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Southern Methodist University
SMU Digital Repository
Sociology Research Sociology
8-1-2007
Gender in Politics
Sheri L. Kunovich
Pamela Paxton
Melanie M. Hughes
is document is brought to you for free and open access by the Sociology at SMU Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sociology
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Gender in Politics
Pamela Paxton,
1
Sheri Kunovich,
2
and Melanie M. Hughes
1
1
Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210;
email: [email protected]
2
Department of Sociology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75205
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2007. 33:263–84
The Annual Review of Sociology is online at
http://soc.annualreviews.org
This article’s doi:
10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131651
Copyright
c
2007 by Annual Reviews.
All rights reserved
0360-0572/07/0811-0263$20.00
Key Words
women, political participation, representation
Abstract
Women’s political participation and representation vary dramatically
within and between countries. We selectively review the literature
on gender in politics, focusing on women’s formal political partici-
pation. We discuss both traditional explanations for women’s polit-
ical participation and representation, such as the supply of women
and the demand for women, and newer explanations such as the
role of international actors and gender quotas. We also ask whether
women are distinctive—does having more women in office make a
difference to public policy? Throughout the review we demonstrate
that a full understanding of women’s political representation requires
both deep knowledge of individual cases such as the United States
and broad knowledge comparing women’s participation across coun-
tries. We end with four recommended directions for future research:
(a) globalizing theory and research, (b) expanding data collection,
(c) remembering alternative forms of women’s agency, and (d ) ad-
dressing intersectionality.
263
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Formal
representation:
the
legal right to
participate in
politics; women
having the right to
vote and stand for
office
INTRODUCTION
Scholars have documented women’s under-
representation in politics since the middle of
the last century (Duverger 1955, Kirkpatrick
1974, Epstein & Coser 1981, Lovenduski &
Hills 1981). But research on the topic accel-
erated dramatically in the past 20 years. This
acceleration is inspired in part by women’s in-
creasingly divergent levels of political partic-
ipation and representation both across, and
even within, countries. In some countries,
such as Sweden, Argentina, and Rwanda,
women have made remarkable progress in
participation and representation. But in other
countries, women either continue to lack
the right to vote (Saudi Arabia) or are en-
tirely represented by male legislators (e.g.,
Kyrgyzstan, Micronesia, St. Kitts, Solomon
Islands, United Arab Emirates). As of June
2006, women comprised 17% of national par-
liaments around the world and 15% and 14%
in the U.S. House and Senate, respectively
(IPU 2006, CAWP 2006).
The literature on gender in politics is
broad, addressing gender inequality in polit-
ical acts as diverse as voting, campaigning,
and leading, as well as gender differences in
political knowledge, socialization, and atti-
tudes, and women’s place in political theory. In
this review, we focus on women’s participation
in formal politics including suffrage, voting,
running for and holding political office, and
political influence. We also touch on gender
differences in political attitudes, knowledge,
and socialization and in women’s social move-
ment activism, as these concepts help inform
our understanding of women’s formal political
outcomes. We do not consider, except in pass-
ing, the women’s movement, women’s grass-
roots activism, women in the judiciary, women
in the military, how politics affects women, or
policy outcomes (such as abortion) relevant to
women.
Our knowledge of women in politics is still
expanding. Indeed, the literature on women
in politics could be described as exploding.
For example, over 100 new country and re-
gional case studies of quota adoption and im-
pact (only one of the many topics covered in
this review) were published since 2000. We
selectively review the literature, highlighting
important citations that cover both U.S. and
international work on women in politics for
each broad topic covered.
GENDER INEQUALITY IN
POLITICAL OUTCOMES
Women’s fight for formal political representa-
tion is mostly won. At the turn of the twentieth
century, women across many countries had
to contest established beliefs that politics was
a man’s domain (Chafetz & Dworkin 1986).
Early suffrage victories were therefore often
the result of long and trying national-level
struggles (for the United States, see Flexner
1975, McCammon et al. 2001; for elsewhere
in the world, see Morgan 1984, Chafetz &
Dworkin 1986, Hannam et al. 2000). As time
went on, the international women’s move-
ment linked these national struggles for polit-
ical rights, helping to make women’s political
rights an accepted practice (Rupp & Taylor
1999, D’Itri 1999, Berkovitch 1999). After
World War II, women’s political rights were
legally sanctioned in many countries, often
without significant resistance ( Jayawardena
1986, Ramirez et al. 1997, Paxton et al. 2006).
Today, in all countries with legislatures ex-
cept Saudi Arabia, women vote alongside
men in elections, sometimes even in greater
numbers.
Once women gained political rights, it
sometimes took them years to exercise their
right to vote or stand for office. In the United
States, for example, women received the vote
nationally in 1920, but women’s voter turnout
did not equal men’s until the 1980s (Andersen
1996, Burrell 2004). Today, women are more
likely to vote than men in the United States
(CAWP 2006), and across most countries
women vote at rates fairly similar to men. Yet
women are significantly more likely to vote
than men in countries such as Barbados and
Sweden, whereas they are considerably less
likely to vote in Romania and India (Pintor
264 Paxton
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·
Hughes
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& Gratschew 2002). And although women
have the legal right to vote and stand for elec-
tions in almost every country of the world,
cultural barriers to women’s use of their po-
litical rights, including family resistance and
illiteracy, remain (Pintor & Gratschew 2002,
Moghadam 2003).
Research also documents gender gaps in
policy preferences, party affiliations, vote
choices, and forms of political partici-
pation (e.g., Shapiro & Mahajan 1986,
Conover 1988, Manza & Brooks 1998, Box-
Steffensmeier et al. 2004; see Kaufmann 2006
for a recent review). Within a society, the size
and direction of the gender gap often varies
significantly across different forms of political
action. For example, during the 2004 presi-
dential campaign in the United States, men
contributed more money than women, but
women were just as likely to volunteer (Burrell
2004). In the United States, there are also
differences in women’s political participation
across race, ethnicity, and class (Burns et al.
