also extend to the relatively recent phenomenon of women’s stagnant levels of representation. As illustrated by Schroedel and Godwin in chapter , after more than twenty-five years of incremental progress elevating the proportion of women in legislatures, a plateau has been reached. For the first time since the late s, the two most recent full electoral cycles concluded without gains for women. As Tables I. and I. show, both the and state legislative election cycles produced fewer women than previously, and the congressional election resulted in no increase whatever from the th Congress. And the number of women of color in Congress declined with the elections. This plateau is due to the drop-off in the number of women running for office rather than an increase in losses among women candidates.9 Says Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, “It’s been a story of stagnation. . . . Women have barely held their early s gains in Congress” (Women’s enews ). The extent to which this circumstance will continue is unclear. The off-year state-level elections in some states such as New Jersey and Virginia resulted in a slight rise in women’s numbers is state legislatures. The nationwide electoral cycle will provide a better indicator of the extent to which this stagnation will persist and whether the disproportionate cost for success required of women candidates is likely to have a deep and enduring effect on women’s desire to serve in elective office. The precise mechanisms and full consequences of institutional gendering are still being discovered by researchers and, indeed, by women officeholders. That reversal is necessary for equality of political contribution is uncontested. Hence, the lingering issue for current and future political women is how to reverse institutionally systemic gendering. A conventional answer is to increase the proportions of women in legislatures beyond critical mass levels to full parity. However, as Duerst-Lahti, Kathlene, and Dodson all assert, although increasing the number of women in office and reaping the benefits of collectivization in the form of caucuses and coalitions are necessary conditions to transforming institutions, they may not be sufficient in themselves. Duerst-Lahti (b, ) concludes, “The preferences of women, therefore, must receive the full attention of the institution.” In other words, routine operations have to be reconceptualized; business as usual has to be transformed.10 Indeed, authors Norris and Inglehart (chapter ) and Schroedel and Godwin (chapter ) explore some of the ways transformation might proceed.
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Conclusion
Is gender diversity important in elective office? Do women make a difference? The answer to those questions, as was the case in the first edition of Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future, is still an emphatic yes. That women have made meaningful and lasting contributions to policymaking and have done so in an environment created without their input or perspectives in mind, an environment that is gendered and racially biased, is all the more remarkable. Do women candidates and officeholders have more to accomplish in the future and more challenges to face? Again, the answer is yes. As Aristotle asserted in the fourth century, liberty and equality depend upon it.
NOTES
. Representative Felton was a temporary successor to her husband, who had died during his term of office. . Although not securing federal suffrage until , women in some states could vote in elections at the state and local levels prior to that time. . Research also shows that multimember districts are more conducive than singlemember districts to the election of minority candidates. Hence, choices about electoral structure affect diversity on several fronts. . Three women serve as nonvoting delegates to Congress (from the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin Islands). . Five women serve in House leadership roles: Barbara Cubin (R-WY) is secretary of the Republican Conference, Rosa De Lauro (D-CT) is cochair of the House Democratic Steering Committee, Deborah Pryce (R-OH) serves as chair of the House Republican Conference, and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) are chief deputy whips for their party. Five women also hold Senate leadership positions. For the Democrats, Barbara Boxer (CA) is the chief deputy for strategic outreach, Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) is chair of the Democratic Senate Steering and Coordination Committee, Barbara Mikulski (MD) is secretary of the Democratic Conference, and Debbie Stabenow (MI) is vice chair of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. For the Republicans, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas is vice chair of the Senate Republican Conference. Two women, both Republicans and both in the Senate, serve as committee chairs: Susan Collins of Maine is the chair of the Committee on Governmental Affairs and Olympia Snowe, also of Maine, chairs the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship (CAWP e). . Legislative women appear to subscribe to theories of critical mass. They spend considerable time and effort recruiting and training women candidates, fund-raising to increase their chances of success, and mentoring women who are elected (Thomas a, ; Gierzynski and Burdreck ; K. Dolan and Ford ). . Women currently hold committee chair positions in proportion to their representation in state legislatures (Carroll a; Thomas a; Whistler and Ellickson
Introduction
25
; Rosenthal ; Whicker and Jewell ). Evidence also suggests that women are represented across the board on committees in the U.S. Congress (Friedman ; Arnold and King ). . These perceptions hold true regardless of party identification, ideology, or region from which women are elected (Githens ; Main, Gryski, and Schapiro ; Diamond ; Dodson and Carroll ; M. Johnson and Carroll ; Kirkpatrick ; Reingold ; Thomas a, ). . Term limits have exacerbated this trend. Carroll and Jenkins () found that the interaction of term limits on seats held by women and the drop-off in the number of women running for office results in fewer women in the lower chambers of statehouses. . An underexplored but related analysis concerns the ways race privilege is embedded in institutional foundations. The intersection of race and gender must be centrally located in future study of institutional constraints.
1
Barbara Burrell
Campaign Financing Women’s Experience in the Modern Era
■ Women’s underrepresentation has impelled scholars to investigate factors to explain its persistence. In the past, evidence has pointed to unequal access to fund-raising for political candidacies. Barbara Burrell asks whether this pattern holds true today. Using data from primary and general elections for Congress, she demonstrates that, controlling for a host of factors, including party and the type of race (incumbent, challenger, or open seat), in the aggregate, women raise as much money as men do. Not only that, but they win as often as their male counterparts. Thus, the challenge of the new century is to persuade women who are considering a run for office that they can raise enough money and they can win. ■
Money is central to campaigns for public office. Substantial amounts are necessary to mount credible campaigns for national office. To run a competitive campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives, for example, political scientists estimate that nonincumbent candidates generally must raise at least $, (Webster et al. , .) In the electoral cycle, on average, challengers only raised less than $, —but incumbents brought in nearly $, (www.opensecrets .org). Not surprisingly, in that election, percent of incumbents won reelection, which is fairly typical in contemporary elections. As this chapter shows, in the modern era, women candidates, incumbents and nonincumbents, tend to be as successful fund-raisers as their male counterparts, and they are victorious candidates in equal proportion to men. Conventional wisdom about women’s campaigns for public office has been that women have greater difficulty than men raising money. They were, therefore, often seen as less viable candidates for office. A article in Roll Call argued, “A lack of funding still remains the most challenging obstacle for women candidates” (Whittington ). However, empirical comparisons of the fund-raising efforts of male and female candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and for state legislative office show that, by the early s, women had achieved equality with men in raising funds to finance their campaigns. In this chapter, I update the research on the financing of men’s and women’s campaigns for the 26
Campaign Financing
27
U.S. House of Representatives at the beginning of the twenty-first century. After a brief historical examination of women’s recent fund-raising experiences, I focus primarily on the records of male and female candidates in the election for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Women’s Fund-raising Success in the Modern Era
The modern history of campaign finance and the experiences of women running for the U.S. House of Representatives reveal three major eras (Burrell ). In the first era, the small group of female major party nominees (thirty-two candidates) in contested U.S. House races in raised and spent less money than did male nominees. As their presence in elections expanded from the to the elections, female nominees raised and spent approximately three-quarters of what male contenders acquired and spent. In the middle period, from to , women achieved near equality with men in the financing of their campaigns. In the election cycle, a major breakthrough occurred when female nominees raised and spent greater average amounts of money than did male nominees. In fact, they raised percent of the amounts raised by male candidates. In , female nominees raised percent and spent percent of the amounts men raised and spent. In , women raised percent and spent percent of men’s totals (Burrell ; see also Fox for analysis of California congressional campaigns in and and B. Werner for state legislative campaign analysis). Because of their historical impact, it is illuminating to further examine the data for two election cycles within this period: and . The media dubbed the cycle the “Year of the Woman.” In that year, a confluence of factors generated an unusually large number of open seats and a receptive environment for women’s candidacies. The decennial redistricting process, an anti-incumbency mood among the electorate, a record number of congressional retirements, the national focus on domestic issues, the House banking and post office scandal, and Anita Hill’s testimony at hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court put newcomers, outsiders, and domestic policy experts (which, as Kathleen Dolan shows in this volume, benefits women) at an advantage (Cook, Thomas, and Wilcox ). A record women filed as candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, and women increased their numbers in the House from twenty-nine to forty-seven members, or from . percent to . percent. In addition, four new women were elected to the U.S. Senate. Almost all of the women who won new seats in the House and the four new women senators were Democrats. Most of the Republican women who sought to win an open seat or to unseat an incumbent in the House or Senate were defeated. The positive climate for women candidates that characterized the elections did not extend to the midterm elections. Voter anger at Democratic
28
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
policymakers was widely credited for giving control of Congress to the Republicans for the first time in forty years. This anger was perceived to be greatest among men; the media dubbed the ’ cycle the “Year of the Angry White Male.” Women’s numbers in Congress remained stable, but eight of the twenty-three female Democratic incumbents running for reelection were defeated. Three Republican women defeated Democratic incumbents, and four others won open seats. Most central to this analysis, women’s fund-raising success relative to men’s did survive this less hospitable electoral climate. In , women entered primary elections for the U.S. House: Democrats and Republicans. Even in the more negative climate, women candidates sustained their ability to finance their campaigns at the same level as male candidates. Women major party nominees slightly outpaced their male counterparts in the financing of their campaigns. Women nominees with a major party opponent raised an average of $, as a group compared with $, that male nominees raised. Women incumbents, women challengers, and women open-seat nominees all did better than men in those groups. Female Democratic nominees raised more than male Democratic nominees in each status category, and female Republican challengers and openseat nominees bested their male counterparts (Burrell ). Between and , the number of women candidates for the House and Senate did not increase, in part due to a dearth of winnable opportunities for newcomers. The number of women filing as candidates for the House has never equaled the women who ran in . In that year, women also won twentytwo open seats, whereas their successes since then have been in the single digits in each election. This suggests that although women during the modern era have proven themselves to be capable fund-raisers, to improve their numbers in legislatures opportunities must be available and women must be prepared to seize the moment when it arises.
Updating the Analysis of Financing of Women’s Campaigns: The 2002 Elections
The U.S. House of Representatives elections are particularly constructive for analyzing women’s candidacies for national office and to examine in some depth whether the trend toward financial equality has continued for women candidates. The elections occurred one decade after the Year of the Woman. It was again a redistricting election, following the Census. Unlike , however, few seats were open and few were competitive. In the election, forty-five of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives were open; that is, they did not have an incumbent running for reelection. These open seats consisted of twelve new districts created as a result of redistricting1 and an additional thirty-two seats in which incumbents either retired or sought other offices.
Campaign Financing
29
In four additional districts, incumbents were defeated in a primary election. In the general election, then, forty-nine districts had open seats. Because incumbents are typically overwhelmingly advantaged when they run for reelection, it is these open seats that provide the greatest opportunity for underrepresented groups to increase their numbers in the legislative body. The election environment also had a different policy focus from ’s. This was the first electoral cycle following the terrorist attacks of September , . As Jean Reith Schroedel and Marcia L. Godwin discuss in the concluding chapter of this volume, the focus on national security and military engagement around the world played into voters’ views that men are more competent than women on national defense and security. And, indeed, the election was perceived by the media and political professionals as challenging and full of risk for women candidates. In a Boston Globe opinion piece, Cathy Young (, A) noted, “At first glance, definitely does not look like the year of the woman in politics. So-called ‘women’s issues,’ domestic and family-oriented, were virtually nonexistent in this campaign, which revolved heavily around national security and the war against terrorism—though surely these issues affect women as much as men.” Republican pollster Linda DiVall and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake also chimed in on the problem for women candidates in . According to DiVall, “In these times, it will be difficult to win unless you can show decisiveness, effectiveness, and the ability to get the job done. There is a gender problem there—it is still where women are the most wanting” (quoted in Leonard , A). Lake commented, “Definitely a lot of women who were thinking about running see a tougher environment now. It’s already a risk to elect women and there is going to be less risk-taking” (quoted in Leonard , A). As Sue Thomas highlights in the introduction to this volume, women made no overall gains in Congress in the elections. After the election, however, the number of women senators increased from thirteen to fourteen when Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was appointed to the unexpired U.S. Senate term of her father, who relinquished his seat to run for governor of Alaska. Among individual women’s successes was the election to the Senate of the former secretary of transportation and secretary of labor, Elizabeth Dole, from North Carolina. A highprofile new member of the U.S. House of Representatives as a result of the cycle was Katherine Harris of Florida. Harris achieved national attention as the Florida secretary of state during the presidential election dispute over Florida vote counts. What is behind the electoral results? How many women candidates entered the fray? What sort of fund-raising records did they amass? According to records compiled by the Center for the American Woman and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University and the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), women were candidates for U.S. representative in . Figure . shows the status of these women who entered primary contests for a seat in the U.S. House of Represen-
30
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE 50 40
Number
40
38
36
35 31
30
30 22
20
17 17
15 8
10
7
6 1
0
R ep
In c C ha lle ng R er ep s C ha lle ng er s D em O pe n R ep O pe n D em In c C ha ll. R ep In c C ha ll.
2
D em
D em
In c
0
Candidates
Winner
Figure 1.1. Women candidates and primary winners, U.S. House of Representatives, 2002.
tatives. The candidacies included fifty-seven of the sixty incumbent women members of the House; three incumbents retired. Two incumbents lost in their party’s primary and so were not on the general election ballot. One was Michigan Democratic Representative Lynn Rivers, who was put into the same district as long-time incumbent Democrat John Dingell as a result of redistricting; Dingell defeated Rivers in the primary. Cynthia McKinney, Democrat from Georgia, lost to a female challenger in her party’s primary. Four male incumbents also lost primary contests. Two of the incumbent women lost in the general election: Florida Democrat Karen Thurman lost to Republican challenger Ginny Brown-Waite in a substantially redrawn district, and Maryland Republican Connie Morella lost to Democratic challenger Chris Van Hollen. This district was one of the nation’s most liberal districts represented by a Republican, and although Morella had a progressive voting record and support from many women’s groups, the ideology of the district finally defeated her. Five male incumbents also lost their general election bids, two of whom lost to other incumbents. In , women ran in only thirteen of the forty-five Republican open-seat primaries ( percent). Women ran in seventeen of the Democratic open-seat primaries ( percent). Thus, voters had the opportunity to choose a woman as their party’s standard-bearer in fewer than half of these most opportune situations. Primaries have been viewed as particularly problematic for Republican women candidates (Matland and King ), but in , though their numbers were much lower than their Democratic counterparts’, as indicated above, their success rate was higher. For comparison, in , women were contenders in percent of the Democratic Party’s open-seat primaries, while Republican women ran in only percent of their party’s primaries. In , the presence of women in the Democratic open-seat primaries declined, while the Republican women increased their
Campaign Financing
31
presence. In both parties, voters had an opportunity to choose a woman in fewer than half of these contests: percent for the Democrats and percent for the Republicans. As Figure . indicates, percent of the Republican women in open-seat races were successful, as were percent of the Democratic women. In considering women’s presence in open-seat primaries, we need to take into account the strategic nature of their candidacies. Even though open seats provide the key opportunities for newcomers, both parties’ would-be representatives need to consider the partisan nature of the district. If we use a conservative definition of a party-dominated seat as one in which a candidate wins with over percent of the vote, then thirteen of the forty-six open seats were Republican-dominated in . Women were candidates in only two of those primaries. Democrats dominated at such a level in only two of the districts. Two women entered one of those primaries, but neither was successful. How did women candidates do in the general election? What role did fund-raising success play in these results? The monetary context of the election includes individual candidates’ fundraising efforts plus their own contributions, political party contributions, and political action committee (PAC) contributions. According to FEC () records, all general election candidates for the U.S. House and Senate spent a total of $. million between January , , and November , .2 House candidates raised $. million and spent $. million. Federal candidates received nearly $ million in PAC money and $ million in contributions and coordinated expenditures from party committees: $. million for Republican committees and $. million for Democratic Party committees. As a group, women general election candidates with major party opponents raised more money on average than did male candidates, $, versus $,, nearly double what was reported for the election. However, if we examine median amounts raised, more than half of the male candidates had war chests of $, or more, while half of the female candidates had war chests of only $, or more (Figure .).3 When examining these figures, one needs to keep in mind that they include monies raised by the parties’ leadership that are not used in the leaders’ own campaigns, but distributed to other party candidates in competitive races. These amounts include nearly $ million raised by Democratic Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and nearly $ million raised by Republican Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert, both of whom had only token opposition in their own reelection contests. To understand the meaning of aggregate totals, it is important to take the type of candidate into account. Figures . and . break down the average receipts of incumbents, incumbents in contested races, general election challengers to incumbents, and open-seat candidates by sex and by party. As Figure . shows, women candidates in all candidate status groups had higher receipts on average (using both means and medians) than their male counterparts. On average, openseat candidates had higher receipts than candidates in any other group.
32
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
$900,000 $800,000 $700,000 $600,000 $500,000 $400,000 $300,000 $200,000 $100,000 0 Median
Mean
Female Candidates (120)
Male Candidates (594)
Figure 1.2. Mean and median receipts by gender, general election candidates, U.S. House of Representatives, 2002.
With one exception, the female advantage across candidate status groups holds when comparisons are examined by party (Figure .). Only Republican female open-seat candidates had substantially lower median receipts than their male counterparts. At the individual candidate level, women were twelve ( percent) of the top fifty general election candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives in receipts, $1,400,000 $1,200,000 $1,000,000 $800,000 $600,000 $400,000 $200,000
Men
n ia
n M
tM
Se at
Se a
n
n O pe
O pe
ed
ea
n ia
n M
M er
ng er
lle
ng C
ha
ha lle C
ed
ea
n ia
n
ed
ea nt
nt
be
be
m
m st
ed
In cu
cu In ed st
te
te C
on
on C
M
M
ed tM
be n
m In cu
In
cu
m
be nt
M
ea
ia
n
n
$0
Women
Figure 1.3. Average receipts by candidate status and gender, 2002 general election.
Campaign Financing
33
$1,800,000 $1,600,000 $1,400,000 $1,200,000 $1,000,000 $800,000 $600,000 $400,000 $200,000 D In em cu o m cra be ti nt c s R e In p cu ub m lic be an nt s D C em ha o lle cr ng ati er c s R C ep ha u lle blic ng a er n s D e O m pe o n cra Se ti at c s R O ep pe u n blic Se a at n s
$0
Male
Female
Figure 1.4. Median receipts by party, status, and gender, 2002 contested races.
led by Democrat Martha Clark running in the open seat in New Hampshire’s first district. PAC and Party Contributions
Women were eight of the top fifty general election contenders in in obtaining PAC contributions, or percent of the top fifty, slightly higher than their percentage in the House. They were all incumbents. Republican incumbent Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, facing Democratic incumbent James Maloney for a redistricted seat, brought in the second highest amount of PAC money ($,,) of the top fifty. She ended up winning with percent of the vote. As Figure . shows, incumbents had higher median PAC contributions than challengers and higher PAC contributions than open-seat contenders in some cases. Republican female incumbents stand out in terms of the substantially greater average contributions they received from PACs than any other group, having a median amount of nearly $,. In addition to Johnson, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia faced Democratic millionaire James Humphreys, who financed his campaign with nearly $ million of his own funds. Capito raised $,, in PAC money. In a losing election, Connie Morella of Maryland raised $,,. Democratic female open-seat candidates did slightly better on average than their Democratic male counterparts, but Republican male incumbents outpaced their female counterparts. Republican female open-seat contenders were much less successful in attracting PAC money than their male counterparts, while Democratic female open-seat contenders slightly outpaced their male counterparts.
34
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE $800,000 $700,000 $600,000 $500,000 $400,000 $300,000 $200,000 $100,000 D In em cu o m cra be ti nt c s R e In p cu ub m lic be an nt s D C em ha o lle cr ng ati er c s R e C p ha u lle blic ng a er n s D O em pe o n cra Se ti at c s R O ep pe u n blic Se a at n s
$0
Men
Women
Figure 1.5. Median PAC contributions by party, candidate status, and gender, 2002 general election.
Political parties are an additional source of campaign money, along with PAC money, individual contributions, and a candidate’s own financial resources. The Federal Election Campaign Act limits the financial support political party organizations can give directly to their candidates. National party organizations and state party committees also can make coordinated expenditures on behalf of their candidates. The figures available for this analysis include contributions to campaigns from party committees at the national, state, and local levels. Figure . shows that, on average, female nominees challenging incumbents in both parties received about the same size contributions from their parties as male challengers. As is generally the case with male challengers to incumbents, few dollars came their way. Still, in , the Democratic Party was more generous to its male incumbents than its female incumbents, whereas the Republican Party exhibited the opposite behavior. Male open-seat contenders, especially in the Republican Party, were the recipients of substantially larger average contributions from their party than their female counterparts. Seven of the thirty-five Republican male open-seat contenders received more than $, in party contributions; the maximum any of their female counterparts received was $,. Neither party seemed to treat their women candidates in open seats equitably with their male open-seat candidates. Success Rates
In , male candidates were more successful than female candidates in winning open seats (Figure .). Only one Democratic woman won such an election. Linda Sanchez, who won in California’s th district, joined her sister, Loretta,
Campaign Financing
35
$28,000 $24,000 $20,000 $16,000 $12,000 $8,000 $4,000 D In em cu o m cra be ti nt c s R In ep cu ub m lic be an nt s D e C m ha o lle cr ng ati er c s R C ep ha u lle blic ng a er n s D e O m pe o n cra Se ti at c s R O ep pe u n blic Se a at n s
$0
Men
Women
Figure 1.6. Median party contributions by candidate status, party, and gender, 2002 general election.
who represents the th district of California in the U.S. House of Representatives. This marked the first time two sisters served in Congress together. As the open-seat success rate shows, it was not a particularly good year for male or female Democratic newcomers. Voters did not appear to discriminate against women candidates at the polls. In contested races, women candidates obtained roughly equal shares of the vote as men candidates in similar situations (Figure .). For example, both male and female Republican open-seat candidates received percent of the vote, and Democratic female open-seat candidates got . percent of the vote and Democratic male open-seat candidates won . percent of the vote. 100 90
Percentage
80
78
70 57
60 50 40
32
30 20
14
10 0
Republican men (29/37)
Republican women (4/7)
Democratic men (12/38)
Democratic women (1/7)
Figure 1.7. Open-seat success rates by party and gender, 2002 general election.
36
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Republican female open seats (7)
54
Republican male open seats (37)
53.7
Democratic female open seats (8)
42.7
Democratic male open seats (37)
43.8
Republican female challengers (17)
35
Republican male challengers (92)
33
Democratic female challengers (30)
33
Democratic male challengers (85)
32.9
Republican incumbent women (15)
62.6
Republican incumbent men (150)
66.5
Democratic incumbent women (35)
67
Democratic incumbent men (122)
66.2
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Figure 1.8. Mean percentage of the vote by gender, party, and status, contested 2002 general election.
Early Money
Candidates for federal office must give a detailed report of their financial activity four times during the campaign. The first reporting period comes on March of the election year. Money raised to that date is an indicator of the extent to which a candidate has a serious campaign and is a formidable contender. These early reporting periods are especially critical to nonincumbent candidacies, as it is at that stage that successful candidates introduce themselves and their issue priorities to the voters. Indeed, the importance of fund-raising at this early stage was the catalyst for the formation of EMILY’s List, the leading women’s PAC. Its name stands for “Early Money Is Like Yeast: It makes the dough rise.” Figure . shows how $250,000 $200,000 $150,000 $100,000 $50,000 $0 Mean
Median Men (231)
Women (35)
Figure 1.9. Receipts, first reporting period, male and female open-seat primary candidates, 2002 election.
Campaign Financing
37
$300,000 $250,000 $200,000 $150,000 $100,000 $50,000
Mean
M oc en ra (1 tic 00 W R ) om ep ub en lic (2 R an 3) ep M ub en lic (1 an 31 W ) om en (1 2)
oc ra tic
D em
D em
D em
D em
oc ra tic
M oc en ra (1 tic 00 W R ) om ep ub en lic (2 R an 3) ep M ub en lic (1 an 31 W ) om en (1 2)
$0
Median
Figure 1.10. Receipts, first reporting period, male and female open-seat candidates, by party, 2002 election.
well women in open-seat races fared compared to men at the end of the first reporting period for the races. In open-seat races, women raised an average of $,, compared with $, for men. Women’s median amount was slightly less than that of male contenders. In contrast to previous campaigns, Republican female open-seat candidates led the way in fund-raising (Figure .). Women’s PACs
EMILY’s List has long dominated the world of campaign financing. Because PACs are limited in how much they can give directly to candidates for federal office, EMILY’s List pioneered the technique of bundling money: it gathers together checks from individual donors written directly to endorsed candidates and delivers those checks as a bundle. Its fund-raising success is evident; in , it topped all PACs in the amount of money it raised in the – election cycle, with total receipts of $,,. EMILY’s List far outpaced the second most successful PAC, the Service Employees International Union, which raised just over $ million. In , seven female candidates for the U.S. House received over $, in bundled money from EMILY’s List.4 Four U.S Senate candidates were well supported by EMILY’s bundling strategy. Debbie Stabenow, running for the U.S. Senate from Michigan, received over $, in bundled money, and Jean Carnahan, running for the Senate from Missouri, received $,. Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire got $, in bundled money, and Senate incumbent Barbara Boxer of California received $, from EMILY’s List (www.opensecrets.org). EMILY’s List’s counterpart in the Republican Party, the WISH List (Women in the Senate and House), which supports pro-choice female candidates, endorsed
38
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
two women for the U.S. Senate and fourteen women for the U.S. House of Representatives. The National Women’s Political Caucus (which is bipartisan) endorsed forty-eight women candidates for the House in and six women for the Senate. Examining patterns of giving among the general public, we find that few people are major contributors, but among those who do give, men dominate. Fewer women than men contribute to campaigns, and they give smaller donations. According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ Opensecrets Web site, . percent of adult women gave more than $ in contributions to federal candidates in the election cycle, compared with . percent of men. Donations of $, or more were given by . percent of adult men and . percent of adult women. Four women and eighteen men gave over $ million. Partisan differences were evident, too, in the giving of men and women. Men were more likely to give only to the Republican Party, and the reverse was true for women. Among adults who gave to only one party, men gave percent of their donations to the Republicans and women gave the Republicans percent of their donations.
The Evolution of Women as Fund-raising Masters
As the introduction to this volume notes, women candidates often rely on specialized donor networks to raise money for their races. Fortunately, they have increased in number over time. In , CAWP listed thirteen national PACs and donor networks that give money predominantly to women candidates or have a predominantly female donor base. Women are clearly working to increase their political fund-raising power. An additional indicator of their success as individual fund-raisers who are also making the major parties take notice is their ascension to party fund-raising positions. In the U.S. Congress, the campaign committees of both chambers in the two major parties are central to winning and maintaining control of legislative chambers. These committees raise millions for their party’s candidates and target their money to build loyalty from successful candidates. Chairing a campaign committee is a significant leadership position within the parties’ legislative organizations. To date, two women have been selected to chair these committees: Democratic Representative Nita Lowey of New York and U.S. Senator Patty Murray of Washington chaired their respective body’s campaign committee in the th Congress. Prior to her selection as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Nita Lowey raised more than $ million for the committee in a program aimed at assisting female candidates. As chair, she raised a record $ million in . Soon after her appointment, an Associated Press article described her as one of the “most powerful House members, controlling multimillion dollar purse strings that could decide House races across the country”
Campaign Financing
39
(McCaffrey ). The DCCC also runs a Women LEAD Committee that raises money specifically for women candidates. Under the leadership of Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, in the – election cycle, that committee raised approximately $ million for women candidates. The Hill describes her as becoming a “fundraising powerhouse” (Brand , ). By , U.S. Senator Patty Murray was no longer “just a mom in tennis shoes,” her signature campaign theme in her initial run for the Senate. In , as Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee vice chair, Murray organized a fund-raising drive called “Women on the Road to the Senate.” This effort helped Democratic Senate candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Maria Cantwell, and Deborah Stabenow win their races in . As head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Murray raised a record $ million. This achievement was rewarded by her appointment as one of four members of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle’s executive leadership committee.
Conclusion
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the story about women’s capacity to raise campaign funds continues to be that their fund-raising prowess equals men’s, and that when they run, they win. The new story is their emergence as operators and leaders in the financing of campaign for public office. Yet, women still remain significantly underrepresented in elective office, especially at the federal level. As the introduction to this volume indicates, among the causes of this underrepresentation are the effects of an entrenched incumbent-laden federal legislature on opportunities to mount viable campaigns, as well as women’s lesser inclination to take advantage of the opportune situations that have emerged. Reluctance to run may be due, in part, to the harder time women have raising money from traditional sources, especially large sums increasingly necessary for successful contests (Fox ). One trend that may help counterbalance women’s lesser inclination to run for elective office is the “Clean Money” campaigns initiated in some states. For example, Maine, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Vermont have all adopted Clean Money systems to finance elections in their states. Although the reforms are not exactly the same in each of these states, their general framework is a voluntary system in which candidates receive public money and limit their spending. Additional funding is provided if an opponent chooses not to participate in the public funding system with spending limits and outspends the Clean Money candidate. The time period in which candidates receive this money is limited. If a candidate is targeted by independent expenditure campaigns, she or he becomes entitled to more public matching funds. If such reforms turn out to provide chal-
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
lengers with an ability to mount serious campaigns against incumbents and/or limit the extent to which open-seat campaigns become high-spending contests, more women may be encouraged to become candidates. Whether through Clean Money reforms or other inducements, the challenge for the twenty-first century is to convince interested women that their candidacies are viable and that they can both raise money and win elections. Until the pipeline expands, women’s representation in office, particularly federal office, is unlikely to rise significantly or quickly.
N OT E S
. The states in which these districts were created were Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Texas, with two new districts each, and California, Colorado, Mississippi, Nevada, and North Carolina, with one additional district each. . FEC reports are used in this analysis of women and men’s fund-raising success in the U.S. House of Representative races. Candidates who raise $, or more must file with the FEC. Candidates who raised less than $, and did not file with the FEC are therefore not included in this analysis. The amount nonincumbents raised and spent may be slightly overstated because these lower spenders are excluded, but this deficiency should not significantly affect male-female comparisons. In the elections, twenty-four of the women who ran in primaries did not file with the FEC. Of these, three female and forty-five male major party nominees did not file. In addition, all third-party and independent candidates are excluded from the analysis. Finally, incumbents who faced only minor party opposition or write-in opposition are considered to be unopposed in this analysis; five of the female incumbents running for reelection fell into this category. . There was one outlier candidate, James Humphreys, Democratic challenger to Representative Shelley Capito in West Virginia’s nd district. Humphreys had over $ million in his campaign, of which more than $ million was money he loaned the campaign. The next highest fund-raiser was Democratic Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, who raised over $. million. Humphreys received percent of the popular vote in the election. . These candidates were Representative Lynn Rivers ($,), Stephanie Herseth of South Dakota ($,), Julie Thomas of Iowa ($,), Martha Fuller Clark of New Hampshire ($,), Carol Roberts of Florida ($,), Margaret Workman of West Virginia ($,), and Nancy Kaszak of Illinois ($,; www.opensecrets.org).
2
Kathleen Dolan
How the Public Views Women Candidates
■ Although women win office as often as men, this does not mean that they do not face special gender-based challenges. In this chapter, Kathleen Dolan explores voter attitudes toward women candidates. Her research shows that, currently, voters express high levels of support for women candidates. Still, many continue to be influenced by gender stereotypes when judging candidates. For example, the public tends to see female candidates as warm, compassionate, kind, and passive. Men are perceived as strong, knowledgeable, tough, direct, and assertive. This stereotyping extends to the issues arena: voters judge women as more competent on health care, education, women’s issues, and family issues; men are seen as better qualified to deal with foreign policy, military intervention, and crime. The important question is the extent to which these stereotypes govern voting decisions. Dolan concludes that gender stereotypes are complex and interact with the party identification of the voter and the candidate, the context of the election (such as time periods in which domestic concerns are paramount versus those, such as the 2004 election, in which foreign policy dominates), and incumbency status. Says Dolan, “In the end, women candidates have a relationship with the public that is colored by their sex but not controlled by it.” ■
Before women can hold elective office, they have to stand as candidates. While officeholders make policy and represent their constituents, candidates campaign and attempt to secure votes from members of the general public. For all candidates, then, the crucial relationship is with the voters, with those people whose support or rejection makes or breaks a candidacy. However, for women candidates, the issue of their relationship with voters is more complex than it is for men candidates. In U.S. politics, the vast majority of candidates, past and present, are men. Since they first appeared on the scene, women candidates have stood out because of their rarity. And this rarity has colored their relationship with the public. For much of our nation’s history, women candidates were met with hostility from voters who saw women’s proper place as the home. Slowly, as the United States experienced social, cultural, and economic change, acceptance of women candidates became more common. But if we are to understand how and when women are successful officeholders, we must first understand the dynamics of their rela41
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tionship with the voters as candidates. In this chapter, I outline three aspects of the public’s relationship with women candidates: () attitudes toward women in politics, () stereotypes people hold about women candidates, and () whether people vote for women candidates.
Attitudes about Women
Key to the chances of women candidates being successful in seeking office is a set of positive attitudes toward a political role for women among the public (Wilcox, Stark, and Thomas ). One of the major roadblocks to women candidates in earlier times was the widespread belief that politics was not an appropriate activity for women. A voter who believes that a woman’s place is in the home is unlikely to vote for any women candidates; voters who believe that women have an equal role to play in political life will evaluate individual women candidates and decide if they are worthy of support. As we will see, the increased success of women candidates during the past thirty years or so has been mirrored by a gradual shifting in attitudes about women’s place in political life. There are two ways to explore the attitudes the public holds about women in the political world: first, to take stock of beliefs about the proper role of women in society and, second, to directly examine people’s attitudes about women in elective office. Since , the National Election Study (NES) has explored public attitudes about women’s place in the world. Their question asks whether women should have an equal role with men in running business, industry, and government or whether their place is in the home. Answers are chosen from a -point scale, with a score of indicating strong belief that women should have an equal role and a score of representing a strong belief that women’s place is in the home. Figure . presents the data for the percentage of people who support women having an equal role in society. Over the years, there has been consistent movement in the direction of support for an egalitarian position. In , percent of people believed women should have an equal role, percent said women’s place was in the home, and percent put themselves in the middle of these two positions. In , support for women’s equal role in society increased to percent, with percent taking the middle position, and percent saying women’s place is in the home. Over the same time period, the General Social Survey (GSS) has asked respondents a series of questions to determine how the public thinks about the emotional characteristics and social roles of women and men as they relate to politics. The question dealing with emotional characteristics asks respondents, “Tell me if you agree or disagree with this statement: Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than are most women.” As Figure . demonstrates, agreement with this perspective has run from percent of survey respondents in to
How the Public Views Women Candidates
43
Equal Role for Women 90 80
Percent Agree
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1970
1975
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Year Series 1 Figure 2.1. Equal role for women. Source: National Election Study, 1972 – 2000, http://www.umich.edu/~nes/.
about percent in . With regard to social roles, the GSS asks, “Do you agree or disagree with this statement: Women should take care of running their homes and leave running the country up to men.” In , percent of the public agreed that politics was not appropriate for women; by , this number had dropped to percent (Figure .). Each of these questions demonstrates significant evolution in the public’s thinking about women. At the same time, we must keep in mind that some respondents may mask bias against women candidates by providing an answer they think is more socially acceptable. We have a good sense of the public’s support (or lack thereof ) for women in political office going back to the s, when the scientific study of public opinion was getting its start. One of the earliest of these surveys was conducted by the American Institute for Public Opinion, later the Gallup Organization, on people’s attitudes on the question of a woman president. In , in response to the question “Would you vote for a woman for president if she was qualified in every other respect?,” percent of the public said no (Smith ). Readers should note that the wording of the question reveals much about the way women’s political role was perceived at this time. The phrase “if she was qualified in every other respect” clearly implies that the major way in which she isn’t qualified is as a woman. The wording has changed over time, reflecting a move away from an automatic assumption that a woman’s sex was her disqualifying trait, to the pres-
44
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE Men Better Suited Emotionally for Politics 90 80
Percent Disagree
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1970
1975
1980
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Year Series 1 Figure 2.2. Men better suited emotionally for politics. Source: General Social Survey, 1972 – 2002, http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/projects/gensoc.asp.
ent form that asks “If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be a woman, would you vote for that person?” Figure . traces responses to the question about a woman president through the present day. The data clearly show that the American people have gradually changed their thinking about whether they would vote for a woman candidate for our nation’s highest office, starting with a minority of people being willing to do so in to the vast majority ( percent) in the contemporary period indicating they would. However, in , when asked, all else being equal, would a woman or a man make a better president, percent of survey respondents chose a man, percent a woman, and percent said candidate sex would not matter to performance in office (Simmons ). Of course, it should be noted that a woman major party candidate for president has been a hypothetical situation during the entire period in which this question has been asked. It may be that survey respondents are more comfortable expressing what they perceive is the socially acceptable answer rather than revealing any concerns about a woman as president. Because of this, it seems reasonable to suspect that these questions about a woman president probably overestimate support for women candidates to some degree. Though certainly an interesting benchmark for people’s attitudes about women in politics, the question of a woman president may still be too artificial to accurately reflect the public’s level of comfort with women in elected office.
How the Public Views Women Candidates
45
Women Should Run Homes, Not Country 100 90
Percent Disagree
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1970
1975
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Year Series 1 Figure 2.3. Women should run homes, not country. Source: General Social Survey, 1972 – 2002, http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/projects/gensoc.asp.
Perhaps a better measure of the willingness of people to support women candidates for office focuses on their election in general. Since , the Gallup Organization has asked people whether they thought the country would be governed better or worse if more women held political office. Figure . indicates that in , percent of respondents said we would be governed better, percent said things would be worse, and percent said it would make no difference. The reasons people gave for thinking that women would be a positive or negative force in government are illuminating. People who thought more women officeholders would lead to better government said this because they saw women as more reliable and conscientious than men, and less corrupt and less easily manipulated. They also said that women would be more likely to think about social justice, peaceful solutions to international problems, poor people, and fiscal responsibility. Those who thought more women in government would make things worse said so because they believed that women’s place was in the home, that government was a man’s job, and that women would be too soft, too flighty and inconsistent, and not business-minded enough. Each of these sets of very different evaluations of women and their abilities conforms to stereotypes, both positive and negative, about women’s natures (Simmons ). By , a remarkable shift had taken place: fully percent of people surveyed said more women in government would be positive for our country; per-
46
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE Vote for a Woman for President 100 90
Percent Saying Yes
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1930
1940
1950
1960
1970 Year
1980
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Series 1 Figure 2.4. Vote for a woman for president. Source: Gallup Organization, 1937 – 2000, http://www.gallup.com/poll/analyses/goverPolit/.
cent said this would make things worse, and only percent saw no difference between women and men (Simmons ). Today, when women’s participation in elected office is at an all-time high, it is clear that the public sees this trend as positive, perhaps signaling a situation on which women candidates can capitalize. Interestingly, in line with what researchers refer to as the “affinity effect,” women are somewhat more likely than men to say that more women in office would make a positive difference in each time period, and this gap was wider in than in or .
Stereotypes about Women
Key to our understanding of the impact of candidate sex on the attitudes and behaviors of voters is the notion of gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes involve ideas, shaped by gender considerations, about what is proper or expected from women and men. Over the course of a lifetime of experiences, people develop a set of expectations about how women think and behave, both as women and as they are different from men. These same stereotypes applied to family, workplace, and social interactions are often transmitted to the political world. Indeed, there is significant evidence to suggest that voters look at women candidates and women
How the Public Views Women Candidates
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More Women in Government 60
Percent Saying “Good Thing”
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0 1970
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Year Series 1 Figure 2.5. More women in government. Source: Gallup Poll Monthly, January 2001, http://www.gallup.com/poll/analyses/goverPolit/.
officeholders from a gendered perspective. In developing an extensive literature on women candidates for elective office, political scientists have demonstrated that the public looks at women and men in politics in stereotypic ways. These assessments of political leaders and candidates focus on three major areas: ideology, personality characteristics, and issue specialization. One of the more enduring perceptions of women politicians and candidates is that they are more liberal than men. Several recent research studies have confirmed this perception. For example, Alexander and Anderson () found that voters in Upstate New York perceived hypothetical female candidates as much more liberal than hypothetical male candidates; Huddy and Terkildsen (b) found the same beliefs about women candidates’ ideology among undergraduate students involved in an election experiment. Other work employed surveys to ask more representative groups of people about their impressions of hypothetical women candidates, each finding that voters see women candidates, regardless of party, as more liberal than men (D. King and Matland ; McDermott ). This last finding, that even Republican women candidates are seen as more liberal than Republican men, points to the way sex stereotypes can interact with, and perhaps moderate, partisan stereotypes. Finally, recent research by Koch (, ) has moved forward our understanding of the public’s impressions of women candidates by demonstrating that not only are women candidates of both parties
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seen as more liberal than their male counterparts, but they are perceived as more liberal than they are. Koch makes the argument that these inaccurate assessments of women candidates’ ideology can have consequences at the polls. Given that most voters consider themselves to be ideologically moderate, the perceived liberalism of Democratic women candidates moves them farther away from the average voter, reducing the chances that they will receive votes. However, the exaggerated liberalism of Republican women candidates moves them closer to the average voter, who might then be more likely to choose that woman candidate. One interesting aspect of voters’ tendency to see women candidates as more liberal than men is the fairly significant evidence that they are often more liberal than men (Dodson ; Frankovic ; Welch ). Voters may be judging women candidates based on more general perceptions of women’s nature, but in this instance, there is some correspondence between the stereotype and reality. Alternatively, the public may not be employing a stereotype so much as they are reacting to the information they take in about these women through the media, campaign events, and the like; however, given the relatively limited information most people have about politics and political candidates, this is the less likely explanation. Another way voters stereotype women candidates is by ascribing to them certain character traits. Here again, the findings are clear. The public sees women candidates as warm, compassionate, kind, and passive, whereas men are perceived as strong, knowledgeable, tough, direct, and assertive (C. Brown, Heighberger, and Shocket ; Huddy and Terkildsen b; Kahn ; Leeper ). These ideas reflect the more general stereotypes about women that people tend to hold ( J. Williams and Best ). The importance of stereotypes is demonstrated by research that suggests that women candidates are evaluated as warm and tender even when the messages they are sending to the public are more tough and “masculine” (Leeper ; Sapiro – ). Concern about these trait stereotypes of women candidates is raised because of the assumed gulf between character traits seen as “feminine” and the skills and abilities generally considered to be important in public office. If women aren’t viewed as demonstrating important leadership abilities, perhaps voters will not consider them for office. Indeed, several experimental studies indicate that people often value traits considered to be masculine more highly when considering what the “good politician” should be like. They also consider these masculine qualities to be more important as the level of office they are considering rises from local to national (Huddy and Terkildsen a; Rosenwasser and Dean ). However, because these findings all come from experimental settings with hypothetical candidates, we need to exercise caution in assuming that things work the same way in actual elections. The final major stereotype that voters connect with women candidates is a set of beliefs about their policy interests and expertise. Flowing from the ideology and personality perceptions people hold, voters most commonly associate women candidates and officeholders with what are often called “compassion” is-
How the Public Views Women Candidates
49
sues: poverty, health care, the elderly, education, children and family issues, and the environment. Men are seen as more concerned with economics, defense, business, crime, and agriculture (Alexander and Andersen ; Huddy and Terkildsen b; Kahn ; Koch ; Leeper ). As with trait stereotypes, some express concern that voters may actively use these judgments about women’s and men’s perceived policy differences against women candidates. For example, if women are not perceived to be as competent to handle crime or economic issues, voters who are primarily concerned about these issues may reject women candidates as inappropriate for office. The election of , with its heavy emphasis on terrorism and the war with Iraq, is an example of this type of election dynamic. This concern raises the question of whether the opposite might also be true. If stereotypes about ideology or traits or issue competency can work against women candidates, are there not also times when they might work in their favor? Are stereotypes always harmful to women candidates? There is evidence to suggest that the answer is no. Some voters may not choose a woman candidate because she is thought to lack the toughness or experience to deal with military issues. But voters who value education or social issues more highly may be drawn to women candidates because of their perceived strengths. And while men are usually seen as tougher and more decisive than women, women candidates are perceived as more honest and more competent than men and are often seen as “outsiders” to politics (Alexander and Andersen ; Kahn ; Koch ). This can be a valuable asset for women candidates in times when voter dissatisfaction with government and incumbent leaders is high. For example, in , women candidates for Congress attracted votes from those who were most dissatisfied with sitting incumbents (K. Dolan ). Women candidates are also perceived to be much better than men at addressing issues of special concern to women. On such issues as sexual harassment, abortion, and women’s rights, women are judged to be more competent (Huddy and Terkildsen b; Kahn ). When women’s issues are particularly salient for the public (or at least half of the public), voters may seek out women candidates to ensure action on these issues. There is ample evidence that the Senate confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, which highlighted the issue of workplace sexual harassment, combined with the record number of women candidates for Congress in , increased the attention to candidate sex that year. This focus on candidate sex and gender issues brightened the election prospects of women candidates, particularly among women voters (K. Dolan ; Paolino ; Plutzer and Zipp ). So, although some political observers raise concerns that public stereotypes can work against women at the polls, it is important to keep in mind that these stereotypes can also work in women’s favor. How voters perceive women and men candidates is an important consideration in politics. But perhaps just as important is what voters perceive to be the important issues in any particular election and the qualities needed in leaders to address those issues. There are times, as recent history has shown, when
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stereotypes about women candidates are in line with what the public is looking for from candidates, potentially giving women candidates an advantage. Sex Stereotypes and Political Party
An additional issue to consider when discussing voter perceptions of women candidates is the role of political party. People hold partisan stereotypes in the same way that they hold sex stereotypes (Rahn ). Party identification is a powerful influence on evaluations of candidates and vote choice; thus, we must consider how and when candidate sex is relevant once we have considered political party. It may be that candidate sex, though an important influence on political decisions in isolation, loses some of its impact when measured against other important political variables. Acknowledging this potential interaction is necessary because most women candidates for national and state office in the past twenty years have run as Democrats. From to , percent of the women candidates for the U.S. Senate, percent of the women candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, and percent of the women state legislative candidates have run as Democrats (CAWP , ). Given that people’s perceptions of the Democratic and Republican Parties correspond in many ways to thinking about women and men (e.g., Democrats are better able to address social issues and poverty; Republicans are better at economic and military policies), it may be the case that sex and party stereotypes can work to reinforce each other (as in the case of a woman Democrat) or offset each other (as with a woman Republican). A recent experimental study designed to focus on this potential interaction concludes that, in most instances, partisan cues overwhelmed all other sources of information about candidate beliefs and positions. In only one case, on the handling of women’s issues, did candidate sex exhibit an independent impact on people’s evaluations of candidates (Huddy and Capelos ). So, learning more about the evaluations people make of women in light of their party identification is an important step in understanding how candidate sex affects elections. Findings from the National Election Study
One of the limitations in our understanding of the public’s relationship to women candidates has been the lack of information that we have about people who have had the chance to vote for a woman in some election. Indeed, many studies of people’s perceptions of women candidates have utilized experiments or surveys in which people are asked for their reaction to hypothetical candidates. As both of these situations are artificial, it is important to examine the attitudes and behaviors of real voters who have been faced with the choice of a woman candidate. One way to do that is to employ data from the NES, a biennial survey of a random
How the Public Views Women Candidates
51
sample of adults in the United States that asks about a wide range of political opinions and actions and allows us to examine people’s reactions to candidates for the U.S. Congress in their congressional district and state. In this section, I examine the evaluations that people made of candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives from to . The analysis presented here focuses on two aspects of those evaluations: whether people evaluate women candidates as more liberal than men, and whether people have as much information about women candidates as they do about men candidates. Because the NES asks people for their reactions to the candidates from each major party, the findings are presented separately for Democratic and Republican candidates. This is beneficial in that it allows us to determine if people evaluate Democratic and Republican women in a similar or different fashion. Political Ideology
The research on stereotypes discussed earlier would have us predict that women candidates are seen by the public as being more liberal than men candidates. And, indeed, NES respondents view a Democratic candidate as more liberal when that candidate is a woman than when the candidate is a man (Figure .A). This confirms the findings from experiments and surveys about hypothetical candidates and analysis of real candidates. Also relevant is the incumbency status of the woman candidate. While nonincumbent Democratic women are viewed as more liberal, incumbent Democratic women were judged to be less liberal than challengers. This finding suggests that people do not infer a consistent message from candidate sex and see all women candidates as more liberal (as the stereotyping literature would suggest), but instead consider candidate sex in the context of other aspects of the election, such as incumbency status. Incumbency may provide additional information to voters that offsets the cue presented by a woman candidate’s sex. Voters generally have less information about challengers than about incumbents, so they may be more likely to fall back on stereotypes when evaluating a challenger. Somewhat counter to expectations, women Republicans are not perceived as any more or less liberal than men Republicans. However, women Republican incumbents are seen as somewhat less conservative than men Republican incumbents. This is in line with experimental work that suggests that people view Republican women as more moderate than Republican men and provides another example of how sex and partisan stereotypes can influence each other. The differences in the way people evaluate the ideology of Democratic and Republican women candidates serve to remind us that elections do not occur in a vacuum. These findings suggest that, while people evaluate a candidate based on sex, other considerations such as political party are important, too. If the public saw all women candidates as being the same because they are women, they should evaluate both Democratic and Republican women as more liberal than
52
WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE A. Evaluations of House Candidate Ideology 6
Liberal-Conservative
5
4
3
2
1
0
1 Dem Woman
2 Dem Man
3 Rep Woman
4 Rep Man
B. Information about House Candidates
Number of Mentions about Candidate
1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0
1 Dem Woman
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3 Rep Woman Series 1
Figure 2.6. Stereotypes and women candidates. Source: K. Dolan 2004.
4 Rep Man
How the Public Views Women Candidates
53
men candidates. Instead, people evaluated women in the context of their political party stereotypes alongside their stereotypes based on sex. Information about Women Candidates
Another way to evaluate how the public perceives women candidates is to measure how much information voters possess. Whether people have sufficient information about candidates is crucial to their potential support. Although most House elections are relatively low-information affairs in which people don’t possess significant knowledge about the candidates, it is unlikely that many people would vote for a candidate about whom they know nothing. In earlier times, when women’s candidacies were fewer and less well accepted, we might have expected the media to ignore them, resulting in voters having less information about them. Today, however, when women candidates tend to be more accepted by the public, their distinctiveness could be an asset. The NES asks respondents a series of questions that allow us to determine how much information people possess about the Democratic and Republican candidates for the U.S. House. Here, the findings are similar for Democratic and Republican candidates. In evaluating candidates of both parties, respondents make more comments when that candidate is a woman than when the candidate is a man (Figure .B). This effect is somewhat stronger for a Democratic woman than a Republican woman, meaning that people have more information about Democratic than Republican women candidates. This lends some support to the notion that women candidates’ distinctness can make them more visible to the public and trigger information that may not be triggered by men candidates. These findings demonstrate that candidate sex can be an important aspect of how the public evaluates women candidates. But candidate sex is not the only or even the most important consideration. People evaluate Democratic women candidates as more liberal than Democratic men, but they do not see Republican women as terribly different from Republican men. People have more information about women than men candidates, but this effect is stronger for Democratic than for Republican women. Clearly, political party plays a role in how people evaluate women candidates. Evaluations of political candidates are an important starting point for any discussion of public reaction. But the most important evaluation that people can make is at the ballot box, when they cast their vote. Voting for Women
Implicit in any study of voting for women candidates is the idea that their sex matters, that voters are choosing a woman candidate, as opposed to choosing a candidate without any consideration of his or her sex. Of course, voting for a
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woman candidate can be an “accidental” act: a voter may choose a candidate who shares his or her political party or policy position on an important issue without the candidate’s sex or gender-related issues coming into play. Indeed, we know from countless studies that political party is the strongest predictor of vote choice at every level of elected office. But there is research that suggests that voters often do seek out particular types of candidates, candidates with certain characteristics (e.g., sex, race, age) for a host of reasons. Most of those reasons focus on questions of representation. In her classic work on representation, Hannah Pitkin () discusses representation as a complex concept with more than one meaning. In terms of political representation—when a voter chooses a candidate to hold some decision-making office—she describes two approaches. First, representation can be descriptive, “the making present of something absent by resemblance or reflection.” Second, representation can involve activity, acting on behalf of others; this is known as substantive representation. Both forms of representation are relevant for the study of voting for women candidates. Despite the gains made by women elected officials in the contemporary period, their underrepresentation at all levels of office is obvious and undeniable. In this sense, descriptive representation occurs when voters choose women candidates because they see the absence of women in office and seek to change that status quo. Elected women officials then serve the function of standing for women in the larger society in a very literal way that male representatives cannot. Although important, descriptive representation by women candidates and officeholders is not necessarily sufficient as an explanation for why people vote for women candidates. We do not elect government officials merely to sit in office and reflect who we are demographically. Instead, we expect them to govern, to act in our best interests. So, people choosing women candidates may also do so because they want these women to pursue a particular set of policies once in office. Part of the argument in favor of electing women to achieve substantive representation is the idea that women candidates are better suited than men to address concerns of particular interest to women in the larger society. Given the degree to which the public sees the abilities of women and men candidates in gender-specific ways, we should not be surprised if many people assume that women candidates would be more effective in dealing with issues and policies of concern to women. Do Voters Support Women Candidates?
The first and most basic question facing women candidates in U.S. politics is whether they can garner sufficient support from the public to win elections. For many years, the answer to this question was no. For a long time in the United States, women’s electoral success was limited to a relatively small number of
How the Public Views Women Candidates
55
offices in certain areas of the country (K. Dolan ). However, since the s, evidence of the increasing electoral viability of women candidates has steadily emerged. One of the most significant studies of the success of women candidates, produced by the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC), examined success rates of women and men candidates based on their incumbency status ( J. Newman ). The results clearly showed that, when similarly situated women and men candidates are compared (e.g., women incumbents and men incumbents, or women and men challengers), women win election as often as men do, and more often in some circumstances. The NWPC report concluded that the primary reason for the low number of women in elected office in the United States was the low number of women who ran for office and not because voters refused to consider them. These findings have been confirmed by other studies that examine the vote share won by women candidates in both primary and general elections (Burrell ; Fox ; P. J. Herrnson, Lay, and Stokes ; Seltzer, Newman, and Leighton ). So, although every woman candidate is not successful in every election, there does not appear to be systematic or widespread bias against women candidates because of their sex. Do Women Support Women Candidates?
The second, and perhaps more obvious, question to ask when examining voting for women candidates is do women vote for women? This so-called affinity effect has been an implicit, and sometimes explicit, assumption underlying much of the research done on women candidates. Past research indicates several reasons for the assumption that women are more likely than men to vote for women candidates. First, some expect that a sense of group identity will draw women voters to women candidates. Indeed, several experimental studies demonstrate that voters are most likely to choose candidates like themselves. For example, black voters are more likely than whites to choose black candidates (Sigelman and Welch ). Other researchers refer to the impact of a “gender consciousness” at work, suggesting that women voters have positive feelings toward women candidates beyond a simple shared demographic similarity. These positive feelings toward women candidates as women are shaped, perhaps, by an acknowledgment of the underrepresentation of women in elected office or a sense that women’s political fortunes are bound up with other women (Tolleson Rinehart ). Important, too, is the role of political issues in the relationship between women voters and women candidates. It is possible that there are group-salient issues that draw women voters to women candidates. Issues such as sexual harassment, abortion, and child care tend to be of greater importance to women voters, who may see women candidates as uniquely suited to dealing with these issues (Paolino ). Finally, a linkage between women voters and women candidates may not be based on sex or gender-based issues per se, but on a shared partisan identity. Cur-
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rently, women in the United States are more likely to identify with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party, and more women candidates run for office as Democrats than as Republicans. Women voters, who are more likely to be Democrats, may simply be choosing candidates of their party, many of whom are women (Cook ). In a recent article, Sanbonmatsu (b) argues that people have a baseline gender preference for either female or male candidates and that this preference is a standing predisposition, not an evaluation made on the spot during a particular election. Using an experimental design and hypothetical candidates, she demonstrated that many people do have a baseline preference for voting for candidates of a particular sex, which provides support for the idea that voters take the sex of a candidate into account when making their voting decision. In her study, Sanbonmatsu found that women are more likely to express a preference for women candidates. This finding has been supported by numerous other studies, whether they involve women simply preferring women candidates in some hypothetical situation or voting for them in an actual election (K. Dolan , ; Plutzer and Zipp ; Rosenthal ; Seltzer, Newman, and Leighton ). At the same time, there is significant evidence to suggest that it is simplistic to say that women vote for women. Women voters do not always vote for women candidates, and some never do. Women may be more likely than men to choose women candidates, but this dynamic is often shaped by other factors, such as race, political party, and level of office. For example, studies have demonstrated that certain subgroups of women—African Americans, liberals, feminists, and well-educated women —are more likely to choose women candidates than are other women (Ekstrand and Eckert ; Lewis ; Sigelman and Welch ; E. Smith and Fox ). Other work has shown that women voters may be influenced by the level of office involved, being more likely to choose women candidates for the House of Representatives, but no more likely than men to do so in Senate elections (Cook ; K. Dolan ). Finally, there is evidence that some of the support for women candidates from women voters comes from a shared partisanship: Democratic women candidates often do much better in garnering votes from women than do Republican women (Cook ; D. King and Matland ). Findings from the National Election Study
The same NES data used to determine the types of information people hold about women candidates also allow us to examine who votes for them. Because the NES interviews people about real-life candidates for the U.S. House and Senate, we can test the hypothesis that voter characteristics such as sex are related to the decision to vote for a female or a male candidate. The findings presented here include all U.S. House and Senate races from to in which a woman ran
How the Public Views Women Candidates
57
against a man in the congressional districts and states included in the NES sample and focus on three variables known or thought to be important to vote choice: party identification, incumbency, and voter sex. House and Senate races are considered separately. The notion that an affinity effect makes women voters more likely than men to choose women candidates does appear to have some support. In House races, women voters are more likely to vote for the woman candidate than men voters are. Figure .C compares the likelihood of a woman voting for a woman candidate in these races to that of a man voter. Although women are more likely than men to choose women candidates in these House races, they are not overwhelmingly more likely to. However, in Senate elections, women are no more likely than men to choose a woman candidate (not shown). Although the affinity effect does not seem to be at work at both levels of office, this finding is consistent with what we know about congressional elections. House elections are rather low-visibility affairs in which voters may not have much information about the candidates. In this situation, candidate sex may be important to voters in the absence of other information (McDermott ). Senate elections, however, have much higher visibility, and voters are usually more familiar with the candidates. With more information, voters may not have to rely on candidate sex to guide their vote choice. In sum, although women may be more likely to vote for women than are men in some cases, this relationship does not hold in all circumstances or at all times. When each election from to is analyzed separately (not shown), women were more likely to choose women candidates in House elections in only one year, , the media-dubbed “Year of the Woman.” Interestingly, in , men voters were more likely to choose women candidates in Senate races than were women voters. These findings would cause us to conclude that the potential for women voters to favor women candidates is there, but may not be strong enough to determine a person’s vote in specific electoral situations. One of the primary reasons the affinity effect is not stronger in voting for women candidates is the power of two other important variables: political party identification and incumbency. From to , in races for both the House and the Senate and in each of the individual election years, the most important variables in determining whether a voter would choose a woman candidate were whether the voter and the woman candidate shared the same party identification and whether that woman candidate was an incumbent (Figures .A and B). Election scholars have long understood that these two variables are the most important in shaping vote choice, and this dynamic is no different when women candidates are involved (Campbell et al. ; Jacobson ). In the current time period, when women voters are more likely to identify with Democrats than Republicans and women candidates are more likely to run as Democrats than as Republicans, what appears to be an affinity based on sex may alternatively be accounted for by partisan preferences.
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Percent Vote for Woman Candidate
A. Impact of Party Identification on Vote for Woman Candidate 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0
2
1 Same Party/Different Party
Percent Vote for Woman Candidate
B. Impact of Incumbency on Vote for Woman Candidate 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0
1 2 Woman Incumbent/Woman Not Incumbent
Percent Vote for Woman Candidate
C. Impact of Gender on Vote for Woman 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0
1
2 Woman Voter/Man Voter Series 1
Figure 2.7. Voting for women candidates for U.S. House of Representatives, 1990 – 2000. Source: K. Dolan 2004.
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Conclusion
Women candidates for political office in the United States have come a long way since the days when their candidacies met with skepticism or hostility from the public. Yet, even in , they are still rare enough on the political scene that we refer to them as “women candidates.” Certainly, most evidence suggests that bias against women candidates is largely a thing of the past. Still, the sex of a candidate is far from irrelevant in the electoral arena. Suspicion and hostility toward women have been replaced by a more complex set of considerations that involve people’s social and political reactions to candidate sex and gendered issues. The research reviewed in this chapter clearly demonstrates that people express high levels of verbal support for women candidates. This support in the abstract is colored in the real world by the stereotypes that people hold about women and men. Voters often extend their social stereotypes about women to women in the political world, assuming that they will be more liberal, gentler, and better able to handle the compassion issues than men. These evaluations can cut both ways, helping women candidates when voters value attention to compassion issues and potentially hurting them when the focus is on economic or military concerns. Although positive public attitudes toward women candidates are important, willingness to vote for them is crucial. Here again, we have seen an evolution from a time when a woman’s sex was a detriment, to the present day, when being a woman arouses either positive or neutral consideration. All in all, voters are supportive of women candidates when all else is equal. But all things are rarely equal in politics. Voters are influenced just as strongly by political party identification and the power of incumbency when women candidates are on the ballot as when they are not. In the end, women candidates have a relationship with the public that is colored by their sex, but not controlled by it.
3
Heather L. Ondercin and Susan Welch
Women Candidates for Congress
■ So few women have been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives over our history that authors Heather L. Ondercin and Susan Welch depict their victories as “electoral innovations.” Their investigation of the conditions under which women are likely to be candidates for and win seats in Congress reveals that, all else being equal, districts with women candidates tend to be those with open-seat opportunities, outside the South, and with a history of female candidates and representatives. Further, some of these results vary by party. For example, the South is less likely to elect Democratic women, but no less likely than other regions to elect Republican women. This suggests that the paths to elected office may differ for Democratic and Republican women. One of the ways that women’s representational status can be improved is for both parties to recruit and support women candidates. ■
Numerous previous analyses have examined the factors that influence the election of women to public office. Most studies reveal no aggregate electoral bias against women (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Burrell ; Hoffman, Palmer, and Gaddie ). Controlling for partisanship and incumbency, women candidates are just as likely to win as male candidates (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Matland and King ). Yet, these studies do not give us a full picture of why there are so few women in office compared to men or why we are more likely to find them in some offices than others and in some parts of the country than others. To answer those questions, political scientists have also focused on women candidates and the environments in which they are recruited and elected. As early as Maurice Duverger’s () classic work on The Political Role of Women, scholars have investigated why more women are not elected to office, and in so doing have examined the kind of women who run for and are elected to office, the role political party leaders and other political elites play in encouraging or not encouraging women to run, women’s successes and failures in fund-raising, the geographic, political, and cultural environments most conducive to promoting women’s candidacies, and women’s experiences as candidates. In this chapter, we briefly review what is known about these topics. We or-
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ganize our review around the idea that, in many respects, electing women, particularly electing women to Congress, is a political innovation. As a political innovation, increasing the number of women elected to office faces challenges like any new political idea. Following our review, we present some new findings on women primary and general election candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, again in the context of political innovation. In particular, we examine some of the factors related to why some districts typically have women candidates and representatives and other districts do not.
