Women, Elections, Public Office

Formal versus Informal Requirements

• Formally at most levels in the American political system the requirements to hold elective office combine age and residency requirements.

• For example, in Article I of the Constitution the requirement to be a candidate for the House of Representatives is that you be 25 years of age, and a resident of the state you wish to represent, and citizen of the US for the past 7 years.

• To be a candidate for U.S. Senate the age requirement is 30 and the citizenship requirement is 9 years.

• To be President the requirement is 35 and the residency is “natural born citizen”.

Informal

• High SES

• Governor

• U.S. Senator

• Vice President

Barriers• Structural

– Incumbency– Winner-take-all

• Informal– Education/profession experience – Member of the “pool”– Motherhood– Fundraising

http://www.fec.gov/press/053101pacfund/tables/pacdis00.htm

– http://www.fec.gov/press/053101pacfund/tables/pacrec00.htm

Women, Elections and National Level Office

• U.S. House of Representatives Office of the Clerk

• There are currently 66 women serving in the House of Representatives and 14 in the Senate.

• In percentage terms 14% of both houses are female (15% of House 14% of Senate).

Governorships

• List of Women in State Houses

• 8 currently serving (Kathleen Blanco – D LA elected November 2003).

• Governors who have become president

Voter/Elite Hostility?

• Evidence is largely anecdotal• But based on continuing existence of sex

discrimination• No systematic evidence exists for gender

discrimination by voters, parties or other elites (recruitment is different between the Democratic and Republican parties).

• So why are women not in office?

Achieving Elective Office - Support

• Women do not receive same levels of support from institutionalized political groups.

• Such lack of support would deter women from running

• Interview data on perceived levels of support (by the candidates running) indicates no difference and no deterrent.

Trends

• Not possible to identify a particular characteristic barring women from office. Therefore women are electable.

• Women only slowing moving into office, why?– Blame the Victim– Eligibility Pool– Women’s Role as Wife and Mother

Possible Explanations: Blame the Women

• Lack of ambition, aggression, understanding of the political system, over focused on traditional issues such as family, education not military, economics, etc.

• Weaknesses of this:– How to identify conclusively what traits are most desirable

for successful political career.– Honesty, hard working, decision making ability not

exclusive to men– BTV requires that women adapt to the political system.

Why not blame the system? Especially if we argue that a representative democracy must be fully representative.

– Rules of the game determine outcomes…how do the rules effect women?

Eligibility Pool• Wealth• Occupational Prestige• High Education• Women are wealthy, but have lagged on education

and occupational prestige. Enrollment parity was followed by graduation parity. Graduation parity has not meant employment and employment success parity.

• Eg: Sandra Day O’Connor, 3rd in class Stanford (Wm. Rehnquist – 1st). No job for SDO at graduation. Women high turnover rate in law firms.

Women’s Role as Wife and Mother

• Difficult to dismiss the argument that women are more inhibited by childcare responsibilities than men.

• Demands of political life require extended absences.

• Women new comers to state houses tend to be older on average (40s) than men (30s)

• Some men do cite family as reason for leaving political office.

• Evidence is mixed.

Fundraising

• Francia finds that Democratic female candidates (nonincumbents) are systematically raising more money than Republican female nonincumbent candidates.

• Each additional $1,000 donated corresponded to a .47% increase in the vote for the candidate (Francia 2001,16). This is critical in races where candidates lose by small margins (for example 3%).

• District partisanship, open seat races still critical factors.

Political Culture

• Perhaps there are cultural explanations for why women are elected to office more or less frequently based on which U.S. state we are examining?

• For example Washington state has high female representation compared to Pennsylvania

• Women in the States Report• Pdf version.

Political Culture

• States have been classified as having either moralistic, traditionalistic or individualistic cultural orientations.

• Moralists view politics as part of the advancement of the public good (West/North West).

• Traditionalists view politics as in hands of elites who can best guide the social, political and economic systems (South).