2001, chapter 11; Welch & Sigelman 1992;
Hardy-Fanta 1993; Bedolla & Scola 2006).
For example, Latina women are less politically
active than white or black women in voting,
working on campaigns, and contacting offi-
cials (Burns et al. 2001, chapter 11).
Gender gaps also vary across countries. For
example, whereas women report more politi-
cally left party affiliations than men in coun-
tries such as the Netherlands and Denmark,
women are politically to the right of men in
Spain (Inglehart & Norris 2003, chapter 4).
And explanations for these gaps vary across
countries. In a study of 10 advanced democ-
racies, Iverson & Rosenbluth (2006) conclude
that both individual (e.g., women’s labor force
participation and marital status) and societal
characteristics (divorce rates and labor mar-
ket conditions) are needed to understand the
gender gap in support for leftist parties.
Although women’s formal political rep-
resentation is now taken for granted, the
struggle for descriptive representation re-
mains. Indeed, gender inequality across all
elected and appointed positions persists.
Descriptive
representation:
numeric similarity
between legislative
bodies and the
electorate they
represent in terms of
gender, race,
ethnicity, or other
demographic
characteristics;
women achieving
high percentages of
representation in
legislatures
Figure 1 demonstrates that although women
have reached important milestones, such as
20% representation in national legislatures
in many countries, women’s overall repre-
sentation remains low. Although over 60%
of countries have reached at least 10%
women in their national legislature, fewer
have crossed the 20% and 30% barriers. By
February 2006, only about 10% of sovereign
nations had more than 30% women in
parliament.
Presidents and prime ministers, the top
leaders of countries, are also typically men
( Jalalzai 2004). Indeed, since 1960, when
Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the first fe-
male to lead a modern country (Sri Lanka),
only 30 women have become the top political
executive of their country (Paxton & Hughes
2007). And many of the women elected to the
top leadership position in their country, es-
pecially in Asia and Latin America, had fa-
mous husbands or fathers who preceded them
in political life (e.g., Indira Gandhi, Corozon
Aquino). Cabinet positions show a similar
dearth of female faces, and women are far
more likely to hold cabinet spots in health,
education, or “women’s affairs” than posi-
tions associated with finance or defense (Davis
1997, Reynolds 1999, Siaroff 2000, Borelli
2002).
With 14% women in the Senate and 15%
in the House of Representatives, the United
States far from leads the world in women’s po-
litical representation (IPU 2006). Women do
slightly better at the state level, where they
hold 23% of seats (CAWP 2006). Women are
also only a small percentage of top executives
across the U.S. states. Fewer than 30 women
have served as governors since 1925, and even
in 2004, women held only 10% of these posi-
tions (CAWP 2006).
A discussion of global trends, or a sin-
gle country, belies significant variation across
and within regions of the world. Table 1
presents historical regional trends in women’s
national legislative participation along with
some examples of regional research. Look-
ing at the table, it is clear, on the one hand,
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Gender in Politics 265
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Table 1 Historical comparison of the percentage of women in parliaments across regions and selected regional readings
1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 Selected readings
Scandinavia 10.4 9.3 16.1 27.5 34.4 38.2 Haavio-Mannila et al. 1985, Karvonen & Selle 1995,
Bergqvist 1999
Western Industrial 3.6 4.0 5.5 8.6 12.8 22.7 Norris 1985, Norris 1997, Kittilson 2006
Eastern Europe 17.0 18.4 24.7 27.0 8.4 15.7 Rueschemeyer 1994, Jaquette & Wolchik 1998, Matland
& Montgomery 2003
Latin America 2.8 2.7 5.2 8.1 10.0 17.1 Craske 1999, Craske & Molyneux 2002, Jaquette &
Wolchik 1998
Africa 1.0 3.2 5.3 8.0 9.8 16.3 Goetz & Hassim 2003, Bauer & Britton 2006
Asia 5.2 5.3 2.8 5.6 8.8 15.3 Jayawardena 1986, Nelson & Chowdhury 1994
Middle East 1.2 1.2 2.9 3.5 3.9 8.1 Moghadam 1994, Karam 1999; Charrad 2001
that Scandinavian nations have surpassed all
other regions in their levels of women’s polit-
ical representation at all time points. On the
other hand, the Middle East has persistently
had the lowest average levels of female repre-
sentation. Although women’s representation
in Latin America, Africa, and the West pro-
gressed slowly until 1995, in the most recent
decade these regions show substantial growth,
doubling their previous percentage. Expla-
nations for these gains differ across region.
For example, quotas were instrumental in
Latin America (Htun 2005), and armed con-
flict spurred growth in Africa (Hughes 2004,
Bauer 2004). Eastern Europe demonstrates
that high levels of women’s representation
need not be permanent; as Marxist-Leninist
countries transitioned to democracy, women’s
levels of representation declined precipitously
(Matland & Montgomery 2003). Finally, it is
important to remember that women’s legisla-
tive representation varies within regions. In-
deed, Scandinavia aside, many of the countries
that lead the world in women’s parliamen-
tary representation are non-Western, includ-
ing Argentina, Burundi, Costa Rica, Cuba,
Guyana, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa,
and Tanzania (IPU 2006).
EXPLAINING WOMEN’S
REPRESENTATION IN
FORMAL POLITICS
Researchers traditionally distinguish between
supply-side factors and demand-side factors
when explaining women’s levels of politi-
cal representation within a single country or
across the world (Randall 1987, Norris 1997,
Paxton 1997). Supply-side factors increase the
pool of women with the will and experience
to compete against men for political office.
Alternatively, demand-side factors are char-
acteristics of countries, electoral systems, or
political parties that affect the likelihood that
women will be pulled into office from the
supply of willing candidates. A third tradi-
tional explanation, culture, stresses that be-
liefs and attitudes influence both the supply
of and demand for female candidates (Paxton
& Kunovich 2003; Inglehart & Norris 2003,
chapter 6; Arceneaux 2001). Newer explana-
tions stress the role and power of interna-
tional actors and institutional regulations such
as gender quotas.
