Women and Politics in the US Research Paper

II. Theory and Literature Review

A. Women as Political Actors

1. Political Attitudes

2. Political Participation

B. Women as Political Candidates

1. Descriptive Representation

2. Explaining Women’s Descriptive Underrepresentation

3. Voters Evaluating Women Candidates

4. Gender and Electoral Campaigns

5. Women and Political Parties

C. Women in Political Institutions

1. Women in Legislatures

2. Women in the Courts

3. Women in Executive Office

III. Future Directions

I. Introduction

In the last few decades, women in the United States have made great strides in politics. Although women have historically voted in lower numbers than men, a higher percentage of women have registered and voted in presidential elections than men since 1984. Women now also win election at rates comparable to their male counterparts. In Congress, women have made substantive policy changes that positively influence women. Beyond Congress, women have achieved other political successes. Hillary Clinton almost gained the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, Sarah Palin was the second woman to be a major party vice-presidential nominee, and Condoleeza Rice recently served as the first black woman secretary of state.

The successes of women in politics raise a few important questions. First, is the political glass ceiling broken? Do women still face barriers in participating in politics based on their gender? If there are barriers, what are they and how can they best be minimized? And second, when women engage in politics—whether as participants in local city council meetings, as voters, or as members of congress—does their behavior make a difference? Do women have distinct political preferences from men? And if so, what explains this? Finally, what potential value lies in more women engaging in politics? This research paper proceeds by first introducing the most important questions and then reviewing relevant work addressing each question in the areas of women as political actors, women as political candidates, and women in political institutions.

II. Theory and Literature Review

A. Women as Political Actors

When considering the role of gender in U.S. politics, it is first important to consider how gender influences citizens’ perception of politics and their role in it.

1. Political Attitudes

Whether men and women have distinct political preferences and, if so, why these differences exist has been a primary research focus. Women report some policy preferences distinct from men. Women are less supportive of the use of military force in areas of foreign policy and are more liberal in their desire for the government to provide services, jobs, and health care to citizens. The most prevalent and studied attitude difference between men and women is the gender gap: differences between men and women in both party ideology and vote choice, with women being more likely than men to identify with the Democratic party and to support liberal, Democratic candidates. The gender gap has existed at least since 1964 (Kaufmann & Petrocik, 1999), but disappeared briefly post–September 11, 2001, only to reemerge in 2004.

Scholars’ investigation of the causes for these differences offers several possibilities on the origins of the gender gap. The first attitudes theory adopts the view that underlying issue preferences, particularly on social issues, explain the gap. This is supported by work that suggests feminism has contributed to the gender gap by promoting a so-called women’s perspective that influences policy and promotes an ideology of equality and sympathy for the disadvantaged. This theory also comports with the idea that since women are more likely than men to identify with certain issues, the party that performs better on these issues will be more likely to have larger numbers of female voters (e.g., Kaufmann & Petrocik, 1999).

Although greater numbers of women have voted Democratic than Republican, in terms of issue advocacy, Sanbonmatsu (2002) finds that the Republican and Democratic Parties are largely similar on most gender issues. She argues that despite few compelling policy differences, Democrats are more willing to support and discuss gender issues. Abortion is the only issue that has become strongly partisan, which partly explains why feminists ally much more closely with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. Overall, however, neither party has made gender issues a significant part of their party platform.

A second salience hypothesis posits that perhaps men and women weigh issues differently when evaluating parties and candidates. The idea is that the gender gap does not stem solely from different political orientations, but rather men and women might find different issues salient in their political decisions. Kauffman and Petrocik (1999) test the salience model alongside the attitude model and find evidence of the attitudes hypothesis in 1992 and the salience hypothesis in 1996. Both attitudes and salience explain the gender gap to some degree, but the context of the election influences how voters weigh various criteria.

A third explanation for the gender gap suggests it originates from changing male attitudes. Simply, there is an ongoing defection of party members from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. The gap exists, at least partially, because men are becoming Republican far faster than women.

Research indicates contextual variables shape the gender gap’s varying size and causes. Although women tend to be more likely to vote Democratic than men are, the candidates or issues influence the size of the gap. This theme is echoed by other scholars like Kauffman and Petrocik (1999), who state that the gender gap is responsive to political, economic, and social factors. Specifically, the gap increases as the political climate becomes more conservative, when the economy is poor, and as women as a group become more economically vulnerable and government programs are threatened. Only with issues of use of force and compassion does the size of the gender gap stay constant (Norrander, 1997).

