Women State Legislators Research Articles

Change and Continuity Among Women State Legislators: Evidence From Three Decades

Previous literature documents the steady increase in the number of women serving in state legislatures as well as the lingering differences in demographic characteristics and policy priorities between male and fe male officeholders. Yet, this research does not address the question of evo lutionary change among women state legislators themselves. Are women serving in contemporary state legislatures different from their female col leagues of previous decades in the personal and political characteristics and legislative agendas they bring to office? To answer this question, we use data collected on all women state legis lators serving in 15 states in 1972, 1982, and 1992 and a stratified random sample of male legislators serving in the same chambers during the same time periods. This two-stage analysis allows us first to focus on the chang ing profile of women state legislators; and secondly, to consider whether these changes are unique to women or common to all state legislators. The analyses confirm the hypothesis that the profile of the "typical woman state legislator" has changed significantly in the last three decades. 1 The states are California, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, New Jersey, Okla homa, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. 2 The fifteen states represent all three classifications of legislatures formulated by the National Council of State Legislatures. California, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are considered to be full-time, professional legislatures. Iowa, Okla homa, Oregon, South Carolina, and Virginia are classified as transitional legislatures, moving from amateur to professional status. Georgia, Idaho, Nevada, South Dakota, and Vermont are considered part-time, amateur legislatures. 3 Readers might suggest that the change in the number of women serving on the "pres tige" committees may be due to institutional changes such as an expansion in the num ber of seats available on these committees. A check of eight of the states in this analysis indicates that this is probably not the case. Six of the eight states had no change in the size of their committees between 1972 and 1992. One state decreased the number of seats on all committees and only one increased them (adding 2-3 seats on some com mittees). Even without these supporting data, we would point out that the notion that women's increasing numbers on prestige committees is explained by institutional forces assumes that states all increased the size of their committees (and that they did so in both chambers) during the time period under study Indeed, since the 1970s, the greater likelihood is that states would shrink the size of their committees. 4 Because of space limitations, we do not present the regression models for committee assignments or leadership positions. However, we would be happy to make them avail able upon request. 5 Regression analysis indicates that, for men, tenure is significant in the model while the variable measuring time period of service is not. This would suggest that men are serv ing on prestige committees and in leadership positions as a function of their increased tenure. Because of space limitations, we do not present the regression models. How ever, we are happy to make them available upon request.

Change and Continuity among Women State Legislators: Evidence from Three Decades

Change and Continuity among Women State Legislators: Evidence from Three Decades

A negative relationship between religion and the percentage of women state legislators in the United States

State contextual variables strongly associated with the percentage of women state legislators include the percentage of Christians and political culture. The percentage of Christians is inversely r...

Why Gender Matters

Abstract Using interviews of over 50 women state legislators from across six states, I explore their perceptions of the ways in which women's legislative life differs from men's. Specifically, I investigate their views of the ways the role of woman and the role of legislator affect career success and effectiveness, as well as the collective implications of those perceptions. The theoretical framework used to ground the empirical findings concerns women's status as a political minority at the elite level as well as outsiders and newcomers to those roles. I conclude that women in political office face the need for alternative role development that neither replicates the male model nor relies upon traditional female private sphere roles.

Women Legislative Caucus and Leadership Campaign Committees

The purpose of the research presented in this paper is to start assessing what campaign activities women legislators are involved in in order to promote the interests of women in state legislatures. Analysis of women legislators' campaign transfers and discussions held with a number of women legislators resulted in some interesting findings. Women legislators' campaign activities included both campaign contributions and other nonmonetary assistance such as campaigning and assistance in fund raising. The campaign activity of women legislators was, in part, clearly aimed at improving the representation of women through supporting women candidates and male candidates who were deemed supportive of women's policy priorities.

THE POLITICS OF WOMEN STATE LEGISLATORS: A SOUTH/NON‐SOUTH COMPARISON

As a result of the 1992 elections, women now make up 20.4 percent of the elected representatives in United States state legislatures nationwide, yet women comprise only 13 percent of southern legislators. The literature supports several theories as to why women in the South are less likely to seek and win office than women outside the South. What has yet to be examined, however; is what difference these factors make in the kind of woman that is ultimately successful in winning a legislative seat in a southern state. Based on an original survey and a representative sample of over 600 women serving during the 1991–1992 legislative session, we find that southern women legislators are in fact significantly different from non‐southern women legislators in both attitudes and behaviors; that regionalism exerts a powerful influence on women state legislators' attitudes toward themselves, their job, and their behavior once elected. These findings are important in exploring the diversity of women serving at the state level, particularly as their numbers continue to grow.