Supply-Side Explanations
Not all types of people participate in poli-
tics. Supply-side arguments acknowledge that
political participation requires both personal
characteristics such as interest, ambition, and
knowledge as well as resources such as time,
networks, civic skills, education, and eco-
nomic resources. The supply of women avail-
able for political office is therefore deter-
mined partly by gender socialization, which
influences women’s interest, knowledge, and
ambition regarding politics, and partly by
large-scale social structures, which enhance or
266 Paxton
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limit women’s opportunities for education and
employment.
The gender gap in political knowledge and
interest is well established. Across both devel-
oped and developing countries, men are con-
sistently found to be more interested in pol-
itics and have more political knowledge than
women (Burns et al. 2001, Chhibber 2002,
Frazer & MacDonald 2003). For example,
U.S. men scored the equivalent of an addi-
tional 2 3/4 years of schooling on objective
tests of political knowledge compared with
women (Verba et al. 1997; but see Mondak
& Anderson 2004). The U.S. gender gap in
political interest and knowledge also varies by
race and ethnicity. Among whites, blacks, and
Latinos, black women have the smallest gen-
der gap (compared with black men) in politi-
cal knowledge but the largest gap in interest in
national politics. Latinas are consistently the
least interested in and knowledgeable of poli-
tics (Burns et al. 2001, chapter 11). Across all
races, this gender gap disappears or is even re-
versed among children and teenagers (Alozie
et al. 2003).
Direct political ambition is even more crit-
ical for understanding who decides to run for
office. Fox & Lawless (2004) compared men
and women in the four U.S. professions most
likely to yield political candidates—law, busi-
ness, education, and politics—and found that
women are much less likely than men to as-
pire to political office. Part of the explanation
for this difference in aspiration is that these
women were less likely than men in these pro-
fessions to view themselves as qualified to run.
Women were also encouraged to run for of-
fice less often than men. Women’s low levels
of political ambition may also be attributed
to a paucity of female political role models
(Campbell & Wolbrecht 2006).
Interest or ambition aside, women have
fewer of the necessary resources to partici-
pate in politics. Time to participate in politics
is a critical resource, and around the world
women have less time than men. Women still
perform the lion’s share of domestic tasks such
as cooking and cleaning and are the primary
caregivers for children, patterns that may de-
prive women of the free time required to par-
ticipate in politics (Corrin 1992, Chhibber
2002; but see Burns et al. 2001, chapter
10).
Supply-side arguments also point to the
financial and human capital that both are
needed to run for office and that can be ac-
quired through education and employment.
As we might expect, therefore, among indi-
viduals differences between men and women
in levels of education are an important expla-
nation for differences in political participation
(Burns et al. 2001). We might also expect that
state- or national-level differences in women’s
levels of education could explain differences in
their levels of parliamentary representation.
Across countries, however, there has been lit-
tle evidence to support the argument that the
percentage of women in education is a pre-
dictor of parliamentary representation (e.g.,
Paxton 1997, Kenworthy & Malami 1999).
But it is difficult to establish a single mea-
sure of education that is appropriate across
all countries. In the United States, law and
other professional degrees provide an impor-
tant path, and having more women in such
pipeline occupations leads to more female
state legislators (Arceneaux 2001, Norrander
& Wilcox 2005) and state executives (Oxley
& Fox 2004). But in Uganda, seven years
of education and English language skills are
sufficient educational credentials for women
( Johnson et al. 2003).
Similarly, research on individuals has
found that some types of employment pro-
vide women with financial resources, practi-
cal skills for organizing, expanded social net-
works, and more opportunities to discuss and
debate politics (Andersen 1975, Schlozman
et al. 1999). But like the cross-national find-
ings on education, researchers do not consis-
tently find a positive effect for women’s la-
bor force participation on women’s legislative
outcomes across countries (Rule 1987, Moore
& Shackman 1996, Paxton & Kunovich
2003, Gray et al. 2006 versus Paxton 1997,
Kenworthy & Malami 1999, Kunovich &
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Gender in Politics 267
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Paxton 2005). But again, is labor force par-
ticipation the proper measure in all contexts?
Women’s dominance of factory labor across
Asia may boost women’s labor force participa-
tion rates, but such work roles are unlikely to
supply women with experience or skills that
will benefit them politically (Matland 1998,
Kunovich & Paxton 2005). Indeed, women’s
labor force participation does not neces-
sarily indicate that women have economic
power either in a company or in their own
homes (Blumberg 1984, Chafetz 1984, Staudt
1986, Karam 1999). The cross-national re-
search that considers women as managers
or as part of professional occupations also
finds mixed results but suffers from exten-
sive missing data (Paxton 1997, Kunovich &
Paxton 2005 versus Kenworthy & Malami
1999).
Women also gain skills from nonwork ac-
tivities such as volunteering or social move-
ment activism. In the United States, women
use the civic skills and networks gained from
their voluntary associations to make the tran-
sition to politics (Kirkpatrick 1974; Burns
et al. 2001, chapter 9). And across a range
of countries women’s participation in the
women’s movement and in grassroots activism
provides them with both political experience
and political ambition (Fallon 2003, Bauer &
Britton 2006). Indeed, some Rwandan non-
governmental organization leaders complain
that the best women in civil society are drawn
into government or named to commissions or
ministries (Longman 2006, p. 138). Volun-
tary associations, including churches (Burns
et al. 2001, chapters 9 and 11), and personal
connections (Hardy-Fanta 1993) are also im-
portant ways that minority and lower-class
women are drawn into participation.
Demand-Side Explanations
Features of political systems shape the rules
of the game and strongly influence whether
women can attain, and how they attain, polit-
ical power. In the United States, for example,
high incumbent reelection rates must be ac-
counted for when predicting women’s possible
future political gains (Darcy & Choike 1986,
Darcy et al. 1994, Palmer & Simon 2006). A
wide range of political factors generates differ-
ences in the demand for women’s political in-
corporation. In broad terms, a country’s level
of democracy sets the general context in which
women contest seats or are placed into politi-
cal positions. Specific features of the political
system also affect demand, including the elec-
toral system and the presence and structure
of gender quotas. Political parties and party
leaders also pull women into or push women
out of the political process. And at the indi-
vidual level, voters may be more or less likely
to support female candidates over their male
counterparts.