2. Political Participation

Research on gender and political participation has examined the extent to which women participate in a broad range of political acts—from conventional to unconventional—as compared to men and to explain these differences. In many areas—such as voting, participating in local politics, and protesting—women participate largely in equal numbers as men. In a few areas, particularly in campaign contributions, belonging to political organizations, and in contacting public officials, women participate less.

Scholars have tried to explain these small but persistent gender differences in political participation in multiple ways (Burns, Schlozman, & Verba, 2001). Women are generally disadvantaged when it comes to the resources— financial and otherwise—that facilitate political activity. Scholars conclude that if women had more resources, their overall political activity levels would be very close to men’s. Gender differences in educational attainment, although negligible among younger generations, continue to give men relatively more civic skills and networks to promote civic engagement. In combination with differences in educational attainment, workplace segregation means men are more likely to have jobs that cultivate the skills necessary to support political participation. And although women are more involved than men in certain types of organizations—for example, religious organizations—men in these organizations are more likely than women members to take on leadership positions that help them acquire civic skills (Burns et al., 2001).

Beyond political participation, several other gender gaps in political attitudes exist. Women tend to be less politically interested, informed, and efficacious than men, and these factors partially explain the gap between women and men in political activity. Women know less about politics based on standard political knowledge batteries as well, but half of the difference is explained by women being less likely to guess when presented with a question they are unsure how to answer (Mondak & Anderson, 2004).

B. Women as Political Candidates

1. Descriptive Representation

When one thinks about women as candidates, one might wonder whether it matters if women are elected to political office. Theories of democracy present multiple ways in which the interests of groups are represented in government. Descriptive representation is achieved by our governmental bodies reflecting the composition of our society. With regard to gender, pure descriptive representation would require that the percentage of women in political bodies reflect their relative percentage in the population. In contrast, substantive representation requires that the interests of women (or other groups) be raised in government.Although many argue that male representatives could adequately raise the substantive interests of women, research finds numerous benefits to descriptive representation, the most compelling that when group members represent themselves, the overall substantive representation of their group interests improves (Mansbridge, 1999). Several other advantages have emerged as well. For example, the presence of women candidates increases women’s civic engagement (Burns et al., 2001), and in districts where women are elected, female constituents are more likely to participate in politics and to have greater senses of political efficacy and political competence (High Pippert & Comer, 1998).

2. Explaining Women’s Descriptive Underrepresentation

Since women compose approximately 50.9% of the population but hold just under 17% of seats in the current 111th Congress, they are descriptively underrepresented. The question that scholars have asked is why. Many argue that it could be largely explained by the so-called institutional inertia created by our incumbency-driven system, which creates very few openings for women to seek. Recent research, however, finds that term limits that are meant to address this have not had as large a positive effect as anticipated (see Bernstein & Chadha, 2003). Crossnational research finds that proportional representation systems, over winner-take-all systems like that in the United States, lead to more women in office. In the United States one sees a similar effect since one sees more women in office in states with multimember districts for state legislative seats. A third explanation begins with the idea that there are not enough qualified women in the pipeline to pursue political office. The argument proceeds that if more women pursued careers in the fields that most often precede political office—those in education, law, business, and politics—more women would seek and win positions. Although this is likely to have some effect on the number of women in office, simply having more women in the pipeline will not necessarily increase the number of women pursuing office since women are far less likely to perceive themselves as qualified to run for office, even when they hold similar qualifications to men (Lawless & Fox, 2005).

Because of these gender differences in self-perception among qualified candidates, outside encouragement becomes essential to increasing the number of women pursuing elected office. Women are twice as likely as men to run for office when encouraged by others, such as party leaders, to do so (Lawless & Fox, 2005). However, women are far less likely to receive encouragement from party leaders than men, and a majority of women candidates running for local office report they were actively discouraged by political party leaders (Niven, 1998). Prospective women candidates also perceive it is more difficult to be elected and to raise money for a campaign than their male counterparts (Lawless, 2009). Thus, self-perceptions and differential political ambition among qualified men and women candidates seems to partially explain women’s underrepresentation, especially when one considers that women are less likely to be encouraged to run but more reliant on such encouragement.