Women Candidates and Their Electoral Experiences Overview of Women in Elected Office
Most women (and men) who hold public office in the United States hold it at the local level. Electing women is much less of a novelty at that level compared to the state and national levels. Most of what we know about women candidates for office, however, is based on the much more widely studied races of state legislative and congressional seats. Thousands of women are members of school boards, city councils, and county commissions, and others hold offices such as mayors or any of the myriad local executive offices such as county clerks and assessors. Because there is no national roster of local elected officials, much of what we know about the backgrounds of local officeholders comes from infrequent, periodic surveys or studies of representation in the largest communities. Though we do not know how well women are represented on city councils, county commissions, and school boards, we do know that women are about percent of mayors in the one hundred largest cities, percent in all cities with a population over ,, and percent in moderate-size cities (www.cawp.rutgers.edu). Thus, they are underrepresented at the local level compared to their percent population presence (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ). Black and Latino women, too, are found in large numbers among local elected officials, though their representation is less, proportionally, than that of white women.1 Women are increasingly elected to state- and national-level offices, and we can trace their numbers more precisely. Women are percent of all statewide elected officeholders (governors, lieutenant governors, and other elected line offices that differ from state to state, such as auditor and secretary of state). Women make up more than percent of state legislatures, which is quadruple the proportion of thirty years ago. However, as Norrander and Wilcox note in this volume, the rates of increase have slowed in recent years, with only a percent growth in the past decade (see also Sanbonmatsu ). The proportion ranges widely, from
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No women
One or more women
Figure 3.1. Women in Congress, 1992 – 2000.
percent in South Carolina, where electing women to the state legislature might still be considered innovative, to percent in Washington, where electing women state legislators is obviously quite common. At the national level, electing women remains an innovation. For the first years of U.S. history, there were no women members of Congress at all. In the s and s, women representatives were rare, often serving only when their husband died in office. As late as , women had won only approximately two hundred elections out of the tens of thousands of congressional races since the late eighteenth century. Even today, women are a paltry percent of each house of Congress, far from parity. The Campaign Context
How do women get from being candidates to being winners? The two most important factors influencing any candidate’s chances to win are, first, whether she is running as an incumbent, a challenger, or for an open seat, and second, the partisan context of the race. These two factors shape the opportunity structure of an election. As the introduction to this volume elaborates, other factors, too, influence the nature of the race, including media coverage, fund-raising, skills at campaigning, and voters’ stereotypes of women candidates. But these factors are secondary to the status of the candidate and the partisan context.
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Candidate Status
The key to success in running for office is to be an incumbent, whether male or female. U.S. House incumbents, for example, are rarely defeated. (They lost less than percent of the time between and ; Matland and King .) Even highly contested Senate races still result in wins for percent of all incumbents. Conversely, challengers to incumbents, especially House incumbents, almost never win. The exceptions are when the incumbent is tainted with scandal or when there are larger economic or social forces that lead to an anti-incumbent surge.2 The probabilities of winning open seats are much higher than defeating an incumbent. Since , women have won about percent of the open seats they have contested (Matland and King ). The disparity with men’s success ( percent) is probably an effect of the partisan context of the specific open-seat elections, especially since .3 That is, most of the women candidates are Democrats, and the majority of elections have been won by Republicans. Political scientists label as “strategic” those candidates who are ambitious, experienced, rational, and skillful (for a review, see Gertzog ). Being strategic is clearly tied to the choice of running against an incumbent or for an open seat. For example, a candidate who runs for office against an incumbent to bring attention to an issue or to attract more clients to her law practice would not be considered strategic in this sense. On the other hand, a candidate who ran for an open seat, who identified significant sources of funding for her race, and who had the right experience to be able to run a credible race would be considered strategic. In general, women legislators appear to be just as strategic as men in terms of political ambition and calculation of whether to run again or to seek higher office (Gertzog , ). Some of these terms are rather ambiguous and subjective; to look at success rates of strategic women, Gertzog defined strategic as running for an open seat and having previously held an elected office. He found that, over time, a growing proportion of women candidates for Congress can be called strategic. In fact, by his definition, most are now strategic. Moreover, strategic female politicians win more than percent of the time when running for open seats. Note that this is a much higher success rate than for all women openseat candidates. Recalling that a strategic politician, as Gertzog defines such, has held office before, strategic women’s higher success rate is presumably the result of women who have held or currently hold office avoiding marring their political careers by running for open seats in which they have little chance to win. Black women who are strategic politicians are even more successful than others. Of all black female races for the U.S. House through , “all but one of the African American women who qualified as strategic politicians (N = ) won, and all but one of the African American women who were not strategic politicians (N = ) lost” (Gertzog , ).
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Partisan Context
Party composition of the district is also important. Even if the seat is open, if the district is heavily Republican and the woman candidate is a Democrat, her chances of winning are not very good. Only rarely can personal characteristics of a candidate overwhelm long-standing partisan leanings of a district. This is even more accurate today than in the past, given the increased sophistication of software allowing district lines to be drawn to secure a safe party majority and the intensification of partisanship in elections in the Clinton and George W. Bush years. Until the s, women candidates were more likely to win in states dominated by Republicans than by Democrats (Rule ; Nechemias ). Today, there are many more Democratic women who are candidates for Congress than there are Republican women (Table .). Women are more likely to enter Democratic primaries, and they have more success in those primaries. In the s, women contested percent of the Democratic primaries but only percent of the Republican ones. In elections from to , Democratic women primary candidates won percent of the time, but Republican women primary candidates won only percent of the time (Matland and King , ). It is not surprising, then, that although the proportion of women in each party’s congressional delegation was about even for many years, the number of Democratic women in Congress is now a much larger proportion of the Democratic delegation than Republican women are in the Republican delegation (Matland and King , ). Women now compose nearly percent of the Democratic congressional delegation, but less than percent of the Republican. This divergence began in . Evidence suggests that Republican voters are not as favorable to women candidates as are Democratic voters. An analysis of a national sample of voters found that Republicans were much more likely to favor male Republican candidates than female Republican candidates. Democrats and independents choosing between male and female Republican candidates preferred the women (Matland and King , ). Republican women are less likely to win their primaries, but if they do win, they have a better chance than Republican men of winning the general election. Table 3.1 Women Candidates, 1992 – 2000 (N = 2,202 elections) Proportion of Republican primaries with women candidates
15%
Proportion of Democratic primaries with women candidates
24%
Proportion of elections in which women were candidates in either party primary
34%
Proportion of general elections in which women were candidates
24%
Proportion of elections won by women
12%
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State and Local Offices
Our focus so far has been on the U.S. Congress, where the factors of incumbency and partisanship have been most often studied. However, in contests for state legislative races, the opportunity structure is still heavily shaped by both incumbency and party. State legislators win reelection at about the same rate as members of Congress (Garand ). Turnover in state legislatures is somewhat higher than in Congress, however, even though incumbents are increasingly staying longer (Breaux and Jewell ; for a review, see Moncrief, Thompson, and Cassie ). Still, this greater proportion of open-seat elections has been one reason women have been elected to most state legislatures at a somewhat more rapid rate than to Congress. Term limits enacted in sixteen states do limit the number of times an incumbent can run for reelection, though this has not had a significant positive impact on the election of more women (Carroll a). The partisan setting in state legislatures differs from state to state. Some state legislatures are dominated by one party or the other in ways that do not necessarily mirror the situation in Congress. Nonetheless, the partisan environment of the electoral district is usually just as important in running for the state legislatures as for Congress. Overall, Democratic women are making more advances to the state legislature than are Republican women, just as they are in Congress (Sanbonmatsu a).4 Most local elections are nonpartisan. Such races put a premium on personal characteristics, including fund-raising success and media coverage. However, just as at the national and state levels, incumbency is key in winning local elections. Women candidates at the local level, where we have been able to study them, fare as well as men in gaining support by local politically active groups, as we describe later. However, in nonpartisan settings, strategic calculations are more difficult because individuals are not publicly tied to partisan labels and the partisan history of the district. In some localities, however, partisan ties are important in identifying and supporting candidates. Who Runs for Office
Though there remain some differences in the backgrounds of men and women candidates, over time they have become more alike. As noted in the introduction to this volume, quality candidates for office come from a certain type of “eligibly pool” (Darcy, Welch, and Clark , chapter ; Welch ). That is, most people who run for office meet certain informal criteria of education, occupation, and political views. Few officeholders, for example, have less than a college education, are blue-collar workers, or hold extreme political positions. Thus, women who run for office, especially state and national office, like their male counterparts, tend to be those with at least some college education and above-
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average incomes. They have been active in civic or political organizations at the local or state level and, in many cases, are attorneys or hold other professional positions. (Thorough overviews of candidate characteristics can be found in Carroll ; Burrell ; Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Gertzog , who also examines the changing background of women candidates over time.) The law has traditionally been a stepping stone to a political career for men. Now, the proportion of women candidates who are attorneys is growing, reflecting the changing gender composition of the legal profession. However, compared to men, women professionals are still less likely to be attorneys and more likely to be educators. A significant and growing proportion of women candidates come from a business background. Many who run for local and state offices lack prior officeholding experience. This was also true of previous generations of women occupying seats in Congress. Before , percent gained their seats on the death of their husband (generally through short-term appointments but sometimes through competitive elections; Gertzog ). As one observer wryly remarked, “For women aspiring to serve in Congress the best husband has been a dead husband, most preferably one serving in Congress at the time of his demise” (Kincaid , ).5 Many, of course, had been highly involved in politics, managing their husband’s campaign and working with him on issues. Some went on to distinguished careers in their own right, such as Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME). In more recent years, the profile of women running for Congress looks very much like that of men, including levels of education and previous officeholding. By , the proportion who held previous public office had reached almost the same levels as for men (Burrell , ; Darcy, Welch, and Clark ). Age is one criterion on which men and women candidates do differ, at least those running for national office. In her analysis of congressional candidates from to , Burrell () found that women were, on average, three years older. (The same pattern is true of the winners.) Women presumably get a somewhat later start on political careers than do men because of their primary role in child rearing. It appears difficult for women to campaign for public office, at least nonlocal office, when they have preschoolers, though this difficulty does not seem to affect men in the same way. Women’s Recruitment as Candidates
Many people who run for office are self-starters, encouraged by their family and friends and without institutional support. A large proportion of people, women included, simply decide they will run (Carroll , especially ). Other women candidates are recruited to run. Some are recruited by their friends and fellow members of groups such as the Rotarians or the Chamber of Commerce, or women’s groups such as the American Association of University
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67
Women or League of Women Voters, or from neighborhood action groups. Before about , women officeholders often got started in their political careers through activity in women’s groups focused on public affairs, such as the League of Women Voters. They were homemakers but with a wealth of political experience and involvement through civic groups. As more women have gone to work outside the home, fewer have gotten involved in the League and other civic organizations, diminishing this as a route to launch an electoral career (Darcy, Welch, and Clark , ). Many women candidates are encouraged to run by local political party leaders (Carroll , ). As Thomas elaborates in the introduction to this volume, in the “old days” (before ) and in some places, political party leaders discouraged women from running or encouraged them to run only as “sacrificial lambs,” offered up for defeat in districts safely held by the other party (Deber ). More recent evidence suggests that potential local women candidates receive as much encouragement, or even more, from political party leaders and other local influential people than do men (Welch and Bledsoe ; Burrell ; Herrick ; for a contrary view, see Niven a; Swers , , provides a good brief review of this literature). Political party organizations are no longer male only, and women have considerable clout within the parties, though this varies from locale to locale. Fund-raising and the Media
To get elected, candidates generally have to be known to the voters, and to be known, candidates rely heavily on the media, both news coverage and paid advertising. In turn, to be able to advertise in the media, candidates have to be successful fund-raisers. Modern candidates must have financial backing, and the amount of the necessary backing increases as the size of the district and prestige of the office increases. Local council candidates might win with a war chest of $, or $,, used primarily to buy leaflets, yard signs, and radio ads. Candidates for contested congressional seats typically need close to $ million, and much more in hotly contested seats. Running for the U.S. Senate in large states requires multiple millions, primarily for statewide television and radio ads. As Barbara Burrell elaborates in this volume, traditional wisdom held that women suffer disadvantages in raising funds. Much journalistic commentary focused on the difficulties women have in asking for money and the reluctance of big donors to give to women and thus the so-called gender gap in fund-raising (for a review, see also Burrell , – ). However, these casual analyses did not take into account the gap in successful fund-raising between incumbents and challengers to incumbents. The former, whether they are male or female, have huge advantages. Large donors, whether individuals or special interest groups, want
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to give to winners, where their money can buy access and clout or, occasionally and more altruistically, bring about broader policy change. Because most women candidates are not incumbents, their fund-raising success seems small. Those, such as Burrell in this volume, who have examined women’s ability to raise money and who take into account those factors (i.e., comparing women challengers to men challengers, women incumbents to male incumbents, and women running for open seats to men doing the same) have typically found that women are just as able to raise money as are men (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Burrell , ; Theilman and Wilhite ). In her analysis of congressional races from , Burrell (), for example, shows that women raise as much as, or more than, men candidates whether they are running for open seats, as incumbents, or as challengers to incumbents. This is true for both Republican and Democratic women. They also are as effective in raising funds from PACs (political action committees) and from large donors and in raising money early in the campaign cycle, funds that are thought to be important in establishing the legitimacy of a candidate, garnering media attention, and perhaps scaring away potential challengers (see also Francia ). The one down side in an overall positive picture is that women need to spend more money than men to achieve the same electoral impact (Herrick ). Several PACs are organized specifically to help women candidates raise money and get elected. The most successful of these, EMILY’s List (EMILY stands for “Early Money Is Like Yeast,” the idea that early dough generates more dough later on), identifies potential women congressional candidates who look as though they are well positioned to challenge an incumbent or take an open seat.6 EMILY’s List then uses its fund-raising network, bundling thousands of individual donations and channeling them to their targeted candidates.7 EMILY’s List supports only pro-choice Democrats. They rightly claim at least part of the credit for the surge in Democratic women’s membership in the House since . The Republicans have not been as successful in channeling funds to Republican women candidates. The WISH List, a pro-choice Republican PAC, raises less than half the amount that EMILY’s List does (Francia , ). Corporate PACs, which predominantly support Republicans, give largely to incumbents, not to challengers, and thus do not disproportionately benefit women. Nor do conservative PACs, which also primarily support Republicans, make a special effort to help women candidates (Francia ). In general, large Republican donors tend to be conservative, and thus making a special effort to support women has not been high on their agendas. Media and Attitudes
Media coverage is another contextual factor affecting women’s candidacies. As Fridkin and Woodall note in this volume, much of this research focuses on the U.S. Senate, where races tend to be important, highly visible, and widely publicized,
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and on newspapers, which cover Senate races much more than does television. In general, in Senate races, newspapers provide a somewhat different kind of coverage for women than for men candidates. They tend to cover women candidates less (Kahn and Goldenberg ; Kahn ), and a larger proportion of the coverage has to do with the viability of the woman’s candidacy rather than issues. Moreover, the media tend to portray women Senate candidates as less viable than men. Looking at how this affects voters, a study of the public in twenty-one states with Senate races involving women found that individuals who watch television had no more knowledge of either men or women candidates than those who did not (Kropf and Boiney ). However, individuals who read newspapers were significantly more likely to recognize both men and women candidates, but the impact was larger for men. Individuals who watched television were more likely to have a favorable impression of the male candidates than the female candidates, an effect that was not produced by newspaper reading (Kropf and Boiney ). It is unclear whether this effect has something to do with the kind of people who watch a lot of television or the coverage that television provides.
Where Do We Find Women Candidates? A Political Innovation Approach
We have examined the partisan and competitive nature of districts, the personal characteristics of women candidates and how they are recruited, their fund-raising achievements, and how they are covered in the media. We next turn to the question of whether there are certain types of districts that are more likely to elect women. Using congressional districts from the s as our data source, we take a longitudinal perspective on the constituency factors promoting women as candidates. Like Norrander and Wilcox (this volume) with respect to state legislatures, we are interested in explaining why, over time, some congressional districts are more likely than others to have women candidates.8 Viewing the election of women as a political innovation, we examine the increase in the number of women members in light of factors thought to promote political innovation.
Women Candidates as Political Innovation
Why do we view the election of women to Congress as an innovation? Women are still far underrepresented at all levels of government.9 To view the election of women as a political innovation is helpful in thinking about why more women are not elected. That perspective also allows us to illustrate the kinds of districts where we expect women to be elected and the kinds of constituency changes we might expect in women’s success in being elected.
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Being rare, women elected to Congress were perceived as innovators. And, in fact, elections of women often are still a first of some sort. For example, in , media highlighted the first woman to be elected to a regular congressional term in South Dakota. Policy Innovation and Diffusion
Ideas about states likely to be political innovators might help explain the pattern of women’s electability.10 The innovation research in U.S. politics has largely focused on states’ innovation in public policy adoption and the pattern and time of diffusion of these innovations to other states. Jack Walker’s (, ) classic work examined the question of why some states are more likely to adopt innovations than others. He found that certain states were consistently leaders and others were laggards. Lead states were generally the wealthiest, most urban, and largest states. Party competition and turnover in office also seemed to promote innovation. Moreover, there were consistent patterns of diffusion of these adoptions, with national leaders, regional leaders, and then followers. A clear geographic pattern emerged, which Walker (, ) visualized as “a succession of spreading inkblots on a map created by the initial adoptions of new policies.” The concept of diffusion has entered the election literature as “contagion.” Diffusion may help explain how we moved from the situation where women members of Congress were as rare as hen’s teeth, to use a homely metaphor, to today’s reality, where women are significant, albeit mostly small, proportions of legislative bodies. Scholars of women’s electoral success have hypothesized that the likelihood of a party slating women for office increases if other parties have done so (Matland and Studlar ).11 Thus, the nomination of a woman in a particular constituency leads to nominations of women by other parties in that same constituency. Similarly, the election of a woman in a particular district should lead to a breakdown in the barriers to nomination of other women in that constituency. The policy diffusion literature also suggests that innovations diffuse from leader to follower states. Thus, there is a geographic focus to diffusion, the “spreading ink blots” alluded to by Walker. If that pattern were true with the election of women, we might expect to see the election of women diffuse within states. That diffusion might be a result of shared media markets, where the publicity given to one successful woman candidate might stimulate other candidates and publicize the phenomenon to the voting public or by personal party networks within the state. Figure . illustrates the diffusion of women’s membership in Congress from , when the first woman was elected to Congress, through the s. From one lone state with a woman representative in the teens, women’s successes have diffused to a handful in the s and then increasing numbers since then. Some regional patterns are apparent, with women’s successes in the northeastern and western states predominant from the s through the s. The s and
Women Candidates for Congress
Teens
Twenties
Thirties
Forties
Fifties
Sixties
Seventies
Eighties
No women elected
Women elected
Figure 3.2. Diffusion of women in Congress by decade.
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s show a more variegated pattern, with some states that had women representatives in earlier years no longer having them. Indeed, diffusion of this innovation stalled throughout most of the mid-twentieth century. Innovative Characteristics and Women’s Election
The patterns of policy diffusion that Walker outlined may have relevance in understanding the state and district conditions most supportive of the election of women. Just as policy innovating states have been wealthier and more urban, they have been first to elect women (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ). Traditional social norms have a weaker hold in these areas, as, for example, the long fight for civil rights in the South illustrated. In the more urban, wealthier areas, the idea of a woman professional generally and an elected official specifically would be seen as less odd than in more traditional, rural parts of the nation. State political culture is one of the most important factors explaining differential rates of women elected to office. States with traditional political cultures, largely in the rural South, have elected fewer women than states with moralistic political cultures (Diamond ; Hill ; Nechemias , ; Fox ; Norrander and Wilcox ). Not surprisingly, the number of women elected to political office has been significantly smaller in the South than in other regions. The state legislatures provide clear patterns. Women do best in the western and plains states. They do worst in the South, where traditional norms have not encouraged or valued women candidates. They also do relatively poorly in two eastern industrial states, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where politics has significant residue of tighter control by political organizations. Party competition and turnover in office also characterize states with more innovation. These characteristics are again directly relevant to the election of women. Competition may drive party leaders to support electable women, and turnover provides more opportunities for new members to enter Congress. As we have seen, women mostly arrive in Congress by winning an open seat, not by beating an incumbent. Analysts of women’s success in office have focused more on partisan control than on partisan competition. We have already seen that women candidates find greater success and support in the Democratic Party and in Democratic districts (Sanbonmatsu a; Hoffman, Palmer, and Gaddie ). Testing These Ideas
Using data containing results of every congressional election from to and a subset of states with every election from to ,12 we examined the factors that predict women’s primary and general election candidacies. Table . summarizes some of our major findings.
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73
Women as Primary Candidates
Table . indicates that three factors are important in predicting whether a party primary will have a woman candidate.13 Most important in our innovation and diffusion model of women’s candidacies, women primary candidacies are strongly and significantly predicted by women’s electoral success in that district during the previous decade. Districts having elected a woman in the past are more likely to have women candidates. Women’s success in the district variable might be related to incumbency; if a woman is an incumbent, then she will be a primary candidate. However, because the presence of an open seat also is strongly and positively related to the presence of women as primary candidates, the impact of having women members in the decade is significantly more than just an incumbency phenomenon. Table 3.2 Factors Predicting Whether Women Will Be Candidates Primary Candidates
General Election Candidates
Open seat
Yes*
No
% of time woman has held the seat
Yes
Yes
% of women in state’s congressional delegation ten years earlier
No
Yes, negative
Median income of district
No
Yes
Not a southern state
Yes
Yes
Variation explained (R2)
0.23
0.32
Predicted Probabilities of Women Primary Candidates Open seat
No: 32.7%
Yes: 63.2%
% of time women held seat
None: 21.4%
Maximum: 98.8%
South
Yes: 32.7%
No: 24.8%
Predicted Probabilities of Women General Election Candidates % of time women held seat
None: 13%
Maximum: 99%
% of women in the state’s
None: 26%
Maximum: 9%
Median income
Minimum: 17%
Maximum: 35%
South
No: 24%
Yes: 17%
congressional delegation ten years earlier
* “Yes” indicates significant relationships; all are positive unless otherwise noted. Note: Taking into account the proportion of women in the state legislatures ten years before, the presence of a woman U.S. senator, the presence of a woman governor, change in party control, urban population, the proportion of the district with military-related populations, the proportion over age sixty-five, and the proportion of the Democratic vote. Dependent variable: whether or not there was a woman in any primary or general election in a given district in a given election. For additional detail, see Ondercin and Welch 2004.
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Moreover, when we removed women incumbents from the data, the findings remained quite similar, with significant effects for both open seat and the proportion of times women have won the seat. Thus, it is the history of the district and not just women’s incumbency that influences women’s presence in the primary. Without considering those two factors, women’s candidacies are positively related to the median income and urbanization of the district, as well as the Democratic vote and nonsouthern location. However, all but the nonsouthern location influence wash out when we look at these characteristics alongside those of the open seat and history of women being elected factors. In the second part of Table . we see a substantive impact of each of the three significant variables: the open seat, the proportion of times women have controlled the seat, and the southern locale. The probability of women running in the primaries where an incumbent is running is only . percent, but with an open seat, the probability nearly doubles, to . percent. The proportion of times a woman has held the seat also makes it significantly more likely that a woman will run in the primaries. In districts where women have never held the seat during the decade, there is only a . percent chance that a woman will be a primary candidate. In districts where women have won most of the time, almost every primary (. percent) has at least one woman candidate. Southern locale has a less dramatic impact, but being located in a southern state reduces the chance of a woman running in the primary by percent. Women as General Election Candidates
The presence of women as candidates in the general election is strongly predicted by the previous success of women in the district, by being in a nonsouthern state, and by being from a state without a strong tradition of women in Congress in the s (Table .).14 Overall, the model explains percent of the variation, substantially more than in predicting the presence of women as primary candidates. Differences from the primary candidate model include the lack of significance of having an open seat. While having an open seat draws women candidates in the primaries, open seats also draw strong men candidates. Thus, the presence of an open seat does not necessarily lead to women’s success in the primaries, only to more women giving the primary a shot. However, the success of women candidates in the district since reapportionment does strongly and consistently relate to women’s presence in the general election. In other words, women are more likely to be candidates in the general election in districts where women have won during the s. Though we predicted that women would more likely be candidates in states where women were successful in the s, in fact, we found the reverse: the proportion of women in the state’s congressional delegation ten years previously is significantly negatively related to women’s general election candidacy. This relationship is probably negative because of the changing partisan balances of women’s representation in Congress. Their representation in the s was much more
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75
evenly split between Democrats and Republicans than in the s, when Democratic women outnumbered Republican women substantially.15 Thus, the appearance of Democratic women candidates in the s is likely to be negatively related to the more balanced partisan slant of women candidates in the s. The demographic variables are not much better predictors of women’s general election candidacies than they are primary ones, though median income joins southern locale as significant. The third part of Table . reports the predicted probabilities for the four significant variables in the model. Districts where women have won every election in the past decade are almost certain to have a woman running in the general election ( percent). In states that have a strong history of electing women to Congress a decade ago, the probability of having women in the general election is reduced by nearly two-thirds. Districts with the lowest median income have only a percent chance of having a women run in the general election; this probability almost doubles (to percent) when looking at districts with the highest median incomes. Districts located in the South have a percent lower chance of having a woman candidate in the general election. Overall, then, our expectation that women’s past success leads to current better representation is confirmed by these data. Women are much more likely to be candidates when women have been elected in these congressional districts during the decade. We found the same patterns with our subset of s elections (not shown). This suggests that the innovation of electing women can become institutionalized over time. However, our expectations concerning the diffusion of this innovation from statewide office to congressional office were not validated. There was little relationship between the presence of women governors and senators and women members of Congress. Nor did the presence of women legislators a decade before shape women’s current candidacies. Partisan Differences in the Presence and Success of Women Candidates
We know that the partisan environment shapes women’s electoral success. However, our findings concerning the influence of women’s electoral history in the district obtains for both Democratic and Republican women. That important variable is the only one significantly affecting both general and primary election candidacies and both Republicans and Democrats. Democratic women are also more likely to be primary and general election candidates in districts with open seats, where there is at least one woman U.S. senator in the state, and in the North (Table .). They are more likely to be primary candidates in districts with higher median income, and less likely to be general election candidates when there were more women in the state legislature a decade before.
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Table 3.3 Partisan Differences in Predicting Women Congressional Candidates and Winners (N = 2,201) Democrats
Republicans
Primary
General Election
Primary
General Election
Open seat
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
% of time woman held seat
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
past decade
No
No
Yes
No
% of women in state’s congressional delegation past decade
No
Yes, negative
No
No
Presence of woman U.S. senator
Yes
Yes
No
Yes, negative
Median income
Yes
No
No
No
Urban population
No
No
Yes
No
Not a southern state
Yes
Yes
No
No
% Democratic presidential vote
No
No
No
Yes
Constant
⫺1.59
⫺1.45
⫺1.10
⫺2.03
0.19
0.25
0.11
0.17
% women in state legislature
Psuedo R2
Note: Variables are those used in tables 3.2 to 3.4. Income coded in $1,000s; urban population coded in 1,000s. Significance level based on one-tailed test.
Republican women are more likely to be primary candidates in open-seat elections, where women had a better representation in the state’s legislature ten years earlier, and in urban areas. However, none of these three factors affects the likelihood of Republican women being general election candidates. Republican women are most likely to be general election candidates in districts that vote Democratic and in states without a U.S. senator who is a woman. Women senators are most likely to be Democrats and in Democratic-leaning states, explaining why Democratic candidacies are positively and Republican candidacies are negatively related to the presence of women senators. The electoral experience of women in the district again shines through as very important in predicting women candidates. The mixed effects of the other variables suggest that the context for women’s electoral success is heavily influenced by the partisan context (see also Sanbonmatsu ). Conclusions
Viewing the election of women as still a political innovation, we have examined the factors influencing women’s candidacies. We found some evidence for each of our hypotheses. Districts that have innovated by electing women are more likely
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77
to later have women candidates and representatives. In these districts, women are encouraged to run, and voters, witnessing the past success of women candidates, appear more ready to vote for them again. These effects remain even after controlling for incumbent women. Open seats facilitate innovation by increasing the chances that there will be women primary and general election candidates. They also slightly increase the chances of a woman winning in the general election. This helps explain why open seats are the avenue by which many women enter Congress. Open seats attract women candidates to the primaries, and eventually some of them win. Should Table 3.4 Full Regression Results Primaries
General
Open seat
0.79 (0.10)*
0.16 (0.11)
% of time woman held seat
3.04 (0.21)*
3.43 (0.20)*
% women in state legislature past decade
0.01 (0.01)
0.007 (0.007)
% of women in state’s congressional delegation past decade
⫺0.20 (0.35)
⫺1.28 (0.41)*
Presence of woman U.S. senator
0.05 (0.05)
0.07 (0.05)
Presence of woman governor
⫺0.16 (0.15)
⫺0.06 (0.16)
Change in Party Control
⫺0.01 (0.10)
0.01 (0.005)*
Median income (in $1,000s)
0.008 (0.005)
⫺0.002 (0.003)
Urban (in 1,000s)
0.0003 (0.0002)
⫺1.40 (2.82)
% military population
⫺2.57 (2.50)
⫺0.09 (1.13)
% over age 65
-0.23 (1.01)
⫺0.26 (0.09)*
Southern state
⫺0.20 (0.08)*
0.004 (0.004)
% Democratic presidential vote
0.004
(0.003)
Constant
⫺1.23
⫺1.61
Pseudo R2
0.23
0.32
Note: Dependent variable: whether or not there was a woman in any primary election in a given district in a given election. Significance level based on one-tailed test. N= 2,001.
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these trends continue, the percentage of women in Congress will increase with the evitable replacement of incumbents, but the pace of change is excruciatingly slow (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ). Districts with demographic characteristics where we might expect more innovation do not have significant relationships with women’s candidacies after we control for the history of women in the district. The biggest exception to that generalization is southern locale, which has a negative impact on women’s candidacies. Women still are less likely to run in the South. It appears that the conservative political culture of this region discourages women candidates from entering the race. However, this impact is focused on Democratic women. Southern locale has no significant effect on Republican women’s candidacies. The effects of the eligibility pool appear to structure the opportunities for Democratic women differently than it structures the opportunity for Republican women. Sanbonmatsu () argues that there is not one single path to elected office. Women’s candidacies are structured by the partisan identities of the women who came before them. Women’s elections will continue to be viewed as political innovations in certain places because there are still many firsts left for women to experience (several states have never elected a woman to Congress, others have not done so recently; in many states, women are still a token presence in the statehouse, and of course, the election of a woman to the presidency is still in the future). Thus, the electoral glass ceiling remains significant in many areas. Still, women elected to political office today can no longer be viewed as novelties. These women have managed to get their foot in the door and are prying the door open for other women.
NOTES
Parts of this chapter draw on our paper presented at the Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting, April . . A study done in (Darcy, Welch, and Clark , ) found that, at a time when white women were represented on city councils at about half their population proportions, black women were represented at about one-third theirs, and Latino women about one-fourth theirs. . The latter rarely happens; the clearest recent example is in , when Nixon’s Watergate scandal led to the defeat of many Republican incumbents. Even so, the vast majority of incumbents won. . Matland and King () do not examine reasons for the male-female success rate in these open-seat elections. They do note that this is largely due to women’s declining success in the late s. It is probable that the Republican majorities in congressional elections during those years swept a disproportionate number of Democratic women to defeat. This interpretation is supported by Hoffman, Palmer,
Women Candidates for Congress
. .
. .
.
. . .
.
.
79
and Gaddie’s () analysis showing that open-seat races are increasingly partisan, and Fiber (), who shows only a percent difference between male and female open-seat votes once other relevant factors are controlled. However, her analysis covers a longer period, to . One state, Nebraska, has an ostensibly nonpartisan legislature, but even there, in most districts, party networks and support can be very important in winning election. In many of these cases, women were not mere placeholders until the next election. Often, they were elected in highly contested special elections, and several went on to have long and successful congressional careers (see the Center for American Women and Politics Web site, http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu /Facts/Officeholders/ widows.pdf; Kincaid ). In recent years, EMILY’s List has also assisted a few incumbents. That is, individual members of EMILY’s List write checks to specific candidates targeted by EMILY and send those checks to EMILY. EMILY’s List then collects the checks and sends them to the candidates. This practice of bundling avoids the campaign finance restrictions on organizational donations. EMILY’s List itself may give only $, to any one candidate. Several analyses of women’s success have focused on how well demographic and political attributes of the constituency predict women candidates’ successes (for reviews, see Matland and Studlar , ; Darcy, Welch, and Clark ). Most of these studies focus only on one or a few elections or use cross-sectional slices to compare overall aggregate trends (e.g., Studlar and Matland ; K. Dolan and Ford ). Thomas (a) establishes critical mass at around percent. Much of this section of the chapter is drawn from Ondercin and Welch (). The authors appreciate the comments of Kira Sanbonmatsu. These ideas borrow from the early literature on political parties that visualized that parties would be affected by each other, through either a “contagion from the left” (Duverger ) or from the right (Epstein ). The contagion from the left would occur if conservative parties adopted socialist parties’ strategy of mass membership. The contagion from the right would occur if socialist parties borrowed the commercial tactics of the right, such as mass media advertising. Both regular and special elections are included. We created an additional data set that contains a subsample of the congressional districts for the , , , , and elections. The subsample consisted of all states that either had one or two districts during the s and s, except Montana, which changed from having two districts in the s to only one district in the s. By focusing on these states we are able to overcome the problems created by redistricting. The cases in the subsample were very similar to those in the s, with a few notable exceptions: districts in the s subsample were less Democratic and more rural; there were also no states that had elected a woman to the U.S. Senate and no southern states. Women were more likely to run in the primaries than in the full s data, and slightly more likely to win. There was no difference ( percent in each case) in their likelihood to run in the general election. Table . provides the detailed regression model.
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. As we did with our women primary candidates, we tested the model without women incumbents. The history of women’s success in the district remained significant, again indicating it is not a surrogate incumbency effect. . While there were always more Democratic women than Republican women in the House in the s, the differences were only one (such as in the th and th Congresses) or a few (the largest being the thirteen to nine margin in the th Congress). In the s, the differences ranged from ten (in the nd) to twentythree (in the rd).
4
Kim L. Fridkin and Gina Serignese Woodall
Different Portraits, Different Leaders? Gender Differences in U.S. Senators’ Presentation of Self
■ Continuing with the theme that women who run for and win office face special genderbased challenges, Fridkin and Woodall explore the ways U.S. senators present themselves to the public in light of stereotypical views about women and men in politics. Analyzing the personal traits, the issue emphasis, and credit claiming for successful initiatives of politicians from the world of campaigns to the legislative arena, these authors show that, to counter perceived gender stereotypes, women are more likely to emphasize their “male” traits in press releases, while male candidates emphasize their “female” traits. In contrast, on issues, men are more likely to emphasize their positions on “male” issues, such as foreign policy and defense, whereas women are more likely to emphasize “female” issues, such as education and health care. What may be most intriguing is the finding that men take more credit than women in press releases for favorable policy outcomes and are more likely to blame others for policy failures. This last set of findings may be indicative of gendered approaches to power that are explored later in this volume. ■
My opponent’s support seems to pick up when voters focus more on national security and Iraq . . . but I think I may have an edge when they think about issues like health care, education and jobs. — , the Democratic candidate (and now representative) for South Dakota’s sole seat in the House of Representatives, when the New York Times asked about the different ways voters react to male and female candidates. Her opponent was Republican Larry Diedrich. Stephanie Herseth’s answer to the New York Times’s question acknowledges the power of gender stereotypes.1 Herseth expects voters to see men and women candidates as having distinct areas of expertise. Her suspicions regarding voters’ stereotypes are supported by research in psychology, sociology, and political science. Gender stereotypes are cognitive structures that link personal traits, behaviors, and beliefs to the social constructs of male and female (Ashmore and Del Boca ; Deaux and Lewis ). Some gender stereotypes are false and have no ob81
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jective data to support them; other gender stereotypes may contain elements of truth to them but fail to take into account individual differences ( J. Williams and Best ). For example, if one states that women are more compassionate than men, then one ignores important individual differences in this trait among men and women. It is possible that in general women are more compassionate than men, but individual men may be more compassionate than individual women. Stereotypes don’t allow for this variability and, if used uncritically, lead to overgeneralizations and produce false conclusions about an entire group of people. Scholars have studied gender stereotypes since the s. They have found that men are generally stereotyped as possessing agentic traits such as boldness and rationality, and women are perceived as possessing communal traits such as emotional warmth and sympathy (McKee and Sheriffs ; Sheriffs and McKee ; Parsons and Bales ). These main findings have been reaffirmed during the past forty years (Broverman et al. ; Rosenkrantz et al. ; J. Williams and Bennett ) and in research in other countries ( J. Williams and Best ). Experimental research suggests that people evaluate identical male and female candidates differently (K. Dolan ; Huddy and Terkildsen a, b; Kahn ; D. King and Matland ; Leeper ; Riggle, Shields, and Johnson ; Rosenwasser and Dean ; Rosenwasser and Seale ; Sapiro – ). Survey research and in-depth qualitative research have also confirmed the presence of these gender stereotypes (Alexander and Andersen ; Cook and Wilcox ; K. Dolan ; Fox ; Koch , , ; McDermott ; Niven a; Sanbonmatsu ). In particular, this research shows that women are seen as more competent at handling “compassion” issues, such as poverty, education, the environment, and child-related and health-related policy, and men are seen as more competent at dealing with “male” issues, such as the economy, foreign policy, and other defense issues (Leeper ; Mueller ; Rosenwasser and Seale ; Sapiro –). Moreover, citizens view women more positively than men in terms of their honesty, compassion, and integrity (i.e., “female” traits), and men are viewed more positively on their leadership ability, competence, and experience (Fox and Smith ; Kahn ; Leeper ; Sapiro – ). D. King and Matland () find that these types of gender stereotypes continue to influence evaluations of candidates, even when people are given important political information about the candidates, such as their party affiliation.
News Coverage of Men and Women Politicians
News media can reinforce or counter dominant societal stereotypes. Media coverage is important, for candidates rely on the media to communicate with voters, and citizens rely on the media to form impressions and to evaluate politicians (Aldrich ; Paletz ; Patterson ; Iyengar and Kinder ).
Different Portraits, Different Leaders?
83
The media do not cover all political campaigns and candidates equally. For example, Senate campaigns generate more media coverage than House campaigns (Krasno ; Westlye ; Jacobson ), competitive campaigns receive substantially more media attention than noncompetitive campaigns (P. S. Herrnson ; Kahn and Kenney ), candidates who spend more money receive more press coverage (Westlye ), and incumbents garner more news space than challengers (P. S. Herrnson ). Candidates need to secure news media coverage to get their messages to potential supporters. However, the news media do not always provide adequate or accurate coverage of the candidates’ messages (Paletz ). Recent research shows that the media differ in the way they cover male and female candidates (Fox ; Kahn ; L. Williams ). Kahn () finds that women candidates for statewide office receive less press attention than their male counterparts, even when controlling for incumbency and the competitiveness of the race. Furthermore, the coverage that women candidates receive is more negative, emphasizing the women candidates’ lack of viability. And, though the news media’s coverage of male candidates virtually mirrors the messages emanating from male candidates’ campaigns, the news media are much more likely to distort the messages delivered by women candidates during their campaigns. Finally, these gender differences in news coverage lead citizens to develop less favorable impressions of women candidates, compared to their male colleagues (Kahn ).2 Women candidates express frustration with media coverage of their campaigns. For example, one female candidate for state legislative office in Illinois lamented that the press concentrate “on stupid, little things such as clothes, hair, etc., which never came up with men” (B. Poole , ). Reporting on such frivolous matters makes it difficult for women candidates to get the news media to “stay on message.” Consequently, it is often difficult for women candidates to demonstrate to potential supporters that they are serious, competent candidates with a substantive agenda. Gidengil and Everitt () conducted a content analysis of speeches in TV news coverage of the and Canadian elections to see if the news media rely on a “masculine” frame when covering the candidates’ speeches. The findings suggest that the media utilize a more highly charged, nonneutral language to report women politicians’ speech (e.g., “outburst” as opposed to “stated”). Moreover, the speeches of the female leaders are reported on television as more negative and aggressive than the speeches of men. In an experiment, Gidengil and Everitt found that the gender differences in news frames lead people to develop more negative evaluations of the women candidates. A series of scholars have examined candidates’ controlled messages to see what men and women candidates choose to emphasize in their campaigns. Researchers have examined a variety of controlled communications, including the candidates’ televised political advertisements, their speeches, their Web pages, and their direct mail (e.g., Dabelko and Herrnson ; Iyengar et al. ; Kahn ; Lar-
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son ). Most of these studies find that men and women candidates emphasize different issues, with women focusing on “female” issues such as education and health care, whereas men are more likely to focus on “male” issues such as the economy and foreign policy (Dabelko and Herrnson ; Iyengar et al. ; Kahn , ; Kahn and Goldenberg ; Kahn and Gordon ; Witt, Paget, and Matthews ). In this way, the issue content of campaigns reinforces gender stereotypes. Yet, men and women candidates tend to focus on different traits, in this case emphasizing the trait that is commonly associated with the other sex. So women emphasize their “male” traits of experience and leadership, and men are more likely to stress “female” traits of empathy and integrity (Iyengar et al. ; Kahn and Goldenberg ; Kahn , b). In a more recent study, Larson () examined candidates’ controlled messages by conducting a content analysis of campaign brochures for male and female candidates running for the Pennsylvania State Assembly in and . Larson finds that, overall, women are more likely than men to emphasize “women’s issues” and “female” traits in their brochures, but the differences are not dramatic. More specifically, Larson shows that when men’s and women’s brochures differ, it is because male candidates “run as men,” not because female candidates “run as women.” That is, male candidates are more likely to focus on “male” issues and “male” traits as opposed to “female” issues and “female” traits, but female candidates are about as likely to focus on “male” issues and “female” issues and “male” traits and “female” traits in their campaign brochures. To summarize, the research on the media coverage of political candidates indicates that men and women disseminate different messages during their campaigns. However, the news media do not always mirror these messages and do a significantly better job at representing the messages of male candidates than female candidates. Finally, news treatment of men and women candidates differs in terms of amount, emphasis, and tone. The news media’s differential treatment of men and women is not restricted to the electoral arena. Women political leaders—in general—are underrepresented in the media’s presentation of the news (Norris ; Clawson and Tom ). Indeed, most newsmakers covered by television, newspapers, and magazines are male (Renzetti and Curran, ). S. Johnson and Christ () examined newsmakers who were covered in Time magazine from the s to the s and found that only percent of Time covers show images of women, and many of these women are entertainers, not political figures. Norris () conducted an analysis of the media coverage of twenty female world leaders and compared them with their male counterparts. She found that women leaders are less visible in the news and receive less coverage than their male counterparts. When women leaders do get media attention, they are often covered as “breakthrough” candidates, as outsiders, and as agents of change.
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Carroll and Schreiber () examined the media coverage of women and men members in the rd Congress. Their data set consisted of news articles on twenty-four U.S. congresswomen and fifty-one congressmen in their first terms in office between January and October . Carroll and Schreiber found that women receive more media coverage than expected and the coverage is mainly positive. However, the reporting gives the impression that women members are most concerned and most effective at dealing with “female” issues. Therefore, Carroll and Schreiber concluded that the press accurately portray women as proponents of “female” issues but ignores other types of issues that women are advocating (e.g., foreign policy, economic issues). Finally, research suggests that coverage of women officeholders frequently focuses on their personality, appearance, and family life (Witt, Paget, and Matthews ), whereas media coverage of their male counterparts centers on their issue positions and other substantive matters related to governing ( Jamieson ). A few studies have examined the controlled communications of male and female officeholders. For example, J. Dolan and Kropf () conducted a content analysis of newsletters sent out by male and female members of the th Congress. These researchers examined whether the newsletters differed in the frequency of credit claiming, the types of policies members take credit for, and whether members of Congress share credit with other individuals or take sole credit for legislative accomplishments. Counter to their expectations, Dolan and Kropf found that women are more likely to claim credit in their newsletters compared to their male counterparts. Moreover, they found that women are significantly more likely to take credit on “female” issues, and men are more likely to take credit on “male” issues. Gulati () conducted a content analysis of the images on the home pages of senators and House members who served in the th Congress. Gulati’s examination suggests that female members are more likely than their male counterparts to present themselves as “outsiders.” According to Gulati, the outsider label is evoked by local pictures and symbols on Web pages, perhaps indicating to constituents that the member of Congress is “one of them” and not a Washington insider. Finally, Niven and Zilber () interviewed fifty-nine press secretaries of male and female members of Congress in to see whether they view news media coverage as biased. Niven and Zilber found that press secretaries for female members are more likely to think the news media define their member by her sex, and they see this coverage as problematic. In addition, press secretaries for female members overwhelmingly complain about a lack of press coverage for their members, compared to the press secretaries working for male members. In addition, Niven and Zilber looked at the Web sites of eighty-three members of Congress in and found that the majority of both women and men highlighted “women’s
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issues.” In general, Niven and Zilber failed to find dramatic differences in the Web pages of men and women members of Congress. To summarize, the few studies that have examined how men and women officeholders present themselves to their constituents have yielded contradictory results. In this chapter, we explore more fully how men and women officeholders present themselves to their constituents. We turn now to a discussion of our methodology.3
Research Design Design
As Fenno (, ) explained in his classic study Homestyle, elected politicians need to decide how to “make a presentation of themselves to others” when they are at home among their constituents. Politicians present themselves in a way to draw support and legitimacy to increase their chances of reelection. In this chapter, we are interested in examining whether men and women differ in how they present themselves to their constituents. As discussed earlier, men and women candidates for elective office deliver different messages during their campaigns. We expect men and women, once elected, to continue to emphasize these disparate themes. In particular, we hypothesize that men and women officeholders will diverge in their “presentation of self.” To test this hypothesis, we examined the behavior of U.S. senators. We chose U.S. senators because we know a great deal about how candidates for the U.S. Senate campaign for office (Kahn ; Milburn ; Trent and Friedenberg ; Kahn and Gordon ; Kirkpatrick ; Witt, Paget, and Matthews ) but considerably less about how they behave once in office. To measure the governing messages of U.S. senators, we needed information disseminated directly from the senators’ offices and not filtered through the news media. Therefore, we chose senators’ press releases to systematically examine whether male and female officeholders differ in how they present themselves to their constituents. In particular, we relied on a content analysis of male and female senators’ press releases taken from the senators’ Web sites. We examined all press releases on the Web sites between January and March . All women senators serving in the U.S. Senate are included in the study.4 To examine the press releases of male senators, we drew a stratified random sample of male senators, stratifying by seniority, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) scores,5 and party. Our procedure yielded a sample of twenty-one men and seven women officeholders.6 For these twenty-eight senators, we examined press releases.7 In the press releases, we looked at gender differences in () traits stressed (i.e., “male” versus “female” traits), () issues stressed (i.e., “male” versus “female”
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issues), and () position-taking and credit-claiming strategies. By examining the senators’ press releases, we can see what messages the senators choose to emphasize to constituents. By issuing these press releases, the senators hope to obtain coverage for their preferred messages and, ultimately, influence constituents’ impressions of their performance in office. Results
We began by looking at the consistency of the politicians’ messages, from campaign phase to the governing phase. During the campaign period, men and women candidates try to overcome potentially damaging gender stereotypes by emphasizing their possession of distinct personality traits that are stereotypically associated with the other sex. Thus, women candidates stress their possession of stereotypical “male” traits, and male candidates emphasize their possession of stereotypical “female” traits. Our analysis suggests that women officeholders are also more likely than their male counterparts to send out press releases that stress their competence, strength, and leadership ability (i.e., “male” traits). As the data in Figure . show, women senators are much more likely than male senators to highlight their competence, strength, and leadership ability in their press releases.8 Women, however, do not completely ignore their traditional strengths. On the contrary, women senators are almost equally likely to focus on “female” traits such as empathy and honesty as on their “male” traits.
Average Number of Mentions per Release
0.35 0.31
0.3 0.25
0.24
0.23
0.2 0.15 0.11
0.1 0.05 0 Women Senators (n=516 press releases; 7 senators)
“Male” Traits
Men Senators (n=295 press releases; 21 senators)
“Female” Traits
Figure 4.1. Substance of trait discussion in senators’ press releases. “Male” traits include the following: knowledgeable, strong leader, tough, competent, experienced, consistent, hardworking. “Female” traits include the following: honest, compassionate, empathetic, sensitive, trustworthy, moral.
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Male senators, unlike their female counterparts, are much less likely to focus on “male” traits—their stereotypical strengths. Instead, in their press releases male senators stress their possession of “female” traits such as compassion and honesty. In fact, male senators stress “female” traits almost three times as often as “male” traits in their press releases.9 These results indicate that male and female senators are painting distinct portraits of their personality profiles in their press releases.10 Although men are less likely than women to explicitly focus on “male” traits in their press releases, the press releases of male senators do include implicit discussion of these traits. In particular, male senators were more likely than their female colleagues to highlight their committee leadership positions.11 This gender difference is not solely driven by differences in seniority between men and women. When we controlled for the senators’ seniority, as well as the senators’ party, we found that male senators continue to mention their leadership positions significantly more often than do female senators.12 Senators spend some time discussing their personality strengths, both implicitly and explicitly, but spend a great deal more time focusing on their policy priorities in their press releases. On average, about five paragraphs are devoted to issues and less than one paragraph is devoted to personality traits. Men and women senators spend about the same amount of time focusing on issues. A typical press release issued by a female senator’s office contains . paragraphs about issues, and a typical press release disseminated by a male senator’s office contains . paragraphs.13 Although men and women senators are just as likely to focus on issues, these senators differ dramatically in what issues they talk about. As we found during the campaign season, men are more likely to focus on “male” issues such as the economy, defense issues, and foreign policy, and women are more likely to discuss their stereotypical strengths, such as education, health care, and the environment. As Figure . demonstrates, men and women senators, like men and women candidates for the U.S. Senate, have distinct policy agendas. For women senators, the most popular issue discussed in their press releases is health care, followed by the environment. For men, the most frequently mentioned policy issue is farming, followed by defense-related issues. Moreover, the gender differences in issue emphasis persist, regardless of the senator’s party affiliation. For example, Democratic women, on average, spend more than two paragraphs per press release (.) focusing on “female” issues, and Democratic men spend less than one and a half paragraphs (.) on “female” issues per release.14 Republicans focus on “female” issues less than Democrats, but Republican women continue to talk about these issues more than their male counterparts do. In particular, Republican women average two paragraphs per press release on “female” issues, whereas Republican men devote only about a paragraph (.) to these issues. We find the same pattern when we look at “male” issues, such as the economy and defense policy. Specifically, women, re-
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Average Number of Mentions per Release
2.5 2.13
2.16
2 1.55
1.5
1.32
1 0.5 0 Women Senators (n=516 press releases; 7 senators)
“Male” Issues
Men Senators (n=295 press releases; 21 senators)
“Female” Issues
Figure 4.2. Substance of issue discussion in senators’ press releases. “Male” issues include foreign policy, defense spending, trade, farm issues, and the economy. “Female” issues include health care, day care, helping the poor, civil rights, the environment, education, and the elderly.
gardless of their party, focus on “male” issues less often than do men in their press releases. Men and women also differ in how they talk about issues. For instance, men are more likely than women to stake out clear positions in their press releases. In fact, the results of an OLS regression analysis indicate that only gender—and not party affiliation or seniority—influences position taking in the senators’ press releases.15 Mayhew () believes that position taking is one of the ways members of Congress try to increase their likelihood of reelection. Position taking can be a risky activity, however, because members of Congress may alienate some voters by staking a clear position on an issue. Perhaps women senators are more reluctant than their male counterparts to articulate positions on issues because women senators may be more uncertain about their chances of reelection. In addition, men are more likely than women to engage in what Mayhew () calls “credit claiming,” when a member of Congress claims to be personally responsible for some desirable governmental outcome. As Mayhew explains, credit claiming is such an important activity for members of Congress that “much of congressional life is a relentless search for opportunities to engage in it” (). Male senators may be more likely to claim credit than female senators because men, in general, are more likely to take credit for their own accomplishments. According to research in social psychology, women are more likely to attribute their success to luck or chance, whereas men are more likely to attribute their success to their own skill or ability (Feather ; Beyer ; Deaux ).16 As Beyer (, ) explains, “Women, by making external attributions for success, do not take credit for their performance —thereby denigrating their abilities—whereas men stress
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Average Number of Mentions per Release
0.4
0.38
0.35 0.3 0.25 0.2
0.2 0.15
0.15
0.1
0.14 0.09 0.05
0.05 0 Credit Claiming: Overall
Credit Claiming: “Female” Issues
Women Senators (n=516 press releases; 7 senators)
Credit Claiming: “Male” Issues
Men Senators (n=295 press releases; 21 senators)
Figure 4.3. Gender differences in credit claiming. “Male” issues include foreign policy, defense spending, trade, farm issues, and the economy. “Female” issues include health care, day care, helping the poor, civil rights, the environment, education, and the elderly.
the importance of their ability in achieving success.” Consistent with this general attribution bias, we find male senators take credit for positive policy outcomes significantly more often than do women senators, regardless of the type of issue (see Figure .). The gender difference in credit claiming is most impressive for “male” issues, where male senators claim credit four times as often as female senators.17 Additional research in social psychology indicates that men are also more likely than women to blame others for their own failures (Taylor, Peplau, and Sears ). We find the same patterns among U.S. senators. In particular, male senators blame others (e.g., the president, the opposing party) for unfavorable policy outcomes more often than their female counterparts blame others, regardless of the policy domain (see Figure .).18 Across all issues, we find men in the U.S. Senate are more than six times as likely as women to criticize others for adverse policy outcomes.
Conclusion
Men and women senators differ dramatically in their presentation of self in press releases. Men and women emphasize different personality characteristics, with women spending significantly more time than men stressing their “male” traits,
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Average Number of Mentions per Release
0.25
0.2
0.2
0.15 0.11
0.1 0.07
0.05 0.03 0.02 0.01
0 Blaming: Overall
Blaming: “Female” Issues
Women Senators (n=516 press releases; 7 senators)
Blaming: “Male” Issues
Men Senators (n=295 press releases; 21 senators)
Figure 4.4. Gender differences in blaming others. “Male” issues include foreign policy, defense spending, trade, farm issues, and the economy. “Female” issues include health care, day care, helping the poor, civil rights, the environment, education, and the elderly.
such as their leadership abilities and competence. Men, in contrast, are more likely to stress their possession of “female” traits than their “male” traits in their press releases. However, men implicitly highlight their experience (i.e., a “male” trait) by frequently mentioning their leadership positions in the U.S. Senate. Men and women are equally likely to focus on policy matters in their press releases. However, they differ in the substance of their issue discussion. Men and women talk about different issues, with men talking more about “male” issues, such as defense issues and farm policy, whereas women are more likely to focus on “female” issues such as education and health care. Finally, male senators are more likely to take clear positions on issues, to credit themselves for favorable policy outcomes, and to blame others for policy failures. Why are these differences in self-presentation important? As illustrated in the senators’ press releases, these differences suggest that men and women senators may differ in how they represent their constituents. At the very least, men and women — regardless of their party affiliation—are likely to focus on different policy domains in their legislative work.19 These gender differences in representational style may lead to differences in the reelection prospects of men and women senators. For example, it may be the case that male senators’ tendency to claim credit for favorable issue outcomes will generate positive impressions among the senators’ constituents, thereby increasing their likelihood of reelection. Be-
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cause women senators are less likely to engage in credit-claiming strategies, this presentational strategy may hurt their electoral prospects. Although men and women senators clearly differ in their presentation of self, it is critical to examine whether these differences are represented in the news media’s coverage of these senators. We know that during campaigns, the news media mirror the messages of male senatorial candidates much more faithfully than the messages of female senatorial candidates (Kahn a, ). Does this bias in news coverage persist for elected officeholders? Specifically, are the news media more accurately representing the message of male senators compared to female senators? If this gender bias in coverage persists for U.S. senators, then women senators may have a more difficult time delivering their messages to their constituents, perhaps hindering their ability to represent their state as well as hampering their chances of reelection.
NOTES
The names of the authors appear in alphabetical order and imply that this chapter is in every way a collaborative enterprise. The data for this paper were collected with support from the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women and Politics. . Quote adapted from the New York Times, May , , A. . Kropf and Boiney (), examining television coverage, also find evidence for gender differences in news coverage. . Several researchers have looked at how men and women behave in legislative office. At the state level, research reveals that women have unique legislative agendas (Dodson and Carroll ; Thomas ; Thomas and Welch ) and state legislatures with the highest percentage of female representatives introduce and pass more priority bills dealing with “women’s issues” than in states with fewer female representatives (Thomas ). Moreover, research indicates that women are more successful than men in ensuring the success of such legislation (Saint-Germain ; Thomas , a, b; Thomas and Welch ). Finally, research suggests that women have a governing philosophy different from their male counterparts’, one that emphasizes cooperation rather than competition (Reingold a; Kathlene b). At the national level, studies show that congresswomen provide the bulk of leadership on “women’s issues” (Gehlen ; Mandel and Dodson ; Tamerius ; Gertzog ). . Senator Olympia Snowe did not have press releases posted for this time period. . Every year, the ADA’s legislative committee selects twenty votes as the most important for the year. Each member of Congress receives five points for a yes vote. The total possible number of points for a congressperson is one hundred. . Of the original twenty-four men senators chosen, five did not have press releases on their Web sites during this time period. . Twelve of the senators are Republicans and sixteen are Democrats. . This gender difference is statistically significant at p ⬍ ..
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. This difference is statistically significant at p ⬍ .. . The gender difference in emphasis on “male” traits remains statistically significant when we control for the party and the seniority of the senator. The gender difference in emphasis on “female” traits is not statistically significant at p ⬍ .. . This difference is statistically significant at p ⬍ .. . The results of the OLS regression predicting number of mentions of committee leadership position is . (.) constant ⫹ ⫺. (.) gender ⫹ ⫺. (.) party ⫹. (.) seniority. The unstandardized regression coefficient is given, followed in parentheses by the standard error. In the analysis in this chapter, gender is coded ⫽ female senator, ⫽ male senator; party is coded ⫽ Democrat, ⫽ Republican; seniority is number of years in the senate. . This difference is not statistically significant. . These estimates are derived from the following OLS regression: . (.) constant ⫹ . (.) gender ⫹ . (.) party ⫹ ⫺. (.) seniority. We calculated the predicted values for Democratic and Republican men and women, while holding seniority of the senator at the mean (.). The unstandardized regression coefficient is given, followed in parentheses by the standard error. . The results of the OLS regression analysis are . (.) constant ⫺. (.) gender ⫺. (.) seniority ⫹ . (.) party. The unstandardized regression coefficient is given, followed in parentheses by the standard error. . J. Dolan and Kropf () offer a similar hypothesis in their study of newsletters of U.S. House members. However, as discussed earlier, Dolan and Kropf fail to find support for their hypothesis. . The difference between male and female senators in credit claiming is statistically significant overall (p ⬍ .), for “male” issues (p ⬍ .), and for “female” issues (p ⬍ .). The gender difference in credit claiming persists when we control for party identification and seniority. For example, the results of an OLS regression predicting credit claiming across issues are . (.) constant ⫹ ⫺. (.) gender ⫺. (.) party identification ⫺. (.) seniority. The unstandardized regression coefficient is given, followed in parentheses by the standard error. . The difference between male and female senators in “blaming” is statistically significant overall (p ⬍ .), for “male” issues (p ⬍ .), and for “female” issues (p ⬍ .). These gender differences persist when we control for the party of the senator and the seniority of the senator. For example, the results of an OLS regression predicting blaming others across issues are . (.) constant ⫹ ⫺. (.) gender ⫺. (.) party identification ⫺. (.) seniority. . This finding is consistent with other scholarly work (see Carroll, Dodson, and Mandel ; Kathlene, Clarke, and Fox ; K. Poole and Ziegler ; Thomas ).
5
Michael J. Epstein, Richard G. Niemi, and Lynda W. Powell
Do Women and Men State Legislators Differ?
■ Once in office, do women legislate differently from men? Are their political attitudes distinctive? Michael J. Epstein, Richard G. Niemi, and Lynda W. Powell draw on two national surveys of state legislators from 1995 and 2002 to explore these questions. Their key findings include the fact that, though this wasn’t always the case, today women legislators are more professionalized than men in their perceptions of their careers and their behavior in office. For example, women spend more time communicating with their constituents, negotiating with other legislators to build coalitions, and studying legislative proposals. This hard work can lead to legislative advantages, but the authors also note that recent trends toward antiprofessionalization (including term limits in state legislatures) may make it more difficult for women to increase their numbers in office. Indeed, Epstein, Niemi, and Powell conclude by echoing a theme prevalent throughout this volume, that “women will have to work hard— perhaps harder than men—to maintain, much less expand on, their representation in our state legislatures.” ■
Since the early s, the proportion of women in state legislatures has increased from about one in twenty to more than one in five (Carroll b). In some legislatures, percent or more of the members are female. This change, both sizable and relatively swift, is significant in part because it enhances women’s descriptive representation, that is, the extent to which the proportion of women in representative institutions mirrors their proportion of the electorate (Pitkin ). But it is also significant because of the substantive impact of women’s presence on the ways legislatures do business and on legislative output, impacts that stem from differences between male and female legislators. As the introduction to this volume elaborates, differences between male and female legislators — in their demographic characteristics, backgrounds, personal interests, and so on — have been found in studies dating back to the beginning of women’s rise in state legislatures. Some of these differences are long-standing
94
Do Women and Men State Legislators Differ?
95
and seem impervious to external forces. For example, women legislators have consistently been shown to be more liberal and feminist than their male colleagues (CAWP ; Carey, Niemi, and Powell ; Thomas a; Diamond ), a difference that holds even after taking into account a variety of other factors that affect ideology. On other matters, however, differences have disappeared altogether or have even reversed direction. One example of a reversal is legislator professionalization. Carey and colleagues () found that female respondents to a nationally representative survey of state legislators were more likely than male respondents to think of politics as a career, to plan a reelection campaign, and to seek a move to the state senate (if they were members of a lower house). Not only did the gender difference persist once other variables were controlled in multivariate analysis, but the gender gap in favor of women’s greater professionalization and ambition increased. In this chapter, we present data collected in and from legislators in all fifty states. Overall, we find that women state legislators are still systematically different from their male counterparts with respect to their levels of political ambition and professionalization, legislative activities, ideology, bases of support, and issue specialization. In line with earlier findings on reversal of the “professionalization gap,” we find that women are more likely than men to perceive their legislative careers as a full-time rather than a part-time job. This finding, along with work from other disciplines, helps explain why women have not only caught up with men, but even surpassed them in some areas. Finally, we point out that, in some areas, party is a more influential determinant of differences among legislators than gender. Ideologically speaking, for example, male and female Republicans are much more alike than female Democrats and female Republicans. While women legislators as a whole are different from male legislators, it is important to keep in mind that neither men nor women in the state legislatures constitute a homogeneous group. Our data come from surveys of state legislators conducted in the spring of and . In , we mailed surveys to all members of the upper houses (including the single chamber in Nebraska) and to roughly three-quarters of the members of the lower houses in all fifty states. In , we surveyed legislators in all ninety-nine state chambers.1 Response rates were about percent each year; the data are weighted to correct for differential response rates and, in , for the differential probability of selection. With the weights, the sample is representative of the population of all state legislators, where each legislator is counted equally. This means, for example, that New Hampshire (an extreme outlier, with more than four hundred members in its lower house) contributes more than the representation of California, Texas, and New York combined. From the perspective employed in this chapter, this is exactly as it should be, inasmuch as each state contributes to the sample in proportion to the size of its legislature.