Democracy. Focusing on the broad political
environment, research considers how democ-
racies, semidemocracies, and authoritarian
regimes shape women’s access to political po-
sitions. On the one hand, in democracies the
rules of the political game should be trans-
parent, well detailed, and consistent, helping
women to see how they can work within the
system to attain power (Paxton 1997). On
the other hand, in the absence of true elec-
tions, women can be placed into power even
when citizens do not support them (Howell
2002, Matland & Montgomery 2003). For ex-
ample, the remaining Marxist-Leninist coun-
tries of the world maintain informal quotas
leading to comparatively high levels of fe-
male legislative representation. Given con-
flicting theory on this subject, one should not
be surprised that large, cross-national stud-
ies do not find that democratic countries have
more women in parliament than less demo-
cratic countries (Kenworthy & Malami 1999,
Reynolds 1999, Paxton & Kunovich 2003,
Paxton et al. 2006). Some evidence suggests
that women are less well represented in demo-
cratic systems (Paxton 1997). Indeed, when
authoritarian regimes transition to democ-
racy, the representation of women can de-
cline (Waylen 1994, Yoon 2001, Matland &
Montgomery 2003).
268 Paxton
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An open debate is whether women’s rep-
resentation in nondemocratic national legis-
latures should be treated the same as women’s
representation in effective elected bodies.
Certainly, the meaning of candidate or leg-
islator fundamentally differs depending on
whether a country is a democracy or not.
And women’s presence in high numbers may
be less meaningful if they are unable to
truly affect policy (Goetz & Hassim 2003).
For these reasons, some researchers con-
sider women in politics solely in democratic
regimes (e.g., Matland 1998). Alternatively,
other researchers argue that the position of
parliamentarian is visible and carries prestige
in all contexts, providing women with sym-
bolic power in democracies and nondemocra-
cies alike (e.g., Paxton & Kunovich 2003).
Electoral system. Perhaps the most consis-
tent and well-documented finding in cross-
national research on women in politics is the
importance of a country’s electoral system.
Electoral systems determine how the votes
cast in an election get translated into seats
won by parties and candidates. A general and
simplified distinction is between plurality-
majority electoral systems and proportional
representation (PR) systems. In plurality-
majority systems, the voters in an electoral
district typically vote for only one person to
represent them, and the candidate with the
most votes wins. In contrast, PR systems typ-
ically ask voters to vote for a party with a des-
ignated list of candidates, and parties win leg-
islative seats in proportion to the number of
votes they receive.
Women do better in gaining political
office in countries that use PR electoral
systems (Rule 1981, Norris 1985, Rule &
Zimmerman 1994, Paxton 1997, Kenworthy
& Malami 1999, Reynolds 1999, McAllister
& Studlar 2002, Paxton et al. 2006). And,
in countries that use both PR and plurality-
majority systems simultaneously, women are
elected at much higher rates under the PR
system than the plurality-majority system
(e.g., Norris 1993, p. 313; Rule 1987). For
example, in New Zealand’s 2005 election,
women won 43% of PR party-list seats but
only 20% of the plurality-majority districts.
Similarly, women are a greater proportion
of state legislators in the U.S. states that
use some multi-member districts (Arceneaux
2001, Sanbonmatsu 2002b; see also Darcy
et al. 1994, pp. 160–66).
Women do better under PR systems be-
cause these systems typically have higher dis-
trict and party magnitudes, i.e., the electoral
district or party sends a larger number of rep-
resentatives to the national legislature (Rule
1987, Matland & Montgomery 2003). In a
single-member district, getting on the bal-
lot is a zero-sum process in which every fe-
male candidate displaces a male. In contrast,
in multi-member districts, party gatekeepers
feel pressure to balance their published lists
of candidates across interest groups in society
or in their own party (Welch & Studlar 1990,
Matland 2002).
Gender quotas. Recent research has begun
to document the importance of gender quo-
tas to women’s political representation. Over
the past 15 years, more than 60 countries
have adopted gender quotas—legislation or
party rules that require a certain percentage
of candidates or legislators to be women. In
1990, Argentina became the first country in
the world to adopt a national electoral law
quota, resulting in a 17% increase in women’s
representation in the Chamber of Deputies in
the subsequent election. Rapid gains like those
in Argentina have led scholars to argue that a
slow and steady expansion of women’s rep-
resentation, such as occurred in Scandinavia,
may no longer present the ideal or typical
model for increasing women’s political in-
corporation today (Dahlerup & Friedenvall
2005). Indeed, international efforts to imple-
ment quotas in Afghanistan and Iraq led to
some of the largest jumps in women’s repre-
sentation ever seen (Dahlerup & Nordlund
2004, Paxton & Hughes 2007).
But national gender quota laws do not al-
ways generate significant increases in women’s
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representation. In recent years, quota research
has examined why some quotas are more
effective than others at increasing women’s
parliamentary representation (e.g., Dahlerup
2006). Scholars often focus on particular fea-
tures of quota legislation that may impact
the law’s effectiveness. Placement mandates,
such as two women required among the top
five candidates, may prevent parties from
burying women at the bottom of party lists
( Jones 2004). And sanctions for noncompli-
ance set consequences if party leaders fail
to comply with quota regulations (Dahlerup
2006). But the same quota legislation may
produce a much different outcome depending
on the context in which the quota is adopted
(Schmidt & Saunders 2004, Jones 2005).