3. Voters Evaluating Women Candidates

The stereotypes voters have of women and how these are at odds with their expectations of so-called good politicians are also important for understanding women’s descriptive underrepresentation. There is no evidence that gender stereotypes directly impact vote choice or electoral outcomes, but it is clear that stereotypes guide voters’ evaluations of women candidates with regard to their beliefs, traits, and issue strengths. Compared with their male counterparts, women candidates are seen as more liberal (Koch, 2000), as possessing feminine (empathy, compassion) over masculine (assertive, competence) traits, and as capable to handle feminine-related issues (education, poverty) over masculine issues (military crises, foreign policy) (Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993). Thus, the stereotypes of women politicians do not match the male traits voters find important for those in all political offices. However, some positive stereotypes—for example, that women candidates are seen as agents of change—may benefit women candidates in certain electoral contexts.

The role of stereotypes is context dependent. For example, voters are more likely to rely on gender cues as information shortcuts in low-information contexts (McDermott, 1997). Stereotypes can be more or less helpful to women candidates based on the level of office they seek. The perceived traits and issue competencies of women seeking statewide offices such as governor—as opposed to U.S. senator—are more similar to the traits and issues voters desire for someone elected (Kahn, 1996). The broader issue context also matters. For example, the issue context in 1992, the so-called year of the woman, focused on gender issues, and thus, gender-related considerations were more important in the decisions voters made (Dolan, 2001). Lawless (2004) finds that in the post–September 11, 2001, atmosphere, stereotypes work against women candidates because citizens deem men more capable to legislate on issues such as military crises and national security.

Some scholars find evidence that women are more likely than men to want to see women in office and are more likely to vote for women candidates (Plutzer & Zipp, 1996). Research indicates that this support is not based on in-group preference but because they are concerned underrepresentation will leave certain issues overlooked (Paolino, 1995). Further, women with stronger identities as women, feminists, or as liberals are more likely to prefer female representation (Rosenthal, 1995). Recent research, however, refutes the conventional wisdom that women voters are more likely to support women candidates than men (Dolan, 2008).

4. Gender and Electoral Campaigns

Women win political races at rates comparable to their male counterparts and in similar types of races campaign fund-raising receipts are comparable. However, women candidates of all types are still more likely to face gender-based challenges in media coverage, voter stereotypes, and campaign strategy.

Where women run for office matters. Based on a variety of partisan, ideological, geographic, racial, and socioeconomic factors, a small number of congressional districts (18) are considered woman-candidate-friendly, and many more (153) are not woman-candidate-friendly (Palmer & Simon, 2006). Second, women incumbents are more likely to be challenged in primaries and to have candidates compete to run against them in the opposing party’s primary (Palmer & Simon).

The mass media does not always treat female candidates equitably. Compared to their male counterparts, women are more likely to receive less coverage overall, more unfavorable news coverage including more horse race coverage, and less coverage focused on their issue agendas (Kahn, 1996). The level of disparity depends on the level of office: Press coverage is more favorable to female gubernatorial candidates than to U.S. Senate candidates.

5. Women and Political Parties

Scholars have also considered whether political parties enable women to gain political office or rather serve as gatekeepers to them. In U.S. political parties, women have almost managed to achieve gender parity but still hold few leadership roles. A large comparative politics literature finds that stronger, more centralized, and institutionalized political parties increase women’s representation (see Caul, 1999). There is a dearth of research on the role of political parties in women’s underrepresentation because U.S. political parties are comparatively weak. Burrell (1993) suggests political parties are no longer negative gatekeepers for women candidates, but neither do they control the nomination process that could facilitate the nomination of more women candidates. Sanbonmatsu (2006) finds that fewer women run for and hold elected office where parties are more likely to engage in gatekeeping activities.

C. Women in Political Institutions

1. Women in Legislatures

The first stream of research on women in legislatures examines whether gender affects the policy priorities of legislators. The initial work on this question suggests women’s presence in the legislative arena has a discernible effect. In contrast to male legislators, women legislators see bills that focus on women, children, and families as most important and are more likely to invest their legislative capital in these areas.