• Individualists view politics as method of getting ahead. (PA, MO, WY).

Political Culture• Difficult to disentangle from other variables• Ex: Traditional political culture – the south – democratic

party dominance, absence of party competition, race politics, rural dominance of legislatures through legislative malapportionment AND the traditional political culture

• All potential explanations for low levels of female representation in southern state legislatures.

• Lowest ranking states (#s37-50) are all southern states: Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Georgia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi

Problems?• Urban versus Rural?• What are the costs to rural versus urban campaigns?• What about the traditional role? Could the length of the

legislative session be related to women’s representation?

• Race? Are black women different? Yes…they seem to do as well as white women at state legislative level. Eg:– BW 36% of their pop.

– WW 37% of their pop.

– BM 93% of their pop.

– WM 176% of their pop.

Local Level politics

• Tends to be less partisan, more personal

• Theoretically women better linked to this level than state or federal– Civic ties– Parenting less of an obstacle

• Role of political elites enhanced?– Laura Padgett/Spence Broadhurst

Elites and Campaign Advertising

– Negative ads – impact on women candidates versus male candidates?

– Clift and Brazaitis argue negative ads harder for women to use

• No evidence about gender • Evidence of negative ads had been that they increased issue

saliency for voters and increased turnout.• 1999 Lau et al. evidence is that they are no better or worse than

positive ads.– no reliable statistical evidence to conclude that negative ads are

liked less than positive ads.– No reliable statistical evidence that negative ads are more effective

than positive ads – Little evidence suggesting decline in political participation is due

to increased negativity in campaigns (Lau et al. 1999, 857-858)

Over time perception may be key

• 1988 Michael Dukakis – lost

• 1992 George Bush – lost

• 1996 Bob Dole – lost

• 1984 Ronald Reagan – positive campaign – won “Its Morning in America” (paraphrase)

• Negative “Willie Horton” ad very successful part of 1988 Bush campaign.

Theoretical Importance: Politics and Women?

• Right to participate as a citizen?• Right to have influence on decision-making

bodies?• Right to share in the benefits of public

office?• Right to govern?

– No cultural or philosophical foundation for women sharing power with men.

The electorate and the Gender Gap

• An objective observation of differences in voting choices and attitudes of women and men

• Gender Gap or the perception of one has influenced politics– Mondale puts woman on ticket in 1984– Reagan appoints first woman to SC Sandra Day

O’Connor

Variants of the Gender Gap• Mass participation gap

– Women have narrowed and reversed this in their favor. More women vote than men.

• Electoral gap– Differences in vote choice of men and women– Women are *more likely* to support Democratic Party

candidates

• Partisan gap– Difference in partisan identification between women/men– Women tend to identify more with the Democratic Party

• Political attitudes gap– Public opinion gap

Possible Explanations

• A woman’s perspective, i.e., do men and women differ in fundamental values? (and who is changing, the women or the men??)– Differences are a result of social constructs and role of

women in society– Differences are a result of biology

• Empirical data?– Psychological studies have documented differences in

empathy, style of social interaction, conceptions of morality.– But there is little data supporting a “woman’s perspective

w/respect to politics and issue preferences”

Evidence

• Is there a Gender Gap in political values • Do women’s values vary depending on

strength of feminism?• If there are gender differences in values to

what extent are they attributable to feminists?– Egalitarianism, individualism – women not

different from men

Comparative National Legislative Representation

• U.S.A. ranks 67th in the world in female representation to the national legislature.– Drop from 57th in 2003.

• 11 countries of Latin America out rank USA with Costa Rica ranked third world wide– Presidential democracies in same region.

• Rwanda ranked number one with 48.8% female representation.

• http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm

Women in National Legislatures

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

Sweden

Denmark

Finland

Netherlands

Germany

Spain

Belgium

Austria

Portugal

Britain

Luxembourg

Ireland

U.S.A.

Greece

Italy

France

Percentage Representation

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