Another body of research seeks to explain
how quotas are adopted. Where gender quo-
tas are resisted by male-dominated legisla-
tures, women’s domestic activism or pres-
sure from the international community may
be required (Dahlerup & Nordlund 2004,
Krook 2004, Paxton et al. 2006). Within par-
ties, women’s presence in high-ranking posi-
tions may also facilitate adoption (Caul 2001,
Kittilson 2006). Yet even without these pres-
sures, party and government leaders may see
a strategic advantage to adopting quotas. For
example, across Latin America, the adoption
of quotas by male-dominated legislators is
explained in part by the desire of political
leaders to present their countries as mod-
ern (Dahlerup & Friedenvall 2005). Compe-
tition among political parties may also lead to
innovation—a party first adopting quotas—
or contagion, when one party follows another
in the system (Matland & Studlar 1996, Caul
2001, Baldez 2004, Krook 2004, Kittilson
2006). But despite the range of theories put
forth to explain quota adoption, only a few
comparative and cross-national studies to date
have sought to generalize the process beyond
a single case (Squires 2004; exceptions include
Caul 2001, Kittilson 2006).
Political parties and party leaders. Politi-
cal parties may differentially demand women
as officers, candidates, and legislators. Parties
are gatekeepers: For an individual, man or
woman, to run for political office, he or she
must be selected and supported by a politi-
cal party (Lovenduski & Norris 1993, Caul
1999, Sanbonmatsu 2002b, Kunovich 2003,
Kunovich & Paxton 2005, Kittilson 2006).
The characteristics of political parties there-
fore matter for women. Parties that are further
left in their political leanings tend to espouse
egalitarian ideals and are more likely to pro-
mote traditionally underrepresented groups
such as women (Matland 1993, Caul 1999).
In the United States, for example, women
have been more successful achieving power
in the more leftist Democratic Party than
in the Republican Party. Historically, only
36% of women in the U.S. Congress have
been Republicans (Paxton & Hughes 2007).
Across countries, left party prominence in-
creases the percentage of women in legislative
positions (Rule 1987, Kenworthy & Malami
1999, Reynolds 1999, Hughes 2004).
Another important distinction across par-
ties is the composition of their leadership. If
women are present in the party elite, they
may advocate for a greater number of fe-
male candidates or may better support fe-
male candidates in their bid for public of-
fice (Caul 1999, Kunovich & Paxton 2005).
Female party elites may try to support fe-
male candidates in elections by influencing
list placement or party contributions to can-
didate war chests. Women in party leadership
positions, or even in mid-level positions, can
further influence women’s numbers by push-
ing for party rules targeting certain percent-
ages of women as candidates (Caul 1999, 2001;
Tremblay & Pelletier 2001; Kittilson 2006).
If a party innovates with regard to women,
it may gain electoral advantage. And, be-
cause parties compete for voters, innovations
made by one party such as fielding more fe-
male candidates, if they succeed, are likely to
diffuse to other parties (Matland & Studlar
1996). When parties are resistant to change,
women may go outside the party structure to
form their own “women’s parties” (Ishiyama
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2003). Women’s parties have been formed
in a number of countries including Iceland,
Japan, Greece, and Russia. But women’s par-
ties do not necessarily result in long-term
benefits to women’s political power (Moser
2003).
Cultural Explanations
Cultural and ideological arguments against
women’s right to participate in politics cre-
ate substantial barriers to women’s political
participation. Historically, beliefs that women
did not have the temperament or capability
to participate in politics, or that women be-
long in the private sphere, were codified in
political thought (Okin 1979, Coole 1988,
Pateman 1989). It took until the twentieth
century for feminist political theorists to chal-
lenge the position of women in political the-
ory (e.g., Pateman 1989, MacKinnon 1989,
Phillips 1995, Williams 1998, Squires 1999).
Today, cultural ideas about women can affect
women’s levels of representation through-
out the political process, from an individual
woman’s decision to enter politics, to party
selection of candidates, to the decisions made
by voters on election day.
Women face prejudice as leaders because
people tend to assume that leadership is a mas-
culine trait. And when women do lead they
face a problem—people evaluate autocratic
behavior by women more negatively than the
same behavior by men (Eagly et al. 1992).
Thus, even in countries where women have
made gains in employment or education, they
face cultural barriers to participation in poli-
tics. For example, 25% of the U.S. population
still says that men are better suited emotion-
ally to politics, and 15% of Americans agreed
with the statement “women should take care
of running their homes and leave running
the country up to men” (Lawless & Theriault
2005).
When attempting to understand women’s
political representation across nations or U.S.
states, concrete measures of culture are typ-
ically not available to researchers. In their
absence, researchers have turned to regional
membership and religious beliefs to under-
stand the impact of culture. First, as we might
expect from Table 1, studies that break coun-
tries into world regions find more women in
power in some regions (e.g., Paxton 1997,
Kenworthy & Malami 1999). For example,
Scandinavian countries are typically found to
have higher numbers of women in parliament
both in the past and present.
Similarly, researchers classify U.S. states
into three, largely regional, political cultures.
Southern states with a traditionalistic political
culture generally have fewer women in leg-
islative office (Nechemias 1987) or in execu-
tive office (Oxley & Fox 2004). In contrast,
states with moralistic values, found mainly
in the Northwest and Northeast, have more
women in legislative office (Nechemias 1987,
Arceneaux 2001). Consider, too, that the
United States’s western states, which had a
frontier ideology of equality, were the first in
the world to grant women the right to vote
(McCammon et al. 2001).
Religion is another important source of
cultural beliefs in most countries. Arguments
about women’s inferiority to men are present
across all dominant religions, and religion
has long been used to exclude women from
aspects of social, political, or religious life
around the world (Paxton & Hughes 2007).
But the major religions of the world are dif-
ferentially conservative or patriarchal in their
views about the place of women, both in the
church hierarchy and in society. For exam-
ple, Protestantism promotes nonhierarchical
religious practices and more readily accepts
women as religious leaders compared with
Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity (e.g.,
Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox). And
Islamic law is typically interpreted in a man-
ner that constrains the activities of women
(Ahmed 1992; see also Meyer et al. 1998).