If women representatives have distinct policy agendas, does their legislative behavior also differ from their male counterparts? The most recent research suggests gender’s influence occurs from bill sponsorship and agenda setting to floor votes. Male and female members of Congress show statistically significant differences in the types of bills they sponsor and cosponsor, support in committee, and support on the floor (Swers, 2002). Women are more likely to sponsor or cosponsor legislation dealing with education, child rights, civil rights, economic equality legislation, women’s health and welfare, and women’s issues. However, although women members of Congress will also vote across party lines on women’s issues, there are many behavioral differences among women. Gender’s effects are mediated by political contextual factors such as partisanship, the partisan balance of power, the degree of polarization, and representatives’ previous voting records. Increasing partisan polarization has made it more difficult to cross party lines on gender issues. In addition, Swers found that Democratic women’s likelihood of speaking up on gender issues increased when they were the minority party while Republican women representatives’ did not.

A third wave of research considers whether women legislators’ style of work varies from that of their male counterparts. Generally, this has been found to be true. (Kathlene, 1994; Rosenthal, 2000). Kathlene (1994) finds that women legislators act differently than their male colleagues in committee hearings. Specifically, women legislators are less likely to speak on legislation regardless of their seniority, potential bill sponsorship, or party. Even when an issue is a high priority for a woman legislator or she is a committee chair, she is less likely than her male colleagues to speak in committee hearings. A study of women as committee chairs suggests other differences in behavior in this role. For example, women committee chairs are more consensus oriented than their male colleagues. However, institutional norms are more influential than gender.

Overall, the extent to which gender influences legislative outcomes, however, may be dependent on the number of women in the legislature and whether a critical mass of women members is achieved. In terms of legislative priorities, women legislators’ distinctive goals become more pronounced when they have the strength of numbers. Women legislators’ likelihood of success in passing legislation increases as the number of women in the legislature grows (Thomas, 1994). Vega and Firestone (1995) argue that when there are not very many women members, the effectiveness that can be tied to the issues that women—as a cohesive group—think are important decreases. As a result, those issues lose institutional support. In contrast, when women representatives are cohesive and work together to structure the congressional agenda, their capacity to influence it becomes stronger. Saint-Germain (1989) also concludes that the amount of time a female member will spend on issues that are important to her as a woman is at least partly a function of the proportion of women in the chamber. She argues that the fewer the number of women in the House, the less likely they are to be effective in addressing women’s issues. Other work suggests that a critical mass of women legislators is less important for women to sponsor legislation on women’s issues (Bratton, 2005).

Recent research examining internal institutional norms and gender suggests why, in terms of legislative outcomes, gender remains fairly insignificant. Women representatives’ historically low levels of formal institutional power have resulted in gender’s minimal effects on legislative policy. Although women are capable of earning seniority and are as legislatively effective as their male colleagues, they have not been as effective because there have been fewer of them. Compared to their male colleagues, women members of Congress have historically lacked the seniority to chair prestige committees or hold elected office in the party hierarchy. Thus, they have been less able to influence legislation. Any gender differences in legislative preferences that might exist thus have been neutralized. Swers’s (2002) study of gender and congressional agenda setting also suggests women often lack the institutional influence to push their preferred legislation.

In brief, previous research clearly indicates legislators’ gender is significant. Gender interacts with representative roles, institutional influence, and bill sponsorship directly. However, its influence on women representatives is clearly contingent on other forces.

2. Women in the Courts

Research on gender and the courts has focused on two primary questions: the factors that affect women’s likelihood of judicial selection and whether gender shapes judicial decision making. Studies of judicial selection are mixed as to what is most likely to lead to gender diversity on the bench. Some work suggests that how judges are picked matters. This research indicates women are more likely to be on courts when selection is done by appointment, not elections (Williams, 2007). However, others find that the larger the number of seats on a court, the more chance a woman will be selected for it.

The verdict on whether and how gender affects judicial decisions is mixed. Early work that looked just at male and female judges showed no significant gender differences in sentencing though male judges were inclined to be more lenient to women defendants (Gruhl, Spohn, & Welch, 1981). Scholars have also considered whether women judges use different models of legal reasoning. Research on this question suggests, however, that judges use the same legal reasoning irrespective of gender (Allen & Wall, 1993).

Other work on the relationship of gender to judicial sentencing suggests gender’s effects on judicial decision making are more complex. When a judge’s gender is considered along with other factors, such as judicial region as a predictor of judicial choices, it is no more important than other characteristics. At the same time, however, the type of cases under review appears to matter (Davis, Haire, & Songer, 1993). Related work suggests that even if final decisions do not vary, having a woman on a court has nuanced effects (O’Connor & Segal, 1990).