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Reversal of the Professionalization Gap
Studies of women legislators in the s noted that the professionalization gap— the degree to which men are more ambitious and experienced and mobilize greater resources than women—was shrinking. By the time of the survey, these changes had continued, so much so that women appeared to have caught up to men and, in some cases, to have surpassed them, with career outlooks that were more professional than those of male legislators. Consider a variety of indicators related to officeholding (Table .). The differences are nowhere great, but by , the nominal advantage went to women in four of the five instances. Looking at the numbers from both years, we find that women were more likely than men to have definite plans to seek reelection, and women in lower chambers were slightly more likely to seek a move to the state senate. Women and men were about equally likely to seek other elective office and to have held a previous office.2 In interpreting these data, it is important to keep in mind that simple percentage differences can be misleading. For example, if women were systematically more likely to be elected to professionalized legislatures, and if members of such chambers were more likely to be careerist, then the relationship between gender and careerism might be driven entirely by the types of legislatures in which women tended to serve. Accordingly, we isolated the effects of sex by controlling for a number of other personal and contextual variables that might also affect careerism, including the tenure and age of the legislator, the professionalization of the legislature, and the population and competitiveness of the legislative district. Not surprisingly, the more professionalized the legislature (higher salaries, more days in session, larger staffs), the more likely members are to consider politics a Table 5.1 Career Characteristics of Female and Male State Legislators (Percentages) 1995
Thinks of politics as a career
2002
Women
Men
Women
Men
29
21
*
*
Definitely plans to seek reelection
48
43
72
65
Will seek move to state senatea
28
25
30
27
May seek other elective officeb
55
54
27
31
Held previous officec
35
36
36
39
Note: The unweighted numbers of women and men were 550 and 2,008, respectively, in the 1995 survey and 731 and 2,164 in the 2002 survey. Ns in a given table will vary slightly due to missing data. *
Not asked in 2002.
a
State lower house members only.
b
Congress, statewide office, or local office.
c
1995: Local/county, judgeship, other state legislative chamber, statewide office, political party office. 2002: Local/county executive, local/county legislative, school district, political party office.
Do Women and Men State Legislators Differ?
97
career. Similarly, members who served more terms were more likely to take this perspective. On the other hand, the greater a legislator’s age, the less likely he or she was to consider politics a career, all else being constant. Most important for our purposes, however, the impact of gender persists or even increases when all these variables are included in a regression equation.3 In other words, gender exerts an independent influence even controlling for the other variables. By the mids, and continuing on into the present decade, women who served in state legislatures were at least as career-oriented as their male peers. If increased professionalization is more than just a matter of ambition, it ought to be evident in women legislators’ campaigns. Table . shows that, consistent with research from the mid-s (Darcy, Welch, and Clark , – ), women candidates were opposed in primary and general elections just as frequently as men, with only slight fluctuations between and . Women in state legislatures have not had to depend on favorable circumstances, such as uncontested elections, to win a seat. Moreover, when we inquired in , successful women candidates were more likely than men to have established a formal campaign headquarters in their most recent election (though more often than with men it was in their home). They were also more likely than men to have hired a campaign manager rather than organizing the effort themselves or relying entirely on volunteers. Thus, there is substance, in the form of tangible political resources, behind the increasingly professional outlooks of women state legislators. Consistent with the picture of women legislators as more professionalized than men, women outdo men by a wide margin in the time they say they spend on the job. Indeed, a third of the women say their legislative work constitutes percent or more of a full-time job, compared to only one in five men (Table .). At the other end of the scale, considerably more men see their legislative work as constituting less than half-time work. There is inevitably a trade-off between time Table 5.2 Campaign Characteristics of Female and Male State Legislators (Percentages) 1995
2002
Women
Men
Women
Men
Was opposed in last primary election
37
35
32
35
Was opposed in last general election
73
73
72
68
Had campaign headquarters in most recent electiona
76
67
*
*
Had campaign manager in most recent electionb
72
63
*
*
*
Not asked in 2002.
aIn
candidate’s home, friend’s home, donated office space, or rented office space.
bPart-time
volunteer, part-time paid, full-time volunteer, or full-time paid.
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Table 5.3 Time on the Job of Female and Male State Legislators in 2002 (Percentages) Proportion of a full-time job constituted by legislative worka Less than 30
Women
Men
3
5
30 – 50
13
23
50 – 70
21
30
70 – 90
29
23
90 or more
34
20
a “Averaged
over an entire year and taking into account session time, interim work, constituent service, and campaigning, what proportion of a full-time job is your legislative work?”
spent as a legislator and time spent on a nonpolitical career. Only percent of women work for pay outside of politics compared to percent of men. Interestingly, though, we find that even controlling for whether the legislator works for pay outside of politics as well as the same large set of variables described earlier (note ), women are still more likely to report spending more time as a legislator.4 We cannot explore the origins of these differences here. Nonetheless, regardless of the reasons for the differences, women appear more dedicated, judged by time commitment, to their legislative roles. Professionalization in a legislature, as in any organization, is also marked by task specialization, which allows members to become policy area experts. In legislatures, specialization is most prominently manifested in expertise in particular policy domains and is generally accomplished via committee systems. Members tend to serve for extended time periods on committees that deal with a particular issue area; in the process, they become familiar with some policy areas more than others (though few limit themselves to a single area of legislation). As with the other measures we examined, women state legislators in were more professionalized than their male colleagues in terms of issue specialization. When asked to place themselves on a -point scale ranging from “specialize in a single policy area” to “equally active in many areas,” percent of women compared to percent of men placed themselves on the side favoring specialization, and percent of men but only percent of women placed themselves on the side favoring equal activity across policy areas. This gender difference is not simply a function of party-, state-, or district-level characteristics on which men and women legislators differ. Controlling for these characteristics of legislators and their districts, as well as for the overall level of professionalization of the legislature, gender exerts a statistically significant impact on the tendency to specialize, with women state legislators more likely than men to specialize.5 This is, however, one instance in which there is a difference between and . In , women responded that they were more specialized than men, but the difference was small and not significant in a multivariate model. It is also a case in
Do Women and Men State Legislators Differ?
99
which the difference is especially concentrated in one party. In , women from both parties were more likely to say they specialized, but the difference is large only among Democrats. In addition to being descriptively important, the picture of women as even more professionalized than men serves to clarify something that has been puzzling regarding the growth of women’s representation in state legislatures. Consider the following: women grew from percent of state legislators in to over percent in the mid-s. During this period, however, state legislatures and legislative elections underwent significant changes that might have been expected to impede women’s success. For example, as discussed in this volume’s introduction, although women consistently fare better in multimember than in single-member district elections (Rule ), the proportion of state legislative seats filled in multimember contests decreased substantially over that period (Niemi, Jackman, and Winsky ). In addition, as many state legislatures professionalized in the s and s, increasing staff, salary, and session length, the attractiveness of state legislative seats grew, reducing turnover and requiring candidates to have more political resources and experience. Thomas (b, – ) notes the apparent paradox between these trends and the increasing ability of women to compete in this environment. However, acknowledging that women themselves have become more highly professional, such that they are now more professionalized than men state legislators, resolves the paradox. It is no longer the case that a group of amateur women are competing for space alongside much more professionalized men. Instead, to a large extent, women epitomize the kind of individual that has thrived in state legislatures in recent decades. What this trend implies for women’s electoral fortunes in the future, however, is another question, and one to which we return after we discuss gender differences in legislative activities and ideology.
Legislative Activities
Feminist theorists and women legislators alike suggest that women view power and process differently from men. Women, it is said, tend to favor cooperation rather than confrontation and think of power as a way of benefiting everyone rather than some at the expense of others. As a consequence, Thomas (a, – , – ) suggests, increased representation of women could spur procedural changes within state legislatures away from confrontation and toward more bargaining and accommodation. Although it is not clear precisely what procedural changes such a transformation would entail, survey results from both and show that gender matters to legislative style. We asked legislators how much time they spent on a variety of activities. Women said they spent more time on every one of the eight items we inquired about in both years the survey
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
was administered. Moreover, the magnitudes of the differences are consistent with what others have reported about differing styles of women and men. These findings are consistent with Cindy Simon Rosenthal’s chapter in this volume that reports that women chairpersons of state legislative committees perceive themselves to be harder-working than their male counterparts. With respect to our data, consider, for example, legislators’ relationships with their constituents. Women report spending substantially more time than men keeping in touch with constituents, an activity that presumably fosters mutual understanding and a cooperative outlook (Table .).6 They also report devoting more effort than men to helping constituents with their problems, again suggesting a caring outlook. Conversely, consider some activities that are viewed as inherently confrontational. Battles over budgetary resources are frequently thought of as zero-sum affairs, dividing up a fixed pie, so that one legislator’s gain is necessarily another’s loss. On “making sure that my district gets its fair share of projects,” women differ only negligibly from men. Neither is there a significant difference in the amount of time women and men report for engaging in campaigning and fund-raising, activities that require them to promote their own qualifications and interests at the expense of others. Table 5.4 Time Spent on Legislative Activities by Female and Male State Legislators (Percentages) 1995 Activity (percentage spending a great deal of time)a
2002
Women
Men
Women
Men
Keeping in touch with constituents
55
39
48
38
Helping constituents with problems
48
41
45
41
Getting fair share of projects for district
22
20
24
23
7
5
5
4
Building within-party coalitions
14
8
13
11
Building across-party coalitions
13
9
12
9
Studying proposed legislation
40
26
24
16
Developing new legislation
21
17
18
11
Primarily concerned with needs of districtb
32
37
29
34
20
29
22
25
Campaigning/fund-raising
c
Follow district preferences a
“How much time do you spend on each of the following activities?”
b
“Do you feel you should be primarily concerned with looking after the needs of your district or the needs of the state as a whole?” c
“When there is a conflict between what you feel is best and what you think the people in your district want, do you think you should follow your own conscience or follow what the people in your district want?”
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Within the legislature, women report slightly more time spent engaged in coalition building both within and across parties. They also report more time studying proposed legislation and developing new legislation. Such results paint a portrait of women as more committed team players than men. They report more engagement in activities that contribute to the collective performance of their institutions and appear no different from men on activities that are more likely to generate individual recognition. It is important to underscore that the gender differences are not simply products of seniority of individual legislators or characteristics of the legislatures in which women serve. For almost all of the measures—keeping in touch with constituents, helping constituents with problems, developing new legislation, studying proposed legislation, and building within-party coalitions—the difference between women and men remains large and statistically significant after adding controls for additional factors. And, as we noted, the fact that differences on getting a fair share for one’s district and campaigning/fund-raising are not significant is in itself meaningful. A related set of differences shows up on other items in our survey. When asked whether they should be primarily concerned with the needs of their own district or the interest of the state as a whole, women were more likely than men to indicate that one should favor the state as a whole. On the other hand, if the conflict exists between district interests and the legislator’s own conscience, women were more likely to indicate that they should follow their conscience. Based on their proclivity toward state over district interests, we might well expect a legislature with a greater proportion of women to be substantially better suited to compromise and accommodation on issues that are geographically divisive. On the other hand, it is not clear whether a stronger commitment to conscience over district particularism should make women legislators more amenable, or less, to compromise. In any event, the difference in state versus district interests disappears under controls. The survey responses generally suggest that both in their behavior and in their attitudes, women and men reveal differences in their approach to legislative tasks. Overall, the approach of women legislators appears to be more conducive to cooperation than that of men.
Ideology
Studies of women in Congress and state legislatures have almost without exception found that women are more liberal than men. Our surveys confirm this observation, first, with respect to a number of particularly contentious policy questions. Gender differences are somewhat more pronounced on social than on fiscal policy, but they are substantial across the board. Women are far more likely than men to
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oppose the death penalty and mandatory prayer in schools and to support the right to abortion; they are also more likely to oppose tax cuts if these will require cuts in government spending (Table .). Overall, as summarized by their self-placement on a -point liberal/conservative scale, women were far apart from men — even more so than in Thomas’s (a, ) twelve-state survey in the late s. As before, percentage scores on issue positions create the risk of misunderstanding the sources of gender differences. For example, if women are substantially more likely than men to be Democrats, and Democrats are systematically more liberal than Republicans, the difference between women and men may be simply a function of partisanship. Alternatively, if legislators in states with higher proportions of women are systematically more liberal than the national average, this, too, could account for the male-female differences; in particular, the low proportions of women in a number of southern legislatures (especially Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina) might suggest that gender difference could be an artifact of region. Or it may simply be the case that women are systematically elected from more liberal districts within states. Of course, the ideological difference between the sexes would be relevant even if it were driven entirely by partisanship, region, or district liberalism, but our interpretation of it would change in that we would attribute the difference to the willingness of voters in some states, parties, or constituencies to elect women candidates. On the other hand, if the gender difference is robust even when these factors are held constant, then we can more confidently attribute the difference to gender as such. Table 5.5 Attitudes/Ideologies of Female and Male State Legislators (Percentages) 1995 Issue
2002
Women
Men
Women
Men
Abolish the death penalty (agree)
35
19
*
*
Mandatory prayer in public schools (disagree)
73
56
*
*
Cut taxes at expense of government programs (disagree)
49
38
*
*
Respect women’s right to legal abortion (agree)
76
52
*
*
Ideology (self-placement on 7-point scale) Extremely liberal
4
2
4
2
Liberal
20
8
20
8
Slightly liberal
15
9
16
9
Moderate
24
20
26
22
Slightly conservative
15
21
15
21
Conservative
20
36
18
35
2
5
1
4
Extremely conservative *
Not asked in 2002.
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P RO F I L E : Olympia Snowe Women who reach the U.S. Senate usually have worked extraordinarily hard to get there. By the time she was elected U.S. senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe had already been a member of Congress for sixteen years and had served in both houses of the state legislature. She started as a political wife rather than a politician: after her spouse, Peter Snowe, died in a tragic car accident in 1973, Snowe took over his state legislative seat. She proved such a strong representative that she was elected in her own right in 1974 and went on to win seats in the state senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. Snowe’s ascent to the U.S. Senate in 1994 made her the first woman in U.S. history to serve in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of Congress. When, in 1996, she was joined in the Senate by Susan Collins, Maine became the second state with two female senators (there are now three: Maine, California, and Washington). A pro-choice Republican, Senator Snowe has built a reputation for thoughtfulness, moderation, and, especially, standing up for women. She has won awards from both Good Housekeeping magazine and the National Breast Cancer Coalition for her ceaseless leadership efforts in the fight against breast cancer. Showing a bipartisan spirit, Senator Snowe has teamed up with Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat, to spearhead legislation to provide screening for breast and cervical cancer for uninsured women. They blasted the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for not including women as research subjects, even for breast cancer, and, in 1993, they pushed through a law establishing the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH to ensure that women are included as subjects in all federally funded medical studies. An unlikely pair, Senators Snowe and Mikulski have continued to work together closely to make sure women’s health issues receive the attention they deserve. Snowe has also become a leading voice in the Senate on issues related to women in the military and worked with Democratic women in the Senate to introduce an amendment to remove the ban on abortions for military women serving overseas. To pursue her political goals, Senator Snowe often votes against her party line on issues related to women, abortion, affirmative action, health care, and sexual orientation. Her view of her work, especially her work for women, is summed up in this way: “My aunt used to say to me, ‘Olympia, don’t ever wait for me to ask you. Look around and see if there’s something that needs to be done, and do it.’ So guess what? Now I can’t sit still. As soon as I sit down, I find myself thinking, ‘What needs to be done?’ And then I start doing it. I can’t help myself.”1 Written by Shauna Shames 1Barbara
Mikulski, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Mary Landrieu, and Blanche L. Lincoln, with Catherine Whitney, Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate (New York: Perennial, 2001).
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To untangle this problem, we again turned to multiple regression to compare legislators’ opinions on each of the issues in Table . (as well as on their liberal/ conservative scores) based on three dichotomous variables indicating whether the legislator was a Republican woman, a Republican man, or a Democratic woman, on a series of state variables, and on a variety of characteristics describing each legislative district.7 The partisanship/gender variables indicate the extent to which each category of legislator is systematically more liberal (negative coefficient) or more conservative (positive coefficient) than the residual category (Democratic men). The state variables assess differences in ideology among legislators in each state, ensuring that we have not overlooked some systematic regional or state-bystate pattern of difference between the sexes. The district-level variables help ensure that gender differences are not due to the fact that women are routinely elected from more liberal districts. Even relative to their constituents and other legislators of their party, women legislators are more liberal than men. We present the results in Table ., leaving out the long list of state and district coefficients because they are not of interest in and of themselves. What is of interest is that the ideological difference between men and women clearly persists, even after controlling for state, party, and district characteristics. Democratic women are substantially more liberal than Democratic men on average—by about a quarter point or more (out of five) on each of the specific issues and by about two-thirds of a point on the -point scale in and half a point in . Republicans of both sexes were more conservative than Democratic men in both years, with Republican men the most conservative of all. In short, women state legislators are more liberal than male legislators in both parties, and this is true even when one controls for differing levels of liberalism/ conservatism across the fifty states and for district demographics.8 In addition, these differences are greater among Democrats than among Republicans. Table 5.6 Attitudes/Ideologies of Female and Male State Legislators, Controlling for Party, State, and District Characteristics 1995 Death Penalty Democratic women
School Prayer
Cut Taxes
2002 Legal Abortion
Liberalism/ Conservatism
⫺0.62 (0.09) ⫺0.32 (0.08) ⫺0.23 (0.08) ⫺0.50 (0.10) ⫺0.68 (0.07) ⫺0.53 (0.07)
Republican women
0.71 (0.10)
0.58 (0.10)
1.57 (0.09)
0.64 (0.11)
1.37 (0.08)
1.40 (0.09)
Republican men
0.94 (0.06)
0.81 (0.06)
1.67 (0.06)
1.18 (0.07)
1.60 (0.05)
1.63 (0.05)
Note: The coefficients indicate scores relative to Democratic men (negative coefficients indicate greater liberalism). The regressions also contain a number of control variables, which are not shown here.
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An even sharper picture of gender differences emerges from a comparison of legislators’ primary bases of financial, organizational, and electoral support. In both and , we presented legislators with a list of organized groups and asked them to identify those that actively supported them in their most recent campaign. The results are in Table ., where the groups are ranked according to the difference between the percentage of women and men who identified the group as providing strong support. Not surprisingly, groups organized explicitly around women’s issues were the most disproportionately likely to be identified by women legislators as supporters. At the other extreme, a number of groups, including gun owners, businesses, and pro-life supporters, gave their support most disproportionately to male legislators. Between these two ends of the spectrum, Table . shows the groups in descending order of their support for women versus men candidates. Gender differences remain strong in each party, with the gender gap consistently larger in the Democratic Party (Table .). Among Democrats, women and Table 5.7 Groups Supporting Female and Male State Legislators Percentage with strong group supporta 1995 Group
Women
Men
2002 Difference
Women
Men
Difference
Women’s groups
73
30
⫹43
67
25
⫹42
Pro-choice
63
29
⫹34
56
24
⫹32
Environmental
45
26
⫹19
47
28
⫹19
Labor/union
49
39
⫹10
53
41
⫹12
*
*
*
66
57
⫹9
14
7
⫹7
*
*
*
Latinos
*
*
*
14
10
⫹4
African Americans
*
*
*
24
21
⫹3
Pro–term limits
10
15
⫺5
*
*
*
Christian Coalition
16
27
⫺11
12
25
⫺13
Tax relief
33
45
⫺12
20
36
⫺16
Farmers
30
45
⫺15
*
*
*
Pro-life
21
37
⫺16
22
43
⫺21
Business
57
74
⫺17
53
70
⫺17
Gun owners
29
48
⫺19
30
54
⫺24
Teachers Gun control
Note: Rows are ordered according to differences in 1995 (or 2002 for items new in that year). ⫹ indicates a difference in favor of women. ⫺ indicates a difference in favor of men. * Not asked in the year shown. a
“What groups do you regard as among your strongest supporters?”
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Table 5.8 Differences in Group Support for Female and Male State Legislators, by Party Percentage point difference in strong group support between women and men 1995 Group
2002
Republicans
Democrats
Republicans
Democrats
Women’s groups
⫹36
⫹46
⫹35
⫹39
Pro-choice
⫹24
⫹41
⫹19
⫹34
Environmental
⫹6
⫹27
⫹5
⫹21
Labor/union
⫺1
⫹11
⫺2
⫹6
Teachers
*
*
⫹2
⫹2
Gun control
⫺1
⫹12
*
Latinos
*
*
0
⫹3
*
African Americans
*
*
⫹2
⫺4
Pro–term limits
⫺8
⫺2
*
*
Christian Coalition Tax relief
⫺15
⫺5
⫺15
⫺4
⫺6
⫺9
⫺13
⫺6
Farmers
⫺2
⫺25
*
*
Pro-life
⫺13
⫺14
⫺18
⫺14
Business
⫺1
⫺24
⫺4
⫺14
Gun owners
⫺9
⫺20
⫺12
⫺23
⫹ indicates a difference in favor of women. ⫺ indicates a difference in favor of men. * Not asked in the year shown.
men differed substantially (by more than percentage points) on their perceived support from a number of groups: women’s groups, pro-choice supporters, environmental groups, farmers, gun owners, and (in one year) business representatives. Among Republicans, in contrast, differences were substantial only among women’s groups and, in one year, pro-choice supporters. Likewise, the withinparty gender gap was larger among Republicans only in the case of the Christian Coalition. Logistic regression models controlling for both legislator and district characteristics confirm that sex exerts an independent effect, with a few exceptions.9 It should be noted, however, that in almost all cases where the effect of sex is statistically significant, the impact of party on group support is greater, in many cases by a large amount. Regression models, like the results in Table ., also showed that sex and party interact in determining group support. That is, even after controlling for other factors, there is a bigger gender gap among Democrats than among Republicans in a majority of cases, both in and . Indeed, the interaction
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term for Republicans was often statistically insignificant, indicating that there was no discernible difference between the sexes in the Republican Party. Overall, then, women are more divergent from men in the Democratic Party, as indicated both by their issue positions and ideology and by their perceived group support.
Conclusion: Women’s Electoral Prospects
Earlier, we noted an apparent paradox: the number of women legislators increased at a time when changing electoral circumstances suggested that women might increasingly be disadvantaged in winning office. That is, historically, women were viewed as amateur contenders and faced more difficulties than men in acquiring the resources needed to win office in more professionalized legislatures. The fundraising gap was especially notable. However, by the early s, researchers found that women raised as much as or more money than men (Burrell ). In Congress, and very likely in state legislatures, women most often achieved parity by winning elections to lower offices and using that as a base from which to run for election to the legislature, and then running as incumbents (Burrell ; Uhlander and Schlozman ). Our findings complement this earlier research by showing that, at least since the mid-s, women have been more professionalized than their male counterparts both in their perceptions of their careers and in their behavior in office. Surprisingly, as discussed throughout this volume, this change has led to another paradox: despite the parity women have achieved on many attitudinal, performance, and resource dimensions, the percentage of women elected to state legislatures has stagnated. The overall percentage of women in state houses and senates has risen only percent since (and not at all since ), after rising almost percentage point every year for the previous two decades (CAWP d). Moreover, this leveling off has occurred at a time when another major change— the adoption and implementation of term limits—was widely expected to help women attain office by creating many open seats (e.g., Thompson and Moncrief , ). Yet, despite hints of that in our research on the anticipatory effects of term limits (Carey, Niemi, and Powell ), our most recent research found no evidence that term limits facilitated the election of women (Carey et al. ). Indeed, the backlash against professionalization, embodied in the term limits movement, may indicate a deteriorating environment for women candidates. The combination of changes in the nature of women state legislators and changes in the recent electoral environment may be working at cross-purposes. Women adapted remarkably well to the increasingly professionalized state legislatures of the s and s and saw significant gains in their numbers. Should the antiprofessional and more conservative environment of the mid-s and beyond continue, the professionalism and liberalism of women candidates may make it
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difficult for them to increase their numbers. As is often the case, women will have to work hard — perhaps harder than men—to maintain, much less to expand on, their representation in our state legislatures.
NOTES
. For details of the sampling procedures, see Carey, Niemi, and Powell () and Carey, Moncrief, Niemi, and Powell (). . For both women and men, the percentages seeking reelection were considerably higher in than in , and the percentages “maybe” seeking other elective office were considerably lower. We have no firm explanation for these differences, though we speculate that they appeared because we surveyed legislators at different times in the electoral cycle. In , most had to face an election later in the year and were perhaps concentrating on that upcoming election; in , most had just been reelected and were perhaps thinking (overly optimistically) about moving on at some time in the future. Others working with similar survey data might do well to consider this point. . We used an OLS or logistic regression, as appropriate. In , controls also included district-level variables (average household income and percentage college educated, in manufacturing industries, in service industries, working for the government, farmers, age fifty-five or older, receiving Social Security, black, Hispanic, and Asian) and forty-nine state dummy variables. In , the controls were modified to reflect the implementation of term limits, which were not in effect at the time of the survey, and analytical variables (e.g., professionalization, chamber, district safeness) were substituted for the state dummy variables (see Carey et al. ). In all multivariate analyses for that include district-level characteristics, Virginia and New Jersey are excluded because these states redistricted before the election, making the data we used for district-level controls inappropriate. . This conclusion is based on an ordered probit analysis; women are significantly more likely than men to respond “ percent or more” and less likely to respond “less than percent.” . The coefficient on gender is ⫺., indicating that women, on average, are almost a quarter of a point closer than men to the specialization end of the spectrum. . Our conclusions are drawn from responses to -point scales for each activity, ranging from “a great deal” to “hardly any” time spent. Table . shows only the difference in the percentage of respondents who report spending “a great deal” of time on a given activity; however, regression analysis, which makes use of the full range of responses, confirms the pattern of differences indicated in the table. . See note . Inclusion of the district-level demographic variables serves to distinguish between liberal and conservative districts. For work on Congress that demonstrates this point, see Powell (). . Except on the abortion issue, the difference between Democratic women and men is greater than that between Republican women and men, often by a factor of .
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It should be pointed out that party differences on issues and ideology overwhelm gender differences. That is, although women were more liberal than men in both parties, the gender difference was greatly outweighed by the party difference. . In , sex had no independent effect on support from labor unions, teachers, African Americans, or Latinos.
6
Michele L. Swers and Carin Larson
Women in Congress Do They Act as Advocates for Women’s Issues?
■ A central question about women officeholders is whether they make a policy difference in office. Michele L. Swers and Carin Larson offer compelling evidence that female members of Congress have been more likely than men to advocate for women’s issues bills, particularly feminist bills, throughout the legislative process. It is true that the prevailing political environment, such as the Democratic-controlled 103rd Congress and the Republican-controlled 104th, affects the extent to which women demonstrate their support. In particular, women’s commitment to women’s issues is mediated by both the party in power and their position in the institution, such as their status as members of the majority or minority party and their committee positions, but changing political winds have not eradicated their commitment. Whether it is bill introduction, committee markup. floor scheduling, or floor action, women are instrumental at all stages of the process, and their energy, effort, and effectiveness is demonstrable. ■
After the fall of Saddam Hussein, the United States was faced with the dilemma of creating a provisional government that would transform Iraq from a dictatorship to a democracy. As part of this effort, U.S. officials insisted that the provisional government reserve percent of the seats in the provisional legislature for women to ensure the representation of women’s interests (Online NewsHour ). At the same time, in the United States, women constituted only percent of the membership of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the th Congress (– ; CAWP c). Mechanisms aimed at increasing the diversity of members of Congress, such as the creation of majority/minority districts, remain controversial (Cameron, Epstein, and O’Halloran ; Swain ). Similarly, the assertion that groups such as racial minorities and women require their own representatives to ensure substantive representation of their interests is highly disputed (Pitkin ; Phillips ; Mansbridge ). On the one hand, scholars assert that legislators who are women members of underrepresented groups will display an added intensity of
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commitment to issues that have a disproportionate impact on their group. Additionally, they will bring new issues to the agenda and will offer a different perspective on issues by considering how specific policies will affect particular groups of women and minorities (Phillips ; Mansbridge ; Swers ). Conversely, other scholars note that members of Congress always cast their votes on policy with an eye to the next election (Fiorina ; Mayhew ; Fenno ). The need to stand for reelection every two years in the House and every six years in the Senate ensures that members of Congress will be responsive to the interests of their constituents regardless of the social identity of the legislator. For example, one should not expect a member from a district with high unemployment from the loss of manufacturing jobs to vote in favor of free trade agreements that will “ship more American jobs overseas.” Similarly, a legislator who represents a strongly Catholic district whose constituents are firmly opposed to abortion generally will be unlikely to take pro-choice positions. Indeed, in his defense of the system of representation created by the Constitution in Federalist , Alexander Hamilton rejected the assertion that all classes of citizens require their own representatives to guarantee that the House of Representatives will understand and attend to their interests. Instead, he explains, “a man who is a candidate for the favor of the people, and who is dependent on the suffrages of his fellow-citizens for the continuance of his public honors, should take care to inform himself of their dispositions and inclinations and should be willing to allow them their proper degree of influence on his conduct” (Rossiter , ). In this chapter, we address this long-standing debate about the importance of electing group representatives by evaluating whether women in Congress legislate differently from their male counterparts. Specifically, do congresswomen devote more attention and priority to the advocacy of women’s issues than do congressmen? We also examine the diversity among women in their partisan, ideological, and constituency orientations to determine the differences among moderate and conservative Republican women in their commitment to women’s issues, and how the legislative priorities of these women compare to their moderate and conservative Republican male counterparts. The legislative process does not occur in a vacuum. Inside the institution, a member’s place in the committee hierarchy and status as a member of the majority or minority party place limits on his or her effectiveness as an advocate for women’s issues. Outside of Congress, changes in the political context, ranging from major events such as the terrorist attacks of September to shifts in the balance of power among the Democratic and Republican Parties, alter the congressional agenda and exert pressures that force a legislator to adjust his or her policy preferences and activities to fit the contemporary political situation. By comparing legislative actions ranging from bill sponsorship to voting on women’s issues in the most recent Congress under Democratic control, the rd Congress (–),
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and the first Congress under Republican control, the th (– ), we analyze how changes in the political and institutional context affect a representative’s willingness to pursue policy preferences based on gender. Finally, we discuss the importance of changes in the contemporary political context, including the election of a socially conservative Republican president, the ascension of Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as the first female party leader, and the expansion of the number of conservative Republican women.
Research on the Policy Impact of Women
The majority of research on the impact of women as legislators has occurred at the state level. These studies have found that female legislators are more likely to view women and the representation of their interests as an important part of their constituency (Reingold a, ). In comparison to their male colleagues, female state legislators sponsor more bills concerning women’s issues, both social welfare and feminist, view women’s issues as a higher priority on their legislative agenda, and are more likely to see their women’s issue initiatives passed into law (Saint-Germain ; Dodson and Carroll ; Thomas a; K. Dolan and Ford ; Bratton and Haynie ). Not all studies find such dramatic differences. After accounting for partisanship, Reingold () found few differences in the legislative behavior of state legislators in California and Arizona. Berkman and O’Connor () found that Democratic women were more active advocates of pro-choice policies than were male Democrats, but they found minimal differences among male and female Republicans. The slow progress in the election of women to Congress has inhibited systematic efforts to study gender differences in the policy behavior of members of Congress. Prior to the “Year of the Woman” elections, the representation of women in Congress did not approach percent of either the House or Senate. Irwin Gertzog’s () Congressional Women provides a comprehensive history of the changes in women’s electoral path to Congress, case studies of individual women and policy debates, and a history of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. Other early studies of women in Congress focused on differences in roll call voting behavior. Research that examines whether women are more liberal than their male colleagues have had mixed results (Welch ; Burrell ; Vega and Firestone ; Clark ). However, other research indicates that gender is an important predictor of voting on specific women’s issues such as abortion (Tatalovich and Schier ) or a set of women’s issues (Burrell ; J. Dolan ; Swers ). However, roll call vote comparisons only scratch the surface of the potential gender differences in policy activity, as the roll call vote is the final stage and does
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not indicate which members will spend the time and resources bringing issues of concern to women to the congressional agenda, drafting legislative solutions, and building coalitions of support for policy initiatives (Swers ; Dodson et al. ; Dodson ; Foerstel and Foerstel ; Norton , ; Casey and Carroll ; Carroll ; Wolbrecht ; Walsh ). Yet, the ability of women to affect the policy agenda has been limited by their lack of seniority, which limits their access to positions of institutional power on committees and within the party leadership (Swers ). For example, Norton (, ) notes that through the early s, Democratic women had limited influence on policy debates concerning abortion, such as the Hyde amendment, which prohibits Medicaid funding for abortions, because they did not serve on key committees. They could make floor speeches against the amendment, but they did not serve on the committees that designed the policy or the conference committees that negotiated final bill details. As the women elected in the early s have gained more seniority, they have begun to gain seats on the relevant committees, allowing them to exercise more influence over reproductive policy debates (Norton, , ). More work needs to be done to evaluate how a legislator’s position within the institution and the pressures from the political environment constrain an individual legislator’s ability to pursue gender-related policy initiatives regardless of his or her abstract policy preferences.
Do Men and Women Legislate Differently?
To more definitively determine whether the increasing number of women in Congress has had a distinctive influence on the congressional policymaking process and to gain a better understanding of how party affiliation, the prevailing political context, and institutional position temper the role of gender as a factor guiding the policy decisions of officeholders, Michele L. Swers () studied legislative action on women’s issues by men and women in the House of Representatives in the rd and the th Congresses. The study compared the bill sponsorship, cosponsorship, committee and floor amending, and roll call voting records of men and women, Republicans and Democrats, and liberals and conservatives in each party. We discuss some of the major findings of this study next. To determine whether congresswomen exhibit a greater commitment to representing women’s interests, we must first identify a set of concerns that can be defined as women’s issues and examine whether women are more active advocates of legislation in these areas than are their male colleagues. For the purposes of this study, women’s issues are defined as issues that are particularly salient to women because they seek to achieve equality for women; they address women’s special needs, such as women’s health concerns and child care; or they confront issues
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with which women have traditionally been concerned in their role as caregivers, such as education and the protection of children. However, within the broad area of women’s issues, the importance of gender in a member’s decision calculus will vary with the subject matter and policy direction of the bill. The more a policy problem is viewed as directly connected to consequences for women as a group, the more likely it is that a legislator will rely on gender considerations to guide policy choices. For example, female legislators may be much more motivated to take action on accusations of sexual harassment in the military than are their male colleagues, but they are only slightly more active or no more active than men to engage in debates over education policy. To capture these variations in commitment, the study analyzes gender differences in legislative activity on subsets of social welfare, feminist, and antifeminist bills. Social welfare issues focus on women’s traditional concerns as caregivers, such as education, health care, welfare, and the protection of children. These are often cited as issues that underlie the gender gap in public opinion and voting behavior. Studies of voter attitudes indicate that women are more likely to support increased spending on social services, and they identify issues, including education and health care, as more important determinants of their votes than men do (Seltzer, Newman, and Leighton ; Kaufmann and Petrocik ). Similarly, surveys and experiments concerning gender stereotypes about women candidates show that voters favor female candidates on compassion issues, including education, health care, children, and the elderly, and view male candidates as more capable of handling foreign policy and tax issues (Burrell ; Sanbonmatsu a). Feminist issues inspire initiatives that seek to achieve role equity or role change for women. In their book, Women and Public Policies: Reassessing Gender Politics, Joyce Gelb and Marilyn Palley (, ) explain, “Role equity issues are those policies that extend rights now enjoyed by other groups (men, minorities) to women. Role change issues appear to produce change in the dependent female role of wife, mother, and homemaker, holding out the potential of greater sexual freedom and independence in a variety of contexts.” Examples of feminist legislation include bills protecting reproductive rights, expanding family and medical leave, and helping victims of domestic violence and sexual harassment. These policies contain clear consequences for women as a group and are often controversial, increasing the risk of alienating important interest groups or constituents in a legislator’s district. Conversely, antifeminist legislation seeks to inhibit role change as a threat to the traditional family. Examples of antifeminist bills include legislation restricting abortion, eliminating affirmative action programs for women, and prohibiting gay marriage. Because these bills focus on protecting traditional sex roles and limiting change, women should be less active advocates of these issues than their male colleagues.
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Understanding the Impact of the Institutional and Political Contexts
When representatives construct their legislative portfolios, they must consider how best to expend their scarce resources of time and staffing to advance policy initiatives that will enhance their reputation with constituents, achieve personal policy goals, and perhaps improve their standing with other colleagues, particularly party leaders. Whether members will choose to include a women’s issue initiative among their legislative priorities and the level of intensity they devote to that issue will depend on more than the legislator’s abstract policy preferences. The choice of policy priorities will be heavily influenced by the representative’s position in the institution, particularly his or her committee position, and status as a member of the majority or minority party. In the House, committee members, especially those who serve as chairs or ranking members, have the most influence over policies that come under the jurisdiction of their committees. Therefore, representatives are most able to define themselves as policy experts, establish a legislative niche, and influence policy outcomes in areas that fall under the jurisdiction of their committees. Similarly, legislators who are members of the majority party will have more opportunities to set the legislative agenda and shape policy than those of the minority party. These realities of the distribution of power in the House of Representatives will all be reflected in members’ calculations as they consider which policy initiatives to pursue. In addition to these institutional dynamics, changes in the political context will alter the representative’s strategic calculations concerning the viability of pursuing particular proposals as new issues arise and voter reactions catapult issues into the limelight or even alter the political landscape by sweeping one party out of power and elevating a new set of interests and leaders. For example, after September , legislators scrambled to offer proposals to improve homeland security, combat potential biochemical attacks, and enhance the powers of law enforcement. At the same time, proposals to expand immigration, ease restrictions on noncitizens seeking to work in the United States, and restrict law enforcement power and enhance civil liberties were shelved. Similarly, during the debate over national health insurance in the Clinton years, numerous legislators offered bills to provide comprehensive health coverage to all Americans. However, after the failure of national health insurance, comprehensive health plans were abandoned and legislators began to focus on targeted proposals, for instance, expanding insurance for specific groups such as low-income children. To understand how the political and institutional contexts affect legislators’ decisions to pursue women’s issue bills, this study focuses on the widely varying political and institutional climates of the rd and th Congresses. Of congressional sessions in recent history, the Democratic-controlled rd Congress was perhaps the most open to taking action on women’s issues. The session con-
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vened after the Year of the Woman elections, an election year that focused on issues favorable to women, such as health care, and brought a large increase in the number of women in Congress. The paucity of women in Congress itself became an issue in the election, highlighted by the fact that there were no women on the Senate Judiciary Committee questioning Anita Hill’s accusations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Most of the women serving in the rd Congress were members of the majority party; the policy agenda was open to new proposals on social welfare issues, and the election of a Democratic president brought unified government and increased the possibility that new policy innovations could become law (Wilcox ). By contrast, the Republican-controlled th Congress relegated most women in Congress to the minority party and brought the election of more ideologically conservative women. Control of the issue agenda shifted to fiscal and social conservatives, and the Republican Party, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich, embarked on an effort at party government by reducing the power of committees and their leaders and enforcing loyalty to a party agenda embodied in the Contract with America (Gimpel ). The dramatic changes reflected in these two Congresses provide the perfect natural experiment for investigating the influence of the political climate and institutional position on the policy choices of individual legislators. The contrast and impact of these changes in the political and institutional contexts should be particularly stark for moderate Republican women, who may favor feminist positions on women’s issues but will face cross-pressures from a Republican majority party caucus that opposes these positions and could block the goals of moderate women in other areas if they defect on women’s issues. The Women’s Issue Bill Database
Analysis of legislative activity on women’s issues in the rd and th Congresses is based on a sample of women’s issue bills sponsored by representatives for the rd Congress and women’s issue bills proposed by members for the th Congress. The samples constitute about percent of all bills introduced in the rd Congress and percent of the bills offered in the th Congress, excluding resolutions.1 A series of interviews with twenty-eight Democratic and Republican representatives and staff who served in the Congresses supplement the statistical findings by providing insight into how members determine their legislative priorities and what strategies they employ to achieve their goals on women’s issues. To capture the diversity of opinion and activity on women’s issues, the interview subjects were chosen to include congressmen and congresswomen, Democrats and Republicans, and conservatives and liberals in each party. Using the database of women’s issue bills and the interviews, the study analyzed whether women are more likely to advocate for women’s issue initiatives after accounting for the major partisan, constituency, and institutional factors
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Table 6.1 Women’s Issue Bill Sponsorship in the 103rd and 104th Congresses 103rd Congress (N = 433) Issue Type All Women’s Issues Feminist Social Welfare Antifeminist
104th Congress (N = 430)
# Members Who Sponsor
# Bills
# Members Who Sponsor
# Bills
195
510
224
569
99
221
82
175
138
264
176
351
11
14
29
44
Note: In the 103rd Congress, a group of eleven bills concerning the “nanny tax” were included in the full set of women’s issues but were not assigned to any of the policy categories. In the 104th Congress, separate sections of an omnibus bill sponsored by Barbara Vucanovich (R-NV) were counted in the feminist and antifeminist category. Source: Swers 2002.
that are known to determine a member’s legislative priorities, such as the member’s party affiliation and ideology, the partisan leanings of the district, and the member’s committee position. Table . lists the number of members sponsoring each subset of bills and the number of bills introduced in each policy area. It is important to note that most legislators do not sponsor any women’s issue bills. In fact, only in the th Congress does the percentage of members sponsoring such bills reach percent. Among those members who do pursue women’s issue initiatives, more representatives focus their energy on social welfare legislation than on feminist or antifeminist proposals. Social welfare initiatives such as health care, education, and welfare are more central to the congressional agenda than are feminist and antifeminist proposals, and these social welfare concerns have constituted a major fault line between the two parties since the New Deal. The patterns revealed in Table . naturally raise the question of whether electing more women will lead to more attention to gender-related legislation.
Results: Gender Differences in Policy Focus
The study assessed the role of gender as a factor in the decision of legislators to pursue women’s issue policy proposals after accounting for other major factors that are known to influence members’ legislative choices (see Swers for details of the statistical analysis and regression results). Even after accounting for the major influences on congressional decision making, gender differences in advocacy of women’s issues were found in both Congresses and across all areas of legislative activity, including bill sponsorship, cosponsorship, amending in committee, amending on the floor, and roll call voting. However, the impact of gender considerations on members’ legislative behavior varied with the type of issue,
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with the largest differences found on feminist issues. Additionally, a member’s willingness to advocate for women’s issue policies was strongly affected by changes in the member’s position within the institution and with the pressures of the prevailing political context. To better highlight the important findings, Figures . and . illustrate the probability, based on regression analysis, that a member with a given set of characteristics will sponsor a women’s issue bill. Thus, the first column in Figure . indicates that a conservative Democratic man from a district with fewer Democratic voters than the average district represented by a Democrat would exhibit only a percent probability of sponsoring a feminist bill in the rd Congress. As shown in Figures . and ., the differences in legislative focus are most dramatic in the area of feminist bills. Women are much more likely than are their male colleagues to promote feminist initiatives, ranging from reproductive rights and breast cancer research to policies to combat violence against women and sexual harassment in the workplace. Only female legislators, Democrats in both 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Cons DM Low DS
Lib DM High DS
Cons DW Low DS
Lib DW High DS 103rd
Cons RM Low DS
Mod RM High DS
Cons RW Low DS
Mod RW High DS
104th
Figure 6.1. Probability of sponsoring a feminist bill. Note: The bars represent the mean probability that a member of a given gender, party, ideology, and level of Democratic support in the district, as measured by the district vote for Bill Clinton in 1992, will sponsor a feminist issue bill. To characterize members as hypothetical liberal or conservative Democrats and moderate or conservative Republicans, the ideology scores are set at the 0.25 and 0.75 quartiles within each party. DW-NOMINATE scores are used to assess member ideology. The scores that are estimated over all nonunanimous roll call votes range from ⫺1, indicating most liberal, to +1, indicating most conservative. Similarly, members are assigned a high or low level of district support for Democrats by setting the vote for Clinton at the 0.25 and 0.75 quartile levels within each party. The meanings for abbreviations are as follows: Cons = Conservative; Lib = Liberal; Mod = Moderate; DM = Democratic men; DW = Democratic women; RM = Republican men; RW = Republican women; Low DS = Low level of Democratic support in district; High DS = High level of Democratic support in district. Source: Swers 2002.
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80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% DM Low DS
DM High DS
DW Low DS
DW High DS 103rd
RM Low DS
RM High DS
RW Low DS
RW High DS
104th
Figure 6.2. Probability of sponsoring a social welfare bill. Note: The bars represent the mean probability that a member of a given sex, party, and level of Democratic support in the district, as measured by the district vote for Bill Clinton in 1992, will sponsor a social welfare bill. Members are assigned a high or low level of district support for Democrats by setting the vote for Clinton at the 0.25 and 0.75 quartile levels within each party. For the meanings of abbreviations, see note for Figure 6.1. Source: Swers 2002.
Congresses and Republicans in the rd Congress, exhibit a percent or greater chance of sponsoring a feminist bill. Feminist issues are relatively new to the congressional agenda, and women have played a key role in bringing these issues to the attention of their colleagues. Both legislators and voters can make clear connections between feminist policies and consequences for women as a group, allowing women to claim moral authority on these issues and making their support of these policies something that is sought after by bill sponsors and interest groups. Feminist policies such as reproductive rights often elicit controversy and can carry the risk of alienating constituents and mobilizing opposition interest groups, thus making the legislator’s intensity of commitment to the issue an even more important determinant of the decision to become or remain active on a feminist bill. The dramatic differences in support for feminist legislation remain across the major legislative activities studied from sponsorship through roll call voting. Figure . indicates that women are also more likely to focus on social welfare issues than are their male colleagues. However, the differences are not as dramatic as those found on feminist issues. In comparison to feminist policies, social welfare issues are more central to the congressional agenda as they have constituted a major fault line between the parties since the New Deal, and issues like
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education and health care consistently rank among the top priorities of voters, encouraging legislators to take stands on these issues. In fact, there were no discernible gender differences in the likelihood of members to offer amendments concerning social welfare issues in committee (results not shown; see Swers ). With regard to antifeminist bills, these were most often sponsored by Republican men. Among the fourteen antifeminist bills sponsored in the rd Congress (see Table .), thirteen were sponsored by Republican men and one by a Democratic man. Similarly, in the th Congress, forty of the forty-four antifeminist initiatives were sponsored by Republican men, three were sponsored by Republican women, and one was sponsored by a Democratic man. Navigating the Political and Institutional Contexts
In addition to issue focus, members’ willingness to advocate for women’s issue initiatives was significantly influenced by their place in the institution and the prevailing political context. With regard to institutional position, both Democratic and Republican women became more aggressive advocates of social welfare issue initiatives when their party held majority status. Because the majority party sets the legislative agenda, women recognized that when they were in the majority they possessed enhanced opportunities to shape policy on these issues that are central to the national policy debate, and they used their majority status to become even more active in policy debates on social welfare issues than similarly situated male colleagues. Thus, the gender differences in social welfare sponsorship among Democratic men and women displayed in Figure . are largest in the Democraticcontrolled rd Congress. Among Republicans, the gender differences in social welfare sponsorship greatly increased from a percent difference among moderate Republicans in the rd Congress to a percent difference among moderate Republicans in the th Congress. The activism of members on women’s issues is also greatly influenced by changes in the political environment. This is particularly true for moderate Republican women. As shown in Figures . and ., moderate Republican women were very likely to sponsor a feminist bill in the rd Congress. However, in the th Congress, their support for feminist initiatives dropped dramatically: there was only a percent likelihood that a moderate Republican woman would sponsor a feminist bill. Instead, these women shifted their focus from feminist to social welfare initiatives, as demonstrated by the large increase in sponsorship of social welfare initiatives by moderate Republican women in the th Congress in comparison to their male colleagues. Interview discussions confirmed that when moderate Republican women were in the minority party, they could more easily support feminist initiatives because they were expected to bring along only their contingent of votes. However, when these women ascended to the majority party, they were part of a Republican majority caucus in which social conservatives were
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a key constituency. The Republican caucus was skeptical of women’s issues and strongly opposed to feminist initiatives. Therefore, though Republican women now had the advantage of agenda control, they could not risk being viewed as carriers for the interests of the Democratic groups that now focused their lobbying efforts on moderate Republicans, and they risked losing opportunities to advance their priorities on other issues if they alienated important party leaders and key Republican constituencies. Thus, these women had to carefully choose their legislative battles by focusing on social welfare initiatives that were less likely to alienate Republican colleagues and framing issues in ways that were more acceptable to Republican groups. For example, without the efforts of Republican women, including Nancy Johnson (R-CT ), Jennifer Dunn (R-WA), and Deborah Pryce (R-OH), party leaders would not have included child support enforcement and child care subsidies in the Republican welfare reform bill (Casey and Carroll ; Norton ; Swers ).
Change and Continuity Since the 104th Congress
Since the th Congress, women’s advancement into the House of Representatives has continued at a slow pace. However, as the women first elected in the s have gained seniority, their access to institutional power has increased, enhancing their ability to shape policy outcomes. Perhaps the most important development has been the ascension of women to the top tiers of leadership power in both the Democratic and Republican Parties in the th Congress (– ). Prior to the election of Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as minority whip during the th Congress (– ), no woman had served in the top four positions in party leadership: speaker of the House, majority/minority leader, majority/minority whip, and conference chair. In the th Congress, Pelosi was elected minority leader, the top Democrat in the House, and Deborah Pryce (R-OH) became conference chair, the fourth-ranking post in the Republican leadership, which is responsible for crafting the party message and communicating with the media. Each has been described by colleagues and the press as devoting more attention to advancing the careers of other women in Congress and promoting women’s issues and a focus on the concerns of women voters. When Pelosi ascended to minority leader, some conservative Democrats worried that a liberal from San Francisco would alienate swing voters and hurt them in their home districts. However, Pelosi eased their concerns by appointing John Spratt, a conservative Democrat from South Carolina, as her assistant leader, making a point of listening to the concerns of conservative Democrats and establishing a rural working group to provide a voice for more conservative members (Associated Press ). House staffers noted, “Pelosi is a consensus builder. On liberal things she acts as a facilitator organizing and working behind the scenes, but she
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does not act as the public face because she knows she has to take care of the whole caucus” (personal interview with two Democratic staffers, June , ). In recent years, relationships between the two parties have deteriorated, and Pelosi has been described as “Gingrichian,” a reference to the tactics of the combative former speaker and leader of the “Republican Revolution,” in her efforts to sharpen the party’s message and highlight its differences with the majority rather than compromising on legislation (Cochran and Martinez ). Yet, within the Democratic Party, Pelosi has gained praise for creating unity in the caucus. For example, her ability to keep Democrats unified on the Medicare prescription drug vote forced Republicans to hold the traditionally fifteen-minute vote open for an unprecedented three hours in order to strong-arm their members to pass the Republican plan ( J. Allen ). In addition to devoting attention to the concerns of conservative Democrats, Pelosi has used her position to ensure that less senior members received better committee assignments and to appoint more women and minorities to key committees (Associated Press ). For example, Jane Harman (D-CA) currently serves as ranking member of the vitally important Intelligence Committee, a post formerly held by Pelosi before she became leader. As one staffer explained, “Pelosi is into having the caucus look like America.” When Republicans appointed their homeland security members they put all the relevant committee chairs on the panel because the chairs are concerned about protecting their turf. “Pelosi put diverse faces on the committee. Jim Turner (D-TX), a Blue Dog conservative, is Ranking Member, Benny Thompson (D-MS) represents the Black Caucus, and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) the Hispanic Caucus and women.” In fact, in the th Congress, among the twenty-three Democrats serving on the prestigious Select Committee on Homeland Security, minorities and women make up about half the minority party’s membership, including two black men, three black women, one Hispanic woman, and five white women (http://clerk.house.gov/committee/ index.html?comcode=HM). Pelosi is also committed to advancing women’s issues and promoting the policy activities of other women legislators on those issues. According to a Democratic staffer, Pelosi uses her staff to set up events on women’s issues and then steps back and lets other women members take the lead and get the credit. “This way, she is behind the scenes on liberal things so she does not get criticized as a San Francisco liberal and other women get credit and media attention.” For example, “Pelosi recently organized a news conference in her office that brought together women police officers, nurses, etc., so that Democratic women could condemn the Bush budget and its effect on women.” She is organizing a series of special order speeches on the House floor by Democratic women with Congresswoman X to promote Democratic initiatives and highlight things the Bush administration has done that hurt women.
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On the Republican side, Deborah Pryce, the new Republican conference chair, is noted for her increased efforts to elevate Republican women, advertise the party’s efforts on women’s issues, and court women voters. Rising from conference secretary to vice chair and now conference chair, Pryce conveys a different leadership style than her fellow Republican Party leaders. She has been described by one House Republican as bringing “a viewpoint to the leadership table in terms of how suburban voters, particularly suburban women feel. Believe me, sometimes you need that” (Kirchoff , ). More moderate than the rest of the House leadership, she has often served as a mediator negotiating compromises or facilitating dialogue between the two factions of the Republican conference (Kirchoff ; Auster ). Pryce has used her leadership position and access to other key decision makers to promote action on women’s issues. Since the devastating loss of her nine-year-old daughter to cancer, she has become a prime champion of children’s health initiatives and other proposals to protect children (Kirchoff ; Auster ). Like Pelosi, Pryce has worked to elevate the position of other women in the caucus. According to staffers of Republican women, “With Pryce as chair of the [Republican] Party, there has been more of a concerted effort to get women involved.” She does this primarily by meeting with Republican women regularly and establishing mentoring relationships and communication networks among Republican women. She has also worked to expand the ranks of Republican women by establishing VIEW PAC (Value in Electing Women) in , a leadership PAC devoted to raising money for Republican women candidates (Kirchoff ). Research on the rd and th Congresses found that both the Democratic and Republican Parties used female representatives to reach women voters in an effort to finesse the gender gap during this era of tight party competition (Swers ). This trend continues, as demonstrated by Pelosi’s efforts to coordinate all female press conferences and floor speeches to denounce Bush initiatives as antiwomen and to highlight Democratic proposals that are beneficial to women. As conference chair, responsible for crafting the party message and selling it to voters, Pryce has taken a particular interest in trying to reduce the party’s disadvantage with female voters. She has done this by trying to package and present the Republican message in a way that resonates with women voters, such as by “talking about tax relief in terms of a mom trying to make ends meet and paying the grocery bills. It’s a different message than just talking about it in terms of business and stocks and bonds” (Auster , ). She holds workshops for Republican members designed to familiarize them with women’s concerns and to help them reach out to women voters. For example, a July workshop was entitled “Women and Messaging: Issues That Matter Most to Women and How to Address Them. If men are from Mars, and women are from Venus . . . then women speak Venutian. Why don’t Republicans???” To combat the idea that only Democratic women
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care about women’s issues and to highlight the activities of Republican women on those issues, Pryce distributes a monthly newsletter primarily to the editors of women’s magazines such as Glamour and Cosmopolitan. The newsletter is devoted solely to women’s issues and to the initiatives of Republican women on those issues. For example, the July issue of “From the Desk of Deborah Pryce: Women Leading in Congress” highlights, among other things, Congresswoman Katherine Harris’s (R-FL) efforts to enact Carlie’s Law, a bill to protect children from violent sex offenders, and Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) work to make housing more affordable for military families. Republican Women and Women’s Issues
In the original study of the rd and th Congresses, Swers () found that moderate Republican women were more supportive of women’s issues, particularly feminist legislation, than were their male colleagues. However, these women recognized that their advocacy of women’s issue proposals could alienate Republican colleagues, and they worked to make their proposals amenable to the men and carefully chose their battles as they tried to push the envelope on women’s issues. Conversely, conservative women were generally not active on women’s issues, allowing their male colleagues to sponsor antifeminist proposals while they served supporting roles as cosponsors and floor speakers when asked. It continues to be true that moderate Republican women face pressures from the party caucus as they advocate policies that are opposed by core Republican constituencies, and these pressures have only intensified since the election of George W. Bush, as defection on women’s issues means not only angering congressional colleagues but also defying a president of one’s party who has numerous resources at his disposal to help or hurt individual members of Congress. The findings in the original study concerning conservative Republican women remain tentative because there were only twelve Republican women serving in the rd Congress and seventeen in the th. Most of the conservative women in the th Congress were newly elected freshmen who had yet to firmly establish themselves as legislators and delineate their policy priorities. Today the Republican majority includes twenty-one women, and more of these Republican women have gained seniority within the party and committees. Additionally, more of the Republican women serving in the th Congress characterize themselves as conservatives than did the delegation of Republican women elected in . More of these women have taken leading roles in championing antifeminist proposals. For example, Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) is the chief sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment in the House and Melissa Hart (R-PA) championed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act to increase penalties on criminals who commit violent crimes against pregnant women and their fetuses. These developments led us to take a closer look at Republican women in an effort to clarify their views on and
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commitment to women’s issues. From May to July , we conducted interviews with staffers from the offices of eight Republican congresswomen. The representatives vary in their level of seniority from freshmen to more seasoned legislators, and their ideology from moderates to staunch conservatives. Based on these interviews, we developed three archetypes that characterize the differing viewpoints Republican women display concerning the degree to which their policy interests are shaped by gender, their attitudes toward women’s issues, and whether they use explanations based on gender, such as their role as women or mothers, when they communicate their policy decisions to constituents and others. These archetypes do not map simply onto the liberal-conservative continuum, and they are not exclusive, as Republican women do exhibit characteristics from multiple categories in their legislative behavior. Our first archetype, the socially conservative woman, is typically a strong conservative motivated by her religious beliefs and a desire to protect the traditional family and a woman’s role in the home and the care of children.2 This woman embraces her role as a wife and mother and will often refer to these values to explain her legislative priorities and to justify her votes. For example, for one Republican woman, one of the primary reasons to support tax cuts is because it will allow more women to stay home. During the heated debate over the Republican plan to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare, a staffer for a socially conservative Republican woman recounted that she felt confident in her no vote because as she was hanging up the phone after talking with President Bush, who had called to urge her to vote in favor of the bill, “her cell phone started vibrating. . . . It was her oldest grandson. . . . She saw it as a reminder that she is doing the right thing.” Viewing gender as central to their identity, socially conservative women are fervently pro-life, but they are also willing to support women’s health initiatives outside of abortion, such as breast cancer research. They are eager to play the role of conservative mothers when asked to do so by the party leadership and are often called on to promote legislation that might be tagged as antiwomen by Democrats and the media. For example, one staffer explained that when President Bush signed the Partial Birth Abortion Act into law, it was widely noted that he did it with only men surrounding him at the signing ceremony. With this in mind, a few months later, at the press conference announcing the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) was recruited to speak on behalf of the law even though she had played a minimal role in gathering support for its passage. Similarly, Republicans actively recruited a female sponsor for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which opposes gay marriage. Marilyn Musgrave stepped up to champion the cause after other women declined entreaties by the party leadership to accept a leadership role on this issue due to a lack of conviction against gay marriage; in one case, the legislator felt that as a single woman, she did not have much credibility on the issue. Thus, the socially conservative
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woman embraces her role as a woman, but it is defined first through her conservatism and religious beliefs. Conversely, our second archetype, the woman who denies gender differences, rejects the notion that there are women’s issues. She does not see her sex as related in any way to her activities as a legislator and believes that her constituency would also reject such distinctions. This legislator tends to focus on core Republican principles, such as lower taxes and smaller government, and constituency-related concerns. As one staffer explained, “She [the member] makes no effort to reach out to women. She would not sign onto anything that would increase spending, and that would include any health issue related to women.” These women would not be called on to represent the party on women’s issues, and they firmly reject any notion that they are somehow different because they are women. Thus, one legislator insists on being addressed as “Congressman” as opposed to “Congresswoman” because, her staffer explained, she views the title as generic and does not wish to be addressed differently from her male counterparts. Another staffer noted that her representative wants to be “one of the boys.” She is not naturally “girlie.” She makes crude jokes and swears, she is down to earth and simple, which helps her identify with the people in her district. One variant of these Republican women who deny gender differences is women who accept the notion of women’s issues rather than rejecting the idea outright, but who choose not to focus on these issues because they are not interested in them and do not believe they are important to their district constituency. Our final archetype is the feminist woman. This woman is generally considered ideologically moderate and perceives gender as central to her role as a representative. She readily accepts the concept of women’s issues and often has a member of her staff whose responsibilities include these issues. These women do not simply play supporting roles on gender-related issues, signing letters and cosponsoring legislation when asked. Instead, they actively seek out opportunities to act as women on behalf of women, drafting legislation and pushing both social welfare and feminist initiatives onto the agenda. The depth of their commitment to these issues is reflected in their willingness to endure criticism from party leaders and sometimes constituents. For example, one Republican woman who is actively involved in efforts to combat sexual and violent abuse against women in the military remains steadfast in her support despite numerous constituent letters asserting that “women shouldn’t be in the military in the first place.” The feminist Republican woman is not always staunchly pro-choice. One prolife Republican woman who played a central role in moving the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, a bill that is opposed by pro-choice groups, says that she was frustrated by the fact that this became an abortion issue because she views it as a domestic violence issue. She has been very involved in working on issues of violence against women and efforts to help women in the workforce, such as job training for displaced homemakers. She often works with Democrats on such initiatives.
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Feminist Republican women also identify women as a distinct part of their constituency, drafting women’s issue bills with these constituents in mind and working to explain how Republican legislation will benefit women. For some of the moderate women who represent districts with a strong Democratic leaning, women voters and support of women’s issues are the key to their reelection prospects. For example, one staffer reports that the district “is percent Democratic, so women emerge as an important constituency for her.” She pushes job training programs for women for these voters. Additionally, by championing women’s issues, these moderate Republican women are able to separate themselves from a Bush administration that is increasingly unpopular in their districts and declare themselves as independent thinkers. Thus, one staffer explained, “She does not fear being stereotyped as a woman. She does fear being stamped as a conservative Republican.” Another maintained, “She is likely to say, ‘I am a strong Republican but I am independent of the White House,’” and championing women’s issues helps her make that case. In sum, for the feminist Republican, championing women’s issues is central to her personal identity, to such an extent that she is willing to risk a certain amount of conflict with the party caucus. In Democratic-leaning districts, these issues can also help Republican women shore up their reelection prospects by allowing them to reach out to women voters who might normally vote Democratic. Although these archetypes are largely distinct, individual legislators can and do exhibit characteristics from different categories at the same time. To illustrate, one staffer to a conservative Republican woman claimed that the legislator is not particularly active on women’s issues except for women’s health, particularly breast cancer. She generally rejects the idea of women’s issues, but she does make an effort to meet with women constituents, hosting a breakfast with all the female mayors in her district and holding a Women’s Kitchen Cabinet, in which she meets with women constituents to hear what is important to them. But the staffer maintained that their concerns are similar to men’s: the economy and the war. Thus, this woman claims to reject the idea of women’s issues and the concept that women have distinct concerns and at the same time actively seeks out opportunities to court women voters as a distinct constituency. While Republican women vary in their attitude toward women’s issues and the need for distinct representation of women’s interests, there is more widespread recognition of the difficulty of being a woman in a male-dominated institution and an effort to build community among the Republican women. Thus, Deborah Pryce claims in a newspaper account of her ascendancy to conference chair that she was encouraged to run by many female colleagues who wanted to see her break through that glass ceiling, and she has made numerous efforts to reach out to women and build mentoring and communication networks among them (Auster ). Similarly, a Republican woman who is not active on women’s issues is very committed to the idea of building community among Republican women; she sponsors a monthly prayer breakfast for women members, where
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they talk about family and personal issues. She also meets with new women when they arrive on the Hill.