Researchers have demonstrated that coun-
tries with large numbers of Protestant ad-
herents are more supportive of female legis-
lators than countries with large numbers of
Catholics, Orthodox Christians, or Muslims
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Substantive
representation:
advocating the
interests and issues of
a group; for women,
ensuring that
politicians speak for
and act to support
women’s issues
(Paxton 1997, Kenworthy & Malami 1999,
Paxton & Kunovich 2003).
As surveys of attitudes expand across the
globe, we have increasing evidence that cul-
tural beliefs toward women in politics vary
widely across countries today. For example,
when asked whether men make better polit-
ical leaders than women do, the average an-
swer in Norway is between strongly disagree
and disagree. In contrast, in Nigeria the av-
erage answer is between agree and strongly
agree (Paxton & Kunovich 2003). Researchers
have recently demonstrated that differences
in surveyed attitudes about women in poli-
tics are powerful predictors of women’s ob-
served levels of political representation across
countries (Inglehart & Norris 2003, chapter
6; Paxton & Kunovich 2003) and in U.S. states
(Arceneaux 2001). In fact, Paxton & Kunovich
(2003) found that the effect of country re-
gional membership is no longer significant
when measures of citizen attitudes regarding
women are included.
Although there may be pervasive views
about women in politics that prevent women
from running or winning, most researchers
demonstrate that when they do run, women
receive as many votes as men, at least in the
United States (e.g., Darcy et al. 1994). In fact,
although sex does not appear to matter to
men, female voters seem to prefer women as
candidates (Seltzer et al. 1997, Dolan 1998,
Smith & Fox 2001). And stereotypes can work
in women’s favor with voters. As summarized
by Kahn (1996, p. 9), “male candidates are
considered better able to deal with foreign
policy, the economy, defense spending, arms
control, foreign trade, and farm issues; female
candidates are considered better able to deal
with day care, poverty, education, health care,
civil rights, drug abuse, and the environment.”
Depending on the issues of the day, therefore,
women may have an edge in certain policy de-
bates. Indeed, if voters think that women are
better advocates of an issue such as poverty,
and voters care about that issue, then they tend
to support female candidates (Sanbonmatsu
2002a). Outside of the United States, how-
ever, female candidates do not always do as
well as men. Across 73 countries, a 1% in-
crease in the number of female candidates re-
sults in only a 0.67% increase in female legis-
lators (Kunovich & Paxton 2005).
International Influences
In addition to the domestic factors discussed
already, recent research on women in politics
has highlighted the role of international ac-
tors and transnational influences in further-
ing women’s political rights and representa-
tion (Ramirez et al. 1997, Staudt 1998, True &
Mintrom 2001, Krook 2004, Gray et al. 2006,
Paxton et al. 2006). Pressure from interna-
tional organizations, such as the United Na-
tions and women’s international nongovern-
mental organizations (WINGOs), influence
women’s suffrage (Ramirez et al. 1997), gen-
der mainstreaming policies (True & Mintrom
2001), and the number of women in national
legislatures (Paxton et al. 2006). And coun-
tries that sign international treaties related
to women, such as the United Nations Con-
vention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),
have more women in political office (Gray
et al. 2006, Kenworthy & Malami 1999; but
see Paxton 1997, Hughes 2004, Paxton et al.
2006). Further, INGOs have been shown to
persuade influential persons in government,
hold nations accountable to the international
treaties they have ratified, and increase do-
mestic awareness of women’s plight (Keck &
Sikkink 1998).
DO WOMEN MAKE
A DIFFERENCE?
It is important that women, as half the popu-
lation, appear in politics even if they legislate
exactly the same as men. But if women bring
to office different interests and priorities than
men, arguments for their inclusion are even
more powerful (Carroll & Dodson 1991).
The difference is between descriptive repre-
sentation and substantive representation. Do
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women make a difference to public policy? To
answer that question, researchers have asked
whether men and women (a) prioritize differ-
ent political issues, (b) vote differently on leg-
islation, (c) introduce different types of bills,
and (d ) differ in their effectiveness in getting
bills passed.
Before summarizing the research in this
area, we note the difficulties researchers face
in trying to demonstrate that female politi-
cians make a difference to politics. Doing so
requires that we first separate women’s inter-
ests as women from the interest of their party.
For example, in the United States, Demo-
cratic candidates and politicians, whether they
are male or female, are more likely to es-
pouse and vote for liberal policies that are also
likely to be defined as of interest to women.
A similar issue is how to separate a female
politician’s actions for women from her ac-
tions in support of her constituents. If lib-
eral constituencies are more likely to elect
women, then a critic might argue that, if a
female politician votes for a health care bill,
she is not acting for women but is only faith-
fully representing her liberal constituents. As-
sessing women’s legislative effectiveness is fur-
ther complicated by power differentials within
legislative institutions, legislative committee
memberships, party power, and distinguishing
a unique set of “women’s interests” (Molyneux
1985, Berkman & O’Connor 1993, Thomas
1994, Reingold 2000). Not all previous re-
search has addressed these difficulties, al-
though newer research typically does account
for party and constituent characteristics (e.g.,
Swers 1998, Schwindt-Bayer 2006).
That is not to say that we know nothing
about women’s impact on politics. Beginning
with policy preferences, research on U.S. state
representatives finds that women are more
likely than men to prioritize bills related to
children, family, and women (Thomas 1991)
and health care and social services (Little
et al. 2001). Similarly, in Sweden (Wangnerud
2000) and Latin America (Schwindt-Bayer
2006) female legislators articulate different
legislative priorities than men.
There is also evidence that female legis-
lators vote differently than men. For exam-
ple, after accounting for party and district
characteristics, Swers (1998) found that con-
gresswomen of the U.S. 103rd Congress were
more likely to vote for women’s issue bills such
as the Family and Medical Leave Act. The
defections of Republican women from their
party created this gender difference (see Gray
2002 for a similar pattern of defection in New
Zealand). But the presence of a gender dif-
ference in voting was also aided by the dy-
namics of party power in the 103rd Congress.
