Women in Politics

Chapters: Rethinking candidate emergence -- Can more women run? Reevaluating pathways to office -- Gender and the decision to run for office -- Republican women state legislators: falling behind -- Democratic women state legislators: on the rise -- The future of women’s officeholding.

Though the number of women elected to the U.S. state legislatures has grown substantially in the last forty years, researchers still struggle to connect women's presence in the legislature to public policy outcomes that affect women. One reason for this struggle is that we lack a complete understanding of how political parties modify the relationship between women legislators' interests in representing women and the creation of public policies affecting women. This work examines the two avenues through which political parties fundamentally affect the ways in which partisan women legislators pursue women's issues policies.

In recent years the numbers of women serving in public offices at various levels of government have increased markedly. Is the increasing presence of women in public office making a difference? Are women as public officials having a distinctive impact on public policy and the political process? These questions are central to the studies in The Impact of Women in Public Office. This research examines the impact of women public officials serving in various offices and locales at local, state, and national levels. They are the product of a large, coordinated research project sponsored by the Centre for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University and funded by the Charles H. Revson Foundation. The subjects of these studies are broad and varied, including a prominent U.S. Senator, and local representatives from New Jersey. The research presented in this volume offers compelling evidence that women public officials do have a gender-related impact on public policy and the political process, showing how the impact of women varies broadly across arenas. Additional research in this volume suggests that identification with feminism and/or of particular racial or ethnic group also influence how and to what extent women public officials are making a difference. Contributors include Edith J. Barrett, Susan Abrams Beck, Janet K. Boles, Susan J. Carroll, Debra L. Dodson, Lyn Kathlene, Elaine Martin, Nancy E. McGlen, Meredith Reid Sarkees, Janann Sherman, Sue Thomas, Sue Tolleson-Rinehart, and Susan Welch.