Conclusion
The evidence presented from the study of representatives’ legislative behavior and the interview discussions clearly demonstrate that women are having a distinctive impact on the congressional agenda. Both Democratic and Republican women are more likely to advocate women’s issue bills than are their male partisan colleagues, particularly feminist legislation. However, their commitment to women’s issues is mediated by the prevailing political environment and their position within the institution, particularly their status as members of the majority or minority party and their committee position. Moderate Republican women face particularly intense pressures when their policy preferences conflict with the priorities of Republican leaders. The interviews with Republican women of the th Congress demonstrate that there is great diversity in their views on women’s issues and the centrality of gender to their role as a representative.
NOTES
. The bills were identified by consulting the monthly legislative reports and publications of five liberal and conservative women’s groups. Each group claims to represent women’s interests and regularly follows issues of concern to women as they proceed through Congress. The groups include the American Association of University Women (liberal), the National Organization for Women (liberal), Concerned Women for America (conservative), Eagle Forum (conservative), and the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues/Women’s Policy, Inc. (bipartisan). To ensure that there is no systematic bias in the sample, such as a bias toward bills sponsored or cosponsored by Democrats or bills sponsored or cosponsored by women, the approximately five thousand bill summaries per Congress were reviewed and bills matching the subject area identified by the women’s groups were added to the sample. For example, in the rd Congress, the women’s groups identified eleven bills concerning adoption and foster care. Eight additional bills on this topic were found in the review of bill synopses and added to the sample. Bills were categorized as social welfare, feminist, and antifeminist based on the definitions above, and two leading women and politics scholars were consulted to review the categorization of the bills. . This legislator is similar to the social conservative activist described by Rebecca Klatch () in her study of conservative female political activists, Women of the New Right.
7
Debra L. Dodson
Making a Difference Behind the Scenes
■ In the first of three chapters that explore the evidence for and implications of institutional gendering, Debra L. Dodson uses the words of women legislators, lobbyists, and staff members of the U.S. Congress during both Democratic and Republican dominance (the 103rd and 104th Congresses) to show the ways women’s distinctive contributions can be enhanced or diminished. Drawing from the experiences of those on the front lines, Dodson offers five “lessons” to maximize women’s potential to make a difference in public policy. One intriguing lesson is that a strong and vibrant women’s movement can raise the consciousness of both women voters and legislators and can fuel gender gap pressures that reinforce women’s policy priorities. ■
More than any other kind of human activity, politics has historically borne an explicitly masculine identity. It has been more exclusively limited to men than any other realm of endeavor and has been more intensely, selfconsciously masculine than most other social practices. — , Manhood and Politics: A Feminist Reading in Political Theory Institutions . . . have structures, functions, and rules. . . . Institutions are denoted by a set of norms and beliefs shared among a given population. . . . Institutions do more than structure people’s daily routines; they also assign value to what people do, and they shape the very self-definitions people come to hold. — , Faithful and Fearless: Moving Feminist Protest inside the Church and Military (emphasis added) Are women transforming politics? Not long ago, most scholars who study women and politics would have answered with an emphatic, unqualified Yes! Research showed that women officeholders were more supportive than their male colleagues of women’s rights issues as addressed by the contemporary women’s movement, 129
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as well as of children’s and family issues often associated with more traditional roles as caregivers. Thus, increasing numbers of women officeholders held promise of a transformation of political institutions that had long been the exclusive domain of men (Welch ; Leader ; Gehlen ; Frankovic ; Thomas ; Burrell ; Clark ; Vega and Firestone ; Dodson et al. ; Carroll b, c; Dodson , forthcoming; Dodson and Carroll ; Flammang ; Havens and Healy ; Kathlene , a; Mandel and Dodson ; Reingold a; also see Berkman and O’Connor ; Gertzog ; Barrett ; Boles ; Saint-Germain ; Tamerius ; Welch and Thomas ). Theorist Anne Phillips (, ) captured the positive feeling of the time when she wrote, “Changing the gender composition of elected assemblies is largely an enabling condition . . . but it cannot present itself as a guarantee. It is, in some sense, a shot in the dark: far more likely to reach its target than when those shooting are predominately male, but still open to all kinds of accident.” As Phillips asserted and as Georgia Duerst-Lahti argues in chapter , events in the s and beyond called into question whether simply adding more women in political institutions could result in more than making a difference of the kind discussed in this volume. It made scholars of women and politics rethink the belief that transformation was possible by increased numbers alone.
The Year of the Woman and Beyond
Expectations were high that women would transform politics when the much touted “Year of the Woman” nearly doubled women’s presence in the U.S. Congress, rising from thirty-one in the nd to fifty-five in the rd Congress. In that session, Congress passed a record sixty-six bills dealing with women and children, such as the Violence Against Women Act and the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances bill, expanded funding for women’s health research and coverage of abortion for federal employees. Women also influenced the content of some high-priority bills that failed to pass, such as the Clinton health care reform plan. It seemed that electing more women might transform the institution of Congress (Dodson et al. ). The election did not diminish women’s proportional presence in Congress, but it changed almost everything else. Along with the “Republican Revolution” that put both chambers of Congress in Republican hands for the first time in forty years, the ideological diversity of women expanded. Eight Democratic women incumbents were defeated and seven new Republican women were elected, six of whom were hostile to the goals of the contemporary women’s movement. Although the majority of women members of Congress remained Democratic, relatively liberal, and sympathetic to the goals of the women’s move-
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ment, this new small cadre of Republican women (who had the advantages of majority party status) gave a different perspective to the notion that “women make a difference.” Two of them were among the three House members alleged to have close ties with the militia movement following the Oklahoma City bombing; all seven of the newly elected Republican women gave an award to Rush Limbaugh, with at least one of them assuring him there was not a “FemiNazi among them” (Merida , A). Further, their ranks included women who dubbed the League of Women Voters the “League of Women Vipers,” women who insisted on being called Congressman rather than Congresswoman, and women who charged that the white man was the most endangered species (Hall ; Rosen ). The influx and actions of conservative women began to call into question the type of difference women can make and the circumstances under which feminist policy and institutional transformation can occur. Specifically, a primary question concerned the link long assumed to exist between increased descriptive and substantive representation of women and whether it was an artifact of the increased presence of liberal women rather than a product of the increased presence of women per se (for a similar point cross-nationally, see Beckwith and CowellMeyers ). Might achievement of gender parity fail to transform politics? To explore these and other challenges to conventional assumptions about the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation of women, I draw on interviews conducted by the Center for the American Woman and Politics with staff, lobbyists, and women members of the rd and th Congresses, supplemented by information about more recent Congresses drawn from a variety of sources.1 This chapter offers lessons that can be drawn from the past about the ways to maximize the potential for women’s presence to increase substantive representation of women’s needs and interests and of new ways to think about this relationship given the increased ideological diversity among elected women.
Lesson 1
The overt marginalization of the past that forced women to choose between their identities as women and as politicians may no longer exist, but masculinist values that discourage women’s difference persist, fueled in part by women’s continued underrepresentation. In the rd and th Congresses, women were, by Kanter’s (b) standards, a token presence. However, their underrepresentation was even more pronounced within the Republican Caucus, where women’s proportional presence was only half that of women in the Democratic Party.2 The implications of Katzenstein’s (, ) warning that “institutions do more than structure people’s daily routines; they also assign value to what people do, and they shape the very self-
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definitions people come to hold” comes to life in the words of Congresswoman Connie Morella (R-MD), who, when asked why Republican women seemed so reluctant to talk about the “mom and apple pie” issue of women’s health in the th Congress despite their claims to support it, responded: “You go to a big conference with all of the Republicans, and even though you have more Republican women than before, you don’t have that many. Then you have the guys talking about macho things, ‘Let’s get rid of the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education can go.’. . . Stand up there and talk about women’s issues??!!!” (interview, post – th Congress). Clearly, neither Democratic nor Republican women could focus solely on “women’s issues” without damaging their credibility in either Congress.3 Yet, the implications of Republican women’s more conservative policy views were only compounded in the th Congress by differences in the institutional environments of the party caucuses. One lobbyist summed up this phenomenon well: “There doesn’t seem to yet be a comfort zone [in the Republican Party] around . . . the fact that women do look at issues different from men” (interview, post–th Congress).The power of institutions to assign value to its members’ actions in ways that might constrain the gendered responses of women came to life (unintentionally) in the words of this high-level male Republican House staffer who cautioned: Women members should represent their districts. . . . There is a difference between the sexes, and women will pick up on different issues, different concerns, than sometimes men will. That’s important to recognize and good. I think it’s a mistake when women members just go up and say, “This is a women’s issue,” because what are women’s issues? Well, you know, they should be many of the same issues . . . men care about, except they have a different perspective, maybe a different tone to it, maybe a different style of talking about the issue, a different style to understand the issue. . . . But I would hope that women . . . and men care about the same issues . . . economy, defense, welfare. . . . It’s good for women members to go beyond just what would seem a parochial, if you will, sexual politics. (interview, post – th Congress, emphasis added) The implicit devaluation of the feminale (the quality of being female) relative to the masculine came through as well in observations like those of this female lobbyist, who worked for interests aligned with the Republicans: “I think in some ways it’s sort of denigrating to women to sort of classify, ‘Well, those are women’s issues, so they clearly are less important than male issues.’. . . Family leave and things like that . . . I guess you could classify as women’s issues, but I think . . . that’s sort of a negative to them” (interview, post– th Congress, emphasis added). Or take the sentiments of this Republican House staffer, who saw Republican women members as having learned from Democratic women’s “mistakes” in the rd Con-
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gress that the staffer thought had prevented them from establishing their credibility on “important” aspects of health care reform: I think they [Republican women members] saw that happen to their Democratic [women] colleagues . . . in health reform. . . . “Guys get to do the sexy issues of premiums and health-cost containment and administration; . . . you gals talk about mammograms, . . . Pap smears, and everything else.” And I think that that’s where . . . Jennifer Dunn [a Republican congresswoman from Washington] is important because she gives voice inside that circle of guys, . . . like, “Heck, some of us are businesswomen, and we can talk about the rough-and-tough economic issues too, and speak to their constituency, which in a lot of Republican districts is small businessmen and even business owners.” . . . They don’t want to get pigeonholed. . . . It’s also their way of gaining credibility: “I can sit here and I can talk about premiums, I can talk about insurance regulation and everything else, and I’m going to become an expert in that, and you’re going to listen to me!” . . . And it helps them in their district too, because they appear to have a broader [focus]. You know, they can speak to economics. (interview, post–th Congress) Since the th Congress, the pressures Republican women faced from within their own caucus to approach the feminale with care have not obviously changed (Rosenthal ; Gertzog ). In each chamber, women remain a smaller proportional presence within the Republican than the Democratic Party caucus.4 Thus, the combination of the relatively more conservative views of those Republican women in the th Congress with the seemingly greater institutional constraints may help explain why Republican women were less willing to challenge their party as boldly and publicly in the th Congress than Democratic women did on behalf of women when their party was in the majority. It may also explain why that pattern persists. Granted, there have been exceptions in more recent Congresses, such as negotiations ensuring affirmative action goals were met in the award of Department of Defense contracts to women entrepreneurs (Gertzog , ), but paired with those exceptions are cases in which Republican women (in the House, at least) cheered silently on the sidelines as Democratic women led the charge on behalf of legislation such as educational equity (– ). While reaching gender parity might embolden women of both parties to do more for women, the potential of achieving it in the near future remains low. The elections are unlikely to dramatically accelerate this pattern of incremental progress that has left women of both parties proportionately underrepresented. Thus, gender parity in presence that might accelerate (but not guarantee) the kind of institutional transformation that would put the feminale and masculine on more
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equal footing remains a dream of the future. The question now is how to make the most of women’s impact at any given level of proportional (under)representation.
Lesson 2
At any level of proportional presence, external pressure enhances women’s potential for transforming these historically masculine institutions. Thus, substantive representation of women is facilitated not only by increasing women’s presence as members of Congress, but also by a strong and vibrant women’s movement that can mainstream what was once nontraditional, raise the consciousness of women voters and women members, and fuel gender gap pressures that legitimize women members’ contributions to gender difference in the eyes of male colleagues by making satisfaction of women’s political demands integral to the institutionally respected goals of reelection and maintaining (or regaining) institutional control. It all sounds easy. Elect more women and they will transform politics. The hand that rocks the cradle will rock the boat; those who mop the kitchen floor will mop up the political messes. Yet, analysis of the rd and th Congresses suggests that challenges to masculinist values within historically male institutions that continue to be predominantly composed of male members and led by men will be more successful (and less politically costly to women) if external forces converge with the internal pressure of women officeholders. The gender gap threat has given legitimacy to women’s efforts to act for women, for the gender gap threat takes women’s needs and interests beyond merely being the “right” thing to do, to being a political necessity. One lobbyist captured the critical role of this external pressure in a post–th Congress interview: I’m going to say this as honestly as I can. . . . If a woman Republican member supports something like mandatory forty-eight hours in the hospital for a new baby or, in the case of this Congress, for a mastectomy, forty-eight hours, or mandatory mammography screening in insurance policy, a male Republican and a woman Republican are likely to end up in the same place, which is to support it. But a woman Republican, my guess would be, would be more likely to be motivated by wanting to get it done, and a man Republican would be more motivated by the political fear of what happens if you don’t get it done. This is almost certainly why those like this Republican Senate staffer suggested, “I think that it [the gender gap] empowered the female members of Congress like almost nothing else” (interview, post– th Congress). Indeed, the importance of the synergy of women’s presence in combination with external pressure is apparent in the legend5 of Congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar’s (D-OH) persistent efforts to expand Medicare coverage to include mammograms. One women’s
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health activist, reminiscing about the (bad old) days before the rd Congress, recalled: Mary Rose was the initiator, driving force, on breast cancer in Congress for fifteen years. Nobody paid any attention to her . . . because there wasn’t the advocacy movement that she needed around it. She fought to get mammograms paid for by Medicare for years. She’d get it in the bill and it would go into conference and they’d take it out because it was too expensive. That’s the most outrageous stuff, in retrospect. . . . Now they are all pandering on the issue of breast cancer. But Mary Rose was a lone voice, and there wasn’t an advocacy movement. . . . But she fought and fought relentlessly. (interview, post–rd Congress) Yet, in the late s, the political environment began to change when growing pressure from women members raised awareness of women’s health inside and outside Congress and when this converged with mobilization of breast cancer survivors on the outside. As one Republican staffer put it, “The [members of the] grumpy-old-men caucus even realized, ‘I don’t want to be the guy who goes home and gets told, Congressman So-and-So voted down all sorts of breast-cancer screening’ ” (interview, post– rd Congress). Fear of retribution from women voters contributed to numerous victories in the rd Congress, including increases in women’s health research funding, passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances bill, passing the Violence Against Women Act, and raising awareness of women’s health needs in the context of the failed health care reform effort (Dodson et al. ). The need to attract women voters created an incentive for men to find issues clearly related to women to support, such as the Violence Against Women Act or breast cancer research funding, to show they were pro-women (Dodson forthcoming). Indeed, irate women members of the House marching over to the Senate side to protest the treatment of Anita Hill during the hearings to confirm current U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas may have had little immediate impact on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but the problems it generated in the subsequent election cycle left an indelible impression. As this pro-choice lobbyist observed: The climate that [the] Anita Hill [incident] set . . . created the electoral environment for the election of more women [and it] . . . shook up the male hierarchy in both bodies. It wasn’t . . . that these guys suddenly “got it” or that they suddenly just woke up with an epiphany one morning and said, “Well, I need to be more understanding that these issues are important in society.” No. No. They got it the way politicians get it; they got burned. They got burned by the press, they got burned by their constituents, and they suddenly experienced the potential power of the woman’s issue in a lightning bolt fashion. And
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that’s why things changed pretty dramatically. (interview, post –rd Congress) The tendency of women voters to favor Democrats may have made advocacy on behalf of women easier for Democratic than Republican women,6 but even in the Republican-controlled th Congress, gender gap fears seemed to enhance the legitimacy of at least a few women-centric priorities and helped women of both parties garner support from their male colleagues on noncontroversial issues. As one Republican Senate staffer explained, “To be very honest, women in Congress played a role in that [women’s health], but . . . these issues [women’s health] are becoming more of a political issue in terms of their ability to influence a member’s luck in a campaign. . . . [Interviewer: The power of the gender gap?] Yeah, that has become a huge political issue which they [male members] are responding to. If you look at this election cycle, everybody who is up has a women’s issue, and it’s a women’s health issue” (interview, post–th Congress). Gender gap pressures on Republicans in the th Congress contributed to Senator Nancy Kassebaum’s ultimately successful attempt to pass incremental health care reform despite initial leadership ambivalence; it almost certainly played a role in protecting women’s health research funding from the slash-and-burn atmosphere of the th Congress; it clearly forced House leaders to incorporate specific provisions dealing with domestic violence and breast cancer into their health insurance reform bill; it almost certainly helped save the domestic family planning program; it mitigated the harshest cuts for international family planning; and it made victory (defined as sustaining the veto) on the Partial Birth Abortion Ban politically possible in the th Congress (Dodson forthcoming). Successes partially attributable to gender gap pressures were clearly less spectacular by absolute standards (no “write home to mom victories,” as one staffer astutely summed it up in a post–th Congress interview), but it may have been important for Republican women members simply because the gap gave them political cover. As this lobbyist explained: “I think . . . Democratic women . . . do tend to be representative of the ‘women’s groups,’ and they’re quite proud of it; and they’re not afraid of being typecast as representative of those groups. By contrast, many of those groups are seen as being Democratic and liberal in leaning, at least to the Republicans. And therefore, Republican women are probably concerned about being typecast by their male colleagues as representative of those liberal groups” (interview, post–th Congress). Republicans’ recognition of their problems with women voters and the dangers posed by the gender gap almost certainly explain why Newt Gingrich chose not only to meet regularly with Republican women members, but also to showcase these well-qualified women to a greater extent than Democrats had when their party was in control (or, for that matter, than Republicans had when in the minority).7
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The battle for gender equity is far from over at either the mass or elite levels of politics, and the elections are unlikely to intensify the external pressure that increases the clout of elected women. The gender gap was not a front-page story during the election cycle, and when noticed, it was remarkably unstable. In the wake of /, the gender gap in support for the president seemed to disappear, as war, terror, and national security fears converted “soccer moms” into “security moms.” As long as feminale concerns remain peripheral political issues, gender gap fears legitimize them by making it easier for elected women to cast them in terms consistent with masculinist values of the institution. If, on the other hand, Republicans close their gender gap and win by emphasizing terrorism threats and fear, moderate Republican women may have a harder time convincing their male colleagues to support “women’s issues” because this would suggest the gender gap can be addressed by simply talking in different ways about the issues men define as important. But they may also have a harder time getting a seat at the table because their presence as symbols of the GOP’s pro-women positions may seem less necessary. Indeed, considering that euphoric Republican women began declaring the glass ceiling broken in the th Congress, when a Republican woman in each chamber rose to chair of a standing committee, no women in the House have chaired standing committees in the th through the th Congresses, and the GOP leadership skipped over two Republican women in favor of less senior men to chair committees. One day women may not need the help of any gender gap to transform politics; for now, those who hope increased descriptive representation will increase substantive representation of women must also be concerned with sustaining the gender gap as a political threat to add clout to the underrepresented voices of political women.
Lesson 3
The relationship between descriptive and substantive representation of women is affected by the ideological composition of the institution, for it affects the possibility of constructing legislative majorities. However, the effects of ideological composition on substantive representation of women may be magnified by the allocation of power within the institution, the intersecting and competing institutional pressures legislators face as members of two institutions (i.e., a chamber of Congress in this case and a party caucus), and the fact that women members of Congress who talk of their responsibility to women differ in the subgroups of women to whom they feel responsible. In short, those who expect descriptive representation will increase substantive representation of women must be concerned not only with electing women, but also electing men who will support those agendas and who do not allocate positional power in ways that depress the relationship between women’s presence and their substantive representation.
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Each member of Congress may have one vote, but committee assignments and positioning within the leadership and committee hierarchy affect the ease with which members can shape legislation, define problems, and control agendas. Record numbers of women may have served in the th Congress, and Republican women may have enjoyed greater positional power than ever before, but a seemingly endless barrage of attacks during that Congress threatened gains of the past. As one pro-choice activist explained in a post–th Congress interview: “It had to do with who’s in control. . . . The problem was that there were . . . solidly antichoice votes in the House. Given that and given that you have people like Henry Hyde [a Republican member of the House of Representatives and chair of the Judiciary Committee] and Bob Livingston [a Republican member of the House of Representatives and chair of the Appropriations Committee] in control of committees that all the [reproductive rights] stuff has to move through, you’re at a severe disadvantage.” This problem was not new to the th Congress. For example, women remained highly committed to reproductive rights and women’s health issues before and during the rd Congress, but their absence from the Appropriations Committee and the subcommittee with jurisdiction over funding for these programs had limited their influence prior to the rd Congress (Dodson et al. ; Norton ). Indeed, even in the rd Congress, when women found at least some bipartisan common ground on the controversial and highly partisan issue of health care reform, it was those women of the majority party with seats on the committees handling health care reform who were critical conduits for infusing the caucus agenda into the legislation produced at the committee stage. Yet, these women with seats at the table were limited by their lack of positional power in the leadership and on committees. They did not chair these committees, nor were they in the inner circle of leadership; thus, they could not define the agenda on their own terms. Instead, they were often forced to look for moving vehicles onto which they could attach their agenda (as with women’s health research), defend gains that otherwise would have been safe (abortion coverage), or work without the resources the leadership would have made available to men of the majority party (Dodson forthcoming). Although Republican women technically had more positional power in the th Congress than Democratic women had in the rd, they often did not use it the same way as Democratic women had earlier. The “disappointment” was partially due to the more moderate stands of Republican women who might consider acting for women and partially a response to leadership pressure brought about by their new status as the majority party (Swers ; also see Gertzog , chapter ). Yet, equally important was the concentration of the committee power most directly relevant to substantive representation of women in the hands of conservative men and the need for women leaders to recognize the limits their followers imposed on them. This disappointment suggests that those who believe
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substantive representation of women is facilitated when women of both parties are available to act as advocates for women must be concerned about the ideological composition of the institution whose members remain primarily men, along with the way institutional power is allocated (which may affect which issues are discussed and how those matters are reframed). The contingent value of positional power for advancing substantive representation of women is well illustrated by Republican women’s role in the health care debate that spanned these two Congresses. Republican women were at the top of the list when talk turned to which members might be won over to the cause of reform. Although no Democratic women chaired panels with primary jurisdiction, two Republican women were ranking members of them: Senator Nancy Kassebaum (ranking member of Labor) and Representative Marge Roukema (ranking member of the House subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations). Both were considered among those Republicans most likely to be influenced to support the president’s plan, but neither was seen as making a difference in bringing members of her party’s caucus to advance health care reform. One obstacle was the highly partisan atmosphere the Clinton administration created that polarized Congress and alienated Republicans. A second obstacle was the contingent, constraining nature of positional power—even for a member of the minority party on a highly partisan, high-stakes issue. This pressure came from the need of moderate Republican women not only to watch their right flank, but also to conform to expectations that came with their role.8 As this Republican House staffer explained when asked about the constraints Marge Roukema faced as a ranking member: “Yes, absolutely . . . there were certainly ideas, proposals, that had she not been in the position of, we’ll say, leadership—having to carry the views and concerns of her members on that subcommittee—she might have proposed on her own and pushed for with other members. . . . So I would say it’s fair [to say] that there were things that she was not able to do because of that” (interview, post–rd Congress, emphasis added). This institutional pressure from the right flank of the Republican Party on moderates only seemed to increase when the elections swept Republicans into power. Yet, in the Senate, where the majority leader did not attempt to exercise the same iron-fisted control over selection of committee chairs as the House speaker did, the change in party control elevated Senator Kassebaum to chair of the Labor Committee. This set the stage for her not only to write a bill expanding health care access (as she had in the rd Congress), but also to pass it unanimously through her ideologically polarized committee and see it signed into law. Although this fits with the notion that Republican women may have had more freedom to pursue social rather than feminist issues (Swers , this volume), a closer look suggests a more complicated process driven by convergence of attitudes predisposing women to make a difference with the opening of an institutional window of opportunity.
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Being chair of the Labor Committee was undoubtedly an advantage (Dodson forthcoming), but two other factors are critical in differentiating Kassebaum’s situation in the th from that of the rd Congress, when she opted to follow the party line. First, she set her sights lower. The bill she offered in the th Congress was far more limited than the plan she had offered in the rd, as she constructed it to get the unanimous support of her ideologically polarized committee.9 Second, there was less institutional pressure on her from her party in the th Congress than in the rd, largely because health insurance reform was irrelevant to the leadership.10 Finally, the president’s reference to the bill in his State of the Union message jumpstarted the stalled bill at a time when Labor’s chief rival (Finance) was occupied with more pressing issues. As such, Kassebaum’s efforts to act on her health care concerns faced fewer hurdles than in the rd Congress. This suggests that Republican women were freer to use positional power to advance priorities at odds with those of their party caucuses when the political stakes were low. Clearly, the ideological composition of Congress, the party caucuses, and the leadership affect the ease with which women can manifest gender differences and the extensiveness of changes associated with substantive representation of women. In contrast, on the House side, although Representative Jan Meyers was elevated to chair of the Small Business Committee in the th Congress, Speaker Gingrich’s concentration of power into his hands and the hands of conservative men regardless of seniority left far less to chance in policymaking. The consequences of the solidification of power in the hands of conservatives (who were often opponents of the Women’s Caucus agenda) is illustrated well by juxtaposing case studies of the domestic family planning program and international family planning. Both programs had strong support among women in general and segments of Republican women in particular, and both were targets of the Christian Coalition’s Contract with the American Family (Christian Coalition ). However, disparities in positional power seemed to disadvantage international family planning relative to domestic family planning in the House.11 Advocates were lucky when the shift of power elevated family planning supporter Republican John Porter to chair the Appropriations, Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) subcommittee, but they were not as lucky when the leadership decided to skip over more senior Republicans to name Bob Livingston Appropriations Committee chair. Domestic family planning programs left moderate Republican Porter’s subcommittee unscathed, only to nearly be de-funded as Appropriations Chair Livingston took on the subcommittee chair’s favored program.12 Livingston won in the full committee, but several factors contributed to his defeat on the floor, which saved the program: the less controversial nature of family planning programs relative to abortion, highly visible Republican moderate supporters among the bipartisan coalition, and domestic family planning’s direct impact on women constituents in every congressional district. Yet, what
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many felt was critical in stopping the attack before it reached the Senate and what differentiated it from international family planning was the positional power of LHHS Subcommittee Chair Porter. As this Republican House staffer explained: “I think if he [Porter] hadn’t been on our side, we would have been much worse off. . . . To have the chair of a subcommittee opposing these efforts in committee, even when not successful, certainly helped us a lot. And certainly having him in the position he was in when we were having these discussions about rules and urging the leadership to allow us to do this and that, having him weigh in made a big difference” (interview, post–th Congress). His advocacy helped ensure that the effort to save domestic family planning would have a floor vote—a vote that allowed moderate Republicans to unite with Democrats to create a majority. The value of an advocate with positional power is illustrated by the case study of funding for international family planning, which suffered dramatic cuts and new restrictions. International family planning shared with its domestic counterpart the much-needed support of senior Republican women like Jan Meyers, Nancy Kassebaum, and Olympia Snowe, whose image as reasonable and thoughtful facilitated communication with moderate Republican male persuadables. As this prochoice lobbyist observed: “The leaders of the Caucus were very committed. . . . [But] she [ Jan Meyers] was critical. There is no doubt about it. . . . And she is sorely missed right now [in the th]. She played a special role because she was a senior Republican woman. She . . . was a senior member of the International Relations Committee. . . . In that position, especially since the departure of Olympia Snowe to go to the Senate, she was the main advocate for the program during any time when the debate came up, and it almost always came up.” However, international family planning had no advocate with positional power comparable to Porter’s in the case study of domestic family planning, largely due to the speaker’s efforts to select committee chairs who would do the bidding of the leadership.13 It was not until the bill moved to the Senate that international family planning acquired the kind of well-positioned ally it needed: Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Mark Hatfield. As one pro-choice lobbyist explained, “You needed the power of [Senate Appropriations Chair] Hatfield this past two years” (interview, post–th Congress). In a battle that was being fought at the highest levels, women members like Meyers, Kassebaum, and Snowe did not have the same access to the decision-making opportunities the chair had by virtue of his position, as this Republican Senate staffer explained: I don’t think we would have gotten as far as we did without having him [Hatfield] in that position [Senate Appropriations chair], because a lot of the stuff that happened on the budget was controlled by a very small group of House and Senate leadership folks. They’re all on the conservative, anti–family planning side. Oftentimes, he would be the only one in the room who was trying to gain support for family plan-
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ning. I think he finally sort of began to turn Speaker Gingrich around into understanding the difference between abortion and family planning. But everyone else in the room was very negative and very antifamily planning. So if he hadn’t have been in the room pushing them and raising the issue, . . . we wouldn’t have ever had the kind of debate that we had. . . . Although we were not completely successful, . . . we were far more successful than we would have been if he had not been chairman. Thus, those who hope improvements in descriptive representation of women will increase substantive representation of women in the policymaking process must be concerned not only with women’s proportional presence, but also the ideological composition of their male colleagues, who constitute the majority of members of the institution and both party caucuses within it. The allocation of institutional power magnifies or minimizes women’s opportunities for substantive representation of women. In short, the same leaders Republican women praised for giving women more visible roles than ever also often gave positional power advantages to the men leading the charge against issues that had once united the women across party lines. Thus, the value of Republican women’s newfound positional power in the dramatically altered political environment depends on how one defines substantive representation of women.
Lesson 4
The growing number of conservative antifeminist Republican women in Congress forces us to confront the meaning of substantive representation of women, particularly its intersection with gender difference. This requires not only identifying what it is about substantive representation of women that makes the pursuit of gender parity a desirable goal, but also allowing for the possibility that some gender difference are irrelevant or even counterproductive to substantive representation of women. The women legislators of the late s and early s were, for the most part, drawn from a pool of women more willing than the average woman to violate traditional gender roles. Some may have entered with a commitment to work for gender equity, but others, like Congresswoman Marge Roukema, had their consciousness raised when they confronted the conflict between their expectations and the reality of life in an institution steeped in masculinist values and resistant to change. As Roukema explained: Quite an evolution . . . took place in my own thinking when I first came to Congress; . . . I really didn’t want to be stereotyped as the woman legislator. . . . I wanted to deal with . . . things like banking
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and finance. But I learned very quickly that if the women like me in Congress were not going to attend to some of these family concerns, whether it was jobs or children or equity, pension equity or whatever, then they weren’t going to be attended to. So I quickly shed those biases . . . and said, “Well, nobody else is going to do it. I’m going to do it.” And as time has gone on, I think you do find that pattern not only because women in Congress are more sensitive to those issues, but [because of ] . . . the indifference of the men in Congress. (interview, post – th Congress) However, though the perspectives of pioneering women like Roukema make a compelling case for increasing women’s presence, the increased presence of women in Congress hostile to the goals of the organized women’s movement (see Swers this volume) calls into question this relationship between descriptive and substantive representation of women. The challenges scholars face are not only to understand what the gender differences are, but also to distinguish between gender differences created when some women act for women and others act as women; to differentiate between women with a sense of gender consciousness motivating their political action and those with a minority consciousness who see gender inequity as a matter for each woman to address on her own (Tolleson Rinehart ; Sigel ); and to distinguish between the actions of conservative women committed to reinforcing traditional gender roles and those who act as women to reinforce masculinist values (see Kanter a). The new cadre of conservative women who entered in the th Congress had not run on women’s issues, and, once in Congress, they were uninvolved in working to advance noncontroversial women’s issues such as women’s health. However, one of the women’s issues on which they did step forward in the th Congress was the highly controversial Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Analysis of the floor debate suggests that these conservative pro-life women did make a difference in the arguments for the ban, but these are difficult to describe as substantive representation of women. On the surface, the gender differences are not obvious, for pro-life women, like their likeminded male colleagues, made the fetus rather than women the primary focus of their statements on the floor of the House (Dodson forthcoming). Nevertheless, deconstructing the floor statements of ban supporters reveals several gender differences: women speakers were more likely than men to focus on fetal pain in their statements ( percent vs. percent); women more often than men reinforced their credibility by citing the support of medical professionals ( percent vs. percent); and among speakers in favor of the ban, women were more likely than men to challenge pro-choice women’s efforts to reframe this as a debate over women’s health ( percent vs. percent, respectively; see Dodson forthcoming).
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Do these patterns of gender differences qualify as substantive representation of women? The answer depends on whether the differences reflect women’s connections to women and women’s lives and a conscious desire to either act for women or to challenge masculinism. For example, at the heart of Anne Phillips’s (, ) warning that “representation depends on the continuing relationship between representatives and the represented, and anyone concerned about the exclusion of women’s voices or needs or interests would be ill-advised to shut up shop as soon as half those elected are women” is a concern that women representatives maintain their ties to women outside of these institutions lest competing pressures of life on the inside resocialize them. Because a sense of connection to and identification with women can be found among both gender-conscious women who are feminists and privatized women who embrace traditional roles (Tolleson Rinehart ), we can neither dismiss the possibility that the women who spoke in support of the ban were acting for women nor automatically assume they were. The connection between women officeholders and women constituents belying these differences was more obvious among the pro-choice women who spoke against the ban than among the women who spoke for the ban. Pro-choice women spoke of women’s lives more vividly than their male colleagues ( percent of women speakers compared with only percent of men speakers against the ban focusing heavily on women whose lives, health, and fertility had been saved through this procedure), and their efforts were critical in providing their male colleagues with a framework for discussing the ban that was politically advantageous. They drew on personal connections to friends who had had the procedure and worked with the pro-choice groups who had found women whose lives, health, and fertility had been saved by this procedure to connect their male colleagues with these women and the realities of their lives (Dodson forthcoming). Connections to women and women’s lives were more difficult to find among women who spoke for the ban. Those interviewed following the th Congress generally spoke of having a sense of responsibility to women in their roles as representatives, but they saw no connection between these feelings and their actions on reproductive rights. Instead of being driven by the kind of connection to women we have implicitly assumed belies difference and motivates women’s impact, a different gendered dynamic seemed to be at work—a dynamic driven by convergence of masculinist values (e.g., denial of the existence of gender stakes, acceptance of the legitimacy of men’s leadership) with external pressures generated by the gender gap in the electorate; this is qualitatively different from gender difference driven by a connection of women as a political group. Men remained the indisputable and uncontested leaders of the anti–abortion rights effort in the th Congress, and there is no evidence from interviews that they questioned their own legitimacy or that like-minded women questioned it either. Yet, external pressure fueled by the gender gap and efforts by pro-choice
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women members and reproductive rights activists to paint these men as antiwomen and frame this as a battle between pro-choice women and pro-life men enhanced the value of women. This is because the women could act as symbolic representatives and could use their sex to provide political cover for their male colleagues and the Republican leadership.14 Even though most of these women steered clear of other “women’s issues” in the th Congress, this was an exception—one that brought more tangible benefits to men than to women as a group with collective interests inside or outside Congress. Such manifestations of gender difference seemed more akin to the pattern of token women allying themselves with dominants against other women while doing men’s dirty work.
Lesson 5
Shared experiences of gender inequality and marginalization that once put women members of Congress, regardless of party, in the same boat and facilitated bipartisan collaboration gave way in the s to divergent perceptions of opportunity within the two parties — opportunities fueled by gender gap pressures that pitted Democratic and Republican women against each other and that were intensified by increased ideological diversity among women. By the th Congress, bipartisan collaboration among women was more difficult because they were no longer in the same boat. Some would suggest that Republican women were co-opted; another perspective is that these events fueled the emergence of separate feminisms among Democratic and Republican women members of Congress. Democratic women and many lobbyists who dealt with women’s issues were clearly frustrated by the failure of Republican women to take on their leadership on behalf of women in the same way Democratic women had during the years of Democratic control. In some of their more candid moments, some Democratic women members complained of the difficulty of enlisting the support of Republican women members for efforts ranging from the benign (e.g., promoting the work of women artists) to universally objectionable (e.g., sexual assault in the military) to the most controversial (e.g., reproductive rights). Indeed, there was a sense that maybe the only common ground had become preservation of the Lindy Boggs Room as the congresswomen’s lounge. Part of this was due to the entry of the new cadre of conservative Republican women their Democratic women colleagues described in various unflattering ways as “not women from our perspective” or as “out there on another planet,” and part was due to what another Democratic woman member in a post–th Congress interview described as a tendency to “talk the great talk” but a failure to “walk the walk” (Swers , this volume). On the one hand, conclusions that Republican women were co-opted, exchanging principle for career advancement, seemed validated by the stories some
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lobbyists told of the difficulty of finding Republican women to lead the battle for reproductive rights, the inconsistency of one who would split her votes on international family planning and who was seen as adopting the rhetoric of reproductive rights opponents once she got into leadership, and the consistent praise Republican women had for their party’s advancing the political careers of its women even as it attacked a quarter-century of policy gains made by women working inside and outside of Congress. On the other hand, to chalk it all up to co-optation ignores the palpable sense of struggle to advance political women that Republican women conveyed. It is easy to forget that women in Congress, like other women operating in institutions long the domain of men—women in corporations, women in the military, women in the Church (Kanter a; Katzenstein )—struggled to have the same opportunities for organizational acceptance and advancement that their male colleagues enjoyed but that were not equally attainable to women. Women members of Congress, however, had an additional standard against which they would be judged: their effectiveness in representing women outside the institution. This added burden has dominated assessments of the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation of women and created an expectation of uniformity of behavior that downplays women’s desires to be accepted as members of their own party and the reality that, though they might speak as surrogate representatives of women (Carroll ), they are conceptualizing women in very different ways. This gave women of both parties many different goals they could attempt to achieve on behalf of women. How the women in Congress shifted from a visible, bipartisan, albeit fragile force on behalf of reproductive rights, women’s health equity, and efforts to combat domestic violence in the rd Congress to a far less visible and far less bipartisan force in the Congresses that followed goes beyond the possibility of Republican women being co-opted. Hints of a change began to emerge in the rd Congress as newcomer Republican women like Representatives Jennifer Dunn and Deborah Pryce declined to join the caucus, citing its pro-choice stance as excluding other Republican women.15 Caucus membership may have been particularly uncomfortable as the Year of the Woman not only left Republican women outnumbered three to one by Democratic women, but also seemed to move to the left as more decidedly liberal women of color joined their ranks. At the same time, new “safe spaces” emerged, with the potential to isolate women of the two parties from one another. Newt Gingrich made a concerted effort to begin to meet with Republican women in the rd Congress, acknowledging them as a recognizable sector of Republicans, but without acknowledging or validating the gendered stakes of policy. These meetings with the speaker resulted in women’s use as symbolic representatives, and the stage was set for increased divergence along party lines among the women. Indeed, this once mar-
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ginalized group was no longer in the same boat. Republican women reveled in their new opportunities even as they worked to demonstrate to their male colleagues that advancing women members, and remembering to “finish their sentences” so women would understand why Republican policies were the best for women, could reduce the gender gap threat. Democratic women used the conventional wisdom that Democrats lost the election because women stayed home in to goad their party leaders into taking more ambitious policy stances on behalf of women. Thus, women were not merely not in the same boat, but the opportunities created by the intersection of external and institutional forces seemed to put Democratic and Republican women in competition to help their respective parties achieve electoral goals. The challenge is not only to distinguish between co-optation that women who are present in token numbers might engage in to advance their own careers at the expense of women as a group and feminist protest that challenges masculinist values on behalf of women (even if it does not challenge the goals of the institution), but also to confront the possibility that some collective efforts might bring together women with these diametrically different motivations or might involve feminist protest that runs counter to the policy agenda of women’s organizations. Take, for example, Republican women’s short-lived efforts in the rd Congress to emphasize the negative impact of health care reform on women, and Republican women’s more visible and higher-stakes effort in the th Congress to defend the GOP’s welfare reform plan against charges that it was antiwomen and antichild. These efforts shared three things in common with the gender differences described earlier among Partial Birth Abortion Ban supporters: Republican men encouraged these efforts, Republican women were generally supporting policies defined by Republican men, and these Republican women found themselves on the opposite side of the women’s movement. Yet, unlike the gender differences among supporters of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, Republican women’s efforts to advance the Republican agenda on health care reform in the rd Congress and welfare reform in the th hinted at feminist protest, for both seemed to force their male colleagues to listen to women voters to achieve their desired goal of winning. These women were both serving a need of the male leadership by their presence and sending a message about women as a political group—pressing for change within ideologically acceptable boundaries and in some ways strengthening the ties among Republican women rather than acting for women in the more conventional sense. These women were needed by the men to achieve their goals at the same time that men’s need for the symbolic support of women gave legitimacy to women’s collaborative efforts. Notably, these efforts were spearheaded by women who had evidenced some gender consciousness.
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Conclusion
This chapter has argued that a sole focus on electing more women to public office is inadequate to realize the kind of institutional transformation of which feminists have dreamed. The evidence of women’s impact is still there, but as Georgia Duerst-Lahti argues in chapter , the institution itself is still gendered. The extent to which women make a difference in masculinist institutions and the potential that gender parity in presence will maximize the potential for substantive representation of women depend on many factors. As such, the challenge for those who hope increased descriptive representation will improve substantive representation of women is to not only bring more women into office but to join forces with others whose focus is not necessarily women or gender, but who can contribute to a political environment in which women are empowered to act for women even as they seek to transform masculinist institutions to make them open to the political concerns of all citizens regardless of gender. Failure to do so will slow the progress toward a government that puts masculinist and feminalist values on an equal footing and will only compound the disappointments that seem to come with improvements in women’s presence that seem to move at a snail’s pace.
NOTES
The data in this chapter were collected with the generous support of the Charles H. Revson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Dirksen Congressional Center. . The interviews cited in this chapter were conducted in the waning weeks of the rd Congress and the subsequent months that followed and in the months following the end of the th Congress. For complete details, see Dodson (forthcoming); Dodson et al. (); Hawkesworth et al. (). . Women’s proportional presence was about twice as large in the Democratic than Republican Caucus in the rd Congress ( percent of the Senate Democratic Caucus vs. percent of the Senate Republican Conference; percent of the House Democratic Caucus vs. percent in the House Republican Conference) and the th Congress ( percent of the Senate Democratic Caucus vs. percent of the Senate Republican Conference; percent of the House Democratic Caucus vs. percent of the House Republican Conference). . Democratic staff, lobbyists more closely connected with Democrats, and Democratic women themselves made it clear in interviews that Democratic women risked their legitimacy by being solely focused on women’s issues or failing to balance their own personal political agenda with issues widely valued in this largely male institution (Dodson forthcoming). Yet, in our interviews, women whose agenda mixed a fair amount of feminale concerns with the masculine seemed to be viewed more positively among Democrats, suggesting more of a comfort zone with gender difference in priorities and perspectives in the Democratic Party. For ex-
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ample, Pat Schroeder and Barbara Mikulski were lauded by Democrats for combining work on “women’s issues” with work on more traditional political fare; in contrast, that same combination of feminale and masculine was criticized by some Republicans interviewed (Dodson forthcoming). In the th Congress, women were percent of the House Democratic Caucus but only percent of the House Republican Conference. Similarly, women were percent of the Democrats, but only percent of the Republicans in the Senate. As one Democratic House staffer recalled the dynamics in the earlier days between the male subcommittee chair and women: “I would call that lobbying [by his female colleagues who did not serve on the committee] almost threatening, particularly Mary Rose Oakar. . . . It was definitely nose-to-nose at the conferences. It was very overt. . . . This was before the women came on [the subcommittee], . . . but they came right into the conference. Mary Rose came right into the conference room, which was sort of unheard of, people who are not conferees, looking over your shoulder while you’re doing this” (interview, post–rd Congress). One Republican House staffer who saw Democratic and Republican women as having different “missions” due to the divergent nature of the external forces in the parties explained it this way: Among Republican women, there is a very strong desire to be perceived as strong, substantive women who . . . care about the whole range of issues. So they are very leery of being pigeonholed as always talking about “women’s issues,” so-called. . . . That is a real concern to Republican women. And I think that is less of a concern to Democratic women. I think it goes back to the gaps in the voting patterns, the gender gaps in both parties. You can be free to focus on women’s issues as a Democrat when most of your votes are coming from women. You should be a little concerned about focusing on that totally as a Republican when most of your votes are coming from men. So I think they [Democratic and Republican elected women] have different missions. (interview, post – th Congress) As Marge Roukema observed: “Newt Gingrich, to his credit or maybe he’s simply a practical, political man, meets with the Republican women on a regular basis. We do have our influence, I believe. And that’s good, and it shows that the women members on both sides [of the abortion issue] are an important element in the party; and we have important things not only to say, but to work on, and important leadership positions. And I think it’s more than tokenism. It’s our responsibility to make it more than tokenism. We have to make our voices heard” (interview, post–rd Congress). As one Democratic House staffer explained when asked about Congresswoman Roukema: “She was constantly having to watch her right flank. And on such a high-profile issue as health, . . . her natural instinct would have been to compromise, but I think she only showed those instincts a couple of times. The problem that women on the Republican side have is that if they’re moderates, they’re always being challenged. So any position of leadership they get, they’re vulnerable because of the more extreme right-wing types” (interview, post–rd Congress).
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. “Kassebaum and Kennedy sat down for months, trying to sort through with various different groups (business, insurers, and consumers) . . . what was doable,” according to one Republican Senate staffer in a post–th Congress interview. That same staffer went on to explain the price of consensus: “The first thing off the table right from the get-go was . . . benefits. . . . That forty-eight-hour bill was a benefits mandate and the employers hated it. The package for mental health . . . was another benefits mandate. . . . If you require mammographies, . . . that’s a specific benefit. The business community does not want to be told what has to be in their benefit packages.” . The irrelevance of Kassebaum’s health insurance reform is evidenced by the recollections of this lobbyist, who had to defend her investment of resources in the Labor Committee: My boss at the time said, “You’re wasting your time. This is the Labor Committee. Nothing is ever going to happen.”. . . I said, “Here’s the problem: . . . This Congress is focused on . . . Medicare reform and the budget. The budget, we have to get the budget under control, and we have to do Medicare reform. Everybody was focusing on that, and the tax-writing committees [e.g., Finance] were going to be focusing on that. I said these people over here [on Labor] are working . . . on a practical level and a bipartisan level. . . . What’s going to happen is the tax-writing committees aren’t going to have time to deal with this issue, and they [Labor] will be the preeminent committee on the health issue.” Well, I can’t tell you how much hee hee ha ha ha I got for months and months and months, and even a year. . As a Republican House staffer explained in a post–th Congress interview: “The work of the Women’s Caucus for that whole [th] Congress was far more reactive than proactive. . . . We struggled terribly. We had to first deal with the fact that we lost the staff at the Women’s Caucus. . . . And the pace of that Contract with America left us just unable to do anything but to try to quickly react when crises erupted. . . . Then when we finally did get going, we had so many abortion votes coming at us from so many directions that, again, it was a reactive kind of thing. We just had to try and maintain the status quo. I mean that alone was victory at that point.” . As one lobbyist opined in a post–th Congress interview, “I mean literally when you have the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Bob Livingston, being quoted on the front page of the Washington Post that the Christian Coalition put us here and it’s payback time, and we’re going to vote with them. That tells you something about what is going to happen.” . One pro-choice activist summed up the problem: “I think one of the more disappointing things is that Mr. Gilman, who is chair of the International Relations Committee, did not really take much of a role in . . . supporting . . . family planning. Considering at least philosophically, he was on our side on the issue, it would have been nice to see something stronger there, but he is very hamstrung in that position. He’s a weak chairman, because they didn’t want him to have the job in the first place. He had to fight to get it” (interview, post–th Congress).
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. As one antiabortion Republican House staffer put it, “Morale-wise, it’s nice for [antiabortion] men who are handling this issue to have a woman by their side. I don’t think it should be that way, but it just is.” Another, this one a pro-choice activist, explained that the presence of women in the prolife ranks had lent credibility to their opponents’ cause: “It is significant that every time this issue comes up, now you see Dear Colleagues coming from these conservative women, and they are speaking on the floor. That certainly gives some credibility to their side that they never had when I started working these issues fifteen years ago, when there were no women on their side speaking.” . Congresswoman Dunn explained in an interview with CAWP conducted soon after she was sworn into Congress: I was going to join [the Women’s Caucus] . . . because I thought it would be a good resource for me. . . . [However,] I found out they had taken a position on abortion, so I’m not going to join that group because I think it should be an inclusive group. It should be for our use. . . . We shouldn’t get into endorsing particular political points of view on some of these problems where our approaches are diverse. That keeps out people who are friends of mine, like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen—I want her to be able to join a group like that—or Helen Bentley, or Barbara Vucanovich. I want us to be able to all join that group. . . . So you’re going to have women on both sides of the aisle who disagree completely on how to solve problems, but . . . something . . . makes our being women in politics a common interest. (interview, post – election, emphasis added)
8
Lisa García Bedolla, Katherine Tate, and Janelle Wong
Indelible Effects The Impact of Women of Color in the U.S. Congress
■ Among the most important recent research in women and politics focuses on diversity among women, not just differences between women and men. Despite much discussion in the popular media about women candidates, women officeholders, and the women’s vote, large differences exist among women that are based on race, ethnicity, employment status, marital status, age, educational attainment, number of children, and more. In this chapter, García Bedolla, Tate, and Wong illuminate the experiences of women of color in the U.S. Congress. Their in-depth focus on the backgrounds and challenges of African American, Latina, and Asian American women explores both their shared experiences as women of color and the distinctiveness that each group brings to policy and politics. Perhaps most interesting, they show that women of color are more represented within their respective racial group than are white women, even though each of the four groups is significantly underrepresented in Congress itself. ■
Indelible: 1 a: that which cannot be removed, washed away, or erased b: making marks that cannot easily be removed
2 a: LASTING b: UNFORGETTABLE, MEMORABLE — - - (http://www.m-w.com) As the number of women and racial minorities winning seats to the U.S. Congress has increased, scholars have begun to explore the impact of gender, race, and ethnicity on the legislative products and representational styles of elected officials. Although some scholars contend that elected officials can fairly represent citizens across the boundaries of social class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality (Swain ; Thernstrom and Thernstrom ), the vast majority of empirical evidence accumulated thus far reveals that female and black legislators are the most consistent advocates of the dominant interests of women and blacks (Canon ; Carroll c; Lublin ; Swers , ; Tate ; Thomas a; Thomas
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and Welch ; Whitby ). The empirical investigation of how elected officials represent the American people supports the claim that social backgrounds matter, having a profound impact on public policies and legislative priorities. In addition, the mere symbol of a socially diverse elected government has political consequences well beyond the realm of public policy. Diversity in the legislature can have a profound impact. Tate () reports that blacks feel better represented in Washington when their legislator is black, controlling even for their representative’s political party. There are thirteen African American women (that includes two House delegates), seven Latinas, and no Asian American women serving in the th Congress (– ). The only woman of color to serve in the U.S. Senate, Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL), was elected in and served from to . The only Asian American/Pacific Islanders to serve in the U.S. Congress were elected to the House: Patsy Takemoto Mink (D-HI), first elected in , and Patricia Fukuda Saiki (R-HI). In this chapter, we take up the question of what impact women of color legislators have had in the U.S. political system. There has been a burst of new scholarship exploring the political impact of African American female as well as Latina legislators since the pathbreaking publication of A Portrait of Marginality by Marianne Githens and Jewel Prestage in . Some of this new work has focused on women of color in state legislatures (Barrett , ; Bratton and Haynie, ; Smooth a, b); other recent work has focused on minority female legislators working in the U.S. Congress (Hawkesworth ; Fenno ; García Bedolla ; Tate , ). Because of their minority status, blacks, Asian Americans, and Latinas bring to their elective office significantly different experiences from their white female, white male, and minority male counterparts. In the final section, we look at the impact their presence has had on governance and the legislative process. Their effects, though difficult to measure, are in fact indelible and cannot be erased from the face of U.S. politics.
Review of the Literature
Mary Hawkesworth (, ) argues that simply by bringing into the legislative body their unique status as minority women, women of color directly “alter the conditions of work and the conditions of life for women of color in subtle and not so subtle ways.” Through her in-depth interviews with minority women serving in the rd and th Congresses, Hawkesworth found that many had been treated as “less than equal”: some had been ignored by their colleagues, others had experienced demeaning exchanges. For example, racial conservative Jesse Helms (R-NC) once whistled “Dixie” in an elevator he shared with Moseley Braun, the first black woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate.
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Hawkesworth () questioned the effectiveness of this small group of women of color as legislators. Notably, she points to how, in the th Congress, a number of women of color representatives denounced how Republicans were characterizing welfare recipients in the debate over welfare reform. Moseley Braun tried, unsuccessfully, to amend the welfare reform bill as a member of the Senate’s powerful Finance Committee (Hawkesworth ). Voices of women of color in the U.S. Congress promoting an alternative bill were ignored; conservative welfare reform legislation backed by President Bill Clinton won percent of the Republican House votes and percent of white and other Democratic votes. All of the women of color, including Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), voted against welfare reform in the th Congress. Hawkesworth’s () findings that women of color legislators are marginalized as actors in the legislative process should not be misinterpreted. Her work reveals that although these women possess formal authority and powers that, in theory, place them as equals alongside their male and white female counterparts, in practice, through subtle and at times blatant tactics, they are silenced and ignored. This is similar to Tate’s () finding that black House members in the th Congress were less likely to serve on prestigious committees, even controlling for differences in seniority. Often, prominent African Americans had to fight to win key committee appointments, as Ron Dellums (D-CA) did to win a seat on the Armed Services Committee. Black women have had to similarly fight for key committee appointments. Consider, for example, the case of Carrie Meek (D-FL), who was elected in a new majority-minority district in Florida in . Shortly after winning her primary, she traveled to Washington to meet with House Democratic Party leaders to indicate her interest in serving on the House Appropriations Committee, one of the most powerful committees in Congress. Her quiet campaign for this particular committee assignment was effective, and the Democratic Party leadership granted Meek her request (Deering and Smith ). Not all lobbying campaigns have been successful, however. New York Representative Shirley Chisholm tells the story that she was originally assigned to Agriculture, but after protesting that there were “no trees in Brooklyn,” was reassigned to the Veterans Affairs Committee (Singh , – ). The Democratic Caucus also refused the requests of other black members to serve on the prestigious Budget Committee in the s (Tate , ). It is clear that there has been a history of discrimination by party leaders in the assignments allocated to blacks. Clearly, important structural obstacles remain in Congress—obstacles that hinder the ability of women of color to be as effective as they can be. Sue Thomas’s (a) study found that although women state legislators were critical of the way business was conducted in state government, they adapted to, as opposed to chal-
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lenged, the dominant legislative norms and procedures. The need to conform to an institutional structure that was not necessarily designed to address their needs is another structural constraint faced by women of color legislators. All these issues must be taken into consideration when examining their roles as representatives and as legislators.
The First Women of Color in Congress
The entrance of women of color to the U.S. House and U.S. Senate came well after that of their male minority and white female counterparts.1 The first woman of color to be elected is Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink, elected in . Her election came nearly fifty years after the first white woman was elected. The second Asian American female legislator would not be sent to Congress until Patricia Fukuda Saiki was elected in . Shirley Chisholm made history in by becoming the first black woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Her election occurred nearly one hundred years after the first black man was elected. In , Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban American from Florida, became the first Latina elected to Congress. She happens to be from the state that elected the first Latino to Congress years earlier, in (Martin , ).2 Barbara Charline Jordan (D-TX) was another trailblazer. Elected in , she and Andrew Young of Georgia would be the first blacks from the South elected to Congress since Reconstruction. In , Carol Moseley Braun became the first African American female to be elected to the U.S. Senate, and that chamber’s first black Democrat as well. She would narrowly lose her reelection bid in , and thus, in , there are still no black, Latina, or Asian American females serving in the U.S. Senate. Shirley Chisholm made history in when she became the first African American woman to have her name placed in nomination for president by a major political party (Martin , ). She ran for president to take advantage of the new groups that were gaining power within the Democratic Party’s rank and file and the “new politics” — not only blacks, but feminists and the young (Gill ; Chisholm ). Well before Jesse Jackson seized on the same initiative to empower black Democrats through his and presidential bids, Chisholm hoped that her candidacy would forever cement the party’s wavering stance against the Vietnam War (Chisholm was staunchly opposed to it) and as a party working for the oppressed and weak (the party was still ideologically divided, although its southern wing was slowly liberalizing). Although Chisholm was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and a charter member of the National Organization for Women (NOW), neither group endorsed her. A few, more
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P RO F I L E : Representative Barbara Lee—Making Her Mark Of all the things Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) may be remembered for in years to come, none will likely compare with her lone vote against authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Just three days after the attacks, Lee said before Congress, “I know that this use-of-force resolution will pass although we all know that the President can wage a war even without this resolution. However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint.” The final vote was 420 to Lee. Since that day, Lee has received death threats. For a time, she was assigned a personal bodyguard and followed around by a plainclothes police officer. Yet, she has expressed no regret over that vote and explains her position in terms of her Christian faith and her commitment to California’s 9th District, which includes Berkeley and Oakland. Lee was elected to Congress in 1998 to fill the seat of retiring Congressman Ron Dellums, for whom she interned at the start of her political career. Born in El Paso, Texas, Barbara Lee came to California in 1960. She graduated from Mills College in 1973 and earned a master’s degree in social welfare from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975. Prior to being elected to Congress, Lee served in the California State Assembly from 1990 to 1996 and the California State Senate from 1996 to 1998. Lee wasn’t always politically aware and active. She notes, “It wasn’t until college that I understood the importance of being involved and engaged in our political system. Until then, I had been involved in many community activities, but like many in my generation, I felt as though I had no stake in politics and that the voices of women and minorities were not being heard—that participation in the system was severely limited. That all changed while I was a student at Mills College in Oakland, California. In 1972, Rep. Shirley Chisholm from New York, the first African-American woman elected to Congress, visited the college to talk about the importance of engaging in our political system. She encouraged me to register to vote and to get involved in politics.”1 Since that time, Representative Lee has ceaselessly pursued her political priorities, especially issues particularly relevant to women and the African American community. In the 108th Congress, Lee was the cochair of the Progressive Caucus, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Task Force on Global HIV/AIDS, whip for the CBC, and a member of the CBC Minority Business Task Force. She has sponsored legislation to allot funding for AIDS victims both here and abroad. In 2004, Lee worked to secure an $81,000 sustainability grant for the Women’s Initiative for Self-Employment in Oakland. For the 2004 election, Lee sought the UN’s help to secure voting rights in her district, particularly for African Americans. She rallies women, particularly women of color, to increase their involvement in politics in the way Shirley Chisholm inspired Lee’s own political activism. She says, “As we move into the future, women have unique perspectives on ways to address problems we all face. We must be at the table. We must demand to be heard.”2 Written by Carin Larson 1
In These Times: Independent News and Views, available at http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/26/17/barbara-lee.shtml. 2 Ibid.
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progressive CBC members, such as Ron Dellums of California, supported her bid; most other CBC members were downright hostile to her and her candidacy. Although Chisholm and her supporters felt sexism got in the way of her earning support from her male black colleagues on the Hill, it was apparently more than simple sexism. After all, Jesse Jackson failed to receive endorsements from black lawmakers in his bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. As in Jackson’s case, many of Chisholm’s CBC colleagues felt that the one-term congresswoman from New York had not yet paid her dues. Her confrontational and steamroller working style had alienated them. Adam Clayton Powell had a similar, even more extreme, manner, and also ran into trouble with his colleagues on Capitol Hill. The fact that women were mobilizing and organizing politically for gender equality was criticized by black civil rights leaders as untimely. If anything, black male leaders felt that Chisholm’s candidacy, rather than providing a forum for black interests that had been suppressed and slighted within the party, was itself divisive to the black political cause. Although Chisholm’s leadership bids caused division and were met with opposition, they had opened the door to the presidential bid of former U.S. senator Carol Moseley Braun in . African American leaders did not line up to oppose her bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Moseley Braun withdrew just days before the Iowa caucuses; however, her candidacy was not marked as controversial by black elected officials (Tate ).
The Backgrounds of Black Women in Congress
Black women legislators came from less privileged backgrounds than black men. Although some of the black women were attorneys, a significant number started out like Chisholm, as teachers or college administrators; Maxine Waters (D-CA) of Los Angeles was a social worker. The educational backgrounds of black females elected to Congress are similar to that of their black male counterparts, except that three ( Julia Carson, Cardiss Collins, and Barbara-Rose Collins) lacked college diplomas. With the exception of Oscar De Priest, all other black members of Congress of the twentieth century had degrees. Table . identifies each black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Black women are far less likely to be married than other House members, although their marital status mirrors that of black women in the general population. Among adults eighteen years and older in the Current Population Survey, percent of black women are married and living with their spouse, in contrast to percent of black men, percent of white women, and percent of white men. The percent of married black women matches the figure for black women elected to the U.S. House of Representatives: only one-third of the black women elected were married when they entered Congress; the remaining
Table 8.1 List of Black Women Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives
State
Black Representative
Years Served
Degrees Earned
Occupation
California
Yvonne Brathwaite Burke Barbara Lee
1973 – 1978 1998 –
AA, BA, JD BA, MSW
Juanita Millender-McDonald Maxine Waters Diane Edith Watson Eleanor Holmes Norton Carrie Pittman Meek Corrine Brown Cynthia Ann McKinney Denise Majette Cardiss Robertson Collins Katie Beatrice Hall Julia Carson Barbara-Rose Collins
1996 – 1991 – 2001 – 1991 – 1993 – 2002 1993 – 1993 – 2002 2003 – 1973 – 1996 1982 – 1984 1997 – 1991 – 1996
BS, MA BA BA, MS, Ph.D BA, MA, JD BS, MS BS, MS AB, PhD candidate BA, JD None BS, MS None None
Lawyer State legislator/legislative aide/ mental health worker Teacher/state legislator Social worker University professor Lawyer College administrator College administrator College lecturer Attorney, judge Auditor Teacher Business owner/state legislator Purchasing clerk
Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick Shirley Chisholm Eva McPherson Clayton Stephanie Tubbs Jones Barbara Charline Jordan Eddie Bernice Johnson Sheila Jackson-Lee Donna M. Christian-Christensen
1997 – 1969 – 1982 1993 – 2002
AA, BS, MS BA, MA BS, MS BA, JD BA, LLB BS, MPA BA, JD BA, MD
Teacher/state legislator Teacher Consultant Judge Lawyer Nurse Lawyer Physician
District of Columbia Florida Georgia Illinois Indiana Michigan
New York North Carolina Ohio Texas
Virgin Islands
Source: Gill 1997, 8, and updated by authors.