Women in governing parties have more op-
portunities to generate legislation but simul-
taneously have more opportunities to anger
party leadership with defection (Swers 2002,
p. 17). These Republican female legislators
were better able to defect from their party in
the 103rd Congress because their party was
not in power. Indeed, after Republicans took
over the 104th Congress in 1994, Republi-
can women did continue to defect from their
party at times, but at a lower rate (Swers 2002,
pp. 113–15; see also Vega & Firestone
1995).
Besides voting for existing bills, do women
propose bills that are different from the bills
of men? Bratton & Haynie (1999) control
for party and district characteristics and find
that women are more likely than men to in-
troduce bills to reduce gender discrimina-
tion and to sponsor bills related to education,
health care, children’s issues, and welfare pol-
icy (see also Thomas 1991). In the Honduran
legislature, women are more likely to intro-
duce bills on women’s rights but are no more
likely than men to initiate bills on children
or families (Taylor-Robinson & Heath 2003).
And in Argentina, Colombia, and Costa Rica,
women initiate 11% more women’s issues bills
(Schwindt-Bayer 2006). They are also more
likely to introduce bills related to children and
the family, education, and health.
Interestingly, Kathlene (1995) finds that
on a neutral topic—crime—female legisla-
tors in the Colorado House of Represen-
tatives introduced different bills than their
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male colleagues. Female legislators intro-
duced bills that were focused on crime pre-
vention or victim’s rights, whereas men were
more reactive in their response, introduc-
ing bills related to stricter sentencing and
longer prison terms. The introduction of dif-
ferent types of bills stemmed from differ-
ences between male and female legislators in
their views of the origins of, and solutions to,
crime.
Are women effective political leaders? Are
they able to get their proposed bills passed? To
preserve their own power, men may directly
work to undermine the power of female new-
comers (Duverger 1955, Heath et al. 2005).
Indeed, some research suggests a pattern of
male domination in the committee meetings
where bills are first discussed and debated
(Kathlene 1994, p. 569). Further, women-
sponsored bills receive more scrutiny, debate,
and hostile testimony than male-sponsored
bills (Kathlene et al. 1991). But women can
be as effective as men in getting their bills
turned into law. In U.S. state legislatures,
women are more successful than men in
getting bills passed that are directly related
to women, children, and families (Thomas
1991). Women in state legislatures are also
as good as men at passing bills on topics of
broad interest to women (education, health
care, etc.) (Bratton & Haynie 1999). And in
the U.S. Congress, women are as successful
as men in shepherding all types of bills into
law ( Jeydel & Taylor 2003). Men are also
no more likely than women to successfully
amend other laws, influence domestic spend-
ing, or channel money to their home dis-
tricts. Interestingly, Bratton & Haynie (1999)
also find that women are more likely to in-
troduce bills of interest to African Americans
(e.g., school integration and funding of sickle
cell anemia research). And black legislators
are more likely to introduce bills of inter-
est to women (see also Barrett 1995). Finally,
across 22 countries and 35 years, O’Regan
(2000) finds that the percentage of women in
the legislature is related to policy relevant to
women.
Critical Mass
A final question is whether women do better
in influencing policy when there are more of
them in office. Based in the work of Kanter
(1977), scholars and activists use the term
“critical mass” to suggest that when women
reach a certain percentage of a legislature,
they will be better able to pursue their policy
priorities (Dahlerup 1988). Research has of-
ten used 15% to signify movement out of Kan-
ter’s skewed group category. Activists more of-
ten cite 30% as the necessary threshold for
women to make a difference to policy.
But despite the importance of the idea of
critical mass to advocates of greater female
representation in politics, empirical research
provides little evidence that reaching a critical
mass matters. In searching for an effect, re-
search has either looked over time at a legisla-
ture to see whether something changes when
women hit 15% of a legislature (e.g., Saint-
Germain 1989, Gray 2002). Or, research com-
pares U.S. states with different percentages of
women to see if they sponsor more women’s
issue bills (e.g., Thomas 1991, Bratton 2005).
As in the larger literature on impact, demon-
strating an effect of critical mass requires at-
tention to political parties and constituents.
Bratton (2005) considered whether the
percentage of women in state legislatures mat-
ters for women’s sponsorship of bills and
their success at passing those bills, control-
ling for party and district characteristics. She
found that women consistently sponsored
more women’s interest bills than men, no mat-
ter what percentage of the legislature they
held, suggesting no effect of critical mass.
In fact, she found that as the percentage of
women in the legislatures of these states rose
from around 5% to around 27%, gender dif-
ferences in bill sponsorship actually dimin-
ished. Even more striking, Bratton found that
women were better able to pass the legislation
they proposed when they were a smaller per-
centage of the legislature. In discussing her
results, Bratton points out that, in contrast to
token women in other fields, token women in
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politics may never feel that it is a disadvantage
to focus on women’s issues.
Blanket assertions by activists and scholars
regarding the importance of critical mass be-
lie theory and evidence that increasing num-
bers of women can have a negative effect on
outcomes for women. For example, classic
sociological research on discrimination sug-
gests that as a minority group’s size increases,
it becomes a more threatening minority to
the majority (Blalock 1967, Lieberson 1980).
Yoder’s (1991) theory of intrusiveness suggests
that when women are a small minority, they
can use their token status to draw attention to
women’s concerns. But when women increase
in numbers, they start to threaten the power
and privilege of men, leading to competition,
hostility, and discrimination.
Indeed, some evidence supports this alter-
native perspective. In the New Zealand leg-
islature, when women reached approximately
15% of the legislature, there was a “rise in hos-
tility toward women politicians” (Gray 2002,
p. 25). In the United States, Rosenthal (1998,
p. 88) compared men and women’s behav-
ior in legislative committee meetings where
women held few leadership positions and
where they held many leadership positions.
She found that women in the committees were
more likely to be inclusive and cooperative as
the percentage of women in leadership posi-
tions increased. But men were less likely to
be inclusive and cooperative as women in-
creased in leadership power. Rosenthal’s find-
ing suggests that both Kanter and Yoder may
be correct. Women did feel more comfort-
able using a female legislative style (Eagly
& Johnson 1990) when there were more of
them in power. But men appear to have been
threatened by female power and subsequently
reduced their tendency to compromise or
cooperate.
