Gender and Foreign Policy: Are Female Members of Congress More Dovish than Their Male Colleagues?

Abstract

Research shows that female legislators tend to support liberal, pacifistic approaches to foreign policy. But it remains unclear whether they are dovish because they seek to represent the dovish values of women generally or because they tend to represent mostly liberal voters. To answer this question, we examine all foreign policy votes cast in Congress over the last five decades to estimate the ideological locations of House and Senate members on a hawk-dove dimension. Once we control for partisan and constituency effects, we find only limited evidence that female legislators are more dovish than their male counterparts are.