1973 – 1978 1993 – 1995 – 1997 –
Marital Status upon Entering Congress
Number of Children
Married Married
2 2
Married Married Single Separated Divorced Single Divorced Married Widowed Married Divorced Separated/ widowed Divorced Married Married Married Single Divorced Married Married
5 2 None 2 3 1 1 2 1 3 2 2 2 None 4 1 None 1 2 2
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two-thirds were either widowed, separated, divorced, or single. To put this statistic in perspective, in the th Congress, percent of the members were married, and percent were divorced (Tate , ). Of the married, spouses seem to play important roles in their wives’ careers. Shirley Chisholm’s husband clearly facilitated her entrance into New York politics and into the House of Representatives. Her biographer writes that the “unassuming Conrad [Chisholm] was a powerful force behind the soon-to-be dynamic politician” (Gill , ). They remained married for nearly thirty years, and it was only at the end of her congressional career that they divorced. Child-raising responsibilities often have been identified as a principal reason so few women choose to run for elective office. However, only three black females elected to the House, including Chisholm, had no children. Women generally postpone their pursuit of public office until the children leave the home. And, in fact, women elected to the U.S. Congress are on average older than their male counterparts. Nevertheless, a number of the black females entered into the U.S. House of Representatives with children under eighteen years of age. Husbands and extended families have helped. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), for example, stated that she would not have been able to run for office if she had not had the full cooperation of her husband. While she works in Washington representing her district, her husband, a university administrator, is back home in Texas taking care of their two children, a teenage daughter and preteen son. It is the large number of black women legislators who serve as single mothers, however, that makes this group special. The U.S. Census finds that over half of all black women head their own homes as single parents; this fact heightens the descriptive representational role of black women representatives. After her divorce, Cynthia McKinney (D-GA; the youngest black female legislator) returned to her family’s Georgia community to pursue a life in politics, with her infant son in tow. Most of the black congresswomen, however, had marriages that ended when their children were very young. Carrie Meek, of Florida, endured two divorces that left her responsible for three children to raise alone. Barbara-Rose Collins (D-MI) of Detroit had been separated from her husband after about ten years of marriage when she became his widow. They had two children whom she worked full time to support. Corrine Brown, also of Florida, never married, raising her daughter, whom she had in , alone (see Gill ; Tate ). Even some of the successfully married black congresswomen experienced life as single moms. California’s Maxine Waters, whose second husband, Sidney Williams, was the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, married when she was only nineteen. Although the marriage lasted fifteen years, it still ended in divorce. At the end of the marriage, Waters had been in school earning her bachelor’s degree. It was only shortly after winning a seat to the California State Assembly that she married Williams, a former professional football player and luxury car salesman.
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The Backgrounds of Latina Representatives
Among the twenty-five Latino representatives3 in the th Congress (– ), seven are women. Latino representatives make up percent of Congress, despite the fact that Latinos constitute about percent of the U.S. population. Table . provides a list of their backgrounds and the states they represent. Of the seven Latinas in the th Congress, six are Democrats and one is Republican. Their path to office is somewhat different from that of the African American women, only four of whom were state legislators before entering Congress. Of the seven Latinas currently serving, five served in their state legislatures before their election to Congress. Term limits in the state of California seem to be promoting the election of Latinas to Congress; five of the seven are from that state, and three of those chose to run for Congress after serving their maximum of six years in the state legislature. This supports Fraga et al.’s () finding that state traditions and institutional design affect the patterns of Latina representation in public office. In terms of their marital status, all of the Latina representatives were married when they entered Congress. Nationally, percent of Latinas are married, percent have never married, and percent are divorced. So Latina members of Congress are more likely to be married than Latinas nationally and much less likely to be divorced. They are also much more likely to be married than African American female representatives. None of the Latina congresswomen is a single mother, and only three out of the seven have any children. This suggests that child rearing has affected their career trajectories; of the three Latinas who have children, Ros-Lehtinen, Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), and Graciela Flores Napolitano (D-CA), all entered politics later in their lives than those without children. This also calls into question how representative these Latinas are, given that the Current Population Survey found that percent of Latino households are headed by a single woman. In terms of their educational levels, the Latino congressional delegation as a whole, and Latinas especially, are much more educated than Latinos nationally: percent have an undergraduate degree. Interestingly, the Latina representatives are slightly more educated than their male counterparts: percent hold bachelor’s degrees, compared to percent of the men. In addition, percent of Latina members hold a master’s degree or higher, compared to only percent of the men. There do seem to be some gender differences in terms of profession between the Latino men and Latina women. Whereas six of the eighteen Latino representatives hold a JD degree, only one of the Latina representatives does. The remainder hold master’s degrees in public or business administration or in an academic discipline. Latinas are less likely than Latino men or African American women to have worked in the educational field prior to entering public office.
Table 8.2 List of Latina Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives
State
Latina Representative
National Origin
Years Served
Degrees Earned
California
Grace Napolitano
Mexican American
1998 –
None
Florida
Lucille Roybal-Allard Linda Sánchez Loretta Sánchez Hilda Solís Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Mexican American Mexican American Mexican American Nicaraguan/Mexican American Cuban American
1992 – 2002 – 1996 – 2000 – 1989 –
BA BA, JD BA, MBA BA, MPA BA, MA
New York
Nydia Velázquez
Puerto Rican
1992 –
BA, MA
Source: Compiled by the authors.
Occupation
Marital Status upon Entering Congress
Number of Children
Secretary/city council member/ state legislator State legislator Labor lawyer Business consultant Civil servant/state legislator Educator/state legislator
Married Married Married Married Married Married
5 4 None None None 4 (2 biological)
University lecturer/civil servant/ city council member
Married
None
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As was true with the African American representatives, these Latinas have spent their careers making history. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lucille Roybal-Allard, and Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) were the first Cuban American, Mexican American, and Puerto Rican women elected to Congress, respectively. Cuban-born Ros-Lehtinen was elected in to represent Florida’s th District. She won her seat in a special election replacing Democratic Congressman Claude Pepper, who died in office. Prior to her election to the U.S. House of Representatives, Ros-Lehtinen had the distinction of being the first Latina to serve in the Florida State Legislature. She was born in Havana on July , and emigrated to the United States with her family when she was seven years old. Like a number of the minority female elected officials in Congress, Ros-Lehtinen began her career as an educator, and she founded a private elementary school in South Florida. The first Mexican American woman elected to the U.S. Congress, RoybalAllard was elected in to represent the rd Congressional District of California, the district with the largest Latino majority in the nation. She was born and raised in Boyle Heights, California, and is the eldest daughter of retired Congressman Edward R. Roybal. Her father served thirty years in Congress and RoybalAllard’s district includes portions of her father’s old district. After working in the field of public relations and as a fund-raising executive for the United Way, she was elected in to the California State Assembly, where she served for three terms. During the th Congress (– ), Roybal-Allard served as chair of the twenty-nine-member California Democratic Congressional Delegation. She was the first woman, first Latina, and the first member to assume this position through election rather than seniority. During the th Congress (–), she served as the first female chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, then an eighteenmember coalition of Latino members of Congress (the three Latino members from the Republican Party at that time were not members of the caucus). The first Puerto Rican woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives was Nydia M. Velázquez. She was elected in after a surprising defeat of Democrat Stephen Solarz in the primary election. She represents the th District of New York. She was the first Latina to serve on the New York City Council and also served as the national director of the Migration Division in the Department of Labor and Human Resources of Puerto Rico. From to , she was the director of the Department of Puerto Rican Community Affairs in the United States for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Born in in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, she was the first person in her family to earn a college diploma, a bachelor’s degree in political science. In , she earned a master’s degree in political science from New York University. She has taught at the University of Puerto Rico at Humancao and since has been an adjunct professor of Puerto Rican studies at Hunter College. Although not the first Mexican American woman elected to Congress, Loretta Sánchez (D-CA) made history in when she defeated a five-term Republican
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incumbent, Robert Dornan. The controversy surrounding this election made national news. Dornan accused Sánchez of electoral fraud, and the allegations were not resolved until well into her first term. Her success has been seen as a testament to the changing politics and demographics of Orange County, California. This was the first election Sánchez had ever won. Up to that point, she had spent her professional career as a business consultant and had run unsuccessful campaigns at the local level. The Sánchez family made history again in by becoming the first family to send two sisters to the U.S. House of Representatives. Linda Sánchez was elected to fill an open seat that was created after the redistricting process. She, like her sister, had never before held elective office. Although a number of brothers have served in Congress concurrently, the Sánchezes are the first sisters ever to serve in the House of Representatives at the same time. The remaining two Latina representatives, Napolitano and Hilda Solís, represent districts in California. Napolitano was elected in and Solís in . Both spent significant time serving in the California State Legislature before running for Congress. In , Solís had the distinction of becoming the first Latina elected to the California State Senate. Napolitano began her political career at the local level after retiring from the Ford Motor Company; Solís has spent her entire professional career in the public sector. During the Carter administration, Solís was the editor in chief of the White House Office of Hispanic Affairs and Table 8.3 Percentage of Women in Congress and Percentage of Women among Black and Latino Members of Congress, 1979 – 2003 All Women
Black Women
Latinas
1979
3
12
0
1981
4
11
0
1983
5
10
0
1985
5
5
0
1987
5
4
0
1989
5
4
8
1991
6
15
9
1993
10
23
17
1995
10
26
17
1997
11
29
19
1999
12
34
25
2001
14
34
29
2003
14
32
30
Sources: Tate 2003; Martin 1999; Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University, www.cawp.rutgers.edu.
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was later appointed as a management analyst with the Office of Management and Budget in the Civil Rights Division. In contrast to African Americans, no Latina has ever served in the U.S. Senate.
The Backgrounds of Asian American Women Elected to the U.S. Congress
There are currently no Asian American women in Congress, despite the fact that Asian Americans make up about percent of the population and are one of the fastest-growing racial groups in the United States. Throughout U.S. history, only two Asian American women have served in the U.S. Congress, Patsy Takemoto Mink and Patricia Fukuda Saiki. Both served in the House of Representatives. Mink’s groundbreaking election as the first woman of color to serve in the House marked just one of a series of firsts she established for Asian American women in the public sphere. In , Mink became the first Asian American woman to practice law in Hawaii. In , three years prior to Hawaii’s becoming the nation’s fiftieth state, she was the first Asian American woman to be elected to the Hawaiian Territorial House. Mink was the victim of racial and gender discrimination, and these experiences likely influenced her policy priorities. After Pearl Harbor was bombed, she witnessed her father being taken away for questioning based solely on his Japanese heritage. The dorms at the University of Nebraska, where she completed her BA, were racially segregated. Even after she passed the state bar in , she could not find work as an attorney. Prospective employers expressed concern that because she had a child she would not be able to work long hours. Early in her career, Mink emerged as a fighter for gender equality, civil rights, environmental protection, education, labor rights, and other social justice issues. She ran as a presidential candidate in the Oregon primary in on an anti–Vietnam War platform and, from to , served as the national president for the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action. Her reputation as a fighter for liberal causes earned Mink the nickname “Patsy Pink” among her conservative critics. During her second stint in the House (– ), she opposed Republican cuts in social programs, worked to obtain funding for the poor, supported labor, and backed President Clinton’s universal health care plan.4 At first glance, Patricia (“Pat”) Fakuda Saiki does not appear to have very much in common with Patsy Mink. Whereas Mink was a strong liberal Democrat, Saiki served as a Republican and is one of Hawaii’s most well-known and popular GOP figures. Saiki served just two terms in the House (–), compared to veteran Mink, who served for twenty-four years. Despite their differences, there are also striking similarities between the two women. Both were elected from
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Hawaii, a state notable for its long history of sending Asian Americans to Congress and the only state with a majority Asian Pacific Islander population. After Hawaii became a state in , the island population sent Chinese American Republican Hiram Fong to the Senate and Japanese American Daniel Inouye to the House of Representatives. Since then, Hawaii has consistently provided Asian American representatives to the U.S. Congress. Mink and Saiki were born in Hawaii and attended the University of Hawaii. In addition to her Hawaiian roots, Saiki, like Mink, is Japanese American. Further, both entered public office fairly early in their careers. Mink graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in and practiced law from until her election to the Hawaiian Territorial Legislature just three years later. Saiki was a teacher and businesswoman from her graduation in until her election to the Hawaiian Statehouse in . Both women were married when they ran for office. Like Mink, Saiki served in political office while balancing family obligations. She is the mother of five children. Because there have been relatively few Asian Americans elected to Congress as a whole, it is difficult to make generalizations when comparing Mink and Saiki to their Asian American male counterparts. However, there are some relevant distinctions worth noting. No female Asian American has been elected to the Senate, but there are two Asian American male senators, Inouye and Danile Akaka. Five Asian American men have been elected to the Senate since . Inouye and Akaka both served in the House of Representatives, as have seven other Asian American men, including Dalip Singh Saund, the first Asian American congressman, who began his term in . Historically, the male Asian American members of Congress have been more ethnically diverse than the female members. Men of Chinese, Japanese, South Asian, Korean, and Native Hawaiian–Chinese backgrounds have been elected to Congress. Most of the Asian American men elected to Congress have been Democrats; only two have been Republicans. In the th Congress, there are five Asian American members: Democratic Senators Inouye and Akaka from Hawaii and Michael Honda (D-CA), Robert Matsui (D-CA), and David Wu (D-OR). Notably, an Asian American woman has never been elected to Congress from outside Hawaii. This is relevant, because in terms of their backgrounds, congresspersons from Hawaii are distinct from those from the mainland (Lien ). First and foremost, the demographic context of mainland elections is very different from that of Hawaii. All of the members elected from the mainland represent districts that are less than percent Asian American, with majority white populations. Furthermore, all of the members elected from Hawaii are U.S.-born, whereas four of the six members from the mainland were born elsewhere. Though they are predominantly Democrats, Asian Americans elected from the mainland tend to be less liberal than their Hawaiian counterparts. The two Asian American Republicans elected from the mainland were quite ideologically conservative.
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Differences in Backgrounds among Women in the 106th Congress
Finally, we also compare the backgrounds of women of color to white women in the th Congress. Among the forty-four women legislators in that Congress, white, Asian or Latina, percent were unmarried, either single, divorced, widowed, or, in one case, gay. Like Corinne Brown, one white legislator, Lynn Woosley, and her children spent some time on welfare. Regardless of race and ethnicity, almost all (over percent) of the women serving in the House are mothers. A large percentage of women in the House, regardless of race and ethnicity, also come from the teaching profession. Nineteen percent of white, Latina, and Asian women and percent of black women in the th came from the teaching profession. When one includes instruction at the college or postgraduate level or work in college administration, the percentage of white and minority women working in education shoots up to percent, and among black women it increases to percent; both Meek and Brown were college administrators. Constance Morella and Nydia Velázquez both taught at the university level, and Lois Capps and Zoe Lofgren were part-time college and law school instructors. That one-quarter to nearly one-third of the women worked as teachers or in education prior to winning office to the U.S. House of Representatives is a key difference in the occupational backgrounds of men and women serving in Congress.
The “Overrepresentation” of Minority Female Legislators in Congress?
In general, women of color make up a larger proportion of representatives of their respective racial groups than white women. In the th Congress, thirteen of the thirty-nine black lawmakers (including the two delegates) are female, representing . percent. In contrast, only percent of all the House representatives are female. The same is true among Latino representatives. In the th Congress, Latinas make up percent of the Latino delegation. Similarly, out of all Asian American members, percent were female in the st Congress (the only session during which Mink and Saiki served simultaneously). The growth in the number of female black and Latina legislators is a relatively recent phenomenon. Women gained the right to vote in federal elections only in , and all of the legislators of color prior to that time were men. Table . and Figure . both display the percentage of black and Latina women among black and Latino members against the percentage of women among all members in the House of Representatives. Whereas women in made up percent of Congress, black women are . percent of the black members serving in Congress. Similarly in , Latinas constituted percent of Latino members. Are black and Latina women somehow electorally advantaged relative to black men and white
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40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5%
All Women
Black Women
2003
1999
1995
1991
1987
1983
1979
0%
Latinas
Figure 8.1. Percentage of women in Congress and percentage of women among black and Latino members of Congress, 1979 – 2003. Sources: Tate 2003; Martin 1999; Center for American Women and Politics (http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/).
women? Little work has looked comparatively at women of color from different racial groups. Although a substantial literature has emerged attempting to make explicit those factors associated with the high failure rates of black men and white women in winning statewide, prestigious seats, little has been written about black women’s political chances in this arena (Darcy and Hadley ; Tate ). Statelevel research on Latina elected officials suggests that Latinas are elected at higher rates than their male counterparts, but no study to date has looked at the experiences of Latinas across states (Cruz Takash ; Hardy-Fanta ; Montoya, Hardy-Fanta, and García ). Female candidates generally have a tough time winning elective office because of the electoral advantages political incumbents—often males—enjoy (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ). African American and racial minorities are also disadvantaged because of racial and ethnic bias that manifests in the voting booth (Reeves ). Nevertheless, despite the dismal prospects for women and black candidates, and given the large advantage accorded to incumbents and the negative effect of racially biased voting patterns, minority women candidates may still have special advantages over their white female and minority male counterparts. First, limited evidence suggests that black females are more inclined to run for
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political office than are white women. In contrast to white women, black women have a much longer tradition of simultaneously working and raising families; thus, sex role expectations may have a less dampening effect on black women’s political ambitions. Research has found that black women tend to have higher levels of political ambition than do white women (Darcy and Hadley ). Black women delegates at a Democratic Party state convention, for example, were more likely than white women delegates to express a desire to hold higher party positions and elected positions. This may be due to African American women’s historical experience of participation and activism in the civil rights movement. Researchers have also suggested that resources extant within the African American community help African American women with political ambitions to overcome individual disadvantages such as low earning power and single-parent status. Two such resources are strong religious orientation and family background (Perkins ). Second, because African Americans constitute a powerful voting bloc, black women candidates can seek support from a more ready-built coalition (Tate ). Of course, majority-black support is never automatically handed over to every black candidate who runs for public office. Third, black women candidates may be better able to mobilize women voters as a whole across racial barriers. Notwithstanding, the “women’s vote” in contrast to the “black vote” has historically been far more elusive because women, for a variety of reasons, are less likely than blacks to vote as a bloc. Indeed, the women’s vote is a relatively recent phenomenon, first witnessed in the presidential election. Prior to , there were only small differences (– percent) in the proportions of women and men voting Democratic. (This gap is also substantially smaller than the racial gap that first emerged full-blown in the presidential election.) The existence of a gender gap in electoral politics owes more to a shift in the voting preferences of men than of women, however (Kaufmann and Petrocik ). Nevertheless, the issue-based nature of women’s support for the Democratic Party and its candidates implies that women candidates, even Democratic female candidates, cannot count on a women’s vote, for women are supporting Democrats, not necessarily women. At best, liberal female candidates are more likely to obtain reliable support from feminist voters, but feminists represent only a minority of female voters, estimated at from one-tenth to about one-third of the female population. While evidence suggests that black women are more likely to enter politics at higher rates than white women, and that black women can benefit from a black and women’s vote coalition, the single most important fact that explains the higher percentage of black women serving in the U.S. Congress is the new opportunities the Voting Rights Act created in providing new majority-black districts from which to run. As explained earlier, a central reason so few women are elected to Congress is because of the single-member plurality system that favors political incumbents. With rare exception, almost all the black women who have been elected
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to the U.S. House of Representatives have been elected in new majority-black districts. The largest surge in the number of women occurred in , when thirteen new black lawmakers were added to the House, all because of the new black districts that had been created. Among the thirteen, five were women. The first group of black women to win elective office won in open-seat races. Maxine Waters, Barbara-Rose Collins, and Eleanor Holmes Norton won in openseat contests, having prudently waited for the retirement of the black congressmen whom they succeeded. Diane Edith Watson (D-CA) would win her seat to the th Congress in a special election in to fill the vacancy caused by Julian Dixon’s unexpected death. Watson, nevertheless, won her election in a race overflowing with Democrats, and thus, it was no easy seat to win. Her victory was made harder by the fact that Congresswoman Waters endorsed the bid of one of her Democratic rivals. A seasoned campaigner and politician herself, having been the first black woman elected to California’s state senate in until term limits kicked in, Watson earned even more congressional endorsements than her rival. Thus, a mixture of strong ambition, open seats, and new districts explain why black women are “overrepresented” in Congress. In terms of Latina “overrepresentation” in Congress, few scholars have looked systematically at Latina officeholding, so we know little about why this is the case (Sierra and Sosa-Riddell ). We do know that this pattern seems to hold true for Latina representation across all levels of government. According to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO; , vii), in Latinas made up percent of the Latino congressional delegation and percent of Latino state legislators. Nationally, women make up . percent of Congress and . percent of state legislators (CAWP c). Most Latina officeholders are concentrated at the school board and county levels of government, making up percent and percent of Latino elected officials, respectively. Latina officeholding has also increased dramatically since , particularly at the state and congressional levels. Since , Latina representation in Congress has increased percent (from one to seven), and Latina representation in state offices has increased percent (from sixteen to sixty-one). Latina officeholding grew more modestly at the county ( percent), municipal ( percent), and school board ( percent) levels, but at all levels of government their increases far outpaced increases in Latino representation overall (Fraga and Navarro , ). This suggests that Latinas are increasingly successful at winning elective office, despite the socioeconomic and structural barriers they may face as women and as people of color. The few studies that have examined Latina elected officials support this contention. In her study of Latina elected officials in Massachusetts, Hardy-Fanta () found that between and , percent of Latinas won their election campaigns, compared to only percent of Latino men. Montoya, Hardy-Fanta, and García () argue that most of these women draw
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their early support from Latina organizations. In her survey of Latina elected officials in California, Cruz Takash () had similar findings, although she found that organizational membership was not always necessarily Latina-focused. Of her respondents, percent had participated in non-Latina women’s organizations and percent in Latino organizations, but only . percent had been part of a Latina organization prior to winning public office (). In terms of their path to office, percent had never held public office previously, but over two-thirds of those reported having been politically active at the local level through campaign work ( percent) or community activism ( percent) or as board members of local organizations ( percent; ). In addition, . percent had received awards recognizing their community service (). These women clearly were very politically active on the local level prior to their elections, and this likely facilitated their electoral success. Like African American women, structural factors have also contributed to Latinas being elected to serve in Congress, particularly the availability of open seats. Four of the women, Ros-Lehtinen, Napolitano, Roybal-Allard, and Linda Sánchez, were elected to open seats. Roybal-Allard and Linda Sánchez were elected to represent new districts that were created after the redistricting that followed the and censuses, respectively. Ros-Lehtinen succeeded an incumbent congressman who died in office, and Napolitano took the seat of a legislator who retired. Only three of the seven Latinas holding office in the th Congress won in competitive races where they defeated an incumbent. Term limits in the state of California have helped promote the election of Latinas to Congress; five of the seven are from that state, and three of those chose to run for Congress after serving their maximum of six years in the legislature. Finally, all the Latina members of Congress represent majority-minority districts, suggesting that the protections of the Voting Rights Act support Latina representation much as they do the representation of African American women. The story is a bit different here than with African American women, in that Latino population growth will ensure the continual creation of new “Latino” seats into the foreseeable future, assuming that the temporary provisions, including Section ’s preclearance mechanism of the Voting Rights Act, will be extended in and that the courts will enforce it as states draw new lines for . Past Latina electoral success suggests that it is reasonable to assume that many of those new seats will be won and held by Latinas. Similarly, both Asian American women who served in Congress were elected by a predominantly Asian Pacific Islander constituency and also through the creation of a new seat. Mink’s first run for Congress, against Inouye in for Hawaii’s single House seat, was unsuccessful. In , she won election to an open seat in a new Hawaiian district created after reapportionment. Saiki won a seat that had previously been held by Democrat Neil Abercrombie. Abercrombie was elected
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in a special election to serve the remaining three months of the term after Representative Cec Heftel vacated the seat to run for governor of Hawaii. In , Abercrombie lost the Democratic primary to represent the district for the regular two-year term to Mufi Hannemann, and Saiki eventually won the seat. Asian Americans are underrepresented in Congress, and this is especially true of Asian American women. Lack of descriptive representation for Asian Americans in Congress can be attributed to several factors. First, outside of Hawaii, there are no majority Asian American districts. Thus, most Asian American candidates must work to build multiracial coalitions in order to win elections. Second, like Latinos, Asian Americans as a group tend to exhibit lower rates of registration and voting than the general public. One reason for this is that as part of a predominantly immigrant population, many lack citizenship and are therefore ineligible to vote. Third, Asian Americans are an extremely diverse group in terms of national origin, religion, language background, nativity, citizenship status, education, and income. The group as a whole leans Democrat, but a significant portion consists of Republicans or those not committed to a political party. This political, demographic, and socioeconomic diversity makes organizing Asian Americans as a cohesive voting bloc a major difficulty for any Asian American candidate. Despite these challenges, the future holds some promise for Asian American women who seek congressional office. Asian American women are beginning to move up the political ladder and exhibit the potential to attain higher political office. There are three Asian American women in the – California State Legislature, including Democrat Wilma Chan (Oakland, Alameda, and Piedmont), the first woman and first Asian American to serve as the Assembly majority leader. In , Minnesota State Senator Mee Moua became the first Hmong American elected to a state legislature in the United States.
Defining and Measuring Impact
Given the small numbers of women of color—a total of twenty in the th Congress out of members (including two delegates)—measuring their collective impact is methodologically problematic. Hawkesworth () contends that the mere presence of women of color in the U.S. Congress is transforming the institution, as they battle stereotypes of minority women and shape the public policy debate on issues pertaining to women and minority groups. In this way, one can theorize that there is an effect, an indelible effect that cannot be washed away, even when, as is presently the case in the U.S. Senate, no female of color is represented. Carol Moseley Braun’s legacy includes her service on the Senate Finance Committee, becoming the first black and female Democrat to serve on a committee that not only writes tax policy laws but issues legislation pertaining to Social Se-
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curity, welfare, and Medicare. In Moseley Braun successfully blocked the Senate’s renewal of a design patent sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which used the Confederate flag in its emblem. She also left important, albeit subtle, legacies. In the s, the U.S. Senate had no private restroom facilities for female senators, although in the people of Maine had elected the first female senator directly, Margaret Chase Smith. Smith said she never acknowledged this inequality. The same was true in the House until fairly recently, when a meeting room was converted into a restroom near the floor. Also, along with Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Moseley Braun wore pants on the Senate floor, breaking a long-standing tradition dictating that female senators wear only dresses or skirts. Cynthia McKinney and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI) wore braided, African-style hair to the U.S. House even though African braids remain controversial in the workplace; it is generally unacceptable in corporate America as well as the military. Black professional women normally have their hair straightened as natural black hairstyles invite public disapproval. McKinney’s and Kilpatrick’s preference for braids, though clearly personal, has strong political implications. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke (D-CA) was the first female chair of the CBC. She was also the first member of Congress to have a child while serving. Burke’s decision to have a child while serving as a representative would garner additional public attention because she was forty. As biographer LaVerne McCain Gill (, ) writes, “The reality was that in the s, forty-year-old women were not having babies in large numbers, and certainly not congresswomen. Conventional wisdom and taboos dictated that women avoid middle-aged pregnancies.” Two other House legislators would have children during their terms in office: one-termer Enid Greene Waldholtz (R-UT ) and Susan Molinari (R-NY), who met and married another representative from her state’s delegation. Burke served only three terms, leaving, in part, to “raise her daughter” (Gill , ). Edith Barrett’s () analysis of the political priorities of black female state legislators, based on a mail survey of legislators, found that black women were no different from their black male counterparts in terms of having a problack legislative agenda. Black female lawmakers were much like their white female counterparts in having a pro-women’s policy agenda as well. However, unlike any other social group serving in thirty-three state governments, black women shared a strongly unified consensus on which policies should be priorities. This is equally true of the black women serving in the U.S. Congress. While not enough scholarship has been devoted to analyzing gender differences in the legislative priorities of black men and women in the U.S. House, Tate’s () scholarship reveals that black women House legislators were notably very active in initiating bills. Although the average number of bills sponsored is seven for black Democrats, Maxine Waters sponsored twenty-six pieces of legislation. Eleanor Holmes Norton and House veteran Cardiss Collins surpassed Waters by sponsoring thirty-
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one and thirty-eight bills, respectively. Collins initiated legislation that imposed tougher safety standards on toy manufacturers that became law. Like these African American women, Asian American Patsy Mink’s presence in Congress also had an effect on the institution, and her experience as a woman of color no doubt affected her policy priorities. In , she and two other congresswomen sought entry to the House gym and brought attention to the fact that its director sought to preserve its male-only membership. On the legislative front, Mink’s coauthorship of Title IX, which prohibits gender discrimination at any educational institution receiving federal funds, is one of her greatest legislative accomplishments. Title IX passed in and changed the face of college athletics. In , the year before Title IX became law, fewer than , girls participated in high school sports; in contrast, almost million girls play high school sports today, and the number of women’s college sports teams has nearly doubled over the past twenty years. Thirty years after the passage of the law, Mink expressed surprise at its impact: “I never anticipated that all this would happen. It was a deep-down wish that it would make a difference at some point” (quoted in Luis , ). Although it was eventually vetoed by President Nixon, Mink introduced the first comprehensive Early Childhood Education Act in Congress. She was also author of the Women’s Educational Equity Act, which passed in . While she was in the House, Saiki worked to bring Hawaiian issues to the attention of Congress and the White House. She was particularly active on the issue of Kahoolawe, a Hawaiian island that was appropriated by the Navy and used as a military target and training area after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in . Saiki joined other Hawaiians in protesting the military exercises and arguing for the island’s release from the Navy. She helped bring the issue to George H. W. Bush’s attention, and in the president ordered an end to the military activity there and supported its eventual return to local control. From to , Saiki served as administrator of the Small Business Administration under George H. W. Bush. In , she spoke to a Honolulu Star Bulletin reporter about her experience as a woman in politics: We already cracked the barrier where women were considered foreign. Now I think women are embraced as part and parcel of the political world. It’s not strange to have a woman governor. When Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president, that was so unusual at the time. Now people think that’s OK. When I ran for the House back in , there were only two women in office. So I had to run on the campaign slogan of, “This district needs a woman in the House.” Today, you don’t have to push that anymore. It’s acceptable to be a woman in politics. (quoted in Flanagan , ) Because there are so few Latinas in Congress, and most of them have been serving for less than ten years, it is difficult to determine their institutional and
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policy impacts. The first Latina did not arrive in Congress until , when the institutional accommodations necessary for female representatives largely were completed. From a leadership standpoint, Roybal-Allard was the first Latina to chair the Hispanic Caucus, and Hilda Solís is the first Latina assistant whip for the Democratic Party. From a policy standpoint, studies of House members with over percent Latinos in their districts have found that representatives vote along the lines of Latino interests (as defined by the Southwest Voter Research Institute) percent or more of the time, and that Latino representatives have distinctive voting patterns (Kerr and Miller ). Looking at the Latina representatives’ committee assignments and legislative priorities, most of which focus on education, workers’ rights, the environment, economic development, and immigrant rights, their policy approach does not seem to differ markedly from the men’s. The main difference is the emphasis they place on women’s issues. All of the Latina representatives are members of the Women’s Caucus, and most list questions of women’s health and domestic violence as one of their top priorities; this is not true of the Latino representatives. So, it is likely that the presence of Latina members provides support for policy issues of importance to all Latinos and promotes a greater focus on the concerns of women of color, particularly of those who are living in poverty. Conclusion
Although women of color are more represented within their respective racial groups than white women, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans remain significantly underrepresented in the U.S. Congress. Given the fact that most of these female representatives of color were elected as a result of majority-minority districts, it is unlikely that, numerically, legislative women of color will decrease significantly in the near term. There is some cause for optimism, in fact, as African American women and Latinas have been quite successful at getting elected. Their growing presence, along with Asian American women, in state legislatures bodes well for the future presence of these women as representatives at the national level. Those women of color who have served and are serving in the U.S. Congress have had important effects on the institution itself and on its policy direction, particularly within the Democratic Party. Regardless of what happens in the future, those effects cannot be erased. Their legacy will ensure that the issues of women and communities of color will remain an integral part of America’s legislative agenda. NOTES
. We should note that no Latina or Asian American woman has been elected to the U.S. Senate.
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. The first Latino to serve in the U.S. Congress was Joseph Marion Hernández, who was selected in as the nonvoting delegate from the territory of Florida. . The nonvoting representative from Puerto Rico, Anibal Acevedo-Vilá, is included in this number. . Mink met her husband, John, a hydrology and geology consultant at the University of Chicago, while she was in law school. Her daughter, Gwendolyn Mink, is a political scientist. Mink died in , at the age of seventy-four, just days after winning the primary election for her congressional seat.
9
Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox
Change in Continuity in the Geography of Women State Legislators
■ In the context of women’s legislative underrepresentation, Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox explore the significant variation in their presence in state legislatures. The authors’ interest in this topic flows from evidence that, once in office, women tend to perform lawmaking work differently from men, interact more with constituents, and provide increased attention to key constituencies. On all three of these measures, female legislators are more likely than men to place priority on women constituents and women’s issues. Hence, in states with higher levels of female representation, the amount and type of representation is likely to be different compared to states with fewer women. As Norrander and Wilcox show, southern states have had the fewest female lawmakers and northeastern states have had the most. These trends appear to be related to the number of women with high levels of education and occupational prestige and the proportion of women in the labor force. Norrander and Wilcox close with the prediction that women’s presence in state legislatures is likely to increase as women make progress in the workforce. ■
From the s through the mid-s, the share of legislative seats in the United States held by women increased with each subsequent election. The elections were even dubbed the “Year of the Woman” because of a sharp increase in the number of women elected to the U.S. Congress. Women who had begun their careers in state legislatures or other state or local offices appeared to be poised to move up to the national scene. Many expected that the progress in electing women legislators would be even more rapid over the next decade. Yet, women’s representation in state legislatures began to level off after the elections. Between and , the portion of women in state legislatures increased from less than percent to more than percent; over the next decade it increased to percent, but over the following decade it increased by only point to percent. The portion of women in state legislatures in is actually slightly lower than it was in . State legislatures in the United States, with the sole exception of Nebraska, are bicameral, with a lower chamber usually called a house or an assembly and an upper chamber called the state senate. Figure . shows the trends in electing fe176
Change in Continuity in the Geography of Women State Legislators
177
male representatives in each of these chambers. The data reveal a slight decline in the percentage of women in lower chambers over the past three election cycles but a slight increase in state senates. State senates are usually smaller than lower chambers, sometimes by a wide margin. New Hampshire has four hundred seats in its lower chamber and only twenty-four in the state senate, the largest discrepancy. State senate seats are in a sense more valuable, as each senator has a greater share of the overall votes in the chamber. Average figures for women’s representation in state legislatures also mask considerable variation across the states. At the start of , women compose percent or more of state legislatures (upper and lower chambers combined) in California, Colorado, Maryland, Vermont, and Washington, but they constitute less than percent in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. The Washington State Legislature is nearly percent women, which is nearly four times higher than the percent in South Carolina. In , seven states remain below the percent figure that Kantner (b) describes as the minimum necessary for women to find their distinctive voice, and an additional ten states are below the percent figure that Thomas () found as an important threshold. This uneven distribution of women across state legislators is nothing new. In , women composed less than percent of legislators in six states, while in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont they were near or above the percent mark. E. Werner () reported that the latter three states, each of which had very large state legislatures, contained almost half of all women serving in legislatures nationwide. At that point, she hypothesized that these large legislatures (which ranged in from to members) resembled town meetings and 25 20 15 10 5 0 1970
1975
1980
1985 Senate
1990
1995
2000
House
Figure 9.1. Percentage of seats in state legislatures held by women, 1970 – 2004.
2005
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
were more likely to include women because of the proximity of grassroots contact in these small districts and the relatively low cost of campaigning. In , Vermont and Connecticut continue to rank in the top ten states for women in legislatures, but they both trail California, which has very large districts and the most expensive state campaigns. Over the past forty years, states have had vastly different rates of progress in electing women to their legislatures. Vermont increased from to percent from to , Connecticut from to percent, but California went from to percent. South Carolina was tied with California with only percent in , but by South Carolina had increased to only percent. In this chapter, we examine the patterns of women in state legislatures throughout the past forty years and explore different rates of progress across the states. We recap past explanations for why women are more numerous in the legislatures of some states and offer our own multivariate model predicting women’s legislative strength in . Next, we examine explanations for changes in the number of women in state legislatures over the past decade and offer some thoughts about why the overall progress of women in state legislative office has stalled. Finally, we conclude with some thoughts about the future of women in state legislatures. We seek to explain the percentage of women in each state’s legislature, but it is important to understand that state legislatures vary greatly and in many ways. Some state legislatures are full-time, professional bodies with sizable staff and high salaries; others are part-time, amateur bodies with small staff and symbolic salaries. States also differ considerably in the relative power of state governors and legislatures; in some states, the governor is the dominant force, and in others, the legislature does most of the important policymaking. Legislative seats vary considerably in size: in California, state senators represent nearly , constituents, but in Wyoming, they represent only ,. The lower chamber in New Hampshire has districts of slightly more than , constituents, and representation in that state has a very personal touch. In California, a member of the lower chamber represents nearly , constituents, more than times as many as in Wyoming.
The Geography of Women Legislators
Table . lists the percentage of women serving in the legislatures of each state in , , , , and . Table . shows the percentage of women averaged within five regions of the country for each period. Several things are evident from the data in these two tables. The Northeast stands out as the early leader in women’s representation, and this region had a large spurt of growth in female legislators between and . Today, the western states have as many women legislators as are found in the northeastern states, with significant growth in the mids to s, as well. Midwestern states had steady progress in the number of
Change in Continuity in the Geography of Women State Legislators
179
Table 9.1 Percentage of Women in State Legislatures, 1964 – 2004
1964
1974
1984
1994
2004
Change 1964 – 1994
Change 1994 – 2004
AL
1
1
4
6
10
5
4
AK
3
12
10
22
20
19
⫺2
AZ
8
14
18
33
28
25
⫺5
AR
4
2
5
11
16
7
5
CA
1
3
12
24
30
23
6
State
CO
7
8
25
35
34
28
⫺1
CT
15
10
21
26
29
11
3
DE
4
11
16
16
29
12
13
FL
3
4
16
18
25
15
7
GA
0
1
8
17
22
17
5
HI
4
5
20
25
28
21
3
ID
1
7
14
30
27
29
⫺3
IL
2
5
11
23
28
21
5
IN
2
6
12
19
18
17
⫺1
IA
3
7
9
15
21
12
6
KS
1
2
13
29
28
28
⫺1
KY
4
4
7
6
11
2
5
LA
1
2
3
9
17
8
8
ME
6
9
22
32
27
26
⫺5
MD
6
6
19
25
34
19
9
MA
3
3
9
23
26
20
3
MI
2
4
9
21
24
19
3
MN
1
3
13
27
27
26
0
MS
2
3
2
12
13
10
1
MO
1
6
10
20
21
19
1
MT
2
6
6
20
25
18
5
NE
2
2
14
18
18
16
0
NV
6
8
8
16
29
10
13
NH
15
20
27
24
28
9
4
NJ
4
8
8
9
16
5
7
NM
1
2
6
26
30
25
4
NY
1
3
10
11
23
10
12
NC
3
5
15
25
21
22
⫺4
ND
2
8
10
13
16
11
3 (continued)
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Table 9.1 (continued)
State
1964
1974
1984
1994
2004
Change 1964 – 1994
Change 1994 – 2004
OH
5
6
9
20
21
15
1
OK
1
1
7
12
13
11
1
OR
10
12
21
17
29
7
12
PA
5
3
4
14
14
9
0
RI
3
3
12
25
20
22
⫺5
SC
1
3
7
13
9
12
⫺4
SD
2
6
13
20
16
18
⫺4
TN
2
3
8
12
17
10
5
TX
2
3
6
17
19
15
2
UT
6
6
7
14
22
8
8
VT
18
11
18
33
31
15
⫺2
VA
2
4
9
11
14
9
3
WA
7
9
18
40
37
33
⫺3
WV
4
7
10
17
19
13
2
WI
2
5
20
27
28
25
1
WY
4
5
20
24
18
20
⫺6
Sources: 1964 from E. Werner 1968; 1974 and 1984 from Rule and Zimmerman 1994; 1994 from Van Dunk and Holbrook 1994; 2004 from Center for the American Woman and Politics (2004d).
women in their legislatures up to the s and have generally had the third highest totals among the five regions since the s. The growth in female legislators has been the slowest in the mid-Atlantic and southern states. Though in contrast to the other three regions, these two areas of the country had continued growth in the number of women in their legislatures through the elections. Within regions, important state differences exist. Compare, for example, MaryTable 9.2 Regional Patterns in Percentage of Women in State Legislatures,Average per Region 1964 Northeast Mid-Atlantic
1974
1984
1994
2004
10
9
18
29
27
3
6
10
14
20
Midwest
2
5
12
22
22
South
2
3
8
13
17
West
5
8
14
26
27
National average
4
6
12
21
23
Change in Continuity in the Geography of Women State Legislators
181
40 35 California
30 25
Missouri
20
Vermont
Maryland Pennsylvania
15 10
Alabama
5 0 1964
1974
1984
1994
2004
Figure 9.2. Number of women in six state legislatures, 1964 – 2004.
land and Pennsylvania in the mid-Atlantic region: percent of Maryland’s legislators are now women, compared with only percent in Pennsylvania. In the South, South Carolina has few women in its legislature, but North Carolina is near the national average. Finally, although most states saw steady increases in female legislators in each decade until , the patterns are far more uneven in the past decade. Every state that had more than percent women in their state legislatures in declined at least slightly by , whereas states such as Delaware, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah had a surge of women entering their legislatures. Figure . shows the trends in a few selected states between and . Alabama, California, and Missouri all began with few women in their state legislatures, but today Alabama remains a male bastion, California is one of the leading states for female representatives, and Missouri is at about the national average. Pennsylvania and Maryland had slightly more women in their legislatures in , but over the next forty years, Pennsylvania had little growth in the number of women in its legislature, whereas Maryland had a rapid increase. In contrast, Vermont was an early leader but in has roughly the same number of women in its legislature as California and Maryland.
Explaining State Differences in Numbers of Women in State Legislatures
How might we account for the different numbers of women in state legislatures? A variety of factors have been suggested. States vary in the number of women who possess the skills normally associated with running for public office, such as college degrees and employment in professional occupations. In some states, women
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may be more often recruited to run for office by political parties or interest groups. The costs of campaigning for legislative seats also vary by state. The number of open seats varies as well. Some state legislatures meet full time, others meet for only a few months each year, and still others meet only every other year. Finally, characteristics of voters, such as their partisanship and ideology, may make citizens of some states more or less willing to vote for women candidates. We explore each of these possible explanations more fully. Women are not disadvantaged among voters when they seek elective office (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; Darcy and Schramm ; Ekstrand and Eckert ; Burrell ), but women cannot win if they do not run. Thus, differences in the supply of female candidates may help explain differences in the numbers of women in state legislatures. The supply of women willing to run as candidates depends on several factors. First, a pool of potential female candidates must be ready to seek office when electoral conditions are favorable (Darcy and Schramm ; Welch ; but see also Rule ). In state legislative races, this eligibility pool includes many individuals who have held local office, who have been active in community affairs, and who have name recognition in the community, ties to important established political groups, or other resources that help win elected office. Although many women with nontraditional backgrounds seek and win state legislative office, states with higher levels of women in the labor force and in professional occupations have a larger potential pool of candidates. States with large potential candidate pools may still have few women in their legislatures if potential candidates do not ultimately decide to run for office. Potential candidates are far more likely to run if they are asked by others, and this appears to be especially important for women. Candidates may be recruited by party committees, by political or community groups, or by political activists and friends. Feminist groups seek out and encourage potential women candidates (Duerst-Lahti ), and conservative Christian churches and political networks also appear to encourage women to run for office (Norrander and Wilcox ). In addition, previous research suggests that women legislators are more numerous in states where party officials actively recruit candidates and endorse in primary elections (Darcy and Schramm ; Volgy, Schwarz, and Gottleib ; Flammang ). Being asked to run increases the odds that a woman will seek elective office, but potential women candidates must balance the benefits of office against considerable costs. Running for office is expensive, and many women doubt that they can raise enough money to run, although in fact, research suggests that women raise as much money as similarly qualified men. Women are far less likely to contribute to candidates than men, and give smaller amounts, which might encourage the misperception that women cannot raise enough to run effective campaigns (Francia et al. ). Thus, women may be more likely to run in states where campaign costs are lower or where political parties provide substantial support to help candidates.1
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183
As women weigh the costs and benefits of running for office, their calculations are affected by their chance of winning. A long and difficult campaign may be worthwhile if a real chance exists that the woman might win. In contrast, when there is little chance of victory, the costs are very likely to exceed benefits. In some states, entrenched incumbents have drawn electoral district boundaries so that few face real challenges. In Virginia, for example, of the one hundred seats in the state assembly in , fifty-three were uncontested, and another twenty were won with more than percent of the vote. In only two districts was the victory margin less than percentage points. Thus, women weighing a campaign for the Virginia Assembly face long odds of victory. High incumbency rates serve as a bottleneck that prevents the pipeline of potential candidates from running for and winning seats. In general, state legislatures with higher turnover rates have had higher numbers of female legislators (Norrander and Wilcox ). Open seats are typically created when an incumbent does not seek reelection. However, in the s, a number of states enacted term limits for their state officials. In these states, legislators are limited to serving only a specific number of years, typically between six and twelve. In states with term limits, open seats are created on a periodic basis as incumbents are barred from running for reelection. Many people speculated that term limits would lead to the election of more female legislators, as more incumbents are men rather than women (see, e.g., Thompson and Moncrief ; Reed and Schansberg ). Yet, term limits force out women and men alike, and so term limits will lead to electing more women only in states where the pipeline of potential candidates is full. Although many women have the traits of potential candidates, women are less likely than men with similar qualifications to run for elective office (Lawless and Fox ), reducing the pool of potential female candidates. Thus, if women already serving in state legislatures are turned out of office by term limits, fewer women may be ready to step in as new candidates for these open seats. Another way that states vary in the structure of their legislative elections is that a few states elect multiple members of the legislature from the same geographic district. Most states apportion their legislative seats through single-member districts, similar in structure to the districts used to elect members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Today, thirteen states apportion at least some of their state legislative seats through multimember districts. Prior research finds more women elected to legislatures in states with at least some multimember districts (Arceneaux ; Carroll ; Hogan ; Matland and Brown ). Multimember districts appear to elect more women, in part, because parties and voters seek to balance slates of legislators in such districts (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ). Serving in office is time-consuming. Nine states have full-time legislatures, six state legislatures meet only once every other year, and the remaining state legislatures meet annually but for a limited time period. On the one hand, a full-time legislature is more time-consuming, but on the other hand, a full-time legislative
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post might be more attractive. Full-time legislators are better paid and have more support staff. With a part-time legislature, an individual would need a second job for monetary support. Furthermore, a part-time legislative post may not truly be a part-time commitment of time. With more demands made on state governments and increasing budget constraints, special sessions are called, committees meet in between regular sessions, and members continue to perform constituency services throughout the year. Recent research suggests that women state legislators, even more than their male counterparts, are likely to view their legislative role as a fulltime commitment regardless of the structure of the state legislature (see Epstein, Niemi, and Powell in this volume). Yet, historically, women make up a greater percentage of legislators in states with part-time, less professional legislatures (Squire ; Nechemias ; Rule ; Hill ). Other factors may influence a woman’s chance of winning. Women may be more likely to decide to run if they come from states with political cultures that support women in politics (Rule ; Hill ). Women also may be more likely to run in states or regions of the country in which voters show less bias against women candidates or where gender roles are less traditional. States with well-educated, urbanized electorates are likely to show the least voter bias and therefore invite more candidacies by women (Nechemias ; but see Rule ). It also is likely that states with liberal, Democratic electorates will have more women in their state legislatures, although recent efforts by Republicans to recruit women candidates, including those from the Christian Right movement, may lessen that relationship.
Data and Methods
A number of potential causes for the variation in numbers of women in state legislatures have been identified. In this section, we relate how each of these potential causes, otherwise called independent variables, are measured. Second, we briefly describe the statistical procedure used to test the importance of the independent variables in explaining the number of women in each state legislature. But first, we need to explain our measure of the number of women in state legislatures. Because the proportion of women legislators varies not only across the states but across the two chambers in each state, the dependent variable is the percentage of women in the ninety-nine upper and lower chambers of the fifty state legislatures in (CAWP d). Recall that Nebraska has only one chamber. One potential cause of variation in the numbers of women legislators is the number of women in each state with the skills normally associated with running for political office. Traditional measures of these skills are the percentage of women in the labor force, the percentage of women employed as managers or in professional occupations, the percentage of women with a college degree, and the per-
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centage of businesses owned by women.2 Because these four factors tend to overlap, we used a statistical procedure known as factor analysis to reduce these four factors to two dimensions. The first dimension is composed primarily of the measures of women as managers or professionals and women with college degrees. The second dimension is most heavily defined by the number of women in the workforce. Women’s ownership of businesses tends to fall along both dimensions. Thus, we refer to dimension as college-educated and professional women and dimension as women in the workforce. Recruitment of women candidates can come from a variety of organizations, including political parties and interest groups. However, it is very difficult to find systematic measures of recruitment by interest groups across all fifty states. Thus, we measure recruitment only by the actions of the political parties and in a somewhat indirect manner. Our measure is the typical financial support of candidates for state offices by the state parties. This is money raised by the state parties and contributed directly to candidates or used in support of candidates, such as shared public opinion polling or advertising.3 In Montana, the two political parties provided $,, toward the election of state candidates. Dividing this by the number of votes cast in the Montana election produces a figure of $. per vote cast, the highest across the nation. Massachusetts political parties contributed $,, toward state candidates, but given the much larger number of voters in Massachusetts than Montana, the per vote contribution comes to only cents. The information on party contributions is not available for all fifty states, so the use of this variable reduces the number of state legislative chambers analyzed to eighty-eight. The cost of campaigning for state legislative seats also might influence the number of women willing to run for office. The typical candidate for the lower house in South Dakota needs to raise only $. In contrast, the typical candidate running for the state senate in California needs to raise $,. We might expect that the more costly the race, the fewer the number of potential women candidates. Yet, past research has found that women are able to raise as much money as men when they choose to run. One other contingency is that contributions by state parties to legislative races might be more important in high-cost races, such as the California senate, but not as important in lower-cost races. Thus, we create a measure (called an interaction term) that captures both the cost of the race and the support of state parties to candidates. We would expect more women to be elected when parties help contribute to the high cost of campaigning in some states. Multimember districts were shown to be important factors in earlier research on women in state legislatures. The number of multimember districts in use for state legislative elections, however, has been reduced in recent years. Alaska, Georgia, Indiana, and Wyoming abandoned their use of multimember districts. When states eliminate multimember districts, the number of women legislators tends to drop ( J. King ). Given a smaller number of states using multimember districts, the overall effect of this rule may be lessened.4
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Turnover rates indicate a greater number of open seats that may be available for women to fill. States hold legislative elections across a variety of years, with senate seat elections often staggered over a couple of electoral cycles, as is true for the national Senate. Thus, a measure of turnover based on a single election year may inadequately measure the extent of available open seats, particularly in state senates. Thus, we use a measure of turnover across a decade.5 A second potential source of open seats is in states with term limits. By the election, eleven states had term limits in effect. Four additional states will have term limits take effect over the next six years. Our measure of term limits separates out the eleven states with term limits in place by from the remaining thirty-nine states.6 We use a measure that separates out the nine states that have full-time legislatures from the remaining forty-one states. We also have a measure that designates the ninety-nine state legislatures as either an upper house or a lower house. Finally, we have two measures of the likelihood that a state’s electorate might be favorable to the election of female candidates. One is a measure summarizing the average ideological (liberal, moderate, or conservative) orientation of each state’s citizens. The second is a measure of the average partisanship (Democrat, independent, or Republican). The coding of these two public opinion measures are such that a higher value indicates that a state has more conservative and more Republican citizens.7 To investigate these multiple factors that may lead to a higher or lower percentage of women in state legislatures, we use a statistical procedure known as regression. This statistical procedure allows us to look at multiple potential causes (i.e., independent variables) for the variation in numbers of women legislators across the states. Because our independent variables are measured on a variety of scales, we present standardized coefficients to help interpret the importance of each factor in explaining the number of female legislators. We also use a measure of statistical significance to interpret the importance of each independent variable. The measure of statistical significance gives us the chance that the unstandardized coefficient (not reported) is no different from zero. We employ the standard rule of thumb, which is that we report as significant those coefficients that have less than a percent (* ⫽ p ⬍ .), percent (** ⫽ p ⬍ .), or percent (*** ⫽ p ⬍ .) chance of being no different from zero (i.e., at least a percent chance of being different from zero).
Results: Predicting Women in State Legislatures, 2004
In Table . we show the results of our multivariate model to test the impact of several of these factors on the percentage of women in state legislatures in . States with a larger eligibility pool (i.e., professional women and women in the workforce) have more women in legislatures; indeed, both measures of the size of the pool are significant predictors of more women in legislatures. Women are
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Table 9.3 Explaining the Percentage of Women in Upper and Lower Houses in U.S. State Legislatures, 2004
Pool — professional women Pool — working women
Beta
t
0.28**
2.23
0.30**
2.51
Cost of campaign
⫺0.30*
⫺1.92
Party contributions
0.02
0.19
Cost combined with party contributions
0.49***
2.91
Multimember districts
0.14
1.57
Turnover
0.05
0.51
Term limit states
0.02
0.27
Full-time legislature
⫺0.25**
⫺2.10
Party identification (Republican)
⫺0.31***
⫺2.78
Ideology (conservative)
⫺0.30**
⫺2.11
Senate
⫺0.17*
⫺1.87
R2
0.50***
Note: Model includes eighty-eight state legislative chambers due to a loss of cases on the cost of campaign variable. Entries are standardized regression coefficients (Betas) and t-ratios. * = p < 0.10; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01.
less likely to serve in general in legislatures where elections are especially expensive. But financial support from state political parties increases the odds of women serving in states with expensive elections. This financial support may help ease fears that women cannot raise sufficient funds to campaign and also may indicate active recruitment by party leaders. We do not find the pattern of increased female representation in states with multimember districts, though the coefficient is in the positive direction and the significance level of . just misses the standard cut-off. The reduction in multimember districts seems to have lessened their influence in explaining the crossstate variation in number of female representatives. In contrast, we do find fewer women in full-time state legislatures. This result is interesting, especially when taken together with the results reported by Epstein, Niemi, and Powell in this volume that women in part-time legislatures are more likely to make legislating their full-time job. It may be that full-time legislatures attract a stronger pool of male competitors who make electoral victory more difficult. Women are still less common in state senates than in lower chambers. Women are not more likely to serve in legislatures with high levels of turnover. This suggests that the presence of safe male incumbents does not explain women’s low numbers in state legislatures. We also do not find any consistent
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effects for term limits. Nor did we find a pattern for differential effects of term limits across lower versus upper chambers (not shown). Finally, states where voters are more liberal and more Democratic have more women serving in their legislatures. Liberal states presumably have voters with more egalitarian gender attitudes, and thus women pondering a candidacy decision can count on substantial voter support. It also is possible that more women serve in legislatures in Democratic states because of traditional gender role beliefs held by many conservative Christians, who form an important base for the GOP.
Explaining Changes in Women’s Representation
How can we explain recent changes in the number of women in state legislatures? Over the past decade (i.e., to ), the percentage of women in the lower houses increased by point; growth in the upper chambers was a bit higher, with a gain of points. Since some states have made substantial progress in electing more women, and some states have lost ground. Perhaps by understanding the gains and losses of women in various states we can come to a broader understanding of why the percentage of women in state legislatures has leveled off at so low a figure. In general, those states that had the most female representatives in also have the most in . If we look for a simple linear pattern across the decade, we can explain nearly half of the number of women in a state’s legislature in by the number holding office in that state in (r2 ⫽ . ***). Yet, the growth (and decline) was not uniform. States that ranked in the top one-third for women in their legislatures in actually lost on average percentage points in the lower chamber and gained percentage point in state senates. States in the bottom one-third in gained on average percentage points in lower chambers and percentage points in state senates. In some ways, the chambers with the lowest levels of women in were gaining on the other states, especially for upper houses. Meanwhile, did the chambers with the highest levels of women in reach a plateau? To help explain gains and losses in female representatives in lower and upper houses of state legislatures across the past decade, we turn to a number of other factors. In this analysis, we concentrate on factors that have changed over the past decade. As mentioned before, one of the most significant political changes for state legislatures over the past decade is the enactment of term limits in a handful of states. These term limits force incumbents from their seats after a certain period. Although many scholars and activists initially saw term limits as a boon for electing more women because such rules would force male incumbents to vacate their seats, Carroll and Jenkins () report that the net effect in the and elections was to decrease the number of women in lower chambers and increase the number in state senates. These two scholars explain this pattern by
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189
suggesting that women in the lower chamber took advantage of state senate openings to run for the open seat, but that new female candidates did not step forward to run for seats vacated in the lower chambers. Similarly, Caress () reports mixed results for term limits in California, with gains in some years followed by losses in others. General rates of turnover might affect the number of women serving in state legislatures. Even in states without term limits, turnover can be substantial in each election as many members voluntarily retire. This has become especially true in part-time legislatures where the workload has increased in recent years. Increased turnover creates more opportunities for women to contest open seats, but it might also signal that legislative seats are unattractive for a variety of reasons. Rhode Island increased the competition level in its state legislative races by reducing the size of its legislature. The upper house was reduced from fifty to thirty-eight seats and its lower house from one hundred to seventy-five. Research has consistently held that multimember districts lead to more women in elected offices, yet our analysis of the number of women in state legislatures in showed no effect. We speculated that it could be the reduction in number of multimember districts that was the cause. Thus, in analyzing the change in numbers of female state legislators across the past decade, we include a measure of the change in numbers of multimember districts. Recall that over the decade, several states eliminated entirely their multimember districts, other states reduced their number, and one state increased the portion of multimember districts in one chamber of its legislature. We would expect decreases in the portion of multimember districts to decrease the number of women in the legislature. The Republican share of state legislative seats increased over the past decade. After the elections, Republicans controlled more state legislative seats than the Democrats for the first time since the early s. Women compose a much lower portion of GOP legislators than are found among Democrats. Indeed, women made significant progress in the past decade among Democratic legislators, increasing from to percent, but women lost ground among GOP lawmakers, dropping from to percent. Thus, if all state legislators were Democrats, the past decade would have seen an overall increase in the portion of women. But in fact, Republicans have increased from to percent of state legislators, and thus not only have women declined slightly in GOP ranks, but Republicans more generally have replaced a somewhat more diverse set of Democratic lawmakers.8 Finally, it may be that states with significant increases in population may experience increases in the portion of women serving in their legislatures. Significant population shifts can shake loose a political system, breaking the restrictive power of old party elites and elevating in importance citizen groups where women play an active role. To analyze the causes of the changing levels of female representatives in state legislatures, we once again turn to a regression analysis. This time, our dependent
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variable is the difference between the proportion of female representatives in a legislative chamber in and . A positive change indicates a growth in female representatives, and a negative change indicates fewer female legislators in than in . On average, the proportion of female legislators in the lower chambers increased by percentage point, but Washington state lost percentage points, dropping from percent female legislators to percent. The greatest gains came in Delaware, which saw a growth from percent to percent. In the upper chambers, on average, a percentage point increase occurred. The greatest losses were in New Hampshire, with a decline from percent to percent. In part, this loss is exaggerated by the small size of the upper house in New Hampshire. In fact, the decline is from nine female state senators (out of thirtyeight) in to four in . The greatest increase in female legislators in an upper house occurred in Michigan, with an increase from to percent. Our independent variables were measured in a variety of ways. To demonstrate the slower growth in those states with higher proportions of female representatives in and a faster growth among those states with a lower proportion of female representatives in , we include in our model the proportion of female representatives in each chamber in . As the pattern appeared to be stronger among the upper houses, we include an interaction term that separates out the senate’s from the lower house’s proportion of female representatives in . We use the same indicator of term limits as before, separating out the eleven states with term limits in effect by . Because Carroll and Jenkins () suggest that the pattern might be one of a loss of seats in lower houses but a gain in upper houses, we also interact the measure of term limits with an indicator of the upper house. Turnover is the same turnover measure as in the model of female legislators in . We add an indicator for Rhode Island to separate out its change in the number of legislative seats and also add an interaction term in case the pattern is different for the upper and lower houses. We include a measure of the change in number of multimember districts, with most of these changes being a reduction in or elimination of multimember seats. We measure the partisan change of the state legislatures by subtracting the proportion of a chamber’s seats held by Democrats in from the proportion held in . A positive value on this scale indicates an increase in the number of seats held by the Democrats, and a negative value indicates a growth in the number of seats held by the Republicans. We include a measure of the change in a state’s population between the and censuses9 and, finally, a measure to separate out lower and upper chambers. Results are shown in Table .. We present both coefficients for the main effects and, in many cases, interaction effects that can show if these effects are different for state senates. The data show that the percentage of women in state lower chambers in is negatively related to change from to . This difference is even greater for members of state senates, which is reflected by the negative coefficient for the interaction term. Women have lost ground slightly in
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Table 9.4 The Changing Number of Women in Upper and Lower Houses in U.S. State Legislatures, 1994 – 2004 Beta
t
Women in legislative chamber in 1994
⫺0.42**
⫺2.91
Women in 1994 separated for upper chamber
⫺0.28
⫺1.31
Term limit states
⫺0.08
⫺0.65
Term limit states separated for upper chamber Turnover
0.17
1.38
⫺0.12
⫺1.29
Change in multimember districts
0.15*
1.87
Change in proportion of seats held by Democrats
0.18**
2.13
Change in state population Rhode Island
0.17** ⫺0.17
1.98 ⫺1.49
Rhode Island separated for upper chamber
0.12
1.07
Senate
0.15
0.74
R2
0.49***
Note: N = 99. Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is excluded. Entries are standardized regression coefficients (Betas) and t-ratios. * = p < 0.10; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01.
the states that had the highest levels of women in , but made gains in states with fewer women legislators, especially in state senates. Term limits are not significant predictors of changing percentages of women in lower chambers or state senates. Though not strong enough to be statistically significant, the coefficient for lower chambers is in the negative direction, and the one for state senates is positive, which fits with Carroll and Jenkins’s () initial findings. Still, our findings suggest that trends in women’s representation may be very similar across states with term limits and those without. Looking at the change in female representatives in lower houses across the past decade, we do find that for states without term limits, a percentage point increase occurred, whereas for states with term limits, the number of female representatives dropped by percentage point. This difference is statistically significant (t ⫽ ., significance ⫽ .). However, the pattern of change in female representatives in the upper chamber is not significant, with an increase of percentage points in states without term limits and an increase of percentage points in states with term limits (t ⫽ ⫺., significance ⫽ .).10 Thus, it may be that term limits have harmed female representation in lower houses, but the pattern for the upper houses is not distinctively different from states without term limits. A case-by-case look at the states with term limits shows that four states fit the pattern of a decreasing number of women in the lower chamber and an increasing number of women in the upper chamber. This pattern was most dramatic in
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Michigan, where the proportion of women in the lower chamber dropped by percentage points while the percentage of women in the upper chamber increased by percentage points. The pattern also was quite strong in Missouri and was present, but less dramatically so, in Colorado and Maine. Three of the states with term limits (Arkansas, California, Florida) had an increase of women in both chambers, but two of these states had only a percent rise in the lower chamber (Florida had a percentage point increase), accompanied by a to percentage point increase for the senates. Thus, seven out of the eleven states with term limits in place by showed an increase in women in the upper chamber and a leveling-off or drop in women in the lower chamber. Three states (Arizona, Ohio, and South Dakota) show a decline in women representatives in both houses, and Montana had the inverted pattern of an increase in the number of women in the lower chamber with a decrease in the upper house. The initial evidence on the benefits of term limits for increasing female representation suggests that the influence of this institutional change is mixed. Although women have increased their numbers in some states and more often for the upper house, in some situations, term limits appear to have negative effects on the number of women in state legislatures. Among the other factors examined as possible causes of changing patterns of numbers of women legislators over the past decade, general rates of turnover in the legislature are not related to the percentage of women.11 The change in the size of the Rhode Island lower chamber had a negative effect on women in the lower chamber but not in the upper chamber, although the coefficients are not statistically significant. Yet, the data are suggestive of the pattern for term limits proposed by Carroll and Jenkins ().12 Changes in the percentage of multimember districts also predict changes in overall women’s representation. States that decreased their number of multimember districts saw declines in the percentage of women in their legislatures, holding constant other factors. This suggests that one route to increasing the portion of women in state legislatures is to increase multimember districts across the states. This is contrary to the trend in recent years. States with rapidly increasing populations have seen larger increases in women in their legislatures. Changes in the partisan nature of the legislature affected women’s representation as well. In recent decades, the Democratic Party has elected a greater proportion of women to the state legislature. Thus, the trend toward more Republican state legislators has dampened the growth in female legislators in recent years. The two parties recruit women in different ways (Carey, Niemi, and Powell ; Carroll and Strimling ). For example, Democratic women in state legislatures are more likely to be members of women’s organizations, and female Republican state legislators are more likely to receive support from conservative religious groups. The strength of the parties in the state legislatures also matters, with the Democratic Party doing a poorer job at recruiting and supporting female candidates when
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Democrats are the majority party (Sanbonmatsu a). Not to be overlooked is that for most of the twentieth century, the Republican Party did a better job of electing women to public office than did the Democrats (Cox ; E. Werner ). Taken together, these data help us understand the gains and losses of women in state legislatures over the past decade. States with growing populations, Democratic gains, and fewer women in legislatures in gained the most over the next decade. States with declining populations, GOP gains, reductions in the portion of multimember seats, and more women in the earlier period saw declines by .
