Ambitious Political Woman:

Abstract

Using data from a survey of local party officials, this study tests the hypothesis that the ambitions of women and men in the initial stage of recruitment are differentially influenced by socialization and party system context. The hypothesis that the ambitions of women more than of men and of Democrats more than of Republicans are related to socialization experiences is supported for the Democratic and Republican women but not for the men of the two parties. Patterns of socialization are found to vary by party and sex, although all activists are influenced by social ization across the life cycle; and all the ambitious are in earlier stages of the life cycle than the unambitious. The concept of countersocialization is introduced to explain the development of ambitious political women. Countrsocialization and politicization around gender-related issues in politics are not expected to restructure political conflict along a sexbased cleavage of the political elite. Rather, the political party context is expected to determine which ambitious women and men gain office and carry their concerns into the decision-making arenas.