WHAT IS NEEDED? FUTURE
DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH
We have attempted to summarize the exten-
sive literature on women in formal politics.
Where do we go from here? In this section,
we suggest four interrelated directions for re-
search yet to come, focusing on current prob-
lems and future promise.
Globalizing Theory and Research
Researchers know a great deal about women
in formal politics in the West, especially
in countries such as the United States, the
UK (e.g., Norris & Lovenduski 1994), and
Norway (Bystydzienski 1995). Much less is
currently known about women in develop-
ing countries (Waylen 1996, Matland 1998,
Hughes 2004) and in some regions such
as Asia. Future research must globalize our
present understanding of women’s political
participation, representation, and impact by
(a) determining which theories developed in
the West apply to the non-Western context,
(b) developing new theories for non-Western
and less developed countries and regions, and
(c) investigating whether these newer theories
apply to other regions or globally.
Expanding Data Collection
The field will move forward as we collect the
appropriate data to test theories. Although
progress is being made on some fronts, such as
the collection of data on gender quotas, data
quality issues continue to bedevil research,
and data are completely lacking in some im-
portant areas, especially in subnational ar-
eas and on specific parties. Further, although
many important case studies have already ex-
amined women’s political outcomes over time
within a small number of countries, cross-
national longitudinal research is in its infancy
(for exceptions see Paxton 1997, McAllister &
Studlar 2002, Paxton et al. 2006). Future re-
search must expand data collection on women
in politics by (a) developing more precise
measures of the causes and consequences of
women’s political participation; (b) collecting
longitudinal data on women’s participation,
representation, and impact; and (c) collect-
ing subnational data on women’s participation
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and representation and more extensive data on
women in political parties.
Remembering the Alternative Forms
of Women’s Agency
Weldon (2002) admonishes researchers to
think “beyond bodies” in understanding how
women can have an impact in politics. In fact,
today most national governments have some
form of women’s policy machinery or govern-
ment office devoted to promoting the status
of women (Weldon 2002). An institutional-
ized women’s policy machinery produces a
single, direct route to government cooper-
ation with agents, such as women’s move-
ments, who traditionally act outside the state
(Stetson & Mazur 1995, Friedman 2000).
Indeed, Weldon (2002) found that across
36 democratic countries, a strong women’s
movement acting in conjunction with an ef-
fective women’s agency predicted the extent
of government commitment to domestic vi-
olence. One of the most challenging but im-
portant topics for the future is to understand
how women’s political power and influence is
affected by their actions in both traditional
and nontraditional political structures. Future
research must consider women’s substantive
representation through (a) the critical acts of
individual women (Childs & Krook 2006),
(b) women’s movements working both within
and outside the state to promote women’s in-
terests (Beckwith 2000), and (c) the state ap-
paratuses that constrain or enhance women’s
attempts to influence policy from within and
without (Charrad 2001, Banaszak et al. 2003).
Addressing Intersectionality
Women are not a monolithic group
(Crenshaw 1991, Hill Collins 2000, Hooks
2000). Class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and
religion are just a few of the cleavages that
divide women. We need to recognize that,
even if women are present, laws are likely to
be designed and implemented in exclusive
ways if minorities are not at the table (Barrett
1995, Hill Collins 2000, Richards 2005). As
should be clear from the paucity of research
cited in this review, current research often
compares women and men while ignoring
distinctions between women. Our efforts
to present information about women at the
intersections of disadvantage are currently
complicated by the fact that countries and
political parties do not keep good records of
the race, ethnicity, and class backgrounds of
their politicians. Also, introducing divisions
reduces sample sizes, making statistical
analysis difficult (Bedolla et al. 2005). Finally,
understanding intersection cross-nationally
requires greater attention to the experi-
ence of women in the global South (Tripp
2000). Future research must address how
women negotiate competing identities in
the realm of politics by (a) collecting better
data on the race, ethnicity, religion, etc., of
women; (b) moving beyond assessments of
different groups, e.g., studying women or
minorities, to assessments of intersecting
difference (e.g., Black 2000, Fraga et al.
2005, Weldon 2006); and (c) addressing
both domestic and global divides among
women.
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RELATED RESOURCES
International IDEA: an international organization that (as one of its aims) promotes political
equality and participation of underrepresented groups such as women. For data on women’s
political participation and gender quotas, see http://www.idea.int/gender/
Inter-Parliamentary Union: an intergovernmental organization that collects data on parlia-
ments across countries. For archived data on women’s representation in parliaments, see
http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world-arc.htm
Women’s Environment & Development Organization: an international organization that
advocates for women’s equality in global policy and campaigns for equal representa-
tion of men and women in politics. For information about the 50/50 campaign, see
http://www.wedo.org/campaigns.aspx?mode=5050main
The World’s Women 2005: Progress in Statistics: a report published by the United Nations
focusing on the collection of statistics and data related to women. To access the report,
see http://unstats.un.org/unsd/Demographic/products/indwm/wwpub2000.htm
Center for American Women and Politics: a university-based research center that focuses on
women’s political participation and representation in the United States. For the center’s
homepage, see http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/
Institute for Women’s Policy Research: a research organization focusing on economics and
social policy issues affecting women and families. For the institute’s homepage, see
http://www.iwpr.org/
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Gender in Politics C-1
1893
18
98
19
03
19
08
1913
1918
1923
1928
1933
19
3
8
19
4
3
19
4
8
19
5
3
19
5
8
19
6
3
19
6
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3
19
7
8
19
8
3
19
8
8
19
9
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19
9
8
20
0
3
Countries that achieved milestone (%)
Women’s suffrage
98%
96%
67%
34%
13%
10%
First woman in parliament
10% women in parliament
20% women in parliament
Woman head of state
30% women in parliament
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Figure 1
Countries achieving political milestones for women, 1983–2006.
Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2007.33:263-284. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org
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