Conclusion
Across the country, remarkable diversity exists in the proportion of state legislators who are women. In some states, women constitute roughly a third of all lawmakers; in others, they are closer to one-tenth. These differences have important implications, as many studies have shown that women lawmakers work and vote differently from men, that they have different policy priorities, and that they interact with different sets of constituents. Moreover, the presence of women lawmakers increases the interest of female citizens in politics (N. Burns, Schlozman, and Verba ). Some of the factors associated with the number of state legislative seats held by women are virtually unchanged since the s, with southern states continuing to have the fewest female representatives and northeastern states continuing to have the most. But western and mountain states have made important gains in the past twenty years, and within regions there is considerable variation. Neighboring states often have very different trajectories. As was true in the past, our data suggest that the differences among the states can be partially explained by the number of women with high levels of education and occupational prestige and also by the portion of women in the labor force. Indicators of the supply of potential women candidates are strong predictors of the strength of women in legislatures, and they might be stronger still if we could measure the organizational involvement in civic groups that helps many women build political skills and networks. The high cost of campaigns deters women from running, but when political parties provide substantial support, women are more willing to run. It seems likely that if we could measure other kinds of support from women’s and civic groups and from networks of donors, results would be even stronger. In part, the promise of financial support is part of the recruitment process: it enables party leaders and others to persuade women to launch a campaign. It also helps to lower the costs of running. More women serve in part-time legislatures than in states where lawmaking is a full-time job. Yet, if women indeed work more hours legislating in these parttime legislatures than their male counterparts, it may not be that women are de-
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terred by the more demanding nature of the job, which takes time away from family and other interests. Instead, it may be that the full-time legislatures have more competitive elections and therefore attract more male competitors. Senate seats also tend to be more prestigious than the more numerous lower house seats. Fewer women serve in the upper houses, perhaps because of increased competition. At the same time, women have increased their numbers more in the upper than the lower houses over the past decade. The attitudes of voters also matter. Women are more common in states with liberal public opinion, presumably because this signals more egalitarian gender role attitudes and a greater willingness of women to run for office and voters to support them. Finally, women are more common in states with more Democratic voters. Over the past decade, women have seen few gains in state legislatures overall; they have made rapid progress in a few states and lost ground in others. Nevertheless, there has largely been continuity across the past decades. States with the greatest numbers of female representatives in still have the greatest number in . But the rate of growth has been in an inverse pattern to these original numbers. The greatest increase in the number of female legislators has occurred in the states that lagged behind the national average in , and the increases in female legislators have been the smallest in the states that led the pack in . In some of these latter states, the number of female legislators has even declined over the past decade. This leads us back to one of our original questions: Has the number of female legislators reached a plateau? One of the mechanisms that was thought to have the potential to increase the number of women in state legislatures has to date produced mixed results. This mechanism is term limits. Term limits have opened up more legislative seats, but they have done so by dismissing both men and women from the legislative ranks. Some female legislators appear to have used this opportunity to move from the lower to the upper houses of state legislatures, but not enough new female candidates have come forth to replenish the number of women in the lower houses. Two trends have worked against increases in female legislators. The Republican gains over the past decade explain some of the lack of growth in state legislatures over the past decade, as do the reduction of seats chosen by multimember districts. Between and , the typical lower house of a state legislature saw only a percentage point increase in the number of female representatives, and the typical state senate saw a percentage point increase. If Republicans had gained no additional seats over the past decade, we might have seen an increase of percentage points for lower chambers and percentage points for upper houses. The effects of no changes in the number of multimember seats would be smaller, as there are few multimember seats in state legislatures. Still, if no change had occurred, we would expect a net gain over what occurred of less than one-half a percentage point.
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Recruitment is key to any future increases in the proportion of legislative seats held by women. The analysis in this chapter showed that the financial assistance of state parties to candidates helps to elect more women to legislatures in those states where campaigns are costly. Prior research demonstrates that active interest groups, on the left and the right, help to fill out the ranks of female legislatures (Duerst-Lahti ; Norrander and Wilcox ). Why is recruitment key? Lawless and Fox () interviewed men and women who possess the background traits generally required for an effective candidacy. They found that women with the same qualifications as men were less likely to view themselves as potential candidates. Recruitment is key for female candidates, but recruitment has been important throughout political history. Studies of party activists and candidates often point to the encouragement of political parties, friends, and interest and civic groups in fostering involvement. Are there institutional reforms that could help or hinder the recruitment of female candidates? So far, the opening up of legislative seats through term limits has not been a boon to female candidacies. Open seats do not guarantee that more women will be recruited to run. A second avenue to producing more candidates is to provide more financial assistance for the costs of campaigns. Five states provide full or partial government funding for candidates running for their state legislatures.13 Such public funding tends to increase the number of candidates running (K. Mayer, Werner, and Williams ), though there is no evidence yet as to whether this will influence more women to run. Reforms that would strengthen the financial bases of the political parties could increase their ability to recruit and finance female candidates. Yet, campaign finance reform in recent years has been in the other direction, with the elimination of large contributions to the national parties (e.g., the elimination of soft money). Ironically, given American public opinion, strengthening political parties and interest groups may be the best avenue for increasing the recruitment of women to run for political office in the United States.
NOTES
. Some research suggests that women may be relatively more likely to seek office in states where districts are small, thereby allowing more effective personal campaigning (Nechemias , ; Rule ; Hill ; Matland and Brown ). We, however, did not find this to be the case in a previous analysis (Norrander and Wilcox ) nor for explaining the number of women in state legislatures in . . The source of these four skill factors is the Institute for Women’s Policy Research’s “The Status of Women in the States,” , available at http://www.iwpr.org/states/ home.html. . The source of data on state party contributions and the cost of state legislative races is the Institute on Money in State Politics, “ State Election Overview,” available at http://www.followthemoney.org/press/ZZ/.pdf.
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. Thirteen states still used multimember districts for some portion of their legislative seats in the s. The source for use of multimember districts and changes in the number of such districts is Redistricting Task Force of the National Conference of State Legislatures, “Redistricting Law ,” January , available at http://www .senate.leg.state.mn.US/departments/scr/redistrict/red/red-tc.htm. . Data for the turnover measure are from American Bar Association Governmental Affairs Office, “SLR Tally: State Legislative Turnover, – ,” available at http://www.abanet.org/govaffairs/slr/tally.html. . Data for term limit dates came from National Conference of State Legislatures, “The Term Limited States,” May , , available at http://www.ncsl.org/programs/ legman/about/states.htm. . To avoid losing Hawaii and Alaska from the data set, we measure state ideology and partisanship from the pooled Senate National Election Study. These have been demonstrated to be reliable indicators of state public opinion (B. Jones and Norrander ; Norrander ). . The percentages reported here are only those of Democratic- and Republican-held seats. A very small proportion of state legislative seats are held by other parties or by independents. . Data from Statistical Abstract of the United States (, ), available at http://www .census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-.html. . Although it may appear that the changes are more distinctive for the upper rather than the lower chambers, whether there is a statistically significant difference between the mean change in each chamber across states with and without term limits also is dependent on the variation in the number of female legislators in each category. The growth, and decline, in female representatives in upper chambers varies greatly within these states. . This is not an artifact of the inclusion of term limits in the model. We estimated models with only term limits, and models with only turnover, and in none of them was either variable significant. . The highly skewed nature of the Rhode Island dummy makes it more difficult for the coefficient to achieve statistical significance, and thus the T-score of ⫺. is not insubstantial. . Arizona, Hawaii, Minnesota, Maine, and Wisconsin provide public funding for state legislative candidates. Hawaii and Wisconsin provide only limited funding, and these programs have less effect (K. Mayer, Werner, and Williams ).
10
Cindy Simon Rosenthal
Women Leading Legislatures Getting There and Getting Things Done
■ Has women’s presence in legislative life extended to positions of power in these institutions? Cindy Simon Rosenthal shows that, as of 2003, women held 13.6 percent of the leadership positions in state legislatures (including roles as speaker of the House or Assembly, senate president or president pro tempore, and majority and minority leaders) and composed 18.9 percent of standing committee chairs (compared to 22.4 percent of legislative seats). As is true of women’s legislative presence generally, their representation in leadership positions varies a great deal across states, and women leaders are most common in states with more legislative women. Most central is Rosenthal’s interest in whether women’s leadership styles differ from men’s and, if so, the implications of those differences. By studying committee chairs across states, she found that women perceived themselves as harder-working and more focused on accomplishing tasks than their male counterparts. There are two important implications of Rosenthal’s findings related to the main themes of this volume. First, women’s representation in leadership is likely to have an impact on the policies and procedures that flow from legislatures. Second, emphasis on task orientation is one way women can overcome the disadvantages of gendered political environments — even at the higher cost of harder work. ■
Power can be thought of in terms of three “gettings”: getting one’s way, getting along with others, and getting things done. — . , “Power: A Matter of Mechanics?,” SASP Newsletter 5 (1979), cited in Hilary M. Lips, Women, Men, and the Psychology of Power Oklahoman Jari Askins’s résumé reflects a string of firsts typical of women working their way up in legislative leadership. She is a former judge and the first female chair of the Pardon and Parole Board. Achieving leadership is a tall order in a state that has always languished in the bottom ten in women’s representation in state legislatures (CAWP d). But Representative Askins, who hails from the small town of Duncan, where she returns each week to sing in her church choir, 197
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
has earned the confidence of her colleagues by exercising the power of “getting things done” on the toughest issues: tort reform, community sentencing, and workers’ compensation. Though women make up only one-tenth of Oklahoma legislators, Askins has moved steadily up the legislative ladder since her election to the house in . She has honed a reputation as a skilled negotiator, determined consensus builder, and “the hardest working member of the House” (Troy , ). Over the decade, she has chaired a variety of committees and subcommittees, has been tapped by previous speakers to serve as assistant majority floor leader and deputy floor leader, and has won her caucus’s nomination as speaker-designate.1 Although Askins jokes that her low golf handicap might put off some of her male colleagues, the reality of women legislators’ numerical representation is a more significant handicap. Although prior speakers have tapped her to tackle the toughest policy issues before the house, she has often found herself outside of the informal circles of legislative decision making (Askins ). The Oklahoma Legislature is a “no-woman’s land” that has traditionally been unfriendly to women’s leadership (Rosenthal ). As this chapter demonstrates, Askins’s leadership experience follows a path and embodies challenges familiar to women leaders in today’s state legislatures. This chapter: •
•
•
•
traces the progress of women in state legislative leadership roles over the past decade. reviews the research on women’s leadership generally and women in legislative leadership more specifically. reports on the results of original research that addresses the extent to which women’s leadership styles in state legislative committees diVer from men’s styles. explores the challenges facing women leaders and their potential to increase their numbers in the future.
Women Leading Legislatures
As women’s presence in legislatures has increased, so has their share of leadership positions.2 However, a gap still remains between the proportion of women lawmakers (currently . percent) and their representation in the ranks of leadership (. percent). Figure . traces the patterns of women’s representation in state legislatures generally over the past two decades. In some years, women’s increase in leadership positions has been significant. Although the percentage of women members increased by only . percent after the often discussed watershed “Year of the Woman” in , the percentage of women chairing committees moved up . percent and women in top state legislative leadership posts grew by . percent.
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25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0% 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 Members
Chairs
Leaders
Figure 10.1. Women in legislative roles: Members, chairs, and leaders, 1983 – 2003.
Women now chair standing legislative committees in every state—in effect, the policy leadership and middle management of state legislatures. Between and , the Center for the American Woman and Politics reported that the number of women committee chairs increased from just under percent to a record high of percent in . In August , women are . percent of the , standing committee chairs. In two states over the past decade, women’s share of committee leadership topped percent. In the Washington legislature, women chaired twenty-six of thirty-three standing committees (. percent) in ; in Arizona, men and women chaired equal numbers of committees in . But as Table . illustrates, the geography of committee leadership is uneven: the percentage of women chairs currently languishes in the single digits in Louisiana, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wyoming. In contrast, in California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Wisconsin, women headed at least percent of standing committees at least once in the past decade. States also vary in the fortunes of women as legislative leaders. Indeed, the increase in the number of women in top leadership has come principally in a subset of states. In –, no women held top leadership positions in twenty-six states, and women have never cracked the highest ranks of legislative leadership in nine states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Women currently hold more than half of the top leadership positions in Colorado and Oregon, and they have won at least a quar-
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Table 10.1 A Decade of Progress in Women’s Legislative Leadership 1993 – 1994
2003 – 2004
% Female Members
% Female Chairs
AL
5
9.8
0
10
12.5
0
AK
21.7
8.7
60
20
19
0
AZ
35.6
41.2
27.8
30.8
0
AR
9.6
0
16.3
17.2
0
State
50 3.7
% Female Leaders
% Female Members
% Female Chairs
% Female Leaders
CA
23.3
14.3
4.8
30
42.6
28.6
CO
35
33.3
23.5
34
28.6
55.6
CT
25.1
19.6
21.6
28.4
22.5
16.7
DE
14.5
17
10
29
24.1
0
FL
17.5
6.1
27.8
25
22.2
0
GA
17.4
6.9
16.7
21.6
18
0
HI
23.7
19.4
29.4
27.6
26.7
37.5
ID
30.5
41.7
35.7
26.7
25
16.7
IL
23.2
19.1
20.6
27.7
18.2
16.7
IN
19.3
11.1
22.6
18
15.4
0
IA
14.7
13.9
24
21.3
18.2
12.5
KS
29.1
29.1
20
27.9
25.6
12.5
KY
4.3
3
0
10.9
15.2
0
LA
7.6
3.1
0
16.7
8.8
0
ME
31.7
46
20
26.9
27.8
33.3
MD
23.9
16.7
18.5
33.5
30.8
25
MA
23
13
13.3
25.5
18.6
0
MI
20.3
21.6
21.9
23.6
22.5
25
MN
27.4
17.9
28.6
27.4
23.7
0
MS
10.9
7.9
0
12.6
9.3
0
19
21.3
12.5
14.3
24.7
12.1
0
MO
18.8
19.8
MT
20
15.6
NB
20.4
11.1
0
18.4
14.3
NV
27
25
20
28.6
20
28.6
NH
33.5
32
30
27.6
11.9
25
NJ
12.5
7.5
14.7
15.8
22
NM
19.6
11.5
0
29.5
27.3
16.7
NY
16.6
6.9
8.8
22.6
14.9
0
8.3
0
8.3
NC
18.2
18.2
15.4
21.2
22.5
0
ND
16.3
12.5
14.3
16.3
18.2
14.3
Women Leading Legislatures
1993 – 1994
201
2003 – 2004
State
% Female Members
% Female Chairs
% Female Leaders
% Female Members
% Female Chairs
% Female Leaders
OH
21.2
16.1
11.1
21.2
11.1
12.5
OK
9.4
10.9
3.2
12.8
12.1
0
OR
27.8
33.3
30.3
28.9
16.7
57.1
PA
9.9
4.3
0
14.2
4.2
0
RI
24.7
23.1
28.9
20.4
22.7
0
SC
12.9
0
0
9.4
3.8
0
SD
20
TN
12.1
24
16.2
15.4
0
3.4
12
TX
16
UT
13.5
9.8
VT
33.9
11.4
VA
12.1
6.5
WA
39.5
WV
16.4
WI WY
9.5
17.4
10.7
37.5
11.4
0
19.3
20.4
0
8.3
22.1
20
0
30
31.1
25.9
0
0
14.3
4
0
33.3
47.1
36.7
34.2
42.8
18.6
18.2
18.7
13.3
0
27.3
30.8
20.8
28
24.6
24.4
12.5
33.3
17.8
8.3
12.5 25
Sources: Center for American Women in Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics; legislative directories consulted by author.
ter of the top leadership positions in the Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Washington state legislatures at one time or another over the past decade. Not surprisingly, women leaders are most common in states with a significant number of female members and a higher number of women committee chairs, but term limits have introduced a new dynamic of “up and out,” which explains the volatile and fleeting presence of women in leadership. For example, in Arizona, women have disappeared from the ranks of top leadership compared to a decade ago, when they held over percent of the posts. Senator Carolyn Allen (), who served one term as Senate president pro tem, faults term limits and bitter caucus battles over leadership for the loss of women from leadership ranks. Why should we care about women in legislative leadership? As the introduction to this volume highlights, democratic theory emphasizes the values of equality and representativeness in policymaking institutions. In addition, Mansbridge () argues that new thinking about representation emphasizes the contributions to the quality of legislative deliberations, voter accountability, and
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constituent-legislator communication. Having women in legislative leadership not only fulfills the democratic ideal of equality and representativeness but also translates into tangible benefits for women legislators. A recent survey conducted by the Women’s Legislative Network of the National Conference of State Legislatures revealed that fewer than one in ten women legislators (. percent) reported having a woman legislative leader as a mentor, and significant numbers of women lawmakers reported that the lack of female mentors had a negative impact on their inclusion in leadership decisions (. percent), their progress up the leadership ladder (. percent), and their productivity in passing legislation (. percent; Rosenthal ).
The Two Sides of Leadership
Should we expect women political leaders to differ from men in style or goals? Scholarly investigation of leadership generally and gender and political leadership specifically identifies two major dimensions of leadership and provides some insight into the likelihood that women legislative leaders will bring distinctive perspectives to their roles. First, humanistic theories of leadership posit that its central function is to balance the freedom and motivations of individuals within organizations with accomplishment of organizational goals (McGregor ; Blake and Mouton ; Hersey and Blanchard ; Argyris ; Fiedler ; Likert ). Translated into personal style, leaders must be accomplished on two primary dimensions of leadership: a concern for nurturing and maintaining interpersonal relationships and a concern for completing tasks or goals. Several strands of research predict that women and men will differ in the emphasis they put on interpersonal relations. One strand relates to the effects of traditional family socialization and work roles. Girls and women are more likely to learn, practice, and be rewarded for cooperative behavior, whereas boys and men develop personal assertiveness and competitive behavior (Valian ). Sex-segregated work tends to reinforce and perpetuate gender styles learned through family and childhood experiences (Hochschild ). The media also perpetuate images of women as professional caregivers, self-effacing volunteers, or more submissive partners to prominent men ( Jamieson ). By contrast, male images are of decisive leaders, often described with metaphors drawn from male-dominated team sports and the military. Other theorists posit that gender differences in leadership—with women more likely to give attention to interpersonal dimensions—are attributable to genderbased psychological development. Carol Gilligan’s () path-breaking research (discussed also by Lyn Kathlene in chapter ) suggests that gender differences stem more from psychological development than socialization and result in differences in moral “voice.” According to Gilligan, women embrace ideals of re-
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203
sponsibility, caring, and connectedness, whereas the male voice emphasizes autonomy, individualism, and adherence to rules. Psychological orientation or socialization effects may lead women to emphasize interpersonal aspects of leadership, but organizational realities may exert pressure in the opposite direction. Women legislators enter the top echelons of institutions that are gendered in their structure, history, social demography, practices, and norms (Duerst-Lahti b, this volume). Kenney (, ) notes, “To say that an institution is gendered is to recognize that constructions of masculinity and femininity are intertwined in the daily culture of an institution.” Among the most important theoretical dimensions of gendered institutions are the ways that “numbers affect [gender] power in institutions” (). In particular, token individuals— racial minorities or women in predominantly male settings—face pressures to conform to norms established by the dominant group (Kanter a, ) or encounter hostility or resistance from the dominant group (Yoder ). Thus, tokens may try to invest extra effort to minimize their differences from others. Women legislative leaders may, therefore, seek task orientations that do not marginalize them for being different. Research findings in fields other than politics support a greater or at least equal emphasis by women leaders on the interpersonal dimension of leadership. In studies of the private sector, women employ managerial styles that are less topdown, less controlling, more inclusive of others, and more willing to share power and information (e.g., Helgesen ). The differences, Helgesen argues, show that women, more than men, emphasize spending time with people, caring, being involved, and helping others (). Additionally, from a review of studies of women’s leadership patterns, Eagly and Johnson () found that both interpersonal relationships and task accomplishment are emphasized by women to a greater extent than by men.3 Mixed patterns have been found, however, in the political realm. The results of some studies of appointed and elected public officials mirror the findings from the private sector. For example, Fox and Schuhmann () report that women city managers place more emphasis than men on incorporating citizen input and seeking community involvement in decisions. Additionally, based on in-depth interviews with eighty state legislative leaders, Jewell and Whicker () found that women leaders were more likely than men to adopt a “consensus” style and much less likely to adopt a “command” style. Among state legislative committee chairs, Rosenthal () presents evidence that women place greater emphasis than men on involving citizens, providing opportunities for others to participate in decision making, listening to others, and seeking consensus. Rosenthal () also reports that, in terms of conflict resolution strategies, women chairs are more likely to collaborate with or to accommodate the concerns of others. On the other hand, other scholars have found gender difference in leadership emphasis more elusive. In contradiction to a female task emphasis on the in-
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terpersonal dimension of leadership, Cantor and Bernay (, – ) find that women political leaders emphasize “the ability to get things done” and the use of power “to make other people’s lives better.” Their research however, is focused on women only; hence, no comparisons to men are possible in their conclusions. Comparing women and men state legislators in Arizona and California, Reingold () finds that “power over” strategies are slightly more popular among men than women but that “power to” strategies are found in relatively comparable proportions of men and women. Similarly, Tolleson-Rinehart () interviewed women and men mayors and found a majority of the men “could easily be called ‘nurturant’” and all of the women “decisive and strong” (). It may be that the mixed results across research studies are related to the number of cases studied and levels of government. It is important, therefore, that further research into the leadership emphasis of women and men in legislatures be pursued.
Studying Women in State Legislative Leadership
Beyond their presence, what impact or contributions have women made to legislative leadership? Do they have distinctive styles or goals? If so, are these conducive to legislative effectiveness? Following the leadership literature, I explore the preferences and experiences related to task and interpersonal leadership dimensions of women and men state legislative committee leaders. Committee chairs represent the largest pool of elected women officeholders with institutional leadership responsibilities, and their numbers allow for comparison of leadership behavior in different settings. Rieselbach (, ) argues that “as discrete units of analysis, committees lend themselves to efforts to investigate the power and leadership phenomena.” Further, “committee power lies at the heart of the whole transactional system of reciprocity, brokerage and exchange” that characterizes legislative leadership more broadly” ( J. Burns , ). The job of committee chair clearly calls for both task orientation and interpersonal consideration. Tasks of committee leadership include controlling the agenda, determining which bills will be heard and when, managing the allocation of time, and directing the flow of debate. The chair is also the focal point of myriad relationships dealing with members on the committee, bill sponsors, other committee chairs, the leadership, interest groups, and executive agency personnel. Data reported here come from a survey of women and men state legislative committee leaders and a survey of women state legislators. The committee data include () a mailed national survey yielding responses from male and female committee chairs; () focused peer group interviews with seventeen women committee chairs from twelve states; and () more than sixty faceto-face personal interviews, field work, and direct observation of male and female committee chairs in three state legislatures during legislative sessions. The national
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205
survey questionnaire covers () demographic and career characteristics of leaders; () self-assessment of leadership traits; () committee operations; and () attitudes about conflict, power, ambition, and peer relationships.4 The survey was conducted online by the Women’s Legislative Network of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Responses were received from women in forty states and dealt with questions of mentoring, inclusion, and attitudes on personal effectiveness.5
Getting the Job of Committee Chair
To win committee chair positions, women and men are likely to emphasize traits seen as prerequisites for selection. In some states, seniority looms large and may negate other criteria for fitness for the job; in other states, selection is based on other qualities. When queried in about the traits that marked them as potential leaders, women across states placed greater emphasis than men on skill and work commitment. Specifically, significantly more women than men committee chairpersons emphasized an ability to get the job done as important in their selection. Reinforcing this emphasis, once on the job, women were more likely than men to perceive themselves as working harder than the average committee chair. The pattern in these responses points to women’s emphasis on the task leadership dimension rather than an interpersonal focus. Another set of indicators from the survey point in the direction of a female task emphasis. Evaluating the importance of eleven different appointment criteria, male and female committee chairs give almost identical ratings to seniority, loyalty to and ability to work with leadership, subject matter expertise, personal reputation with other legislators, and interest group, regional, and racial balance. Only three factors distinguish male and female chairs, and two are closely related to women’s perception of the importance of task orientation (see Table .). On average, women were more likely than men to rate their ability to get things done and willingness to spend time as central to attaining their committee chair positions. Indeed, almost percent of the women rated their commitment of time as extremely important compared with only . percent of the men. The third appointment factor distinguishing men and women committee chairs is sex. Three times as many women chairs as men identified sex as important to extremely important to their selection. Responses to open-ended questions and personal interviews about the importance of sex in committee chair selection suggest that sex may influence appointments in several ways: balancing a leadership team, matching up certain issues with a female chair, and accepting committee assignments that no one else wants. To provide context for these findings, however, among all of the factors weighed in the appointment of committee chairs, on average, sex and race were considered the least important by committee chairs.
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Table 10.2 Factors Considered Important in Appointment as Committee Chair Mean Rating
Women
% Rating Factor Extremely Importanta Men
Women
Men
Willingness to spend time
4.4
3.9**
58.5
35.8**
Gender
2.1
1.4**
31.4
10.9**
Ability to get things done
4.3
4*
47.7
39.5*
* p < 0.01, ** p < 0.001. Significance levels for means are for t-tests for difference of means on independent samples by gender. Significant levels for the ratings of “extremely important” are based on the Pearson’s Chisquare statistic. Note: The reasons the committee chair perceived important in his or her appointment to head a committee were ranked on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 for “not at all important” to 3 for “important” to 5 for “extremely important.” a
Because so few committee chairs rated gender as an “extremely important” criterion, the percentages shown in this column represent ratings from “important” to “extremely important.”
When moving from reasons for gaining committee chair positions to performance on the job, task orientation appears to be central to female chairs’ view of their contributions. When asked to compare themselves with other committee chairs, women and men did not differ at all in the frequency with which they felt taken seriously, sought out for advice, or more effective. On some comparisons, however, significant gender differences were apparent. Women were much more likely to describe themselves as working harder and lobbying harder than the average chair. Female committee chairs were also less likely to feel included in key decisions. The perception of harder work was particularly striking among those legislators who described themselves as part-time rather than full-time lawmakers. Among those who considered themselves citizen solons, . percent of the women felt they worked harder than other committee chairs, compared with . percent of the part-time male chairs. This difference in perception may be more qualitative than quantitative: there is no significant difference in the average number of hours per week that male and female chairs reported spending on committee business. But women participating in the focus groups perceived themselves as working harder—perhaps more persistent and thorough on tougher issues. For example, an Arizona House member commented, “The first thing we all say about women, no matter the party, is that the women work harder. The women are more likely to read the bills than the men. The men, because they know it all anyway, don’t even bother reading the bills. They are the least prepared on your committee generally, unless a lobbyist has gotten to them and given them some amendments to write” (focus group, July , ). While careful not to suggest that her male colleagues do not fulfill their job responsibilities, an Ohio state senator added, “Some of the men take on the lighter com-
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207
mittees, and we [the women] are more willing to take on committees that require more work” (focus group, July , ). An Oklahoma state senator captured the seeming ambiguity between perceptions of hard work and hours spent: “It’s just our way of life. We organize. We take care of the details. We feel like we have to work twice as hard. I don’t even know if the men know that we feel this way. We all worked just as hard to get here. We’re all elected the same way. But I think we [women] do it to ourselves” (personal interview, December , ).
Leadership Traits:Task and Interpersonal Emphasis
In contrast to the findings of gender differences in perceptions of selection and performance, and in concert with Eagly and Johnson’s research, when asked to describe their leadership style, female committee chairs cited traits consistent with an emphasis on both interpersonal skills and task orientation. The survey asked legislative committee chairs to weigh “the extent to which you think the following traits characterize your style.” In all, the respondents ranked twentytwo traits on a scale ranging from for Not Very Characteristic to for Extremely Characteristic. The mean scores for men and women reveal distinct differences that are statistically significant on eleven of the twenty-two items. Looking more closely at those eleven traits, six are particularly noteworthy in terms of the percentage of women and men who rated the traits as extremely characteristic. Table . summarizes the key traits. On average, women were much more likely than men to describe themselves as task-oriented, managerial, assertive, skilled in interpersonal dealings, frank and direct, and team-oriented. On these six traits, the percentage of women choosing the extremely characteristic category was . to times greater than for men. This cluster of six traits clearly combines the essential elements of a leadership style emphasizing both interpersonal relationships and task commitment. Also shown in Table ., on average, male committee chairs rated four traits as more characteristic of their leadership styles than their female colleagues’, but the differences reach statistical significance on only one. Further, only a few respondents rated any of those traits as extremely characteristic. The more male traits were competitiveness, willingness to intimidate, being opportunistic, and being trusting. Men were significantly more likely than women to describe themselves as opportunistic. The traits of competitiveness, willingness to intimidate, and opportunism suggest a power-oriented or authoritative style, but that style seems characteristic of only a subset of the male chairs. The survey also included one indirect measure of the traits associated with committee leadership style. This was based on a well-regarded “least preferred coworker” (LPC) instrument used by Fiedler () that assesses a person’s underlying predisposition toward task behaviors (e.g., controlling, structuring,
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE
Table 10.3 Gender Differences in Traits Considered Characteristic of One’s Style as Committee Chair Mean Rating
Women
% Rating Factor Extremely Characteristic Men
Women
Men
Traits women chairs rated significantly more characteristic Assertive
4
3.7**
26.9
15.9*
Interpersonal skills
4.1
3.6***
37.3
19.9***
Team-oriented
4.2
3.9*
44
25.8**
Task-oriented
4.2
3.8***
38.8
23.8**
Managerial
3.7
3.4*
24.6
12.6**
Frank and direct
4.3
4.1*
53
38.4*
Traits male chairs rated significantly more characteristic Trusting
3.7
3.9
26.1
30.5
Competitive
3.3
3.5
22.4
21.9
Opportunistic
2.1
2.5**
2.2
4.6**
Willing to intimidate
1.8
2
1.5
4.6
* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001. Significance levels for means are for t-tests for difference of means on independent samples by gender. Significant levels for the ratings of “extremely characteristic” are based on the Pearson’s Chi-square statistic. Note: Committee chairs ranked each trait on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 for “not very characteristic” to 3 for “characteristic” to 5 for “extremely characteristic.”
directing) versus interpersonal behaviors (e.g., supporting, empathy, consideration).6 For example, women who are hard-driving and detached may nonetheless describe themselves as nurturing because of a desire to present themselves in a culturally acceptable light. In completing the LPC instrument, a respondent is asked to think about the most difficult coworker with whom he or she has had to work. Then the respondent rates that coworker on eighteen personality features (kindness, warmth, disposition, openness, etc.) using an -point scale. Negative assessments of a coworker yield a low score, and positive evaluations produce a high score. A high score on the LPC ( or above) is interpreted as an orientation to personal relationships, whereas a low score ( or less) reflects task motivation and is interpreted as a strong need to accomplish tasks. A middle score (– ) indicates a person who is flexible with regard to task and “socio-independent” or less concerned about opinions of others (Fiedler and Garcia , – ). Table . reports the results from the LPC measure as applied to female and male committee chairs. On average, the women chairs were more task-oriented than their male colleagues.7 And, using the three LPC categories, female chairs more
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Table 10.4 Least Preferred Coworker Scores for Committee Chairs (Percentages) Women
Men
Task-motivated (0.63)
55.3
42.7
Middle group (64 to 72)
16.3
17.5
Relationship-motivated (0.73)
28.5
39.9
frequently fell into the task-oriented category. The LPC scores suggest a subtle but distinct difference in women’s emphasis on task orientations compared to men. But the self-assessment of traits and the focus groups and individual interviews on this matter reinforce a dual emphasis on task orientation and interpersonal relations. For example, reflecting on her own eighteen-year career, former Missouri State Representative Kaye Steinmetz emphasized that complex legislative achievements are rarely the work of one person but come about through concerted collaboration with others (personal interview, January , ). In sum, a Colorado legislator noted, “The task orientation is a very different characteristic of women than men. Setting a goal and seeing it through and making sure that everybody else is brought along” (focus group, July , ).
Task Commitment: Key to Success or Potential Barrier?
Clearly, women committee chairs in this study across an array of measures have been shown to have both interpersonal and task orientations to leadership. Contrary to the expectations of some theorists, their task orientation appears to be stronger than their interpersonal orientation. This finding is perhaps not unrelated to the reality that women chairs operate in institutions populated predominantly by men. In the legislative arena, task orientations are expected, and women are judged as good or bad leaders based on these gendered expectations. For example, in the private sphere, Morrison, White, and Van Velsor (, ) assert that executive women combine toughness and femininity and stay within a “narrow band of acceptable behavior” to contradict stereotypes that might imply weakness. In the political sphere, if women are to overcome organizational and structural realities of lesser power (Kanter a), they may have to embrace a task orientation to dispel predispositions that they are less suited than men to leadership. Success in achieving one’s goals generates confidence and builds up the leader’s credit among followers, even reluctant and doubtful ones. By gaining recognition for competence, “the leader can subsequently depart from the group norms and move the group in novel ways, yet still be accepted by the group” (Bass , ). Finally, Goodschild (, cited in Lips ) argues that there are other sound
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reasons to emphasize task accomplishment. She notes that power wielding (i.e., “getting one’s way”) may pose a psychological dilemma for leaders who also highly value getting along with others. She suggests that a focus on “getting the job done” allows the leader to resolve the conflict. In the minds of some experts, a management style combining a high regard for task commitment and sensitivity to interpersonal relationships is ideal (Blake and Mouton ). To the extent that women leaders display both types of leadership emphasis, they may enjoy what Helgesen () calls a “female advantage” in the new postindustrial economy. The emphasis on task, however, may have a potential down side for women political leaders. Consider the comments of former Speaker Jo Ann Davidson () of the Ohio House of Representatives, who sees task commitment as a barrier that keeps women from seeking more powerful leadership positions: “I simply think a lot of it [the lack of women in legislative leadership] has to do with women seeking leadership. If you have ever tried to recruit women to the legislature, you know what I mean. . . . There is a good illustration in the audience today. When I first tried to get her to run for the legislature she was mayor of her community and she had to finish that job. I think many of the women in the legislature came in with an agenda and they have to finish that. They really have not focused as much on seeking leadership positions.” Two Arizona women had a similar experience of being hesitant to pursue an elected leadership office until they finished work on issues in their committees. A third lawmaker from Arizona told of a conversation she had with a younger male colleague: “He said to me, ‘You ought to just run for Congress because you are never going to be in leadership here.’ I have chaired a committee since my second term, and I said to him, ‘You know, maybe I am not going to be in leadership, but I don’t think that is the goal here. The goal is: Are you successful in getting your agenda completed? All the bills that I sponsor, that I care about, I get passed. That is what I am here to do’” (focus group, July , ). These comments suggest that the emphasis on “getting the job done” may prevent or at least temporarily sidetrack women from moving up the political ladder. The evidence presented earlier in this chapter suggests that women are slowly ascending to top leadership positions, yet the continuing underrepresentation of women in legislatures has significant consequences. According to the survey of women legislators by the National Conference of State Legislatures, . percent of the respondents agreed that women feel less included in leadership decisions because “there are not enough women in leadership,” and . percent felt a heightened sense of exclusion because of “too few women legislators.” By similarly large margins, women also agreed that men “forget to include women” ( percent) or “discount women’s advice” (. percent) in leadership decisions. As a result, . percent of women legislators said that they must work harder than their male colleagues to “overcome being outsiders.” What does that harder work
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look like? The short answer is: both task and interpersonal work. By large majorities, women legislators in said they not only do more independent research (. percent) and study legislation in greater detail (. percent) but also spend more time building consensus (. percent) and seeking out all points of view (. percent).
Conclusion
As stated in the introduction to this volume, early research on women in politics painted a picture of marginalization, doubts about effectiveness, overt discrimination, and barriers to success (Diamond ; Kirkpatrick ; Thomas a). Almost thirty years ago, women rarely chaired committees or held any kind of leadership role. This fact led Jeane Kirkpatrick to write that women state legislators “almost all perceive that there are sex-specific limits on how high a woman can rise in the legislative hierarchy” (). Today, women leaders are far more numerous and assertive than their predecessors, but the sense of marginalization remains. And, by large majorities, women legislators acknowledge that their effectiveness and inclusion depends on having women in key positions. With progress toward greater representation presently stalled and the enactment of term limits in some state legislatures, the likelihood of greater proportions of women leaders in state legislatures is uncertain. To counteract obstacles to women’s increased presence among legislative leaders, women must be ready to step up to power. As Kansas Senate Majority Leader Lana Oleen () advocates, women must remind male leadership colleagues of the need to appoint women and encourage women to seek leadership positions. She tells women, “Get tough, get strong, go in and demand it.” In sum, evidence from across the nation indicates that women committee chairs in state legislatures adopt styles that emphasize both getting things done and getting along, but that getting things done predominates. The question remains whether a task orientation will, in the long run, deter more women from getting to the top.
NOTES
. Term limits will limit her speakership to two years, however. . Top leadership refers to the presiding officers and party leaders of each chamber, whatever the exact title used. Not included in the count of top leaders are various whips, caucus chairs, assistant leaders, and deputies. Women are more commonly found in assistant leader positions, as leaders attempt to balance their teams geographically and to reflect party diversity.
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. For a full exposition of gender differences and similarities among state legislative committee chairs, see Rosenthal (). . The survey was sent to all women and a random sample of approximately five hundred men who chaired standing or statutory committees as of March . Completed surveys represent a response rate of percent from women and . percent from men. . The response rate was less than percent, but the respondents as a whole were representative of the party balance, racial and ethnic background, average age, and leadership positions of women in state legislatures. For example, . percent of the respondents were committee chairs and . percent were leaders in their state. State legislative characteristics (i.e., degree of professionalization, states with or without term limits, and women’s representation) were generally representative of the types of institutional settings in which women serve. . For a brief review of the history of the score, its reliability, interpretation, and corroborating and critical research, see Fiedler and Garcia (). . For both male and female committee chairs, the LPC scores fall slightly below the norms established for the scale (Fiedler’s norms: ⫺ ⫻ ⫽ ., s.d. .; committee chairs: ⫺ ⫻ ⫽ ., s.d. . for men; ⫺ ⫻ ⫽ ., s.d. . for women). In other words, as a group, legislators are more task-oriented than other people.
11
Lyn Kathlene
In a Different Voice Women and the Policy Process
■ In this chapter, Lyn Kathlene explores the roots of women’s distinctive legislative attitudes and behaviors and their implications for effectiveness. She shows that both individuals and institutions are influenced by gender and that expectations of proper behavior for each sex affect individual legislative perceptions and choices as well as the structures and rules of institutions that produce public policy. Substantively, Kathlene explores legislative solutions to issues of crime and finds that men are more likely than women to focus on individual criminal actions and personal responsibility, whereas women are more likely to focus on the context of societal opportunities and constraints that precede criminal acts. Consequently, men tend to prefer solutions such as increased sanctions, whereas women prefer a focus on crime prevention and offender rehabilitation. Because institutional rules, norms, and structures have been designed to conform to male models of power and hierarchy — illustrated, for example, by men’s more autocratic interactive legislative style — women are more likely to find resistance to both their policy preferences and their legislative styles. Harkening back to a fundamental theme of this volume, the result is that, for similar levels of success, women legislators often have to devote more time and resources to an issue and thus pay a higher cost than men. ■
Are women really different from men in political office? This is probably the most common question I get asked by students, colleagues, journalists, and friends. The question of difference, however, is deceivingly simple. It masks the complexity that leads us to ponder the impact women have as they make gains in numbers and in positions of power in our male-dominated legislatures. The first difficulty answering the question of women’s difference and impact is that no individual or a group of similar individuals exists independent of the social, economic, and political environment in which they live. Women across the country are not a homogeneous group promoting the women’s agenda, nor are women just like men because our society socializes individuals based on their biological sex (Lips ). There is tremendous diversity among women based on race, class, ethnicity, culture, region of the country, and other factors. At the same time, there 213
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are also important commonalities women share based on the female reproductive reality of pregnancy and birth as well as gendered socialization that has assigned to females such roles as primary caretakers of young children and elderly family members. The second difficulty with empirically determining the impact elected women have in politics stems from the institutional and social constraints within which women work. All organizations are the creation of people. Historically, in this country, white middle- and upper-class males have held the political, economic, and social power. Therefore, only a numerically small portion of the U.S. population has had the authority to define and create our institutions. Consequently, the distribution of power within organizations (see, e.g., Ferguson ; Marshall ; Mumby and Putnam ; Ragins and Sundstrom ; Sheppard ; Sigel ), the formal rules and informal norms that guide daily operations (see, e.g., Acker ; Edelsky ; Ferguson ), and even the design of buildings, layout of interior spaces, and configuration of furniture (Spain ; Weisman ; Kathlene b) are all gendered. Studying how women are changing the policy process (i.e., how issues become public policy problems, how problems are conceptualized, how solutions are crafted, and how legislation gets passed) requires incorporating into our research designs the gendered dimensions of both individuals and institutions. To illustrate the approach, this chapter synthesizes and combines some of my previous research to demonstrate that gendering, in its varied forms, is essentially about power, and that power is differentially distributed among individuals and groups in society (Duerst-Lahti and Kelly b). To analyze the attitudes and behavior of legislatures, I developed attitudinal constructs reflecting gendered orientations applicable to the process of making policy. These constructs guide the analysis in two ways. First, an examination of how state legislators talk about formulating policies, followed by their conceptualization of crime and prison policies reveals how legislators’ attitudinal orientations toward policymaking are gendered and have an impact on both the process and the substance of public policy. Second, an analysis of legislators’ verbal behavior in committee hearings, in the context of the institutional rules and norms of committee procedures, uncovers how the structure of the hearing — the hierarchical power differences among the participants as well as the physical setting of the room—is gendered and, therefore, systematically affects who controls discussion. The combined results of the three types of analysis — discourse analysis of interviews with legislators, content analysis of proposed legislation, and conversation analysis of committee hearing participants— paint a complex picture of how the social construction of gender is embedded in individual legislators’ worldviews and undergirds our legislative institutions. Finally, the implications of these gendered patterns are discussed in terms of democratic procedures and the impact on women’s policy issues.
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Gender, the Individual, and Policy Orientations
Much of the research on women in politics has been spurred by the question, Will elected women bring a feminist agenda into politics? (this assumes elected women will be more likely than men to hold feminist attitudes), or the less precise, though arguably more provocative, query, Do women speak in a different voice? This latter well-worn phrase owes its origin to psychologist Carol Gilligan, whose book is titled the same. Through an examination of how men and women reason about moral dilemmas, Gilligan found that men tend to be more concerned with people interfering with each other’s rights, whereas women concern themselves with the possibility of omission, or of not helping others when possible. The masculine approach is commonly referred to as an “ethic of justice” and the feminine approach as an “ethic of care.” In related research, Belenky et al. () found gender differences in “procedural knowing,” “modes of thinking in which the reasoner constructs or adopts one or more means of ‘obtaining, reflecting on, evaluating, and communicating knowledge’” (Belenky et al. , , quoted in Gallotti et al. , ; see Clinchy ). Women are more likely to rely on “connected knowing” and men on “separate knowing.” Neither reflects superior intellectual function or cognitive abilities (Gallotti et al. ; Knight, Elfenbein, and Martin ). The root of these gender differences has been hypothesized to be sex-based socialization, and Gilligan focuses most heavily on child-rearing practices (Chodorow ), though many other scholars include differential sex-based life experiences (e.g., occupation and family responsibilities) as important determinants. These differences persist despite the fact that educational processes introduce a common training in separate knowing (Knight et al. ). Although Gilligan’s research has been controversial (Nails, O’Loughlin, and Walker ; Hockmeyer ), over time it has generated a wealth of theorizing and testing in the social sciences, including gender studies in political science (Bubeck ; Hekman ; for an overview of the field, see Kenney ; Ritter and Mellow ). For example, empirical research in communication and psychology has found support for the connectedness versus separateness theories of gendered views of the social world (Blankenship and Robson ; Crandall et al. ; Galotti et al. ; Gilligan et al. ; Gilligan, Lyons, and Hammer ; Lang-Takac and Osterweil ; Turner ). My own interest in the policymaking process has been inspired by the possibilities that these theories and empirical findings imply for gender differences in the formulation of public policy generally, not limited only to feminist or women’s issues. Consider what Gilligan’s work implies about elected men and women as decision makers. Adapting her framework to the political process of formulating public policy, I argue that men tend to be more instrumental in their behavior and
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attitudes. Their dominant and relatively independent position and function in society has socialized them to view people as autonomous individuals in a hierarchical, competitive world. People are essentially self-centered and self-serving; therefore, knowledge that is subjective is suspect, whereas objective knowledge is revered. The view of people as self-centered and in competition with each other leads to a strong adherence to the protection of individual rights to guarantee individual freedoms. Hence, men are more likely to solve problems by applying an ethic of justice. Women, on the other hand, approach the world from a more contextual viewpoint. Their subordinate and relatively dependent position and function in society has socialized them to view individuals in connection with each other and society. People’s lives are interdependent, based on a continuous web of relationships. The world is not composed of distinct and separate spheres; thus, women do not tend to view the world in terms of dichotomies. The public sphere is not separate from the private sphere. Subjective knowledge is not superior or necessarily distinct from objective knowledge. Because women see individuals in terms of their symbiotic relationships to each other, women are more likely to be concerned with addressing the interrelated needs of individuals. Women, therefore, are inclined to adopt an ethic of care orientation. Table . summarizes the values and approaches embedded in the attitudinal orientations (for a more detailed discussion of the constructs, see Kathlene ). It is important to remember that the attitudinal constructs describe ideal types in a theoretical world of only two options. Obviously, such a simplification violates the very assumptions of complex interactions and subtle but important gendered behaviors. A more realistic description of a person in a given situation would probably consist of some combination of attributes from the two constructs, whether by an individual’s preference or through external pressure. Nevertheless, the question that arises is whether people, based on their sex, tend to rely more on one approach than the other, especially in a similar context. Table 11.1 Main Attributes of the Attitudinal Orientations Instrumentalism
Contextualism
Views self as autonomous.
Views self in connection with community/ others.
Human interactions are separate and competitive.
Human interactions are part of a continuous web of relationships.
Distinguishes between objective and subjective knowledge; favors objective.
Integrates objective and subjective knowledge; believes both have “bias.”
Main focus is protecting individual’s rights.
Main focus is addressing needs.
Sees the public and private spheres as distinct.
Sees the interaction between the public and private spheres.
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These attitudinal constructs have, in part, guided my analysis and interpretation of data collected from the Colorado statehouse during the regular legislative session. Colorado has long been among the states with the highest proportion of elected women in state legislatures. During , Colorado ranked fifth among the fifty states in the number of women elected to state government, with percent (twenty-two out of sixty-five) seated in the House and percent (seven out of thirty-five) in the Senate (CAWP ). As is the case in most bicameral state legislatures, far more women were serving in the Colorado House than in the Senate, both in numbers and in percentage of the chamber. This project focuses exclusively on the House because of the greater number of women there. The following analyses rely on subsets of several distinct but related databases: interviews with sixty-one of the then sixty-five state legislators; the content of all proposed bills in ; and taped and transcribed committee hearing debates of sixty-eight bills introduced in the House at that time. The research design triangulates multiple simultaneous databases and multiple methodologies (Hakim ) to capture a complex picture of legislators working within the constraints of social and institutional gendered conventions. Using the attitudinal constructs and assumptions derived from the constructs, I expect to find that women and men have differing conceptualizations of and behaviors toward formulating policy. Specific to the following analysis, the constructs suggest that, given women’s world of interrelationships: . Women will formulate policy differently because they will see a problem as affecting many people and groups and will take into account a broad range of information sources when making policy. . Women will conceptualize some policy issues in different terms from men. In explaining their position, the language they use may either be misunderstood (because the men have an alternative conceptualization) or discounted as tangential to the relevant policy problem and solution. Women may encounter resistance that thwarts passage of their bills. Both of these propositions reveal that bringing women into the political arena is not as simple as changing issue priorities. Although women will bring a heightened sensitivity and interest in women’s issues (Barrett ; Carey, Niemi, and Powell ; Clark ; Thomas , a, ), the differences between men and women are likely to be more profound than simply relegating them to issue areas. Women may approach women’s issues not just more often than men, but from an unconventional standpoint. If women define women’s issues as policyrelevant because they see the issue from a broader perspective that includes public action, it may not be the women’s issue that men reject but the conceptualization of the public and private spheres (Duerst-Lahti a, b; Kenney ). Of course, this can be true for many policy areas, not just women’s issues.
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And overcoming this institutionalized conceptual bias requires more than increasing the number of women (Duerst-Lahti b; Thomas forthcoming). If women see the world as webs of interrelationships composed of myriad legitimate needs rather than competing claims of differing levels of importance, women will be more inclined to include men’s conceptualization of the problem (as another equally legitimate concern) than vice versa (because men have elevated certain claims and dismissed others). Hence, women’s approaches may be undermined or transformed in the legislative process. In short, sex as understood in the gender framework produces a complicated picture of legislative decision making.
Gendered Approaches to Formulating Policy Sources of Information
An important aspect of policy formulation is the initial research a legislator engages in before drafting a bill. Research involves the use of a variety of information sources that will influence and mold the proposed legislation. Sources can include people — constituents, fellow legislators, local politicians, staff personnel, professionals, citizens, and friends. Sources also can be items of data, such as previous research, reports, books, articles, and laws in other states or countries. One indicator of a contextual versus an instrumental approach to policymaking is the number and variety of sources a legislator uses to keep informed in general and to formulate a particular bill. More resources represent a contextual orientation, which recognizes the complexity of the environment and the need to integrate many sources of information to incorporate as many of the affected and interested people as possible. This style, also referred to as “connected knowing,” values tolerance and understanding and allows for flexibility to best address a problem (Galotti et al. ). In contrast, an instrumental approach relies more heavily on fewer information sources, most likely the ones that are viewed as more politically legitimate, more objective. For example, experts will be highly valued. The use of fewer select resources arises from the notion that problems stem from separate and competitive claims; hence the reliance on people deemed most directly knowledgeable in the area of interest, but not necessarily those most affected. Galotti et al. confirm that the construct of separate knowing (instrumentalism) values knowers who are authoritative, analytical, demanding, and critical. In two separate sets of interviews with Colorado state legislators (Kathlene , ), I found gender differences in the number and types of resources used to develop legislative bills. Table . reports descriptive statistics on resource range, mean, and mode (if any) of the number of responses by sex, party identification, age, and freshman status in the legislature. The mean and mode are both statistical measures that indicate where the bulk of scores lie in a distribution.
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Table 11.2 Number of Different Resources Reported by Colorado Legislators When Developing Public Policies, by Sex, Party,Age, and Freshman Status Category
N
Range
Mean
Mode
t
Interview Study 1: 1985 Legislative Session, n = 10 Female Male
5 5
4–8 2–6
5.8 3.4
6 3
2.53**
Democrat Republican
3 7
2–8 3–6
5.3 4.3
— 3
0.75
⬍ 45 years old ⬎ 45 years old
5 5
3–8 2–6
4.8 5.4
3 6
0.32
Freshman Second⫹ term
5 5
2–8 3–8
5 4.2
6 —
0.59
Interview Study 2: 1989 Legislative Session, n = 20 Female Male
8 12
4 – 10 2–8
6.9 5.4
7 4
1.85*
Democrat Republican
8 12
2 – 10 4–8
6.4 5.8
7 4
0.74
⬍ 45 years old > 45 years old
7 13
2–8 4 – 10
5.7 6.2
6 7
⫺0.50
Freshman Second⫹ term
4 16
5–7 2 – 10
6.3 5.9
7 4
0.30
* = Statistically significant at p ⬍ 0.10. ** = Statistically significant at p ⬍ 0.05.
The mean is an arithmetic average calculated by dividing the sum of the number of resources mentioned by the number of legislators; the mode reports the most frequently reported number of resources. A small sample t-test of sample means is used to determine if there are statistically significant differences within the categories. The range and mode are helpful in understanding the t-test significance levels because both provide information about the distribution not readily apparent in the mean. In both sets of interviews, only sex is statistically significant; party, generational age, and terms in the legislature were not significant predictors of the number of resources mentioned. Sex differences were even greater in an examination of who, which groups, and what types of informational sources are used. Table . lists six categories of resource nouns legislators used when formulating bills. Of the fifty-five different resources, only thirteen ( percent) were common words used by women and men. These distinct vocabularies indicate that women and men are relying on different resources when formulating policy, which suggests that they may have different approaches to conceptualizing policy problems and researching solutions. For example, men claim that they became aware of
Table 11.3 Six Categories of Resource Nouns Mentioned by Legislators, 1989 Session Used by Females and Males
Used by Females Only
Used by Males Only
General Population consitituent(s, cy, cies)
citizen(s)
advisors
people
community
client
country
consultants
district
experts
parents
industry
world
some(one, body)
Political (Elected) DA (public defenders)
city council(men) county commissioners leaders legislators mayor(s)
Political (Not Elected) groups(s)
private attorneys
police officers
lobbyist(s)
organizations
insurance commissioner
judges
social workers
special interests
meeting(s)
legislative council staff
Government/Private Organizations department
public officials
NSCL
social services
agencies
state(s) Personal Experience myself
husband
relatives
personal experience Studies/Media articles
history
letters
news/papers(s)
issue statements
policy
magazines
problems
research
radio situations statutes stuff television
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policy problems more often through experts and political persons with specialized knowledge. In contrast, women became aware of problems more through general information sources covering the full range of political geography, from their district to the world. Note that only women talked about receiving information from local and state political leaders. And even though both men and women spoke about their reliance on lobbyists, for women, lobbyists were more an unfortunate fact of legislative life, whereas for men lobbyists were seen as a highly valued and essential resource. Moreover, an examination of resource usage by party affiliation revealed that men in both parties were more similar to each other than they were to their women copartisans. Whether Democrats or Republicans, women used a wider variety of resources outside the legislative institution than the males in their own party. Policy Study: Alternative Views of Crime
Do these orientations in legislators’ general approach to developing public policy apply to and affect their individual deliberations on specific policy problems and possible solutions? In a study examining how forty-seven legislators talked about the problem of crime (Kathlene a), I found that men tended to see criminals as autonomous individuals responsible for choosing a life of crime. Women, on the other hand, tended to see criminals as people interacting in the context of societal opportunities, especially the lack of equal opportunities (i.e., access to healthy families, adequate education, economic prospects) and the lifelong processes that foster criminal behavior. These differences were significant even when I took party into account. Gendered viewpoints on the origins of crime are directly related to their proposed policy solutions. Because men focus on the crime event, the policy questions they ponder are more narrowly concentrated on how to improve the administrative aspects of the criminal justice system or the prison system, how to keep criminals off the streets, and how to make criminals take responsibility for their behavior. Women’s view of crime as a lifetime process led to broader policy questions, including how to prevent people from turning to a life of crime and how to make the criminal a functioning part of society after incarceration. The thirty crime and prison bills introduced in the Colorado session revealed these same gendered views. Men focused on legal proceedings (such as rules regarding new evidence in criminal court cases), expanding existing laws to include new crimes, and increasing penalties in existing criminal law. These crime bills, with their legal focus ( percent) and get-tough-on-crime approach, parallel the men’s discussion and policy recommendations in the interviews. Women, too, sponsored legal changes ( percent) such as stricter sentencing, but this was not their predominant focus. In fact, only women dealt with crime through prevention and intervention strategies—approaches that mirror their discussion of
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the relationship between society and criminal behavior. What of success rates? Only percent of women’s crime bills became law compared with percent of the men’s bills. In particular, all of the women’s intervention and prevention bills were postponed indefinitely. Although it may be pure sexism that prevented women’s bills from becoming law, a more likely explanation stems from the hypothesis that women’s contextual orientation resulted in a broader conception of crime, one that was at odds with the instrumental institutionalized discourse. Hence, women’s policy approaches may be less understood or appreciated and may be seen as tangential to the problem at hand.
Gender, the Political Process, and Policy Outcomes
Gendered views of policy problems manifested at the individual level are complicated by gendered institutional arrangements and gendered social dynamics. Gender is a fundamental category of organization in nearly all societies (though how gender is constructed differs across societies); thus, it manifests itself in the behavior and expectations of () an individual, () individuals interacting with one another, () the rules and norms guiding organizations or institutions, and () societal arrangements and opportunities (Ragins and Sundstrom ). Discovering that elected women and men have, for example, different orientations toward developing legislation is but the first, and perhaps the least complicated, level of documenting and understanding the effects of gender on politics. Individuals in the legislative arena must be able to act on their convictions, Yet, there is ample evidence that elected men and women are not equally situated with respect to political power—even when they are institutional equals (e.g., hold the same positions, such as chairing a committee). Moreover, women, whether they are , , or percent of an organization, work within the larger confines of gendered institutions and socially prescribed roles. Simply increasing the number of women in the workplace does not bring about gender equality. In fact, Yoder () demonstrates that as women obtain more than a token presence in highly masculinized occupations, the work environment becomes more, not less, resistant to increasing numbers of women, a phenomenon Yoder labels the “intrusiveness” effect. This effect may have to do with men seeing competition from women as a heightened threat as the proportion of women in the organization rises. Yoder’s assessment has serious implications for women in politics. Few social and occupational domains are more masculinized than politics (e.g., Duerst-Lahti b; Kenney ; Nelson ; Rosenthal ; Rosenthal, Jones, and Rosenthal ; Thomas a). Because individual power and influence over policymaking occurs mainly in legislative committees and subcommittees, women may face barriers previously underappreciated.
