Woman Candidates and Support for Feminist Concerns: the Closet Feminist Syndrome

Abstract

WX A HY SHOULD WOMEN hold a larger proportion of public offices in this country? What difference does it make if most positions of political power are filled by men? Responses to these questions generally follow one of two lines of argument. According to the first, the paucity of women in public office is inconsistent with fundamental democratic principles and with a representative form of government. Greater representation is viewed as a democratic right, and the lack of more extensive participation by women is seen as an indication that our democratic system is malfunctioning. This justification for greater participation by women in all aspects of the governance of society is frequently voiced by commissions on the status of women, feminist activists, and various women's political organizations. Social scientists also have used this argument to point to a need for greater participation by women. Kirsten Amundsen has perhaps most carefully examined the contradiction between women's lack of greater participation and basic tenets of democratic theory, concluding: . .. the effect of sexist ideology has been to disarm the American woman politically and also to deprive American democracy of the potentially informed and intelligent contribution of more than half of its citizenry. From the point of view of classical democratic theory, this is clearly disastrous (1971: 133). While this argument for increasing the number of women holding public office is purely normative, a second argument can be tested empirically. According to this second point of view, women in positions of power will exert a distinctive, sex-related influence on public policy. The election of more women to office is seen as important because it may lead to changes in public policy. The hypothesized gender-related consequences of electing more women to office vary. Since women in the general population have been found to be less militaristic than men (Pomper 1975: 78-79), some believe that increased participation by women will help to prevent wars. Others think women, because they have been locked out of power, are uncorrupted and thus more likely than men to produce policy free of the influence of special interests. Others believe that women are more nurturant, more humane, more altruistic, and/or more compassionate than men and that these characteristics somehow will affect their performance in office (Stoper and Johnson 1977).