In a Different Voice Women and the Policy Process

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter, Lyn Kathlene explores the roots of women’s distinctive legislative attitudes and behaviors and their implications for effectiveness. She shows that both individuals and institutions are influenced by gender and that expectations of proper behavior for each sex affect individual legislative perceptions and choices as well as the structures and rules of institutions that produce public policy. Substantively, Kathlene explores legislative solutions to issues of crime and finds that men are more likely than women to focus on individual criminal actions and personal responsibility, whereas women are more likely to focus on the context of societal opportunities and constraints that precede criminal acts. Consequently, men tend to prefer solutions such as increased sanctions, whereas women prefer a focus on crime prevention and offender rehabilitation. Because institutional rules, norms, and structures have been designed to conform to male models of power and hierarchy—illustrated, for example, by men’s more autocratic interactive legislative style—women are more likely to find resistance to both their policy preferences and their legislative styles. Harkening back to a fundamental theme of this volume, the result is that, for similar levels of success, women legislators often have to devote more time and resources to an issue and thus pay a higher cost than men.