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Gendered Verbal Dynamics in Committee Hearings
In the legislative setting, individuals (and therefore groups) exert influence primarily through two methods: appointments to powerful positions and assignments to and participation in committees. Theoretically, in a gender-neutral institution, all committee chairs have the power to set the agenda and guide committee discussions. If women have more interest in certain types of issues, as research on their legislative priorities, sponsorship of bills, and voting records reflect (Barrett ; Carey, Niemi, and Powell ; Clark ; Dodson and Carroll ; Thomas and Welch ; Thomas , a, ; Saint-Germain ), or if women have gendered conceptualizations of policy problems (Dodson ; J. Dolan ; Kedrowski and Sarow ; Levy et al. ; Norton ; Thomas a; Walsh ), as the examination of resources and views of crime indicates, then, in an equitable setting, female committee chairs have opportunities to imprint their concerns while directing hearings. Similarly, if committees are composed of some critical mass of women, then the effects of tokenism and marginalization should be reduced (Kanter a), allowing women to join freely in the debate on bills. Additionally, research on leadership styles has found that women tend to lead and manage more democratically, and men tend to be more autocratic (Eagly and Johnson ; Rosenthal ; Sloan and Krone ; Whicker and Jewell ). Women’s style of leadership may bring unexpected changes to legislative policymaking beyond gendered conceptualizations of policy problems to a change in the process of policy deliberation. But gender affects more than just the individuals who occupy the legislature. The institution itself is gendered through the rules, norms, and expectations about how business should proceed. In our society, this gendering is also inextricably linked to power. Institutional structures, such as legislatures, embody and reward instrumental orientations and behavior while implicitly and explicitly devaluing, limiting, or marginalizing contextualism. If women are more likely to bring a contextual mode of thinking and acting into a masculinized arena, we cannot expect a transformation or even an easy integration of a feminized perspective into existing institutions (Duerst-Lahti b; Thomas forthcoming). Indeed, understanding gender as a power construct that interacts at the individual, institutional, and societal levels suggests that women chairs—even when, or maybe especially when, they bring a more contextualized understanding of problems and lead the committee more democratically—may not receive the same respect or have the same influence over committee hearings as men (Thomas ). Similarly, Yoder’s () work suggests that the more feminized a committee becomes through increases in the proportion of women legislators at a hearing, the more overt will be the men’s resistance to women’s presence. Recent research on token levels of women in state legislatures finds that as the presence of women rises to-
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ward non-token status, women’s ability to make a policy difference is lessened (Crowley ). The purpose of legislative committee hearings is to discuss a bill, allowing proponents and opponents to put forth their evidence and arguments for or against the proposal. Examining the conversational dynamics of individuals participating in committee hearings is one important way to determine whether asymmetrical gender power dynamics exist in the process of formulating public policy. To determine who holds the floor in legislative committee hearings, . hours of committee discussion with speakers acting in one of four positions (chair, committee member, sponsor, witness) were taped, transcribed, coded, and analyzed (Kathlene ). Following is a summary of the results. Committee Chairs
The position of a participant is important in terms of the institutional power conferred on her or him. By virtue of their task to run a hearing, committee chairs are the most institutionally powerful participants. In terms of verbal interactions, chairs have the ability to speak without waiting for acknowledgment. Their verbal contributions to the discussion can range from serving as a facilitator to limiting other speakers by cutting them off, not calling on them, or dismissing or bolstering their remarks. Additionally, more successfully than other participants, committee chairs can bring their personal agendas to hearings. For example, a chairperson may have an underlying ideological position on the proper role of government that influences how she or he will conduct the meeting—the length of time allotted for hearing the bill as well as the tactics discussed above—which serves to either encourage or impede a bill’s passage. The analysis found that men and women chairs differed significantly in terms of their speaking behavior. Women chairing committees spoke less, took fewer turns, and made fewer interruptions than their male counterparts. This suggests that men and women have different leadership styles. Male chairs, beyond taking the floor away from speakers through interruptions, influenced and controlled committee hearings by offering substantive comments more than female chairs. In one out of six turns, men interjected personal opinions or guided the committee members and witnesses to a topic of their interest. Men used their position to control hearings in ways we commonly associate with positional power and leadership. Conversely, rather than interjecting their own opinions, women used their position of power to facilitate discussion among committee members, the sponsor, and witnesses. This gendered approach to leadership is illustrated by a School Choice bill being considered by the Education Committee, which was chaired by a woman. After several hours of testimony and debate in which the chair acted as a moderator only, she temporarily stopped the proceedings and asked the vice chair to take
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over the hearing. Handing the new chair her gavel, she explained that she could no longer remain silent on the topic. By stepping down from her leadership position in the hearing, she felt free to join in the debate. Formally and symbolically, she gave up the position of institutional power to control the hearing because she could no longer act neutrally on the topic. This gendered approach to chairing committees was demonstrated repeatedly in the conversation analysis of the twelve hearings in which women chairs refrained from making substantive remarks. On the other hand, men chairing committees freely entered the debate. Did these gendered leadership styles differentially affect the gendered participation rates of committee members and witnesses? Clearly, they affect witnesses. For committee members, the dynamics are complicated by interactions between the sex of the sponsor, the percentage of females present at the hearing, and the policy issue area. Witnesses
In hearings chaired by a woman, witnesses began speaking earlier because chairs tended to move directly to witness testimony. Men chairing committees tended to delay witness testimony through substantive questioning of sponsors, especially female sponsors, during the introduction of their bills. Male witnesses appearing before female chairs or during hearings on family bills (a traditional women’s issue area) demonstrated heightened verbal aggressiveness through their use of interruptions — most notably, male witnesses interrupting female chairs. This breach of positional power suggests that male witnesses sometimes discriminate against women, including when women are in power and when women’s traditional interests are being discussed. Gender overrides position power, and the pattern persists in other dynamics. Regardless of who chaired the committee, female witnesses opposed to a bill had significantly less opportunity to participate in hearings than male witnesses opposed to a bill. Female citizens (i.e., nonexperts) spoke less than male citizens, who were asked more questions by committee members. Although we might expect that citizens and witnesses opposed to bills would receive fewer opportunities to participate, this was the case only for females. Among the less politically connected witnesses, there appears to be a significant gender credibility gap. Male bureaucrats were engaged by committee members through questioning significantly more often than female bureaucrats. So, even among the more politicized witnesses, there were gender differences. Committee Members
Unlike witnesses, who must wait for their initial turn and subsequent requests for comments, committee members are relatively free to engage in discussion at any point in time. Women committee members, on average, waited until more than
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two-thirds of hearings were over before they uttered their first words. Men engaged halfway through hearings. Men spoke longer and took more turns, and men made and encountered more interruptions than did women committee members. The proportion of female legislators at the hearing and the sex of the chair and of the sponsor of the bill all affect the verbal participation of committee members. As women made up greater proportions of the committee, men become significantly more vocal. This supports Yoder’s intrusiveness theory. Similarly, male committee members engaged earlier than female committee members when the sponsor of the bill was a woman. An examination of the transcripts reveals that male committee members asked questions of female sponsors immediately after introductions, and more male committee members engaged witnesses testifying on female-sponsored bills early in questioning, regardless of the proportion of women at the hearing. Both behaviors tended to be absent when men sponsored bills. In other words, females, but not males, in positions of importance had their ideas scrutinized by rank-and-file men. Neutralizing Gender Power
The conversation analysis of committee hearings suggests that women legislators, despite their numerical and positional gains, may be seriously disadvantaged in committee hearings. These findings are not surprising given our culture and the social construction of male power. Perhaps most disturbing are the results that substantiate Yoder’s thesis of intrusiveness, which posits that men become more verbally aggressive and conversationally dominant as the proportion of women in an organization increases. Does this leave us with no hope that women can participate equally with men in the near future? Perhaps, but again, other research in gender and nonverbal actions in group conversations indicate simple methods for neutralizing gender power. Seating arrangement, such as whether males and females are grouped together or interspersed, may be a powerful factor in verbal behavior (Swann ). Given the importance of political friendships (Caldeira and Patterson ) and women legislators’ reports that they tend to find other women more friendly toward them (Blair and Stanley b), perhaps women on committees would speak earlier and more often if they sat next to each other. In addition, other research has found that women are more aware of and responsive to nonverbal social and emotional cues (Buck et al. ; Eakins and Eakins ; Wiley and Eskilson ), suggesting that if the hearing table were shaped so that women could make visual contact with each other, their verbal activity might increase. To address these speculations, a cluster analysis was performed that took into account the nonlinguistic features of a hearing. As the literature suggested, when women sat next to each other and/or could see each other (as in the case of a V-shaped table), women were more active participants in the committee hear-
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ings. Without this arrangement, women’s voices were significantly muted (Kathlene a). In sum, on the basis of the results of these two conversation analyses, women legislators are disadvantaged by asymmetrical gender power, which defies the group advantages that should accrue as the proportion of women increases in our legislatures. These power imbalances can be neutralized somewhat, however, by employing the following three strategies: . First and foremost, women committee members should sit next to at least one other woman. . A woman sponsor concerned about having a gender-balanced treatment of her bill should attempt to have a woman chair the hearing. The alternative, having a woman-sponsored bill heard in a committee chaired by a man, received the most unbalanced gender treatment. . Women should seat themselves so they have eye contact with other women. Discussion
Do women speak in a different voice? Yes, in important, albeit often subtle, ways, women bring a gendered perspective to the development of public policy. In their pursuit to learn about problems, women in Colorado saw themselves serving, responding, and being connected to a wider range of people and groups than men did. We might expect women to bring nontraditional sources into the political arena based simply on their different social experiences. Yet, these different sources can also be understood as the result of differing attitudinal orientations toward the range of affected people and groups that need to be considered in policy formulation. That men relied on more traditionally political and expert sources is not simply a function of their more professional network but also their propensity to evaluate and separate important from unimportant sources. Obviously, the two notions of experience and attitudes are intertwined, but to understand these differing behaviors based solely on the networks of resources women and men have developed and not on their gendered attitudes about the social world leads to different conclusions. If the differences are the result of sexbased networks, we should not necessarily see women and men differing on the evaluation of and solutions to policy problems. Yet, women and men did address criminal policy in very different terms. Women emphasized the societal link to crime, which led them to speak about long-term preventive strategies as well as intervention measures. Men emphasized individual responsibility, which led them to propose stricter sentencing and increased prison space. These gender differences in the evaluation of criminal behavior are congruent with the differences
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found in legislative resources and information-gathering activities. In both cases, women approach the issue from a broader, interconnected perspective. The use of more resources and the propensity to activate contact with people can be understood in terms of women’s role as the caretakers of relationships. It is precisely this relationship perspective that leads women to see crime problems as part of a lifelong issue: problems stemming from early childhood experiences, poor education, and a lack of opportunities in adulthood. Women tended to see the criminal as a person who is both a victim of circumstances and a perpetrator of a crime. Women’s solutions, then, were multifaceted and long term. Men tended to have a more bounded view, both of the sources of information that were valuable (in terms of the categories of sources they relied on) and in their less active approach to gathering information. Useful sources were typically the traditional sources that were already part of the legislative environment. Thus, men did not need to participate in bringing together diverse groups because they acted within the bounds of the legislative status quo. Men’s valuation of particular sources over other sources can be seen in both their reliance on and their actions to acquire certain information. Along the same lines, men expressed a more bounded definition of crime. They talked about criminals in terms of the crime itself rather than as people in society. Their tendency to recommend and sponsor bills that responded directly to the crime event is more evidence that men tend to see the world as comprising distinct actions related to the event itself. Thus, men did not tend to talk about or sponsor legislation that addressed crime from a long-term perspective; rather, they sponsored legislation that responded directly to the crime event. Can women’s different voice change the legislative process? The answer to this question is complex. The examination of verbal dynamics in committee hearings revealed the power dimensions of gender, which complicate women’s direct impact on the process, especially women committee members and witnesses. Nevertheless, women chairing committees demonstrated a gendered leadership style by their tendency to act as facilitators of committee hearings. The importance of a more democratic leadership style cannot be overstated; committee hearings in state legislatures are usually the first public airing and discussion of a proposed policy. When women control the dialogue at this point in the process they increase the probability that policies will be designed with the needs and realities of target populations and the public in mind. But, as this chapter has shown, it is usually men who control the policy debate early in the process. This has special significance for all public policy, but it is especially disconcerting for issues in which women have a special stake. If male chairpersons have a propensity to interrupt speakers and choose the topics to be discussed, women’s issues will probably not receive a fair or informed hearing. If rank-and-file men are impelled to take the floor from women when women sponsor bills or on issues that heavily affect women, then women’s imprint on the policy process will be undermined.
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The existence of women’s different voice stems from a complex socialization process that affects the process of formulating policy. The nuanced ways in which women think differently from men about societal problems speaks to the important impact gender can and does have on public policy. But a different voice is not easily integrated into existing gendered institutions (Duerst-Lahti b; Thomas forthcoming). One solution is to become aware of how these individual and institutional gender processes work to devise workable strategies for circumventing barriers to equitable participation. Strategic reforms of both formal processes (e.g., selection of committee chairs) and informal practices (e.g., verbal appreciation extended to citizen witnesses) can transform the culture and opportunities in legislative bodies. Duerst-Lahti also proposes that obstacles to women’s full participation in institutions happens at the most mundane levels (e.g., location of the women’s bathroom, size of furniture), and changing these circumstances leads to women’s increased visibility and legitimacy. Similarly, as described in this research, the shape of a hearing table and the pairing of women legislators at the table brings increased verbal engagement to committee hearings. Women legislators as committee members and in leadership positions have begun to create formal and informal opportunities, thereby taking the necessary steps toward equalizing gender power and bringing a different voice into the policymaking process.
12
Georgia Duerst-Lahti
Institutional Gendering Theoretical Insights into the Environment of Women Officeholders
■ In this chapter, Georgia Duerst-Lahti provides an in-depth explanation of the meaning of gendered political processes and institutions—and their effect on political women. She notes, as do Debra L. Dodson and Lyn Kathlene in their chapters, that gender adheres not just to individuals but also to the institutions to which they belong and the rules that govern those institutions. In male-dominant gendered environments, such as legislatures, structures and behaviors that conform to the male norm are rewarded. To the extent that women’s preferences are distinctive, they are likely to be devalued and attenuated. Hence, as Duerst-Lahti makes clear, not only is women’s presence in political institutions modest as a result of gendered political environments (including campaigns and elections), but their roads to success tend to be different and unequal to men’s. Duerst-Lahti concludes by calling for “thinking hard about the ways masculine preferences advantage men in ‘ordinary’ norms and practices, and rewriting formal and informal elements of the environment so that feminale [the quality of being female] preferences can be added.” ■
Studies of women in elective office, not surprisingly, usually rely on gynocentric analysis. That is, they focus on women, start from women’s point of view and assumptions, and keep women in the center of the analysis. To gain a sense of what is distinctive about women, quite commonly, elected women are compared to elected men. Such research now has a long tradition and much is known about sex differences between women and men in office. Other research goes beyond the people involved to study gender itself, which is the approach used in this chapter. Sex difference research becomes gender research when the specific cultural contexts driving differences are examined in conjunction with the conditions and dynamics that give meaning to individual females and males, thereby making them men and women who meet, or fail to meet, the expectations or norms of a given situation. At the individual level, gender can be viewed as the cultural codes and constraints that are expected of people as they “perform” gender daily. One 230
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part of gender analysis important to this book involves “gender transformations” (Walby ), or the many changes that occur as society alters its view about the proper roles for each sex. With respect to politics, because gender changes continue to occur with each election cycle, new findings continually emerge, making gender research dynamic and exciting. Gender analysis takes place at other levels also, including analysis of institutions and ideologies. Institutional analysis is possible because gender is performed (Butler , ): it is something people “do” (West and Zimmerman ). As such, gender becomes a set of practices that can manifest in many settings and is not limited to human bodies. Gender is attributed to the way something is done, such as “throwing a ball like a girl” or “taking a hit like a man,” processes that can be done by either males or females. Certain jobs continue to have gender associations: secretaries are assumed to be female and engineers are assumed to be male, even though nothing requires women to perform clerical work or men to be engineers. Similarly, gender can become associated with and embedded in organizations and institutions (Acker , ; Alvesson and Billings ; Hearn et al. ; Mills and Tancred ; Katzenstein ). The study of gender and political organizations and institutions began with feminist critiques of bureaucracy (Ferguson ; Stivers ) and other aspects of the executive branch (Guy ; Hale and Kelly ; Newman and Guy ) and has expanded to research on legislatures (e.g., Thomas a; Rosenthal , ; Kathlene ), as well as research on gender in governing institutions and the electoral environment more generally (Duerst-Lahti and Kelly a; Kenney ; Kann , ; Sanbonmatsu a). Organizations and institutions become gendered, in part, due to associations between gender and an organization’s function. For example, the military is commonly associated with masculinity, and day care with femininity. Gendered organizations also make sense because of the sociodemographics of the people who founded, populated, and developed them over time. In the process, organizations and institutions create formal and informal structures, rules, norms, and practices in response to the “preferences” of their founders and most influential incumbents throughout their histories (March and Olsen ). In an ideological fashion, whether or not it is noticed as such, these incumbents also set the terms of power relations according to those preferences. These preferences inevitably advantage those who are in a position to set them precisely because rationally people prefer that which is comfortable and favorable to them. Political institutions prove “remarkably sticky” to remnants of their past ( Jillson and Wilson ). Because men established U.S. political institutions, masculine preferences framed founding debates and decisions. With centuries of masculine domination of political institutions, masculinity is both embedded in and associated with politics. Not surprisingly, politics has been known as “a man’s game.” Women, therefore, enter politics marked as outsiders who operate in contrast to
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the norm. Nonetheless, women’s entrance into politics has grown since women’s suffrage in and certainly since the second wave of feminism in approximately . And women’s participation has resulted in gender transformations. These changes—and the gender remnants in the political environment—have consequences for two closely related outcomes of democracy: women’s representation and female officeholders’ effectiveness in political institutions. As the introduction to this volume notes, women’s representation and the capacity for women to be effective as elected officials also have implications for the quality of democracy. This chapter steps back from the focus on women (and men) in office to consider the gendering of the electoral environment and its institutions. Such analysis is necessary to understand the ways gender structures of opportunity, resources, and results privilege or disadvantage those in the political environment. Undertaking this mode of analysis is critical because democratic equality is a fundamental principle of the U.S. system of government.
Gender in the Political Environment
Because gender always occurs in a context, mapping elements of the political environment is a necessary starting point. Figure . illustrates the nested nature of the environment for an individual woman in office. She holds an office, which is
Global and National Culture Hegemonic Ideologies and Belief Systems Citizenry—Voters Gatekeepers—Political Elites Government—Other Institutions Legislature Office
Person
Figure 12.1. Elements of the electoral environment.
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itself an enterprise within a political institution, such as a legislature. Both the office and the institution come with their own history, traditions, norms, and expectations. The institution is part of the governmental system, a system that involves other governing institutions (executive, judiciary) and interacts with extragovernmental entities such as political parties, interest groups, and the media. The electoral elements of the governing system are accessed through gatekeepers who, as insiders, control resources, opportunities, and electoral processes. These gatekeepers perform formal and informal functions at many levels and, in the broadest sense of the term, are political elites. The gates these insiders keep separate citizens and voters from officeholders inside the system. Gatekeepers also help regulate who is recruited and ultimately emerges as a candidate for office, as well as who is understood to be a viable candidate. The citizenry and voters come to know the electoral environment through exposure to and adoption of related belief systems. These belief systems include political ideologies, which compete for hegemonic advantage. Both beliefs and ideologies shape citizens’ ideas about what is right, just, proper, good, and, perhaps most important, normal in the electoral environment. Dominant ideologies become largely invisible because their premises and dictates become ordinary even as they shape the politics of who gets what, when, and how. Beliefs and ideologies themselves are embedded in the larger national culture, with its customs, traditions, symbols, signifiers, and material conditions. The individual officeholder thus operates inside an electoral environment predicated on widely understood cultural patterns and ideological views that shape her beliefs and those of the citizens she represents, even as she, too, shapes collective belief structures (McClintock ). She also contends with politically elite gatekeepers and myriad processes related to the electoral dimensions of the governmental system. All of these institutions are, of course, populated by incumbents, who themselves are people who lead gendered lives within the norms of culture. This system, the institutions, and the positions have been shaped by culture and ideology even as incumbents continually make changes to them. These elements constitute the political environment in which women’s representation occurs. It is also the environment in which female officeholders strive to be effective leaders and representatives. Why the Political Environment Matters
Good representation is a central concern of scholars, politicians, and citizens. Leading scholars of American political institutions James March and Johan Olsen (, especially – ) are concerned with assessing “real political institutions” so that they function as “appropriate instruments of democracy” capable of producing democratic equality. Yet, most scholars treat their subject matter as though it has nothing to do with gender. This gender blindness, whether deliberate or a
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product of successful hegemonic ideology, results in scholarship that cannot accurately analyze the conditions under which female officeholders undertake representation. Nor can it adequately assess the quality of women’s representation. In , men still have enormous empirical advantages in the electoral environment: they have held every presidency and vice presidency in history, the top posts in both major political parties, about percent of Congress, percent of state legislatures, and percent of governorships. Gender analysis must be applied to elections, officeholders, and political institutions because the political environment is so skewed toward men, both historically and currently. The very instruments of democracy themselves—electoral processes and extant institutions—prefer men over women. Hence, they cannot be the “guarantors of political equality” that March and Olsen () say democratic institutions must be. To be fully representative, democratic institutions must create and sustain a heterogeneity of preferences and a structure of preferences and processes that “prevents any one group from being permanently disadvantaged ” (, emphasis added). It is clear that women have, thus far, been “permanently disadvantaged” with respect to presence in elections and in public office. Choices by men who have controlled U.S. political power and the electoral environment heretofore have therefore created a permanent disadvantage for women. Despite some weakening of this phenomenon, news accounts and campaign strategy alike demonstrate that women are still considered a novelty as political representatives (Ondercin and Welch in this volume; Bystrom ). Further, the political interests of women, the majority, are relegated to the status of special interests. Continuing this status requires a powerful, and largely invisible, ideology. That ideology, which has functioned as the dominant ideology, is masculinism (Connell ). As a result, the gendering of the electoral environment produces atmospheric discrimination against women and structures that entrench male privilege. Under such conditions, even when women win a place in the institutions, they are faced with a catch- dilemma: they can perform the masculine better than males and in the process reinforce the masculinist preferences that make it hard for them to succeed, or they can remain outsiders and face enormous challenges to being effective. The necessary but insufficient first step toward resolving this dilemma is to agree that gender in the electoral environment and its institutions is worthy of debate and attention (Katzenstein ). This necessitates recognizing the ways gendering manifests in the U.S. political environment and developing fruitful analyses of gendering processes. For this environment to produce political equality, many more rounds of gender transformation will need to occur. Gender analysis can guide this change. Although nothing short of equalized gender power will be sufficient, to get to that condition, one must start by acknowledging and considering the deeply embedded ideology that successfully masks its own advantage.
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Gender as Proto- and Compounded Political Ideology
Masculinism has long functioned as an ideology that has structured the political environment. Few Americans know the term “masculinism,” although many recognize “feminism” as being both gendered and ideological. “Patriarchy” is a term that is more widely known, but it evokes notions of the patriarchal monarchy against which the American colonies rebelled. Patriarchy also has several meanings, leading to “patriarchal confusions” (Pateman , ). A political system that favors men is more accurately called viriarchy (Waters ). Masculinism more readily captures the complex sense of advantage to masculinity in its many manifestations. Masculinism has a concomitant in female-derived ideologies, feminalism, a term derived from the Old French word feminal, which the dictionary defines as “the quality of being female.” This term has advantages over the more familiar term for gendered ideology, feminism, because not all women are feminists. Further, many who do not claim feminism for themselves ardently claim to be prowoman. The distinction concerns different views about what is best for women in structuring power arrangements and allocating resources. Unlike feminism, then, feminalism is able to capture the range of ideologies associated with females, much as masculinism does for ideologies associated with males. It also improves on another possible term, feminism, because femininity derives from the socially constructed concept of woman, whereas feminality follows from the body, so it functions as a better platform for theorizing (Eisenstein ).1 Although feminalism has not enjoyed the power and influence of masculinism, it has long stood in opposition and as a counterpoint (Kann ), whether as exemplified by Abigail Adams and her famous plea to “remember the ladies” or by women in the abolition movement, suffragists, temperance or peace or civil rights activists, women liberationists, contemporary feminists, or pro-woman conservatives. The central point is this: if we are ever to achieve gender equality, we need to theorize about it first (Ferguson ). The concept of feminalism enables this thinking. Masculinism also operates as a proto-ideology that serves as the foundation for the governing ideologies long seen as the only political ideologies (Duerst-Lahti a, b). Proto-ideologies serve as parent ideologies. They are the foundational ideologies that give rise to other, often less comprehensive, ideologies. Like all successful ideologies, seeing masculinism function requires deliberate analysis. Given the way gender ideology works, as Judith Lorber () explains, we tend to “see what we believe” with gender. Like all political ideologies, masculinism makes judgments about human nature and its potential and problems, allocates power and resources accordingly, and devises a plan to implement that judgment and allocation (Hoover ). In this case, proponents of masculinism determined that men had the potential to
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govern, so allocated power to them and established institutions according to their preferences (Sapiro ; Holland ). Despite ongoing opposition from such theorists as Harriett Taylor, John Stuart Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Emma Goldman, only relatively recent liberation ideologies included women as equal, and then sometimes more in word than deed. Regardless of whether men favored conservative ideology, liberalism, Marxism, or some other ideology, one common feature of all has been the allocation and control of the public sphere, political power, and public resources to men. All versions of common ideologies about governing largely assumed it appropriate that men govern (Walby ). In contrast, feminists have long recognized and analyzed the masculine aspects of extant ideologies. As a result, feminists also long have claimed “hyphenated feminism,” such as liberal feminism and Marxist feminism (Freeman ). The fact of men’s control of the political environment and its power and resources couples with the fact that all of these well-known governing ideologies began from the masculine point of view and advantage men in their judgment about power and resource allocation. Hyphenated feminisms make one other element of gender as proto-ideologies apparent. As illustrated in Figure ., in the political environment, gender ideology should be conceptualized as compounding with governing ideologies.2
FEMINALISM
Traditional maternalism Equality/ corporate feminalism Liberal feminism
Social democrat feminism
Enlightened left masculinism
Social liberal feminism
New patriarchism Traditional paternalism
New paternalism Neo fraternalism
Liberal masculinism
MASCULINISM
Left Social democrat
New right feminalism
Right
Governing Ideologies Social liberalism
Neo liberalism
Libertarian conservatism
Figure 12.2. Gender as proto-ideology in U.S. politics. Source: Created by Georgia Duerst-Lahti, 2005.
Traditional conservatism
Social conservatism
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Extended discussions of gender as proto- and compound ideology can be found elsewhere (Duerst-Lahti a, b; C. Johnson, Duerst-Lahti, and Norton ). It is sufficient here to capture its central points as they affect women’s capacity to represent and be represented in the U.S. political environment. Three main elements are illustrated in Figure .. First, the familiar left-right continuum is along the bottom. It demarcates six ideological positions common to U.S. politics based on orientations toward social and fiscal policy and the use of the state. I call these governing ideologies. Because gender functions as proto-ideology, these governing ideologies are placed within the second element, the gender ideological realm in which masculinism and feminalism occur. Due to masculinism’s dominance and the ways these ideologies came into our knowing, the governing ideologies are located in the masculinist domain of the gender ideological realm, although they extend into feminalism, too. A diagonal line divides the gender ideological realm to approximate roughly the prevalence of the third element, gender variants. Within each compounded element of governing ideologies, gender variants identify distinctive and gendered views held by women and men who otherwise share similar views in governing ideology. That is, traditional conservatism has both materialist and paternalist views among its proponents; among those who espouse ideas of new liberalism, we can find liberal feminists and neofraternalists, and so on.3 The diagonal arrangement projects a distribution pattern that empirical study would need to confirm. It assumes that more feminalist proponents are found on the left end of the spectrum and more masculinist ones on the right. For example, it assumes that more masculinists embrace new patriarchalism than feminalists endorse new right femininalism, that more social democrat feminists exist than enlightened left masculinists, and so on. This framework allows systematic analysis of why feminalists sometimes come together across other political divides. More important, it urges clear thinking about ways masculinism guides the political world through shared ideological perspectives. Critically, it also enables systematic consideration of how the dominant ideology, masculinism, affects women’s representation.
Masculinism and Its Impact
Masculinism is found in the gender ethos of any organization or process, including democratic elections and political institutions. Masculinism is located in four domains: history, social demography over time, formal and informal structures, and rules, norms, and expectations. These domains, however, are seldom experienced separately in the political environment; rather, female representatives and women’s representation are shaped by masculinist influences—and feminalist resistance — in myriad ways. In this brief exploration of aspects important to
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women’s representation, these domains serve as guideposts. Particular aspects of these areas are explored in greater detail in other chapters of this book. Women Don’t Belong: Deep Beliefs, Culture and Tradition, Foundational Exclusion, and Novelties
Among the most pernicious effects of masculinism is its historical legacy of men’s domination of the political realm. Masculinist advantage manifests in the deep structure of culture itself and the deeply embedded proto-ideological beliefs that undergird it, both of which, in turn, create rules, norms, and expectations. Feminist theorists who examine the ideas behind political practices provide understanding of the atmospheric discrimination of the political environment. As noted, to a great extent, our political system was predicated on women’s exclusion. Feminist theorist Wendy Brown (, ix) has convincingly concluded that “more than any other human activity, politics has historically borne an explicit masculine identity.” To undertake politics, according to Aristotle, one had to “be” mind: be freed from the body. Reproductively, women could never be freed from the body, but women and lesser men could free elite men from it. By tending to elite men’s bodily needs, they are enabled to become the mind necessary for politics. Similarly, Carole Pateman () demonstrates that the social contract that forms the basis of civil society requires a sexual contract as a precondition to that society. This contract subordinates women to men; without that subordination, men would not have been free to establish the civil society that evolved. Notice that U.S. civil society set men as keepers of the public sphere and limited women to the private sphere of the home, a sphere that was itself governed by the public domain (Elshtain ). These spheres became “naturalized” and ordinary, generally not worthy of notice or critique (Kerber ). Further, perhaps due to the absence of a royal tradition replete with queens and noble women, the boundaries between spheres were more rigid in the United States than in Europe (Kimmel a). In A Republic of Men, Mark Kann () undertakes an explicit analysis of the gendered language and patriarchal politics of the founding. He examines the dangerous bachelor, the family man suited for weak citizenship, elite gentlemen who could be strong citizens and legislators, and the heroic man suited for the extralegal prerogatives needed in the executive. Kann (, ) makes clear that the founders left a legacy of gendered politics, in which elite men explicitly and deliberately excluded women. Indeed, despite the declaration that “all men are created equal,” many men were excluded from the definition of “men,” as were all women. Nonetheless, the system of institutions the founders created could expand to accommodate nonelite men and, with much greater difficulty, women (Wood ).
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Until the twentieth century, few women or men thought the exclusion of women from the electoral environment was inappropriate, nor did they think it undemocratic to exclude women from politics more generally. Representation could not have been equal under such conditions, yet relatively few protested. Indeed, women and men fought to maintain politics as a masculine domain. Because women had been made the property of the household through coverture and the husband or father the sole head of household, the political system could feign democracy. Women were represented by their men. Until the resurgence of the women’s movement in the s, most political analysts remained convinced that to represent women descriptively and symbolically with female representatives who could “stand for” women was unimportant compared to representation by men who would “act for” women (Pitkin ). In a sad irony and vestige of this system, “women’s interests” are relegated to the disparaging status of special interests even though women are the majority. The ideas of great thinkers and revered founders alike are manifested today in the electoral environment through the ongoing phenomenon of female candidates as novelty. Although tactically, being the only female candidate in a particular race can be advantageous (Seltzer, Newman, and Leighton ; Bystrom ; various chapters in this volume), novelty status reveals the norms of the environment. As such, women are marked as abnormal. Clearly, the beliefs and ideologies that naturalized men’s control of political power are still in play. Something still hinders women’s capacity to serve as representatives; something affects women’s representation. To believe that women are a novelty as political representatives, and to believe that their political interests are special, beliefs about men as normal political representatives must be maintained. Doing so requires a powerful—and largely invisible — ideology. Not Your Mother’s Organization: Preferences in the Structure of Organization
The political environment is replete with examples of masculine preferences, including war rooms, battleground states, and debates to deliver the knockout punch. What consequences serve as evidence of masculinism’s operation and what types of preferences are so deeply embedded as to be invisible yet influential? Feminist theorist Christine DiStefano (1991, 13) shows us that men of modern politics “required an ‘other’ from which to stand apart and against” to construct the masculine identity needed for politics. This other takes the form of a feminized mirror image easily conceptualized as (m)other. Without breaking from this (m)other, men could not assert individuated selves with sufficient autonomy to function as citizens rather than subjects of a patriarchal monarch. Liberal theory demanded
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atomistic individuals with only self-interest. This drive for individuation may be found in gender style differences in legislative speech, as Lyn Kathlene shows us in this volume, in the apparent need to believe the president is a “single great leader” who stands apart from all (Duerst-Lahti 1997), and in presidential leadership that is “inevitably paternalistic” (Landy and Milkis 2000). It is not surprising, therefore, that electoral and organizational behaviors are gendered. The political environment could instead privilege behaviors that kept candidates and officeholders at the center of democratic representation rather than apart from it, listening well to constituents and communicating in ways that draw citizens together rather than focus on individuation. From the founding, norms and preferences of the public sphere have centered on maintaining individual autonomy to prevent subjugation to a political father (a king). Much of the debate of the Continental Congress ( Jillson and Wilson ) as well as its organizational structures ( J. Young ) reflect this preference. Using masculinity as masculinism and gender as proto-ideology, these foundations can be reinterpreted as masculine preferences that were structured into the U.S. political environment: Because these men [of the Continental Congress] understood man’s nature, they devised a decision making system that achieved their collective goal of individual independence. This system operated inside masculinism as paternal power gave way to a fraternal order. Jillson and Wilson conclude that “the balance was struck decidedly in favor of autonomy.” Predictably, the democratic rhetoric of equal brothers and the goal of achieving fraternal equality produced institutional arrangements such as those of the Continental Congress . . . [and] could not aggregate the individual interests of members or of the states they represented. . . . “Possessive individualism,” as both Louis Hartz and Gordon Wood agree, would become the means to calm the beast in American men. A new set of institutional arrangements was needed, and the Constitutional Convention produced them. (DuerstLahti b, ) The resulting norms and institutions were created to divide power, ensure autonomy for states and individuals (at the time, propertied men), and the means, to paraphrase James Madison, to let self-interest counteract self-interest. Ultimately, the aggregation of self-interest has become the dominant force in U.S. politics. Unfortunately, as March and Olsen () argue, aggregating processes and institutions that focus on individual rational self-interest has pushed out its alternative: integrative institutions and processes. Integrative institutions consider groups that extend back into history and forward through its children, and focus on the general welfare and shared purposes. Our present electoral environment, like congressional and presidential politics, is suffused with self-interested trades of cam-
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paign funding for favorable attention, “gotcha” tactics over reasoned policy deliberations, short-term gain over long-term purposes. Aggregating institutions and processes accord more closely with masculinist preferences while integrating ones in accord with feminalist preferences (Duerst-Lahti b). If so, then the very nature of the political environment and its institutions create an atmosphere that favors masculinity. Such would constitute an atmosphere of discrimination against women. The fact that such structures, norms, and practices are seen as normal rather than constructed out of a particular past by particular people for particular power advantage makes the condition all the more difficult for women in politics to overcome.
Turning the Gaze: Entrenching Masculine Privilege and Atmospheric Discrimination
Theoretically, and for purposes of conceptualizing equality, Figure . shows masculinism and feminalism as occupying roughly equal space, although the size of each remains an empirical question. Clearly, this chapter claims that masculinism’s portion of ideological space is much greater than feminalism’s. It is a claim founded in considerable evidence and prior scholarship, and it is a claim that goes to the heart of the impact masculinism has on the political environment. Given the nonconscious ways in which successful ideologies operate, to accept the “field of dreams fallacy” would be easy (Kimmel b). According to Kimmel, this fallacy follows from the mistaken belief that if organizations simply open their doors to women in a manner that treats them the same as men who have populated them, women with dreams of political equality will come, play, and have an equal chance to win. Instead of living their dreams, women often discover that they play by a different set of rules, or that the game itself does not work the same for them as it does for men. For this fundamental reason, recognizing the proto-ideological dimensions of gender and its compound functioning in politics is essential. Absent such recognition, several critical factors of women’s representation stand wanting, with avenues of redress closed by belief systems that shunt opposition to the radical margin. For example, scholars have documented the considerable shift in policy agendas and orientation to constituents since women have entered legislatures in more than token numbers (Dodson and Carroll ; Thomas a; Carroll c; Swers ; Rosenthal ). The very understanding of what counts as a good citizen (Schudson ) in the “civic ideal” (R. Smith ) or the “civic minimum” (White ) has tended to preclude women. This is partially true because women who disproportionately undertake caregiving find themselves outside of the definition of good citizenship, which relies heavily on economic contributions (Shklar ; Katz ). This pattern derives from woman’s historical ob-
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ligations to her husband and her family rather than to the state (Kerber ). As such, not only did/does her labor not count as a civic contribution, but until recently she was precluded from standing as a candidate unless she was free of family obligations. Even today, women with young children face questions about their candidacies that male candidates do not. One might surmise that public policy related to caregiving has been indelibly marked by the dearth of women in office (Harrington ; Tronto ). Further, important to both concepts of citizens and viable candidates, the strong association between military service and standing in the public realm serves to diminish women as citizens and candidates (Snyder ; Kerber ; Skocpol ). The close association between the presidency and military service, which is proffered as necessary to be qualified to fill commander-in-chief duties, causes particular problems for women. Because few women serve in the military compared to men and because their roles there are limited, women who aspire to the presidency confront this norm. Although other factors, including racism, were involved, the candidacy of Carol Moseley Braun demonstrated that service in diplomacy as an ambassador pales as a presidential credential even in comparison to service in the National Guard. This masculinist norm deserves scrutiny. Again, one can speculate that both the agenda and the policy regarding citizenship and the military are marked by the masculine dominance of the political environment.
Conclusion
This chapter has argued that women have been deliberately excluded from governing institutions, and their presence there is currently quite modest. Indisputably, several iterations of gender transformation have already occurred over time. Nonetheless, at the beginning of “the twenty-first century, patriarchal politics still attracts significant support. The founders’ identification of womanhood with domesticity as the only appropriate basis for women’s public influence remains a powerful factor in American politics. The founders’ fear of disorderly men, limited trust in family men, and reliance on governing elites still pervade American politics. It is fair to say that the founders’ gendering of American politics has proven to be remarkably resilient” (Kann , ). These very factors contribute greatly to the atmospheric discrimination faced by women in the political environment today. As a result, achieving gender equality in political representation requires no less an undertaking than to “reinterpret, reformulate, rethink and rewrite the norms and practices of society and the state” (Katzenstein , ). That reformulation begins by recognizing the ways masculinism operates in the environment, interpreting that environment through a gender lens, thinking hard about the ways masculine preferences advantage men in “ordinary” norms and practices, and rewriting formal and informal elements of the environment so
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that feminale preferences can be added. The effort to eliminate the disadvantage to one group, women—the majority—may prove not to be permanent. Considerable gender transformation must take place, however, before the U.S. political environment meets the test of consistent and comprehensive democracy.
NOTES
. Of course, other important ideological constructions also could be considered in examination of gender in political processes and institutions. For example, transgendered possibilities exist (Duerst-Lahti and Kelly b), as not all bodies fit neatly into one of two sexes (Fausto-Sterling ). A dualist version of gender ideology is also incomplete because it does not account for other ideological judgments about human capacity such as those based on race, ethnicity, age, (dis)ability, and the like. For purposes of theorizing about gender in the electoral environment, this dualistic construction of masculinist and feminalist ideologies suffices and should be seen as the most common understanding, but not a complete one. . My coauthors Cathy Marie Johnson and Noelle Norton (C. Johnson, Duerst-Lahti, and Norton ) were integral in developing the framework of gender protoideology as compounded with governing ideology in Making Masculine Mothers, a book manuscript in progress. Please see Duerst-Lahti (a, b) for an extended explanation of gender as proto-ideology and as compounded with governing ideologies. Also see both for a developed explanation of masculinism and feminalism as concepts. . The extended treatment found in Making Masculine Mothers (C. Johnson, DuerstLahti, and Norton ) also introduces the concept of gender strands, which indicate shared aspects of gender ideology. From left to right, these strands are the gender left, intersectors, similarists, universalists, gender traditionalists, and patriarchalists. In other words, strands can be used to analyze what aspects of ideology are shared by masculinism and feminalism across the spectrum, while variants explain differences and disputes among those who otherwise share views.
13
Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart
Women as Political Leaders Worldwide Cultural Barriers and Opportunities
■ As is the case in the United States, women in politics are underrepresented across the globe. For example, as of this writing, only 15.4 percent of parliamentarians worldwide are women (compared to 13.6 percent of members of the U.S. Congress). Because U.S. women’s distinctive political attitudes and actions are mirrored across the world, Norris and Inglehart are interested in the factors that explain this paucity of women. Their analysis shows that the highest rates of women in government are generally correlated with high levels of development, secularization, and, especially, egalitarian attitudes toward women. They predict that, as nations move toward these conditions, women’s presence (and, therefore, the difference they can make) will be enhanced. ■
The challenge of achieving gender equality in political leadership discussed throughout this book is not confined to the United States; it is a fundamental and enduring challenge facing most contemporary democracies. The basic facts are not in dispute: today, worldwide, women represent only one in seven parliamentarians, one in ten cabinet ministers, and, at the apex of power, one in twenty heads of state or government. The proportion of women in the U.S. House (. percent) means that the United States currently ranks fifty-eighth out of nations worldwide (Inter-Parliamentary Union [IPU] b). Multiple factors have contributed to this situation. In this chapter, we explore the role of political culture in this process. Do attitudes toward women as political leaders function as a significant barrier to their empowerment in the United States and elsewhere? In particular, how important is culture in comparison to structural and institutional factors? Our thesis is that () contemporary attitudes toward women’s leadership are more egalitarian in postindustrial than in postcommunist or developing societies; () traditional attitudes toward gender equality remain a major obstacle to the election of women to office; () culture continues to prove a significant influence on the proportion of women in elected office, even accounting for other explanatory factors such as social structural and political institutions; but () as a result
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of modernization, these cultural barriers have been fading somewhat among the younger generation in postindustrial societies (R. Inglehart and Norris ). After setting out the theoretical framework and core argument of our study, the analysis testing these propositions draws on evidence from the World Values Surveys – .1 The conclusion considers the implications of the analysis for strategies to advance women’s voice and power.
Explaining the Barriers to Women in Public Life
The paucity of women in elected office is well established, despite greater moves toward gender equality in many other spheres. The Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on “Women : Gender Equality, Development and Peace” followed a long series of international conferences calling for the empowerment of women. The session focused on full recognition of women’s rights and fundamental freedoms and demands for progress toward gender equality in education and health care, in work and the family, and in the public sphere (UN b). Women have mobilized at the grassroots, national, and global levels to press government agencies and nonprofit organizations to incorporate these agendas into national programs for action. The UN (c) report The World’s Women , which reviewed how far these goals and objectives had been met, concluded that substantive advances for women have occurred in access to education, health care, and reproductive services. Progress also occurred in human rights, such as greater recognition of the issues of domestic violence and sexual trafficking. Yet, at the same time, little progress toward the inclusion of women’s voices in politics and government has occurred. Out of nations worldwide, only nine currently have a woman elected head of state or government. Despite some redoubtable and well-known world leaders, like Margaret Thatcher, Gro Harlem Bruntland, and Golda Meir, only thirty-nine states have ever elected a woman president or prime minister. According to the UN report, women today are fewer than one-tenth of the world’s cabinet ministers and hold fewer than one-fifth of all subministerial positions. The IPU (d) estimates that there are about , women in parliament worldwide in midsummer , representing . percent of all members, up from percent in . If growth at this level is maintained (. percent per annum), a simple linear projection predicts that women parliamentarians will achieve parity with men at the turn of the twenty-second century. Despite the lack of substantial progress worldwide, women elected representatives have moved ahead far further and faster in some places than others (see Figure .). Women parliamentarians do best in the Nordic nations, where they are on average . percent of MPs in the lower house. The number of women Swedish representatives ranks as one of the highest in the world; women are half
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% Women in Lower House Means
17.3 to 45.3 (55) 8.9 to 17.3 (57) 0 to 8.9 (58)
Figure 13.1. Percentage of women worldwide in the lower house of legislature, 2003. Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union 2001.
of all the cabinet ministers and members of the Riksdag ( percent), up from percent in . The proportion of women members of parliament in global regions elsewhere is generally lower, including in the Americas (. percent), Asia (. percent), Europe excluding the Nordic states (. percent), sub-Saharan Africa (. percent), and the Pacific (. percent). There are, however, exceptions among particular countries in each of these regions. For example, Sweden is beaten into the top spot by Rwanda, where, as of September , women were . percent of all parliamentarians. The worst record for women’s representation is in Arab states, where women are fewer than percent of elected representatives. During the past few years, some positive developments have occurred for women’s representation in this region, notably in Morocco, Bahrain, and Jordan, and new initiatives are being implemented in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, women continue to be barred by law from standing for parliament in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Therefore, despite many official declarations of intent made by governments, NGOs, and international agencies pledged to establish conditions of gender equality in the public sphere, in practice, significant barriers continue to restrict women’s advancement in public life. The literature suggests that multiple reasons lie behind this phenomenon, including the role of structural barriers, such as levels of socioeconomic development and the proportion of women in professional and managerial occupations; the importance of political institutions, exemplified by the use of proportional representation electoral systems and the adoption of gender quotas in party recruitment; and the impact of political culture, including the predominance of traditional attitudes toward women in decision-making roles (Karam ; Kenworthy and Malami ; Siaroff ).
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Structural Barriers
One approach to research on structural barriers that was common in the s and early s was the reliance on economic growth as the most effective strategy for achieving human development and improvements in the living conditions and status of women. After World War II, optimism abounded that the world could be rebuilt to end poverty, injustice, and ignorance. Improving women’s lives was considered an inevitable part of development. Structural accounts also emphasized that the social status of women plays a critical role in determining the eligibility pool for elected office, including the occupational, educational, and socioeconomic position of women. For example, in developing societies, women may find it difficult to break into electoral office where they are generally disadvantaged due to poor child care, low literacy, inadequate health care, and poverty. Indeed, Reynolds () found that levels of socioeconomic development were significantly related to the proportion of women parliamentarians worldwide. Relatedly, comparative studies of established democracies have long emphasized the importance of the pool of women in the professional, administrative, and managerial occupations that commonly lead to political careers (Norris ; Lovenduski and Norris ; Darcy, Welch, and Clark ). Careers in the law and journalism provide the flexibility, financial resources, experience, and social networks that facilitate candidacies. In recent decades, in many postindustrial societies, women have forged ahead in management and the professions in the private and public sectors, as well as in higher education that makes professional participation possible. Yet, structural explanations focused on the socioeconomic status of women provide only part of the answer to the multiple barriers to elected office. By the end of the twentieth century, the limitations of growth alone on the level of women in political office were clear. Numerous anomalies are obvious even to the casual observer. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, for instance, are about as rich as Sweden in per capita GDP, but women in these societies cannot stand for office or even vote. Further, they have narrowly restricted rights and opportunities outside the home: it is illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East and North Africa have the lowest rates of female labor force participation in the world (Moghadam ; Meriwether and Tucker ; Abu-Lughod ; Suad and Slyomovics ). Conditions for women are more favorable in some poorer nations. In India, for example, although women’s rights are also limited in many important ways, about , women serve in local government, with one-third of all local council seats reserved for them (Kasturi ; Sakesena ; Purushothaman ). Broader experience confirms that gender equality in elected office continues to lag behind in the transitional Asian tigers and many highgrowth states in Latin America ( Jacquette and Wolchik ; Craske ). Even in the most affluent societies around the world, such as the United States, France,
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and Japan, where women have made substantial gains in access to universities, company boardrooms, and the professions, there has been minimal progress for women in government. In contrast, in South Africa, women compose almost one-third of all parliamentarians, making this nation twelfth worldwide in the proportion of women in the lower house (IPU d). It has become apparent that problems of gender equality are more complex and intractable than the early developmental theorists assumed (Forsythe, Koreniewicz, and Durrant ). Growing affluence does tend to generate the expansion of literacy and schooling, the establishment of the social protection safety net, and the rise of white-collar jobs in the service sector, but this process is neither inevitable nor does it necessarily automatically improve women’s lives. This pattern is exemplified in the United States, where women constitute almost half ( percent) of all those employed in the legal profession (U.S. Census Bureau ). Although law remains the most common training ground for legislative office in the United States, there are only fourteen women out of one hundred members of the U.S. Senate. Structural accounts also fail to explain major disparities in the proportion of women in national parliaments among relatively similar types of societies, such as the contrasts between Canada (where women are . percent of parliamentarians) and the neighboring United States (. percent), or in Europe between France (. percent) and the Netherlands (. percent), or in Africa between South Africa (. percent) and Niger (. percent). In many postindustrial societies, despite the transformation in women’s and men’s lifestyles, electoral success has continued to elude women. This suggests that although improvements in women’s educational and professional status serve as facilitating conditions for women’s empowerment, structural change may be insufficient by itself to create equality in elected office. Institutional Barriers
Recognizing the limitations of economic strategies alone, during the s and s the international women’s movement and official bodies like the UN and the European Union turned increasingly toward the role of the state in reinforcing or alleviating institutional barriers to women’s progress (Riddell-Dixon ). Institutional accounts emphasize the importance of formal barriers or opportunities within the political system, implemented by law, administrative decisions, or rule-based procedures. The main focus has been on the impact of proportional representation electoral systems on women’s representation, as well as the adoption of positive action by political parties, such as gender quotas or reserved seats. The UN has encouraged states to recognize women’s rights, most importantly through the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted by the UN General Assembly in and subsequently signed by nation-states. This Convention emphasizes the importance of equal
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participation of women with men in public life. The women’s movement in many nations has also focused on the need for equal opportunity and affirmative strategies to reforming institutional barriers, removing structural biases, and altering the rules of the game. A particularly effective means to do so has been the use of quotas in the selection of female parliamentary candidates, which has recently been adopted in many Western European, Asian, and Latin American countries, and the parity program adopted in France (Klausen and Maier ; Htun and Jones ; Norris ). Policies designed to prevent sex discrimination, to secure equal pay, maternity, and reproductive rights, and to increase opportunities for women in the workforce and education have been adopted in many countries, and the role of the state is now widely understood to be central in actively consolidating and reinforcing gender equality (Loutfi ; Stetson and Mazur ; Yuval-Davis and Anthias ). This approach has become increasingly popular, indeed is probably accepted as the mainstream perspective in the literature today. Institutional accounts suggest that the rules of the game are the prime driver of systematic differences in women’s representation among relatively similar types of societies. They are also the most important factor that can alter women’s political activism by public policy reforms (Karram ). These strategies have secured concrete gains for women in many nations, particularly when government agencies or the courts have effectively implemented legal reforms and policy initiatives. Changing the rules of the game can have a dramatic impact on women’s lives, accelerating progress and opening new opportunities. Yet, there can also be a substantial gap between the recognition of formal rights and practice. Many governments have signed international conventions pledging themselves to equal opportunities in political representation, and political leaders, official bodies, administrative agencies, and civic groups have often declared themselves in favor of this principle. But, in the world as a whole, women remain far from parity at the apex of power (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance [IDEA] ; Davis ). In the same way, CEDAW recognizes the importance of equality in the paid labor force. Although many governments have signed on to this principle, in practice, women are disproportionately likely to have low-wage jobs. Persistent occupational segregation and wage discrimination by sex, lack of child care for working mothers, and management glass ceilings account for these inequalities (Wirth ; Gunderson ; Jacobs ; Jenson, Laufer, and Maruani ; Freedman ). The level of democratization across nations is another important factor is creating equality among elected representatives across nations. Democratization provides the most general context for women’s political rights and civil liberties. In general, the transition and consolidation of democratic societies can be expected to promote widespread political and civil liberties, including women’s rights to vote and to stand for elected office. Democratization also strengthens parties and insti-
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tutionalizes the channels of political recruitment into parliament and government. Yet, the role of democracy in promoting substantial numbers of women in public life remains under dispute; Reynolds () found no significant relationship between levels of democratization and women’s parliamentary representation worldwide. Additionally, the type of electoral system has long been regarded as an important facilitator of women’s political presence. Many studies have demonstrated that far more women are commonly elected under proportional party lists than via majoritarian single-member constituencies (Rule , ; Matland ; Norris ). The level of party competition in terms of the number and ideological polarization of parties is another factor that may influence opportunities for candidacy, including whether the country has a predominant one-party system, as in Japan, a two-party system, exemplified by the United States, a moderate multiparty system, such as in Germany, or a polarized multiparty system, as in Ukraine, Ecuador, and Israel (Lovenduski and Norris ; Kittilson ). Greater party competition may increase the access points for female candidacies, although this in itself does not necessarily lead to more women being elected. Institutional accounts may, therefore, provide many important insights into why women leaders have moved ahead further and faster in some countries than in others. Yet, puzzles remain about why apparently similar institutional reforms may turn out to have unanticipated consequences, even among relatively similar political and social systems. Why should national list PR have a very different impact on women’s election in, say, Israel and the Netherlands? Why should the use of gender quotas for candidacies seem to work better in, say, Argentina than Ecuador, or in the Netherlands but not in France? Rather like the failure of Westminster-style parliaments in many African states in the s, uprooted institutions do not necessarily flourish in alien environments. Cultural Barriers
Economic growth and legal-institutional reforms are both important in any longterm comprehensive strategy to promote gender equality. But, in addition, culture matters. Indeed, it matters a lot, in this and many other regards (Steinmetz ; Harrison and Huntington ). Perceptions of the appropriate division of roles in the home and family, paid employment, and the political sphere are shaped by the predominant culture—the social norms, beliefs, and values existing in any society that rest on levels of societal modernization and religious traditions. “Gender” refers to socially constructed roles and learned behavior of women and men associated with the biological characteristics of females and males (Beckwith ). In many societies, rigid gender roles determine the rights, resources, and powers of women and men, notably the division of labor in the home and workplace. In others, men’s and women’s roles are more interchangeable, and innate biological differences lead to fewer social expectations. Where a culture of gender
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equality predominates, it provides a climate where de jure legal rights are more likely to be translated into de facto rights in practice, where institutional reforms are implemented in the workplace and public sphere, where women embrace expanded opportunities in literacy, education, and employment, and where the traditional roles of women and men are transformed within the household and family. Moreover, the critical importance of culture is that women as well as men share the predominant attitudes, values, and beliefs about the appropriate division of sex roles in any society. Where traditional values prevail, women are not just limited by society in terms of the opportunities they seek; they also choose to limit themselves. Cultural change is not sufficient by itself for gender equality, a limitation not always well recognized by the individualistic focus of the women’s movement in the s. But cultural change is a necessary condition for gender equality: women first need to change themselves before they can hope to change society. In turn, cultural change lays the basis for the mass mobilization of women’s movements and support for public policies that reinforce, consolidate, and accelerate the process of gender equality. Structural and institutional explanations therefore need to be supplemented by accounts emphasizing the importance of political culture. It has often been assumed that traditional attitudes toward gender equality influence women’s advancement in elected office. Despite the conventional wisdom, little systematic cross-national evidence has been available to verify this proposition. Theories of socialization have long emphasized the importance of the division of sex roles within a country — especially egalitarian or traditional attitudes toward women in the private and public spheres. Studies of the process of political recruitment in established democracies like Britain, Finland, and the Netherlands have found that these attitudes influence both whether women are prepared to come forward as candidates for office (the supply side of the equation) as well as the criteria used by gatekeepers such as party members and leaders, the news media, financial supporters, and the electorate when evaluating suitable candidates (the demand side; Norris and Lovenduski ). In cultures with traditional values concerning the role of women in the home and family, many women may be reluctant to run. If they do seek office, they may fail to attract sufficient support to win. A recent study by the IPU (a) found that female politicians in many countries cited hostile attitudes toward women’s political participation as one of the most important barriers to running for parliament. Cultural explanations provide a plausible reason why women have made such striking advances in parliaments in the Nordic region compared with other, comparable European societies like Switzerland, Italy, or Belgium, as all these are affluent postindustrial welfare states and established parliamentary democracies with proportional representation electoral systems. Karvonen and Selle () suggest that, in Scandinavia, a long tradition of government intervention to promote social equality may have made the public more receptive to the idea of positive action to achieve equality for women in
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public life. Abu-Zayd () suggests that culture is an important reason many nations with a strict Muslim background have often ranked at the bottom of the list in terms of women in parliament, despite notable exceptions in societies where leaders such as Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and Tansu Ciller of Turkey have achieved top positions. Traditional attitudes toward gender equality have therefore commonly been suspected to be an important determinant of women’s entry into elected office, yet, so far, little systematic cross-national evidence has been available to advance this thesis. Most comparative studies have been forced to adopt proxy indicators of culture, such as the historical prevalence of Catholicism in Western European societies. Catholicism is understood to represent more traditional attitudes toward women and the family than Protestant religions (Rule ). An early comparison by Margaret Inglehart () found that women’s political activism was lower in the Catholic than Protestant countries of Western Europe, and it was suggested that this was because the Catholic Church was associated with a culture that was more hierarchical and authoritarian in nature. A more recent worldwide comparison of women in politics in nation-states by Reynolds () found that the greatest contrasts were between dominant Christian countries (whether Protestant or Catholic) and all other religions, including Islamic, Buddhist, Judaic, Confucian, and Hindu, all of which had lower proportions of women in legislative and cabinet offices. An alternative approach has compared attitudes in Western Europe toward the women’s movement, feminism, and sex role equality in the home and workplace (L. Mayer and Smith ; Wilcox ). This approach provides insights into support for feminism in Western Europe, but it is difficult to know how far we can generalize from general attitudes within and across nations. It also remains unclear in the existing literature how far attitudes toward women in office may have been transformed over time in different types of society, particularly among younger generations. Previous work has demonstrated that gender differences in electoral behavior have been realigning, with women moving toward the left of men in postindustrial societies, especially among younger generations, although this process is not yet evident in postcommunist or developing societies (R. Inglehart and Norris ). Just as the process of modernization has affected mass electoral attitudes and party preferences, so it may have eroded traditional views of the appropriate division of sex roles in the home and family, as well as in the paid labor force and the public sphere. Given these alternative theories, our study used the World Values Surveys and aggregate evidence to compare how far political culture is systematically related to the advancement of women in elected office in a wide range of countries. The study focuses on four related propositions: . There are substantial differences in attitudes toward women’s leadership in postindustrial, postcommunist, and developing societies.
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. Traditional attitudes are a major barrier to the election of women to office. . Culture continues to be a significant influence on the proportion of women elected officials even with the introduction of prior structural and institutional controls. . But these cultural barriers have been fading most rapidly among the younger generation in postindustrial societies.
Attitudes toward Women’s Political Leadership
How does the public regard women as political leaders today, and how do attitudes vary systematically in different types of postindustrial, postcommunist, and developing societies? The third wave of the World Values Survey contains many items measuring attitudes toward sex role equality in the home and family, labor force, and public sphere, as well as confidence in the women’s movement.2 One basic indicator measuring support for gender equality in political leadership is the -point scale asking respondents how far they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “People talk about the changing roles of men and women today. For each of the following statements I read out, can you tell me how much you agree with each? Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or disagree strongly? . . . On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do.” The comparison in Figure . shows substantial cross-national contrasts in attitudes toward gender equality in politics, ranking countries from most egalitarian to most traditional. Those most positive toward women’s leadership include the Nordic nations (Norway, Sweden, and Finland) and many postindustrial societies such as New Zealand and Australia, the United States, and Spain. Countries that proved most traditional included some of the poorer developing societies, such as Egypt, Jordan, Iran, and Nigeria. How can we explain the contrasts? The modernization process and human development is part of the answer: the most affluent nations are generally the most egalitarian. Yet, despite the role of socioeconomic development, historical legacies of different world religions continued to demarcate cultural attitudes. Figure . illustrates support for egalitarian roles for men and women in politics with an indicator of economic development (per capita GDP). The results show that there is a strong correlation (R = .), with some interesting patterns falling above and below the regression line. A few postindustrial Protestant societies, including Norway, Germany, and Australia, as well as Catholic Canada expressed the strongest support for gender equality. The United States displayed fairly egalitarian attitudes toward women in politics, although less so than might be predicted by the level of affluence alone. Among richer nations, Japan shows lower support for women in politics than would be predicted by their level of
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WOMEN AND ELECTIVE OFFICE W.Germany Norway E.Germany N.Zealand Sweden Canada Finland Spain Australia United States Peru Colombia Argentina El Salvador Uruguay Venezuela Chile Mexico Dominican Republic Slovenia Macedonia S.Africa Brazil Tanzania Taiwan India Japan Zimbabwe Hungary Serbia China Albania Croatia Lithuania Vietnam Montenegro Turkey Bosnia Russia Philippines Poland Bulgaria Bangladesh Pakistan S.Korea Iran Ukraine Latvia Romania Moldova Uganda Estonia Czech Republic Belarus Morocco Azerbaijan Slovakia Nigeria Georgia Egypt Armenia Jordan
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Figure 13.2. Egalitarian attitudes toward women in politics. Note: Response to “Men do not make better political leaders than women” (mean value). Source: World Values Surveys, 1995 – 2001, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org.
economic development alone. Among countries with moderate levels of economic development, many Latin American countries proved more egalitarian than the postcommunist societies. Last, Nigeria, Uganda, and Azerbaijan scatter at the bottom of the chart, as poorer countries with traditional attitudes. Therefore, economic development does appear to be significantly related to the global distribution of egalitarian attitudes toward gender roles. Still, the major outliers indicate that much more is at work than simply differences between rich and poor societies.
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Figure 13.3. Cultural attitudes toward women in politics and economic development. Note: Attitudes toward women in politics scale: “Men make better political leaders than women.” Coded from most traditional (strongly agree) to liberal (strongly disagree). GDP per capita in Purchasing Power Parity, 2000 (logged). Source: World Bank 2002, http://www.worldbank.org/data/wdi2002. Religious culture: The predominant religion in each country, defined in Norris and Inglehart 2004. Source: World Values Surveys, 1995–2001, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org.
The Relationship between Cultural Attitudes and Women in Office
So far, we have established the existence of systematic cross-national differences in attitudes toward women’s political leadership. These are associated with levels of socioeconomic development. Moreover, these egalitarian attitudes are related to broader cultural indicators. But do these cultural patterns matter in practice? In particular, do more egalitarian attitudes toward women leaders influence the proportion of women elected to office? We have already mentioned the substantial differences worldwide in the proportion of women in the lower houses of
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parliament, ranging from about percent in Scandinavia down to less than percent in Arab states. Figure . shows the simple relationship between egalitarian attitudes toward women leaders and the proportion of women elected to the lower house of the national parliament, following the election closest to the date of the survey in each country, in the mid to late-s. The results demonstrate the strong and significant relationship between attitudes toward gender equality and the proportion of women in parliament (R ⫽ ., 90 Can Col US
Gender Equality Scale
80
60 Iran
40 -10
Fin Ner
Swe
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Arg Slov DomR Ven Chil Uru Mex Cro Mac SAfr Lith Yug Braz Bul Czech Alb Hung Lat Bos Est Rus Viet JapRom Zim Uga Tanz Ukr China Turk India Mol
70
50
Ger Sp NZ
Jor Egy
0
Aze GeoPhil
Bng
10
20
30
40
50
Percentage Women in Lower House (2000) Type of Society Agrarian
Industrial
Postindustrial
Total Population: Rsq = 0.5159
Figure 13.4. Gender equality and women in elected office. Note: The Gender Equality Scale is a 100-point scale combining the following five items: MENPOL Q118: “On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do” (Agree coded low); MENJOBS Q78: “When jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women” (Agree coded low); BOYEDUC Q.119: “A university education is more important for a boy than a girl” (Agree coded low); NEEDKID Q110: “Do you think that a woman has to have children in order to be fulfilled or is this not necessary?” (Agree coded low); SGLMUM Q112: “If a woman wants to have a child as a single parent but she doesn’t want to have a stable relationship with a man, do you approve or disapprove?” (Disapprove coded low). For details of its construction, see R. Inglehart and Norris 2003. The percentage of women elected to the lower house of parliament, 2000 is from Inter-Parliamentary Union 2000b. Source: World Values Surveys, 1995 – 2001, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org.
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Sig. .). Countries with an egalitarian culture have more women in power. The scattergram displays a fairly strong relationship, with the Scandinavian countries at the forefront on both indicators in the top right-hand corner. At the bottom corner can be found Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, and many of the Central Asian postcommunist states, including Georgia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Still, there are some striking outliers to this general pattern that also deserve attention. Some established democracies, including Australia, Spain, and the United States, fall below the line, displaying more egalitarian attitudes than might be expected given the proportion of women elected to parliament. In these countries, public opinion may have run ahead of the opportunities that woman face when pursuing public office. On the other hand, Bosnia Herzegovina, South Africa, and China all have more women parliamentarians than would be expected from their cultural attitudes alone, suggesting that perhaps in these societies positive action strategies adopted to boost women’s leadership may be ahead of public opinion. Of course, the pattern of causation cannot be determined from any simple correlation alone. It could well be that the experience of having many women involved in political life could shift public opinion in a more egalitarian direction, dispelling traditional stereotypes about men making better political leaders than women. Nevertheless, it seems equally plausible to assume that the causal direction flows primarily from political culture to the success of women in elected office. More egalitarian attitudes could persuade more women that they should seek opportunities for elected office. Simultaneously, the selector’s evaluations of suitable candidates may be influenced. One way this can be tested further is by examining the relationship between the proportion of women in parliament and the broader scale of traditional or rational values. The results of such an analysis shows that there is a strong and significant correlation between these factors (r ⫽ ., p ⫽ .). Because these broader moral values should not be greatly affected by women’s leadership, this strongly suggests that culture drives the success of women in elected office, rather than vice versa. Cultural, Institutional, and Social Barriers to Elected Office
So far, we have demonstrated that culture matters, but not how much it matters compared with other social and institutional factors associated with gender equality in politics. The relationship could, after all, prove spurious if something else is simultaneously driving both egalitarian attitudes and the success of women leaders. Multivariate analysis is required to test whether the relationship remains significant even with controls. Accordingly, we ran multivariate regression analysis to estimate the relative impact of cultural, structural, and institutional factors on women’s representation in parliaments worldwide. The first model in Table . shows the effects of human and political development. The second model adds the additional effects of political institutions.
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Finally, the complete model includes all the variables. The results of Model show that the effect of political democratization appears to be significant. Once Model controls for all factors, however, political development becomes insignificant. In Model , in contrast to the results of many other studies, once controls are introduced, neither the type of electoral system nor the number of parties proves to be an important explanation for the proportion of women in parliament. This could be in part because the simple measure of majoritarian or proportional electoral systems was unable to capture other important variations. Finally, when the gender equality scale was added in the final model, the results demonstrated the importance of culture, which proved to be not only strong, but the only significant factor in the equation. If the measure of attitudes was not derived from a source that is independent of the proportion of women in legisTable 13.1 Explaining the Proportion of Women in Elected Office Model 3: Social and Institutional and Cultural
Model 2: Social and Institutional
Model 1: Social B
SE
Sig.