3. Women in Executive Office

Since there has yet to be a woman president, a central stream of research in this area has focused on why there has not yet been one. Work on this question suggests public discomfort with the idea of a woman in the White House is key. Women presidential candidates also must battle gender stereotypes regarding expertise in foreign affairs (Lawless, 2004). Media coverage also works against women presidential candidates by focusing on their exceptionalism as women.

Other work has focused on the gendering of the institution of the presidency. Although all political institutions are gendered, Duerst-Lahti (1997) argues that the structure of the presidency is more “masculinized” than any other branch of government. This structural focus on hierarchy and command and control functions makes the Oval Office less accessible to women. The language used to represent the prototypical presidency in public discourse plays to masculine gender stereotypes among voters.

Another stream of research trying to explain the lack of women in the Oval Office has focused on the traditional pipelines men use for the presidency and how accessible they are for potential women presidential candidates. The verdict on this question is mixed. Women have been appointed to the cabinet increasingly over the last 40 years. However, the vast majority of women cabinet appointments have been in outer cabinet positions or further from the Oval Office. The result is that if and when they contemplate running for president, service as a member of a presidential cabinet is not as helpful as it would be for a man.

Women presidential candidates also face particularly unique challenges within the party system. The parties’ interest in masculine candidates means that the more feminine the woman candidate, the harder it is for her to get the nomination (Conroy, 2007). Women presidential candidates also appear to face a different fund-raising viability standard.

Much less clear is whether women in the executive branch make a policy difference. When women are appointed to senior cabinet and statewide office positions, they are more likely to hire other women (Carroll, 1987). However, in terms of actual policy outcomes, women’s potential effects on policy have been neutralized. They end up in traditionally feminized departments or as tokens with limited power. Research on leadership styles also suggests that gendered differences in leadership styles show up in executive differences, with women tending toward more collaborative consensus building across stakeholders and men focusing on hierarchy. However, the limited number of women in statewide executive offices has made this question difficult to research.

III. Future Directions

Many possible new research directions arise from this review. Scholars should continue to identify whether various gender gaps will persist and whether current explanations will hold over time or whether new theories must be developed. Indeed, with regard to the gender gap and the small differences in political participation, it will be interesting to investigate whether these differences subside as women continue to achieve in both education and the workplace.

There is also a lack of research on candidate strategy relating to gender. For example, how do candidates strategically focus on their gender in their campaign communication through means like microtargeting and to what effect? It would also be useful to address more fully how gender and party stereotypes interact when the public evaluates female candidates. Additionally, does gender relate to strategies related to negative advertising?

Recruitment is another fertile area for future research. Given that qualified women view themselves as less qualified and the process to achieve office as more difficult, it is important to more carefully examine the process whereby qualified candidates in the pipeline become candidates. Scholars need to understand more systematically the role that political parties play in encouraging—or not—women candidates. Prior studies finding little relevance of gender on electoral outcomes or vote choice focus exclusively on general elections whereby female candidates have already been whittled down to a very elite, qualified group. Future research should work to understand the relevance of gender at various stages of recruitment prior to the general election.

There are several promising areas of research on Congress as well. One fruitful area for examination would be to look at whether the growing number of women in leadership positions (most notably, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi) results in women’s increasing institutional effectiveness as Swers (2002) would suggest. The effects of the growing partisan polarization within Congress on women members should be examined as well. Intersectionality and the ways gender, race, and other forms of diversity work together within the halls of the U.S. Congress clearly also deserves future study. For example, have white congresswomen and African American congresswomen been influenced by institutional norms differently?

On the question of gender and the courts, there are growing numbers of women judges in both state and federal systems. This growing number offers the opportunity to more fully evaluate gender and judicial decision making. For example, how do gender and race intersect within judicial decision making? Equally important, how does gender affect judges’ ability to be appointed and then rise in the federal court system, the primary stepping stone to the Supreme Court? It would also be fruitful to examine whether and how gender stereotypes shape Senate judicial confirmation.

The most pressing question regarding gender and the presidency remains why no woman has yet been a major party candidate for president. The 2008 presidential election offers an intriguing story of almost that clearly requires further examination.

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