B
SE
Human development
15.3
12.4
N/s
17.9
15.5
Political development
3.4
1.1
***
2.7
1.4
Sig.
B
SE
Sig.
Social ⫺21.2 *
1.9
15 1.1
* Institutions Majoritarian electoral system
⫺4.7
4.3
0.95
3.7
Plurality electoral system
⫺1.5
4.2
⫺0.35
3.4
Semi-PR electoral system
⫺6.5
3.8
⫺0.56
3.3
District magnitude Number of parliamentary parties
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.01
⫺0.69
0.71
0.12
0.59
0.78
0.17
Culture Gender equality scale
** *
Constant Adjusted R2
⫺15.3 0.38
⫺7.9 0.38
⫺31.9 0.61
Note: The models represent standardized Beta coefficients derived from OLS regression analysis models with the proportion of women in the national legislative lower house in forty-three nations worldwide as the dependent variable. The year of the aggregate data was selected to match the year of the World Value Survey in each country. The variables were entered in the listed order. * p ⬍ 0.05, ** p ⬍ 0.01, *** p ⬍ 0.001. Sources: Level of human development: United Nations 2000a. Level of democratization: Freedom House 2000. Electoral system: The proportional representation (party list) system is the default reference category and therefore excluded from the model. Proportion of women in legislature: Inter-Parliamentary Union 2004b.
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latures, we would be tempted to doubt this relationship. But the results of the final model are clear and dramatic. The relationship between political culture and women’s empowerment observed in Figure . survives unscathed our best attempts to explain it away with prior controls.
Generational Shifts in Cultural Attitudes
If culture is important, is there evidence that traditional views about women’s suitability for political office are changing? The measure of attitudes toward men’s and women’s leadership was not included in earlier waves of the World Values Surveys, so we are unable to compare trends over time directly. However, we can use another type of analysis called cohort analysis. This allows us to analyze the distribution of attitudes among generations within each type of society. Much evidence based on theories of socialization suggests that people’s attitudes are shaped by formative experiences in their early years, but the basic values of individuals are largely fixed by the time they reach adulthood (R. Inglehart , ). During the twentieth century in postindustrial societies, the formative experiences of younger generations of women and men have differed from that of older generations. Women’s and men’s gender roles have been affected by a long series of critical developments, including the impact of the extension of electoral suffrage and full citizenship rights, the entry of more women into higher education and the paid labor force, the rise of the Second Wave women’s movement in the mid-s, radical shifts in sexual mores and lifestyles, dramatic changes in families, marriage, and child rearing, and the experience of seeing more women as leaders and public figures. All these factors can be expected to have altered the norms about the appropriate role of women in the public sphere and the suitability of women for elected office. The historical traditions in postcommunist and developing societies have followed a more complex and distinctive pathway. For example, until the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, there was widespread use of quotas in parliaments. The role of the organized women’s movement in Central and Eastern Europe has clearly been quite different from its Western variant. As a result, we would expect that although some generational shifts in attitudes will be evident, the pace of change will be slower in these countries. Figures . and . confirm exactly these expectations. The traditional belief that men make better leaders than women shows a substantial decline among cohorts in postindustrial societies, with younger postwar generations far more egalitarian than their parents and grandparents. Yet, in postcommunist and developing societies, attitudes among younger and older generations are almost identical, with at most a modest shift toward less traditional views among the young. Moreover, when we disaggregate the cohort analysis for women and men,
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Agree: “Men make better political leaders than women.”
3.0
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
2.0
1.8 1907-1916 1917-1926 1927-1936 1937-1946 1947-1956 1957-1966 1967-1976 1977-1979
Postindustrial
Type of Society Postcommunist
Developing
Figure 13.5. Attitudes toward women as political leaders, by cohort. Source: World Values Surveys, 1995 – 2001, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org.
the most striking pattern is how far the gender gap on this issue has widened among the younger generation. In the prewar generation, there was no difference by sex: women were as traditional in their attitudes as men, or even slightly more so. The gap widens steadily by successive cohorts until, by the youngest generation, the gap has become considerable. This suggests that through the gradual process of demographic turnover, attitudes toward women in public leadership roles are likely to become more egalitarian over time, especially among women. The process of modernization will proceed in the broader political culture, even if no other strategies or institutional reforms are adopted to hasten the election of more women to office. Nevertheless, there is little evidence that a similar process is transforming public opinion in general among postcommunist and developing countries, where traditional values are prevalent among younger and older citizens.
Conclusions: The Implications for Change
That the values endemic in the broader political culture affect the success of women in elected office has always been commonly assumed but rarely, if ever, demonstrated in a convincing fashion. We have long suspected that somehow the
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Agree: “Men make better political leaders than women.”
2.8 2.7 2.6 2.5 2.4 2.3 2.2 1907-1916 1917-1926 1927-1936 1937-1946 1947-1956 1957-1966 1967-1976 1977-1979
Cohort of Birth Women Men Figure 13.6. Attitudes toward women leaders, by gender. Source: World Values Surveys, 1995 – 2001, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org.
X factor distinguished the striking advancement of women in parliaments in the Scandinavian north from their European neighbors in the Mediterranean south, as well as from Latin America, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Arab states. Yet, capturing the X factor has proved illusive with existing data and analyses. What this study demonstrates is that egalitarian attitudes toward women in office are more widespread in postindustrial societies, reflecting broad patterns of socioeconomic development and cultural modernization. Moreover, these attitudes are not simply interesting for their own sake, but are significantly associated with women’s successful election to public office. Culture matters. The more egalitarian attitudes evident among the younger generation in postindustrial societies, especially younger women, suggest that over time, we can expect to see continued progress in female representation in these societies. The empowerment of women remains a complex process, and, as the cases of Australia, the United States, and Spain demonstrate, favorable attitudes toward women’s leadership, by themselves, are not sufficient to produce automatic breakthroughs. Social structural and institutional barriers have not yet been eradicated. Nor can we expect an overnight transformation in deep-rooted traditional beliefs about the appropriate division of gender roles prevalent in many developing and postcommunist societies. Nevertheless, cultural change in postindustrial societies produces an environmental climate of opinion that is potentially more receptive to policy reforms designed to boost the number of women in elected office. Many studies suggest that reforms in the regulations governing the formal criteria of eligibility to stand for elected office, set by law and by internal party rules, play a critical role in promot-
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ing gender equality (Norris ; M. Jones , , ). Positive measures include quotas requiring a certain proportion of female candidates, such as those implemented by law at the local level in India and adopted in the s for the national parliaments in ten Latin American nations. The French parity movement mobilized to achieve equal numbers of male and female candidates on party lists in local, regional, parliamentary, and European elections, a process that has been most successful at the local level. Elsewhere, the adoption of quotas for female candidates in internal party rules has proved to be one of the most important and successful means for getting more women into office, especially in bureaucratic mass-branch parties where the rules count (Dahlerup ). Many parties in Northern Europe introduced quotas in the s, followed by social democratic parties in Germany, Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. The situation is more varied in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, although again, parties of the left have been more sympathetic to their introduction, such as the MPLA in Angola, the Popular Front in Côte d’Ivoire, and the SWAPO Party in Namibia (IPU a). Their impact can be demonstrated by comparing changes in the proportion of women officeholders in particular parties over successive elections. For example, the introduction of all-women short lists in target seats by the British Labour Party led to a doubling of the proportion of women in Westminster from to . In all these developments, if the public is broadly sympathetic toward increasing the numbers of women in public life, then parties may be more willing to introduce institutional reforms and affirmative action strategies to achieve these aims. Expecting swift alteration in deep-seated attitudes toward gender roles in public life is likely to be frustrating, especially in deeply traditional Arab cultures. But, in the longer term, the secular trends in value change associated with the process of modernization, especially among younger generations of women and men, are likely to facilitate the process of bringing more women to power. The combination of cultural shifts in conjunction with institutional reforms of candidate recruitment processes holds considerable promise that perhaps projections can be accelerated toward a more optimistic scenario for democracy, so that women achieve political parity well before the dawn of the twenty-second century.
NOTES
. The World Values Survey is conducted by a network of social scientists around the world. The survey is performed on nationally representative samples in almost eighty societies on all six inhabited continents. A total of four waves have been carried since , allowing accurate comparative analysis. This project allows local funding for each survey. In exchange for providing the data from interviews with
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a representative national sample of at least , people in their own society, each participating group gets immediate access to the data from all of the other participating societies. Thus, they are able to compare the basic values and beliefs of the people of their own society with those of more than sixty other societies. . For all methodological details, see http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org.
14
Jean Reith Schroedel and Marcia L. Godwin
Prospects for Cracking the Political Glass Ceiling The Future of Women Officeholders in the Twenty-first Century
■ In the final chapter of this book, Jean Reith Schroedel and Marcia L. Godwin revisit basic issues of women’s underrepresentation. They focus on the “plateau effect” that appears across the world—illustrated in the U.S. case by the halt or, in some cases, reversal of women’s incremental gains since the late 1960s. Along with exploring conventional explanations for this stagnation, these authors offer one unconventional explanation: the shift in religious adherence away from liberal Protestant sects toward more socially conservative ones. This shift, they argue, has fueled a socially conservative backlash against women’s continued entry into traditionally male realms. Apart from the reasons for women’s persistent underrepresentation, and either momentary or longer-lasting stagnation, Schroedel and Godwin call for proactive efforts by political parties, interest groups, educational institutions, and the media to promote further emergence of women candidates and officeholders. Because women politicians make a difference, these are important goals to pursue. ■
I stand here as a proud woman and a proud Latina. I know that in running this race — and I fought the good fight—it will make it easier for the next woman or the next person of color to become the next pro tem, and I will see that in my lifetime. But I am first and foremost a Democrat; I am first and foremost part of a family of sisters and brothers. — (D-Norwalk), on losing the race for speaker pro tempore, quoted in Lawrence (2004) Over the past twenty-five years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of women in electoral office in the United States and women have moved into
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positions of leadership. Aside from a sharp jump in women’s electoral success immediately following the vaunted “Year of the Woman” in , however, the change has been incremental rather than dramatic. Women candidates can be competitive in terms of fund-raising, and a majority of the electorate now support women as candidates (see Burrell in this volume; Dolan in this volume). As predicted in our chapter in the first edition of Women and Elective Office, the impact of women officeholders now seems to be qualitatively different, with gender being less of a barrier in the selection process for positions of leadership. Nevertheless, based on trends in the early part of the twenty-first century, we believe that there is cause for concern. As the introduction to this volume notes, beginning in the mid- to late s, the rate of increase in women serving in all types of electoral office slowed to a crawl and then leveled off, which we identify as the “plateau effect.”1 Although there is some variation across states and types of elective office, the aggregate data tracing trends in the proportions of women elected to state legislatures, statewide executive offices, and Congress exhibit the same pattern. As highlighted by the quote from Martha Escutia, there are still leadership positions in the United States that have never been held by a woman. Women have never held top legislative leadership posts in nine states (Rosenthal in this volume), and two states, Maine and West Virginia, have never elected a woman to a statewide office (CAWP b). The absence of women from these positions is understandable in Maine, which has only a single executive elective office, the governorship, but West Virginia has a full slate of statewide elective offices (CAWP b). As Rosenthal shows, women have made some inroads into committee chair positions in state legislatures, but they still lag behind what would be expected given their numbers in those bodies, and in some states, they are excluded from nearly all of these positions. There continue to be deep partisan divides in the U.S. electorate as well. Women serving in elective office are much more likely to be Democrats. As of this writing, percent of women in the House of Representatives are Democrats, and in the Senate, . percent are Democrats. Nearly percent of women state representatives are Democrats, as are . percent of state senators. The one exception to this generalization is statewide executive offices, where the Republicans have been somewhat more successful than the Democrats (. percent vs. percent, with the remainder nonpartisan; CAWP c). As Norrander and Wilcox show in this volume, when we break the data down by geographic area, we find that women officeholders are more likely to be from the West and from states with more progressive political traditions. The states with the fewest women officeholders are disproportionately from the South. For example, six of the ten states with the highest proportion of female state legislators are in the West (Washington, Colorado, California, New Mexico, Oregon,
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and Nevada), and seven of those with the lowest proportion are located in the Deep South or border states (South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Arkansas; CAWP d). In this chapter we offer a deeper understanding of the plateau effect; an examination of data to determine the current status of women officeholders across the country and in different types of offices; consideration of the limits of the conventional wisdom about the causes of women’s underrepresentation in elective office; and examination of alternative reasons for the lack of recent progress. We not only consider developments from within the United States, but also draw on the experiences of other countries. We argue that the plateau effect is a global phenomenon and suggest that we have much to learn from international efforts to increase women’s representation.
Representational Roles
Although one might argue that fundamental fairness and equality require gender parity in electoral office, that position is less popular in the United States than in many other developed countries. Our emphasis on individual rights rather than group rights makes many suspicious of representational claims based on ascriptive characteristics. That argument would be more compelling if men and women in the aggregate held similar political and policy views. However, since the s, there has been a sharp divergence in party affiliation of men and women in the United States, which translates into differences among men and women in terms of their issue priorities and their framing of policy debates and policy outcomes (Box-Steffensmeier, De Boef, and Lin ). The axiom that women are, on average, more liberal than men is true for elected officials as well as the general public. Even when controlling for party affiliation, women legislators are perceived to be and usually are more politically liberal than men, with some adjustment for constituency effects (Dolan in this volume; Epstein, Niemi, and Powell in this volume; Poggione a). Being a relatively liberal Democrat in a safe Democratic seat does not serve as a barrier to election, but being a moderate Republican woman in a safe Republican seat may be problematic if more conservative Republican men are likely to run. The gender gap in party identification also limits the pool of potential Republican women candidates. Yet, it would be misleading to think of women’s impact only in terms of a single liberal-conservative continuum, with increases in female representation resulting only in the median position to move toward the liberal end. Women bring different perspectives to the table. In this volume, Swers and Larson show that feminist bills are nearly always sponsored by women in Congress, whereas antifeminist legislation is nearly always sponsored by men (usually Republican). This difference has been most apparent in the area of health care, where the actions of
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women members led to the creation in of the Women’s Health Initiative, a large-scale longitudinal study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of three diseases of crucial importance to women: heart disease, breast cancer, and osteoporosis (Dodson ). Because previous NIH studies had been conducted with male subjects only, researchers did not know that many of the symptoms of life-threatening conditions, such as heart disease, present differently in male and female patients (Glazer , ). Because there are few multimember districts in the United States, women officeholders often take on the responsibility of acting as surrogate representatives for women outside their own legislative districts. As Jane Mansbridge (, ) writes, “Feelings of responsibility for constituents outside one’s district grow even stronger when the legislature includes few, or disproportionately few, representatives of the group in question.” From the perspective of underrepresented groups, directing resources toward sympathetic candidates and officeholders in other districts can maximize influence. Women officeholders have the added responsibility of acting as role models for other women through sociological representation. Women of color and lesbians often are expected to act not only as role models for women in general, but to be strong models and advocates for these other communities as well. Representative Carrie Meek (D-FL), whose grandparents were slaves and parents were sharecroppers, and who was a domestic worker at one time, makes this point in the following story: You know when I get a thrill? When some of the little girls come to my office, the little interns. One little girl, I met her in the hall; she came to intern for someone else and she said, “I just want to take a picture with you. . . . I’m so proud to see a woman, like you, a black woman.” She’s a little black girl and little tears came to her eyes. And she said, “Just let me have a picture.” And to see that kind of—I guess the word I want is admiration, for me and for the fact that I’m a woman . . . and that one day they’ll be here, right? See, ten years ago, or fifteen years ago, she wouldn’t have thought she could be here. But now she thinks she can be here, and that is a great part of what I see here, too — when the young come along and they see it can happen. (quoted in Margolies-Mezvinsky , ) Once in office, most women members of Congress feel obligated to devote time and energy to their roles as surrogate and sociological representatives (Carroll ). However, they also run the risk of being perceived as tokens deviating from organizational norms. As discussed in our chapter in the first edition, Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s (a) foundational study of women in corporations found that women could move beyond tokenism only when their proportions reached about percent. At levels from about to percent women have mi-
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nority status and can “have potential allies among each other, can form coalitions, and can affect the culture of the group.” Women achieve “balance” with men in the workplace at about percent representation (). Thomas (a, – ) found that as their numbers increased, women officeholders felt freer to pursue different policy objectives from those favored by their male colleagues. Other research has found that women state legislators felt less responsibility for sociological representation when their numbers reached a critical mass of about percent (Carroll and Taylor , – ). Women’s representation in Congress was below these thresholds in at percent, although Michele Swers and Carin Larson (this volume) note that the numbers have been sufficient for some women to move into leadership positions and to advance gender-related legislation and interaction styles. Women have been able to move into these positions, in part, because, from onward, they have constituted a critical mass within the Democratic Party Caucus. As such, party leaders have needed to take their concerns more seriously and incorporate them into party positions (Schroedel and Corbin , ). The average proportion of women in state legislatures is higher, at . percent (see Thomas in this volume, Table I.), but there is considerable state-by-state variation. As of early , women averaged less than percent representation in the state legislatures of six states, to percent in twelve states, to percent in twenty-seven states, and percent or more in five states (Carroll b; Wilcox and Norrander in this volume). Fulfilling sociological representational roles can be especially difficult for Republican women. The first challenge concerns their token status in their institutions and in their political parties. Republican women make up slightly fewer than percent of all state legislators. In seven states (Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Montana, Tennessee, and Vermont), there is only a single Republican woman serving in the state senate (CAWP d). Women constitute less than percent of the Republican caucuses in the House and the Senate. Second, for ideological and cultural reasons, the Republican Party is less welcoming to women than is the Democratic Party. As Swers and Larson discuss in this volume, Republican women officeholders tend to conform to one of three “archetypes” based on their views about gender roles and attitudes toward women’s issues: social conservatives, those who reject gender difference, and feminists. Republican women officeholders face challenges in providing sociological representation for women in the populace who hold similar views. As Epstein, Niemi, and Powell (this volume) note, Republican male officeholders are a highly conservative group. The challenge for the social conservative is reconciling her activities in the public sphere (i.e., as an elected official) with a religious orientation and worldview that holds that a woman’s place is in the home. Republican women who deny the importance of gender differences also often reject the need to provide sociological representation—all the while trying to carve out a space in a party
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and institutions that are highly masculinized. Republican women with feminist leanings have the very difficult task of trying to represent women’s concerns in a party replete with antifeminist leaders. Women of color face additional challenges, as their numbers in Congress and state legislatures are even smaller (see Thomas in this volume, Table I.; García Bedolla, Tate, and Wong in this volume; CAWP f ). Native American and Asian and Pacific Islander women are especially isolated, with only nine of the former and twenty-three of the latter serving in state legislatures (CAWP f ). Mary Hawkesworth () has found evidence that political institutions are racegendered, marginalizing both women and racial/ethnic minorities and especially treating women of color as tokens. In her interviews with fifteen congresswomen of color during the rd and th Congresses (– ) and analysis of welfare reform debates, she found race-gender stereotyping was present even though women of color acted as studious, rational professionals in carrying out their legislative responsibilities. Republican women of color seem especially prone to tokenism, with only one serving in Congress each term for the past decade and seventeen spread out over the ninety-nine state legislative bodies in the United States.2 The struggle to overcome tokenism is even more pronounced for lesbians. There is only one openly lesbian member of Congress, Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). Only two states (California and Massachusetts) have more than one open lesbian serving in their state legislatures. New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts, are the only cities to have more than one open lesbian serving on their city councils (Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute b). In some cases, the isolation can be mitigated by a lesbian officeholder forging connections with gay males or heterosexual women. Both strategies, however, pose challenges. Although there are a number of policy areas in which lesbians and gay men have formed alliances, gay male elected officials are less willing to support issues of concern to lesbians than are lesbians to support issues that affect gay men (Schroedel and Fiber ). In a similar vein, female elected officials hold significantly more tolerant attitudes toward homosexuality than do male elected officials, but substantial portions of both groups hold inegalitarian views (Schroedel ).
The Plateau Effect
Beginning in the s, journalists and scholars used the metaphor of a glass ceiling to describe the inability of women to move into managerial positions and have since tracked progress in the percentages of women in higher professional positions (Stroh, Langlands, and Simpson ). By , women constituted about percent of the workforce and percent of managerial and specialty positions, but only about percent of corporate officers and percent of boards
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of directors. Only two women were CEOs of Fortune companies (Stroph, Langlands, and Simpson ). There are similar patterns in terms of political participation: women are a majority of the electorate but still lag behind in terms of other political activities (N. Burns, Schlozman, and Verba ). At all levels of government, women hold substantially fewer positions than men. As one moves from lower to higher elective offices, the proportion of women drops dramatically: women hold percent of state assembly seats, percent of state senate seats, percent of governorships, and percent of seats in Congress (CAWP c). Moreover, as has been noted throughout this volume, the aggregate numbers of women serving in all types of elected office slowed in the mid-s and subsequently leveled off. The proportion of women in statewide elective office showed a steady, albeit slow, increase throughout the s and early s, reaching . percent in , virtually identical to the current percent (CAWP d). The pattern was replicated for state legislative offices (state house and senate seats combined), with the proportion of women state legislators growing incrementally throughout the s and s and peaking in with . percent. As Thomas shows in the introduction, the current figure is almost the same: . percent. The pattern exists with respect to women’s representation in Congress, where the slow increase stalled in with women’s proportion at . percent. As of this writing, it is at . percent in the House and percent in the Senate, thanks at least in part to Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) interim appointment by her father to his old Senate seat (CAWP e). The aggregate data, however, do not tell the entire story. A more nuanced understanding can be gained when the numbers are disaggregated for different sectors of the population. For example, there has been a fourfold increase in the numbers of openly lesbian elected officials, albeit starting from a very low base (Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund b). According to the most recent figures compiled by the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute, there are eighty-one open lesbians serving in elected office, constituting . percent of all openly homosexual elected officials in the country. Much of this increase can be attributed to the efforts of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a political action committee that endorses and funds openly gay and lesbian candidates. According to its annual report, the Victory Fund has spent over $ million on outreach, candidate training, and funding of campaigns since its founding in (Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and Leadership Institute , ). During the electoral cycle, the Victory Fund endorsed fifty-two candidates, including thirteen lesbians (Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and Leadership Institute d). Over the past thirty-five years, there has been a sixfold increase in the number of African American elected officials. Throughout this period, women have composed an increasing percentage of the total number of black elected officials. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (), women
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made up only . percent of African American elected officials in . That figure increased steadily throughout the s, s, and s, reaching . percent in ( Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies ). Similarly, Latinas make up a growing percentage of all Latino elected officials, at . percent. These officeholders are overwhelmingly Democratic. For example, only twenty-nine Latina officeholders (out of , Latino officials) are identified as Republicans (National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials ). As Norrander and Wilcox show in this volume, the aggregate data also obscure some very significant shifts in individual states, most notably those with initially low levels of female officeholders. Since ’s Year of the Woman, the legislatures in thirty-eight states have seen an increase in the percentage of female legislators and only ten have seen a decline; the other two held constant. In , women were . percent of state legislators. Aside from South Carolina, all of the other states experiencing a decline between and started with higher than average numbers of women in their legislatures and, in most cases, the drop was relatively small. Although most of the states exhibited relatively modest increases during the period, nearly all of the states at the very bottom, defined as those with less than percent female membership in their legislatures, experienced sharp increases (Alabama . to percent, Kentucky . to . percent, Louisiana . to percent, Mississippi . to . percent, Arkansas . to . percent, Oklahoma . to . percent, and Pennsylvania . to . percent). By , only South Carolina (. percent) was below the percent mark. Furthermore, in , twenty states fell below Kanter’s percent threshold where women in the state legislatures are relegated to token status, but by , only five states were in that category. In other words, there are only a handful of states where female representation is severely skewed—which means women in more states have the numbers to be able to form a critical mass and achieve their legislative objectives. However, only Washington, with . percent of its state legislature composed of women, has come close to achieving Kanter’s definition of balance.
The Limits of Conventional Wisdom
Much of the scholarly writing and popular discussions about the dearth of women in public office implicitly or explicitly holds women responsible. There are two variants of this conventional wisdom. The first variant was prevalent during the first half of the century after women gained the franchise in . According to this view, women’s lack of involvement in politics was attributed to their “political backwardness.” For example, in their path-breaking work, The Civic Culture, Almond and Verba (, ) used the following terms to describe women: apathetic, emotional, parochial, and conservative. The expectation was that as women’s
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level of interest and understanding of politics increased, their engagement in all forms of political behavior, from voting to running for political office, would increase. The single most important piece of evidence cited for women’s lack of political sophistication was their lower voting rates (Nie, Verba, and Petrocik , ). A more sophisticated variant of the conventional wisdom gained credence in the s, after women’s voting turnout began to exceed men’s turnout. At that point, it became difficult to claim that women were more politically backward because they were less likely to vote. Instead, pundits began to argue that increases in the number of female officeholders would occur gradually over time, primarily as a result of a generational shift. However, by asserting that progress is contingent on women’s readiness to run as positions open, this version also places the onus for female electoral success on women themselves. There was some hope that the passage of term limits legislation in the s would speed up this generational change and result in more women officeholders ( Jewell and Whicker , ). Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Although there are more women state legislators in states with term limits, these states tend to be ones with a history of being favorable to women officeholders (Carey, Niemi, and Powell ; Carey et al. ; Epstein, Niemi, and Powell in this volume). In , the total number of women officeholders declined in six states with term limits, partially due to a lack of women candidates in winnable open seats. A number of women candidates were also used as “sacrificial victims” in noncompetitive districts (Bernstein and Chadha ). Carroll and Jenkins’s () analysis of the and elections found that the total number of women in lower houses in states with term limits declined, but there were overall modest gains in some states as women moved out and up from state houses to state senates.
Causes of the Plateau Effect
The United States is not the only country to experience a slowing or stagnation in women’s representation in electoral office. As Norris and Inglehart (this volume) note, “Progress worldwide has perhaps proved most intractable in the inclusion of women’s voices in politics and government.” Over the past twenty-five years, this intractability has led to a global effort to jumpstart women’s representation in countries where their electoral success has stalled. In light of the global nature of the phenomenon, it makes sense to identify common factors that may be root causes for women’s underrepresentation and consider strategies for ameliorating them. For many years, Duverger’s () cross-national study was the only academic research disputing the conventional wisdom that placed the blame for underrepresentation on women themselves. Rather than attributing their absence from public life to their backwardness, he emphasized the role of three barriers that
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make participating in politics more difficult for women. As articulated in the introduction to this volume, the first barrier is voter hostility, an unwillingness to vote for qualified female candidates of one’s political party. The resistance of party leaders to women’s attempts to gain entry into party and institutional positions of power is the second barrier. Duverger called this phenomenon male conspiracy. The final barrier is electoral arrangements, many of which appear neutral on the surface but work to the disadvantage of women. We believe that Duverger’s barriers are a useful starting point for understanding the reasons that women’s representation in elective office has leveled off. In the remainder of this section, we summarize the most recent cross-national efforts to identify barriers to women’s participation in politics and then examine the extent to which the United States conforms to these patterns. Finally, we explore the effectiveness of international efforts to mitigate the impact of these barriers. In , the European Union formally raised the question of whether representative bodies can be considered truly democratic if women’s voices are largely absent (Gaspard , ). In , women constituted only . percent of all members of national legislatures (Inter-Parliamentary Union [IPU] c). Concern about these figures prompted the IPU to endorse the following principle: “The achievement of democracy presupposes a genuine partnership between men and women in the conduct of the affairs of society in which they work in equality and complementarity, drawing mutual enrichment from their differences.” Shortly thereafter, the IPU embarked on two cross-national research projects designed to discover why women continued to be massively underrepresented in political office throughout the world. In , the IPU sent a survey to all presiding officers and heads of political parties with representatives in national legislatures throughout the world. They received responses from sixty-seven countries—predominantly those with high levels of female representation. Respondents identified three major impediments to increasing women’s representation: electoral systems that disadvantage women, hostile attitudes toward women among the public and party leaders, and adverse material conditions (poverty, war, and family responsibilities) that limit the pool of women willing to run for office (IPU b). The second IPU survey queried two hundred randomly selected female legislators from around the world. In response to questions about obstacles encountered by them or other women, they cited roughly the same list of barriers as those in the first survey (IPU c). In short, the cross-national research indicates that all three of Duverger’s barriers continue to pose significant impediments to women seeking political office. Further, adverse material conditions result in women being less willing than men to run for office. As discussed in the introduction to this volume, in the United States, the first of Duverger’s barriers, voter hostility, was clearly a major factor in limiting women’s candidacies throughout much of the twentieth century. Dolan (this vol-
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ume) cites a wide range of public opinion surveys from the s through the s indicating a pervasive bias against female candidates. Although her data show a marked decrease over the past thirty years in the percentage of the public holding these views, a meaningful minority still believe that “most men are better suited for politics than are most women,” and “women should take care of running their homes and leave running the country up to men.” As discussed later in this chapter, voters also tend to believe that male candidates are better able to deal with military and national security issues, which has particular salience in a post– September America. Given the closeness of many races, even a relatively small portion of the electorate with these views can depress women’s chances of electoral success. Because most people holding these views tend to identify with the more socially conservative of the two parties, one would expect these views to have a greater impact in socially conservative regions of the country and in Republican primary races in which a woman is pitted against a man. Further, we argue that these views are becoming more entrenched and are a major reason for the plateau effect. Much of the resistance to women taking on political roles is religiously based. Cross-national research (R. Inglehart and Norris ) indicates a strong positive correlation between development, secularization, and egalitarian attitudes toward women. The United States is an anomaly in that it has a high level of economic development, but is also a highly religious society (). For example, only percent of respondents to the American Religious Identification Survey indicated that their worldview was at least somewhat secular (Kosmin, Mayer, and Keysar , ). More troubling for proponents of gender equality, there has been a shift in religious adherence away from more liberal Protestant sects toward more socially conservative ones. This has fueled a growing socially conservative backlash against women’s entry into traditionally male realms.3 For example, the million member–strong Southern Baptists in amended their Baptist Faith and Message to read: “A wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ” and then went on to state that a wife “has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing her household and nurturing the next generation” (quoted in Stammer , A, A). Marvin Olasky, an advisor to President George W. Bush and the originator of the concept of “compassionate conservatism,” explicitly extends the notion of female submission into the political realm: God does not forbid women to be leaders in society, generally speaking, but when that occurs it’s usually because of the abdication of men. As in the situation of Deborah and Barak, there’s a certain shame attached to it. I would vote for a woman for the presidency, in some situations, but again, there’s a certain shame attached. Why don’t you have a man
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who’s able to step forward? God’s Word says very plainly that an elder is to be a man; he is to be the husband of one wife. It’s harder when there are women who are CEO’s of companies and so forth. Still it comes down to the question of “Do we trust God and do we believe that He has wisdom that we don’t have?” (quoted in Wegener , ) As noted previously here and by Norrander and Wilcox in this volume, the states with the lowest percentages of women officeholders are disproportionately in the South, the region where the conservative Protestant adherents are most prevalent. Baptists alone make up more than percent of the population in much of the Bible Belt (Kosmin, Mayer, and Keysar , ). The Center for the American Woman and Politics (c) compiled an ordinal ranking of states based on the percentages of women in all types of elected office. The bottom five states, starting from the least favorable to women, are South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. The top five states, starting with the most favorable, are those with low levels of conservative Protestants: Washington, Colorado, Maryland, Oregon, and Vermont (see also Kosmin, Mayer, and Keysar , – ). Although Duverger’s barrier identified as male conspiracy by party leaders was a major impediment for women candidates through the s, conscious discrimination is far less significant today. As Darcy, Welch, and Clark (, ) noted, national studies have offered little evidence of overt discrimination by party leaders. What is clear, however, is that in the aggregate male and female candidates receive support from different sources. As Burrell shows in this volume, the two parties have provided different levels of financial support to male and female congressional candidates. Incumbent Republican women received higher levels of support than did their male counterparts, but Republican women running in openseat races got far less than did male Republicans running in open-seat races. Among Democrats, the differences were less stark, but male incumbents did better than female incumbents. Even more interesting, men and women received financial, organizational, and electoral support from very different types of nonparty groups. As Epstein, Niemi, and Powell discuss in this volume, women state legislators generally get support from feminist and environmental groups, and men get support from socially conservative groups. In particular, the Christian Coalition was much more supportive of male Republicans than female Republicans. Additionally, although the aggregate data do not show widespread evidence of an overt male conspiracy, it would be useful to disaggregate the data by party and region to determine whether party and nonparty elites in some areas discriminate against women. The low numbers of women elected officials in the South and the region’s generally conservative social and religious beliefs make this a distinct possibility. Duverger’s final barrier, electoral arrangements, appears on the surface to be gender-neutral. However, as noted in the introduction to this volume, electoral arrangements can, in practice, affect women’s chances for electoral success. There
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appear to be two significant ways that electoral arrangements work against women. First, the United States is one of the few democracies to predominantly utilize single-member district election systems for most electoral contests. Most other countries use some version of multimember and/or proportional representation systems. A key distinction between these models is that, in single-member district systems, only one person at a time is chosen to represent a district. Cross-national data show that women are much less likely to be elected when the single-member district system is employed (Darcy, Welch, and Clark ; IPU , ; R. Inglehart and Norris , – ; Norris and Inglehart in this volume). The power of incumbency, particularly among members of Congress, is a second major way that electoral arrangements work against women’s political ascension. In the general elections, for example, only three senators and seven representatives were defeated; another nine incumbent representatives were defeated in the primaries (Congressional Quarterly Staff, , ). The bottom line is that there are limited opportunities for women’s representation in Congress to increase. A Candidate Emergence Study identified percent of strong potential congressional candidates as women, indicating that the gap between women’s level of representation in Congress and their level in state legislatures would most likely diminish if additional open congressional seats became available (Maisel, Stone, and Maestas ). Finally, we argue that Duverger’s barriers, though extremely important, must be augmented by consideration of the ways sociocultural factors decrease women’s willingness to pursue political careers. In the past, the pool of potentially eligible candidates was low because women did not have the credentials viewed as necessary for elective office. This problem is no longer as widespread as it has been in the past. A higher percentage of women than men attend universities and women are well represented in occupations that are most likely to lead to political careers. Membership in the legal profession is the most common entryway into politics and women now make up nearly half of all lawyers in the United States (Norris and Inglehart in this volume). However, as discussed throughout this volume, women within the pool of eligibles are less likely than similarly situated men to consider themselves qualified for electoral office (Fox and Lawless ). As Thomas notes in the introduction, the division of labor in the home continues to be unequal. According to recent Department of Labor figures, the average working woman spends twice as much time as the average working man caring for children and doing household chores (Feminist Majority Foundation Online ). As Darcy, Welch, and Clark (, ) note, there is indirect evidence that this unequal division of labor inhibits women’s willingness to run for office (e.g., women tend to delay running for office until their children are grown and are much less likely than male officeholders to have small children). Early studies (Costantini ; Stoper ) found that women officeholders had substantially lower levels of political ambition compared to their male coun-
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terparts, but more recent research indicates the gap has decreased dramatically. Women lawmakers on the whole are more professionalized than men (Epstein, Niemi, and Powell in this volume). Women officeholders tend to view elective office as a full-time career, work more cooperatively, and devote more time to legislative activities. More direct evidence comes from a recent study of state legislators, in which women legislators reported significantly lower levels of interest in running for Congress because of child-rearing responsibilities. To some extent, this difference was mitigated by women’s greater likelihood to run when they perceived that they had a high chance of winning (Fulton et al. ). Although the question of women’s involvement in politics remains controversial in some parts of the world, as the IPU’s actions indicate there is increasing recognition that democratic principles require the full participation of all citizens.4 Starting with the social democratic parties in the Scandinavian countries in the s, there has been a growing movement to reform countries’ electoral laws and practices to ensure greater female representation in political office (Gaspard ; Norris ). The most extreme version of these reforms is the mandate that a set proportion of seats be reserved for women. For example, in , India reformed its constitution to give women a greater voice in local government by requiring that one-third of all Panchayat members (local village council members) be women. Less extreme reforms include legal quotas requiring that a set proportion of positions on party lists of parliamentary candidates be female and changes in internal party rules to establish gender quotas (Norris ). According to Norris and Inglehart in this volume, these efforts, which originated in Northern Europe, have now spread throughout much of Europe and have made significant inroads in Latin America and some African countries. Following implementation, in every case, there was a substantial jump in the numbers of women holding office. For example, in the Nordic countries, which were the first to embrace the parity movement, there is an average of nearly percent female membership in their national legislatures (IPU b). The influence of the European Court of Justice, which has been in the forefront of the movement to expand opportunities for women in all realms of life, can be seen in Germany, a country that has had a deep tradition of separate gender roles. In response to a series of Court rulings in the s and s, German political parties adopted quota systems for party positions. With the exception of the most conservative party, the Christian Social Union, the proportion of women party members serving in the national legislature has tripled since quotas were adopted (Lemke , – ). By , women made up . percent of all the members of the German lower house (IPU d). The example of France, one of the European countries most resistant to reform, illustrates the limitations of partial efforts. In , the French revised their constitution to require that party lists for most local elections, regional elections, some Senate seats, and for European parliamentary elections be equally divided
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between men and women. However, they did not require gender parity for most national parliament seats. Instead, the government sanctions parties that do not run equal numbers of men and women by reducing their public funding (Gaspard , – ). Although these reforms resulted in the proportion of women in the national assembly doubling between and , women still compose only . percent of the total (IPU d). Although discussion of adopting some version of positive discrimination to ensure a greater voice for women is likely to trigger a hostile reaction in the United States, the question needs to be put on the table. Even though the United States is one of the most developed countries in the world, we rank fifty-eighth in the percentage of women in our national legislature. Not only do we have a lower proportion of women in Congress than do most European countries, but we are below the . percent average for all of North and South America (IPU d). In short, we lag behind Costa Rica, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, Peru, Panama, and Ecuador, to name just a few of our Western Hemisphere neighbors. Our representation is roughly comparable to that of Equatorial Guinea and Greece and just below that of Angola and Sierra Leone.
The Impact of September 11, the War on Terrorism, and the War in Iraq
Ironically, the emphasis on combating terrorism and the ongoing war in Iraq is likely to hinder progress for women’s representation in political office at a time when the United States should be making greater efforts to reduce gender, racial, and economic inequalities to preserve the ideals of American democracy (American Political Science Association ). Public opinion and small-scale experimental studies have consistently shown that Americans tend to associate more assertive personality traits with men and more compassionate traits with women. Even if voters, in principle, are gender-neutral about candidates, they are more likely to judge male politicians as competent on issues related to defense and foreign affairs, and women as more competent on domestic issues (Huddy and Capelos ; Sanbonmatsu ; Dolan in this volume). The results of a nationwide random survey, conducted a year after the September , , terrorist attacks, confirms the persistence of trait and issue gender stereotyping (Lawless ). A total of percent of respondents felt that men were better able to handle a military crisis, percent saw no difference, and only percent felt women were more competent on this topic. On specific questions related to fighting terrorism and the Middle East, the proportion of respondents who judged men as more competent ranged from to percent. Very small per-
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centages favored women. Because improvements in women’s representation in elective office leveled off prior to the terrorist attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it may be difficult to determine how the increased focus on military issues is affecting women candidates. At a minimum, it seems probable that the current political environment could deter some potential women candidates from running and could hurt other women’s chances of winning races against male candidates who emphasize national security issues.
Conclusion
We believe that there are attitudinal, sociocultural, and institutional barriers that limit the likelihood that women will soon achieve parity with male officeholders. We are encouraged that women are more accepted as political leaders and in the gains that were made in the s and s to increase women’s representation in most state legislatures above token levels. Increases in the number of African American women and Latina officeholders are especially notable. However, as this book accentuates, a striking plateau effect has set in, and more proactive efforts are needed by political parties, interest groups, educational institutions, and the media to promote the emergence of future women candidates. Although the prospects for enacting a quota system in the United States are almost nonexistent, political reformers could do more to promote multimember districts and reapportionment processes that encourage a more diverse array of candidates by party, sex, and ethnicity. We are particularly troubled by a persistent partisan gender gap that results in a much lower proportion of Republican women officeholders than Democratic women and thereby limits gains to be made in women’s representation in electoral office. Cracking the political glass ceiling may depend most on the degree to which women’s gains in educational achievement translate into increased numbers of women candidates. The number of women enrolled in college has exceeded that of men since , about five years before women’s voter turnout rates began surpassing those of men (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES] a). Women now are percent of enrolled college students, and that proportion is expected to rise to percent by (NCES b). The recent increases in the proportion of African American women and Latina officeholders also seems to be tied to an even wider college enrollment gender gap among racial and ethnic minorities (Sum, Fogg, and Harrington ). The ability of political parties and interest groups to successfully encourage women college graduates to become politically involved will dictate the future of women officeholders and whether the full range of political views will be represented in the U.S. political system.
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NOTES
We want to thank Pamela Foerstel and Scott Waller for their research assistance. We also appreciate the contribution made by Nicola Mazumdar as coauthor of this chapter in the first edition. . See also Thomas in this volume for more on the plateau effect in state legislatures. . All states except for Nebraska have bicameral state legislatures. . R. Inglehart and Norris (, this volume) identify socially conservative religious beliefs as the most significant cultural reason for women’s exclusion from politics. . Even in Saudi Arabia, one of six countries where women have been excluded from the franchise, there has been progress. Nadia Bakhurji, a thirty-seven-year-old architect and mother of two children, is running for a municipal council seat, even though it is unclear whether she will even be allowed to cast a ballot (Ambah , , ).
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Index
Page numbers in italics refer to figures and tables. abortion issues. See reproductive issues affinity effect, Afghanistan, Africa, , , , , African American women. See color, women legislators of age of candidates, Anderson, Cora Belle Reynolds, Angola, , Angry White Male, Year of, anti-feminist legislation, , , Arab States, , Argentina, , Aristotle, , , Asia, , , , Asian American women. See color, women legislators of Askins, Jari, – attitudinal orientations, contextual vs. instrumental, – , , – Australia, , autonomic individuation and organizational preferences, – Azerbaijan, backgrounds and personal lives of candidates and legislators, – Asian American women, – black women, – , , comparison of women of color and white women, Latinas, – , political innovation theory, – Bahrain, Baldwin, Tammy, ,
Belarus, Belgium, Bhutto, Benazir, bipartisan collaboration among congresswomen, decline in, – black women. See color, women legislators of Blackburn, Marsha, , blaming behavior, Bosnia Herzegovina, Boxer, Barbara, , breast cancer, – Brown, Corrine, , Brown, Wendy, , Brown-Waite, Ginny, Bruntland, Gro Harlem, Burke, Yvonne Braithwaite, , campaign financing, , – – statistics, – elections, – early money, , – , PAC and party contributions, , – , , private contributors, male vs. female, receipts by candidate status and gender, – , , success rates, – , , women candidates and winners, – , women’s PACs, effectiveness of, , – amounts needed, “Clean Money” campaigns, – growing success of women candidates at, –
311
312
Index
campaign financing (continued) historical background, – , – political innovation, women’s congressional candidacy and election viewed as, – reforms, regional differences in election of women as state legislators, , , Canada, , , Cannon, Martha Hughes, Cantwell, Maria, Capito, Shelley Moore, career, treatment of political office as, – , – , , Carnahan, Jean, Carraway, Hattie W., Carson, Julia, Catholic countries, , CBC (Congressional Black Caucus), – , CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women), , Central Asia, , Chan, Wilma, character traits leadership, traits contributing to, – , self-presentation of candidates regarding, , – traditionally ascribed to women, children and family. See backgrounds and personal lives of candidates and legislators China, Chisholm, Shirley, , , – , , Christian-Christensen, Donna M., Ciller, Tansu, civic contributions, what counts as, – Clark, Martha, Clayton, Eva MacPherson, “Clean Money” campaigns, – Clinton, Hillary Rodham, , Collins, Barbara-Rose, , , , Collins, Cardiss Robertson, , , – Collins, Susan, color, women legislators of, – education, employment, and personal lives Asian American women, – black women, – , ,
compared to white female legislators, Latinas, – , electoral structures, significance of, – historical background, – , – impact, defining and measuring, – “overrepresentation” of, , – , , – review of literature and research on, – sociological role models, – statistics on, , , , , strategic politicians, underrepresentation of Asian American women, Colorado state legislature, gender-based policymaking differences in, . See also gender differences in policymaking committee position and status. See also gender differences in policymaking color, women legislators of, descriptive/substantive representation of women affected by, – leadership styles of women, committee chairs used to study, – obtaining committee chair position, – , women’s issues and priorities, advocacy of, – commonality and diversity among women, – compounding ideology, gender as, – , Congress. See Representatives, U.S. House of; senators, U.S. Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), – , conservative women officeholders, – constituency service, – , “contagion,” policy diffusion regarded as, content analysis of gender differences in policymaking, , – , – contextual vs. instrumental attitudinal orientations, – , , – Continental Congress and institutional gendering, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), , conversation analysis of gender differences in policymaking, , – ,
Index
cost of campaigning. See campaign financing Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, “credit-claiming,” – , Cressingham, Clara, crime, gendered alternative views of, – , – critical mass theories, – cultural attitudes about women in political life internationally degree of difference made by cultural vs. other barriers, – , democratization, effect of level of, – , developing and postcommunist vs. postindustrial countries, – gender differences in, generational shifts, – , political culture, barriers created by, – relationship between cultural attitudes and number of women actually in office, – , , voting public, – , , Davidson, Jo Ann, Dellums, Ron, , , Democratic women bipartisan collaboration, decline in, – conservative Democrats, Pelosi’s attention to concerns of, – Republican vs. Democratic numbers of women in political office, state legislators, regional variations in percentage of women as, , , women’s movement supporting, democratization, effect of level of, – , denial of gender differences, , – descriptive vs. substantive representation, . See also representation theory developing and postcommunist vs. postindustrial countries, – . See also cultural attitudes about women in political life internationally discourse analysis of gender differences in policymaking, , – , district vs. state interests, gender differences in priority given to, DiVall, Linda,
313
diversity and commonality among women, – diversity in elective office, importance of, – , – Dole, Elizabeth, , Dunn, Jennifer, , Duverger, Maurice, – Earhart, Amelia, Early Childhood Education Act, economics and political advancement of women, – , – Ecuador, , educational backgrounds of women legislators. See backgrounds and personal lives of candidates Egypt, , electoral structures, effect of, – , , – EMILY’s List, , , , employment backgrounds of women legislators. See backgrounds and personal lives of candidates Equatorial Guinea, Escutia, Martha, , Europe cultural barriers, , institutional barriers, plateau effect, progress in women’s political participation, – quota systems used in, , , European Court of Justice, influence of, exclusion of women, political system predicated on, – family planning programs, – Feinstein, Diane, Felton, Rebecca Latimer, feminalism, , , feminism, hyphenated, feminist identity candidates and officeholders with, , – denial of, feminist issues, women legislators’ advocacy of, , , – , – feminist movement, political representation of women substantiated by, –
314
Index
Ferraro, Geraldine, financing campaigns. See campaign financing Finland, . See also Nordic States France parity movement, , , – partisan environment, effect of, structural barriers in, , full-time vs. part-time state legislatures, – , , – fund-raising. See campaign financing Gallegos, Fedelina Lucero, gay legislators, , gender and power gendering as function of power, intrusiveness effect as aspect of relationship between, neutralizing or equalizing gender power, – , witnesses before committees, women’s vs. men’s view of power, gender differences cultural attitudes toward women in political life internationally, denied by women officeholders, , – leadership styles, – , – , policy focus of national legislators in policy focus, – , – power, women’s vs. men’s view of, substantive representation and, intersection between, – gender differences among state legislators, – changes and continuities in, – effect on women’s prospects, – legislative activities, – , partisan support, – , policymaking differences (see gender differences in policymaking) political ideology, – , , – , – professionalization gap, reversal of, – , – , research methodology, state vs. district interests, priority given to, women’s issues and priorities, advocacy of,
gender differences in policymaking, – attitudinal orientations, contextual vs. instrumental, – , , – committee hearings, gendered verbal dynamics in, – , chairs of committees, – members of committees, – neutralizing gender power in, – witnesses, content analysis, , – , – conversation analysis, , – , crime, alternative views of, –, – discourse analysis, , – , research methodology, , sources of information used, – , , , women’s power to change process, – gender diversity in elective office, importance of, – , – gender gap, , – gender stereotyping, – media coverage reinforcing, – partisan environment, , – , policy interests and expertise, – public view of women candidates, – Republican women, archetypes of, – self-presentation to counter, women’s issues and priorities, General Social Survey (GSS), – generational shifts in cultural attitudes internationally, – , geography. See international perspective; regional differences in election of women Georgia, Germany, , , Gilligan, Carol, – , – Gingrich, Newt, , , , , glass ceiling. See plateau effect Goodschild, J., , – Grasso, Ella, Greece, GSS (General Social Survey), – Hall, Katie Beatrice, Hamilton, Alexander, Harman, Jane, Harper, Minnie Buckingham, Harr, Melissa,
Index
Harris, Katherine, , Hatfield, Mark, Hawkesworth, Mary, – Helms, Jesse, , Herseth, Stephanie, Hill, Anita, , , Hispanic Caucus, history of women candidates and officeholders, – Holly, Carrie Clyde, House. See Representatives, U.S. House of Hutchison, Kay Bailey, hyphenated feminism, ideology. See political ideology incumbency status evaluation of candidate’s political ideology affected by, general election candidates, , opportunity structure of election shaped by, , , “overrepresentation” of women of color in Congress, , , plateau effect, explanation for, primary candidates, , – regional differences in election of women to state legislatures, , , – , – state and local office, voter support and, , India, , individual autonomy and organizational preferences, – information about candidates, significance of availability of, information sources used in policymaking, gendered differences in, – , , , innovation, women’s candidacy and election viewed as. See political innovation theory institutional gendering, – , – analysis of political environment, , – civic contributions, what counts as, – denial of gender differences by Republican women, – exclusion of women, political system predicated on, –
315
individual autonomy and organizational preferences, – international institutional barriers to women in political life, – leadership and, masculinism, – novelty of women candidates revealing norms of environment, particular adherence of political institutions to gendered past, – policymaking, gender differences in, , , , proto- and compounding ideology, gender as, – , , , women’s impact affected by, instrumental vs. contextual attitudinal orientations, – , , – international perspective, , – . See also cultural attitudes about women in political life internationally barriers to women in public life, continued existence of, – degree of difference made by cultural vs. other barriers, – , democratization, effect of level of, – , developing and postcommunist vs. postindustrial countries, – gender differences in cultural attitudes, generational shifts in cultural attitudes, – , institutional barriers, – Iraqi government, requirements for percentages of women legislators in, , number of women in office, relationship between public view of women and, , – , percentages of women in lower house of legislatures, worldwide, plateau effect, – political culture, barriers created by, – quotas for women legislative candidates, , , , – regional differences in election of women, – structural (socioeconomic) barriers and effects, – , – voting public’s view of women, effect of, – , –
316
Index
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). See IPU interpersonal dimension of leadership, greater attention of women to, – , – , , intrusiveness effect, , – , IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union), , , Iran, Iraq, , , – Islamic States, , , , Israel, Italy, Jackson, Jesse, Jackson-Lee, Sheila, , Japan, , , Johnson, Eddie Bernice, Johnson, Nancy, , Jones, Stephanie Tubbs, Jordan, , , Jordan, Barbara Charline, , Kann, Mark, Kassebaum, Nancy Landon, , , , , , Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod, , Kilpatrick, Carolyn Cheeks, , Kirkpatrick, Jean, Klock, Frances S., Kuwait, labor division in the home affecting women’s willingness to run for office, labor force, women’s role and equality in, Lake, Celinda, Landrien, Mary, Latin America proportionate representation of women inn public office in, public attitudes toward women’s political leadership in, quotas for women legislative candidates, , , structural barriers in, Latina women. See color, women legislators of leadership, – , – . See also committee position and status character traits regarded as contributing to, – ,
gender differences in styles of, – , – , increasing numbers of women in positions of, – interpersonal dimension, greater attention of women to, – , – , , research methodology, – seniority issues, , statistics, , – task orientation, role of, , – women’s issues, House and Senate advocacy of, – least preferred coworker (LPC) instrument, – , Lee, Barbara, , legislative activities of female vs. male state legislators, – , lesbian legislators, , liberal status of women candidates and legislators. See political ideology liberation ideologies, inclusion of women in, Lincoln, Blanche, Livingston, Bob, local political office likelihood of women holding national office vs., – opportunity structure in, political experience of candidates running for national office, Lowey, Nita, – LPC (least preferred coworker) instrument, – , Madison, James, Majette, Denise, male conspiracy as explanation for plateau effect, mammograms, marital status. See backgrounds and personal lives of candidates and legislators masculinism, – McDonald, Juanita, McKinney, Cynthia Ann, , , , media treatment, , – , – Meek, Carrie, , , , Meir, Golda, Mexico,
Index
Meyers, Jan, , Middle East, , , , Mikulski, Barbara, , , , Mink, Patsy Takemoto, , , – , , Molinari, Susan, Morella, Connie, , , Morocco, Moseley Braun, Carol, , – , , , – Moua, Mee, multimember vs. single member state districting systems, effect of, , , , , , Murkowski, Lisa, , , Murray, Patty, , , Musgrave, Marilyn, , Namibia, Napolitano, Graciela Flores, , , , National Election Study (NES), , – , – National Institutes of Health (NIH) Women’s Health Initiative, national vs. state or local level of officeholding, – NES (National Election Study), , – , – Netherlands, , , New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, , NIH (National Institutes of Health) Women’s Health Initiative, Nordic States cultural barriers to women in political life, parity movement in, progress of women’s political participation, – public attitudes to women’s political involvement, relationship between cultural attitudes and actual numbers of women in office, values endemic in political culture, significance of, norms of environment, novelty of women candidates revealing,
317
North Africa, , North America, Norton, Eleanor Holmes, , , Norway, . See also Nordic States novelty of women candidates revealing norms of environment, Oakar, Mary Rose, – Olasky, Marvin, – Oleen, Lana, Oman, open-seat vs. incumbent elections. See incumbency status organized groups supporting state legislators, gender differences regarding, “outsiders,” self-presentation as, “overrepresentation” of women of color in Congress, , – , , – Pacific Region, PACs. See political action committees Pakistan, , parity movements and quotas for women legislative candidates, , , , – Partial Birth Abortion Act, , , – , partisan environment. See also Democratic women; Republican women gender differences among state legislators, – , gender stereotypes and, , – , international perspective, , nomination of woman by one party affecting other parties in same constituency, opportunity structure of election shaped by, , , political ideology as function of, (see also political ideology) predicting presence and success of women candidates according to, – , Republican voters less favorable to women than Democrats, state legislators, percentage of women as, , , , – voter support and, , women’s issues and priorities, advocacy of, – , – , –
318
Index
part-time vs. full-time state legislatures, – , , – party contributions to women candidates, elections, , – , , Pateman, Carol, Pelosi, Nancy, , , – , personal lives. See backgrounds and personal lives of candidates and legislators Peru, Phillips, Anne, , Pitkin, Hannah, plateau effect, – aggregated vs. disaggregated data, – blaming women for, – causes of, – defined and described, – electoral structures as explanation for, – international perspective, – male conspiracy as explanation for, representational roles of women officeholders and, – September , terrorism, and Iraq war affecting, – voter hostility as explanation for, – policy interests and expertise, – . See also gender differences in policymaking gender stereotypes regarding, – self-presentation regarding, – , seniority, effects of women’s lack of, political action committees (PACs) party and PAC contributions to women candidates, elections, , – , , political innovation theory and, women’s PACs, , – , , political experience of candidates, political ideology descriptive/substantive representation of women affected by, – gender differences among state legislators, – , , – , – liberation ideologies, inclusion of women in, proto- and compounding ideology, gender as, – , , , public evaluation of, – , – , representational roles of women officeholders and,
state legislators, regional variations in percentage of women as, , , – political innovation theory, – backgrounds and personal lives of candidates, – general election candidates, , – incumbency status, effect of, , , – local vs. state or national level of officeholding, – partisan environment, effect of, , , – , policy innovation and diffusion, by state, – , predicting probability of women candidates, factors affecting, – , , , previous success of women in constituency as predictive factor, – , , , primary candidates, , – recruitment of candidates, – strategic politicians, usefulness of perspective, – Porter, John, – Portugal, Powell, Adam Clayton, power and gender. See gender and power predicting probability of women candidates, factors affecting, – , , , president, poll on voting for woman as, – , professionalization gap, reversal of, – , – , , pro-life/pro-choice stance. See reproductive issues Protestant countries and regions, , , proto-ideology, gender as, – , , , Pryce, Deborah, , – , , public view of women candidates, – . See also voter support for women candidates and officeholders character traits ascribed to women, gender stereotyping, – GSS (General Social Survey), – information about candidates, significance of availability of, international perspective, – , – NES (National Election Study), , – , – party affiliation stereotypes, , – ,
Index
policy interests and expertise, – political ideology, evaluating, – , – , president, poll on voting for woman as, – , steady evolution in, – , – support for women candidates generally, – women voters’ support for women candidates, – , , Qatar, , quotas for women legislative candidates, , , , – Rankin, Jeanette, recruitment of candidates, – , , , regional differences in election of women international perspective, – national congressional office, state legislative office (see state legislators) religion, influence of, , – reluctance of women to run for office, representation theory (descriptive vs. substantive representation), gender difference and substantive representation, intersection between, – political ideology and allocation of power, – women’s movement, political representation of women substantiated by, – representational roles of women officeholders, – representative quotas for women legislative candidates, , , , – Representatives, U.S. House of color, women legislators of (see color, women legislators of ) gender differences among national legislators, – political innovation, female legislators as (see political innovation theory) women’s issues, female legislators as advocates for (see women’s issues and priorities) reproductive issues bipartisan collaboration, decline in, , Partial Birth Abortion Act, , , – ,
319
Republican women, archetypes of, , substantive representation of women and gender differences, intersection between, – Unborn Victims of Violence Act, , “Republican Revolution,” , , – , Republican voters less favorable to women than Democrats, Republican women archetypes of, – bipartisan collaboration, decline in, – Democratic vs. Republican numbers of women in political office, denial of gender differences by, , – gender difference and substantive representation, intersection between, – greater barriers to political office for, increased numbers of, – male conspiracy and, sociological role models, – women’s issues and priorities, – Rivers, Lynn, role models, female legislators as, – Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana, , , , , , , Ross, Nellie T., Roukema, Marge, , – Roybal-Allard, Lucille, , , , , Rwanda, Saiki, Patricia Fukuda, , – , – , Saiz, Porfirria Hidalgo, Salter, Susanna Medora, Sánchez, Linda, – , , , Sánchez, Loretta, – , , – Saudi Arabia, , Scandinavia. See Nordic States Schakowsky, Jan, Schroeder, Patricia, self-presentation, – blaming behavior, character traits stressed, , – “credit-claiming” stances, – , gender stereotypes, countering, , – media coverage, – policy interests and expertise, – , research methodology, – women’s issues and priorities, –
320
Index
senators, U.S. color, women legislators of (see color, women legislators of ) gender differences among national legislators, – political innovation, female senators as (see political innovation theory) self-presentation of (see self-presentation) women’s issues, female senators as advocates for (see women’s issues and priorities) seniority issues, , SEP (social eligibility pool), –, –, September , terrorist attacks, , – Shackleford, Lottie, Shaheen, Jean, Sierra Leone, single member vs. multimember state districting systems, effect of, , , , , , skills, availability of women with, – , – Smith, Margaret Chase, Snowe, Olympia, , social eligibility pool (SEP), – , – , social welfare issues as women’s issues, , , – socioeconomic barriers to women in political life internationally, – , – sociological representativeness of female legislators, – Solís, Hilda, , – , sources of information used in policymaking, gendered differences in, – , , , South Africa, , South America. See Latin America Southern states, poor record of election of women to political office in, , , , , Spain, , , Stabenow, Debbie, , Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, state legislators. See also gender differences among state legislators campaign financing issues, , , full-time vs. part-time legislatures, – , , –
incumbency status/term limits, , , – , – leadership positions, women in (see leadership) likelihood of women holding national office vs., – multimember vs. single member districts, , , , , , opportunity structure in, political experience of candidates running for national office, political ideology and partisan environment, effect of, , , , – , recruitment of candidates, , , regional differences in election of women as, – accounting for geographic variations, – explaining recent changes on, – plateau effect, – predictive factors, – research methodology, – , – statistics regarding, – , – skills, availability of women with, – , – statistics numbers of women legislators, – numbers of women legislators analyzed by predictive factors, percentages of women by region, percentages of women in each state legislature, – percentages of women in state legislatures as a whole, predictive factors, voter bias and political culture, effect of, women as significant proportion of officeholders, state vs. district interests, gender differences in priority given to, states electing women to Congress – s, – , policy innovation and diffusion theory, – , states never having elected a women legislator, Steinmetz, Kay, stereotyping. See gender stereotyping
Index
strategic politicians, structural (socioeconomic) barriers to women in political life internationally, – , – substantive vs. descriptive representation. See representation theory success of women in previous elections as predictive factor, – , , , Sweden, – , . See also Nordic States Switzerland, task orientation and leadership style, , – term limits. See also incumbency status plateau effect and, regional changes in election of women as state legislators, – , – terrorism, effect of, , – Thatcher, Margaret, Thomas, Clarence, , , , Thurman, Karen, Title IX, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, , Unborn Victims of Violence Act, , United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, , United Nations, , United States compared to other countries egalitarian cultures, electoral system and partisan environment, effect of, public attitudes, effects of, quotas and group representational rights, , structural barriers, – Velázquez, Nydia M., , VIEW PAC, Violence Against Women Act, voter outreach by female officeholders, – voter support for women candidates and officeholders, – , organized groups, political ideology, and gender differences, plateau effect, voter hostility as explanation of, –
321
regional differences in election of women to state legislatures, women voters, – , , women’s movement, political representation of women substantiated by, – Waldholtz, Enid Greene, Waters, Maxine, , , , , Watson, Diane Edith, , welfare reform and women legislators of color, willingness of women to run for office, – , WISH List, , – , witnesses before committees, gender dynamics of, women candidates and officeholders, – historical background, – impact of, – , – importance of having, – international perspective on, statistics, , – , , – , status, effectiveness, and future prospects, – successes and challenges for candidates, – officeholders, – women, diversities and commonalities among, – women voters’ support for women candidates, – , , Women’s Caucus, , , Women’s Educational Equity Act, Women’s Health Initiative, women’s issues and priorities, – color, women legislators of, – congressional women as advocates for, – gender differences in policy focus, – , – institutional and party influences on policy choices, – , – , – leadership positions, effects of women legislators attaining, – Republican women, – research on policy impact of women as legislators, – women’s issue bill database, – ,
322
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women’s issues and priorities (continued) defined, – denial of gender differences, effects of, , – feminist issues, women legislators’ advocacy of, , , – , – gender stereotypes regarding, media presentation, coverage, and treatment, self-presentation regarding, – seniority, effects of women’s lack of, state legislators as advocates for, types of legislative activity promoting, –
women usually sponsoring legislation on, – women voters’ support for women candidates, – women’s movement, fear of political retribution from, – women’s movement, political representation of women substantiated by, – World Values Surveys, , , , Year of the Woman, , , , , – , , Yoder, Janice D., , , Young, Cathy,