The Policy Priorities of African American Women in State Legislatures

Much of the research on African American legislative behavior has focused on men in office, while the literature on female legislators has looked primarily at white women. Far less is known of the growing number of African American female politicians. As the findings of this paper reveal, black women are similar to nonblack women in their strong support for prowomen's policy issues, and they are like black men in their solid support for minority-targeted policies. On the other hand, they are unlike other groups in their near unanimous agreement on the policies that are most important to them and that they are most likely to pursue while in office. Unlike other race and gender groups, black women in state legislatures seem to share a strong consensus on which policy areas should receive priority. To these women, the most pressing issues are education, health care, economic development, and employment.

Women's Underrepresentation and Electoral Systems

Women's parliamentary representation in the 27 long-established but “unfinished democracies” (Haavio-Mannila et al. 1985) of the world varies between 2.3% in Japan's lower house to 39.0% in unicameral Finland. Women state legislators in the United States range from 4% in Kentucky to 39% in Washington in the lower house. Women are 11% of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The causes of this variation are primarily the electoral arrangements by which legislators are chosen and, secondarily, the political, economic, and social context.Favorable societal conditions will not substitute for unfavorable electoral systems for women to reach their optimal representation in parliament and local legislatures. But unfavorable contextual conditions—including cultural biases and discriminatory practices—can be overcome to a great extent by alternate electoral systems. Electoral arrangements are not neutral; they are the means used to exclude or include groups. The arrangements are amenable to change faster than social biases and other barriers to women's election opportunity and fair representation.Democracy falls short when women of whatever color or ethnic group cannot cast an effective vote to elect representatives of their choice or to enact laws they believe are critically needed. When there are higher proportions of women in parliament, for example, more laws are enacted that benefit children (Lijphart 1991).

The Feminization of Leadership in State Legislatures

Throughout the past two decades, the number of women in elected politics has been increasing slowly, but incrementally. Women remain most underrepresented at the national level, with little prospects of parity in the near future (Whicker et al. 1993). By 1992, women held only 30 or 5.6% of the 535 seats in the 102nd Congress, 28 in the House and two in the Senate (CAWP 1992). Much media focus on increased activism and advances caused the 1992 elections to be labeled in the press as “The Year of the Woman.” Indeed, the number of female members of Congress did jump to 54 or 10.1%, not quite doubling (47 in the House and seven in the Senate) (Krauss 1992), but substantial percentage gains in the number of seats held by women obscured the fact that women remained underrepresented relative to their proportions in the population by over 40%.At the state level, the number of women is larger, but still proportionately less than their share of approximately 50% of the population. In 1991, women were still only 18.3% of all state legislators, but nationwide, their numbers had increased from 344 in 1971 to 908 in 1981, to 1365 in 1991. The numbers of women in state legislatures, then, have been increasing incrementally, if slowly (Dodson and Carroll 1991). Incremental growth in women attaining state legislative office continued in the 1992 elections. For the 1993 session, the total number of women members was 1517 (20.4%), of which 338 were state senators (17%), and 1179 were state representatives (21.7%) (CAWP).

Do women legislators matter? Female legislators and state abortion policy.

This study evaluates the impact of women state legislators on state abortion policies. Two dimensions of state abortion policy were identified and it was found that women state legislators, once they reach a critical mass within the legislature, can affect state policies on regulations concerning parental notification of abortions, but not public funding. But women legislators, and especially women Democratic legislators, can affect state abortion policies in other ways that are less well understood. Through an analysis of post- Webster abortion bills it was found that women representatives secure committee assignments that allow them to block pro-life legislation. This is especially pronounced in states with few women legislators and states most likely (according to other studies) to support policies restricting choice.

Ungendered but Equal: Male Attitudes toward Women in State Legislatures

For some time now, a growing number of women have been taking seats in state legislative assemblies that were previously male bastions. Drawing upon survey data from six northeastern states, this article explores the attitudes of male legislators toward their female counterparts and also the attitude of women legislators toward their still minority status in the several legislative bodies. The author finds a range of views and concludes that women are accepted largely to the extent that they become ungendered but equal.

The Impact of Women on State Legislative Policies

Do women in public office make a difference? If so, what kind and under what circumstances? This study offers preliminary answers to these questions by examining the relationship between the percentage of women in state legislatures and their policy priorities. It also examines the impact women legislators have on overall legislative policy. Findings reveal that women in states with the highest percentages of female representatives introduce and pass more priority bills dealing with issues of women, children, and families than men in their states and more than their female counterparts in low representation legislatures. Moreover, women can successfully diffuse their priorities throughout the legislative process in one of two ways: through high percentages of women in office or through the presence of a formal women's legislative caucus. These findings suggest that women do indeed make a difference and that their capacity to do so is related to the level of support from colleagues.

"The Fault, Dear Brutus": Women as Congressional Candidates in Pennsylvania

"The Fault, Dear Brutus": Women as Congressional Candidates in Pennsylvania

Women state legislators and the ERA: Dimensions of support and opposition

Abstract Attitudes of women state legislators toward ERA are explored in terms of social, institutional‐political and cultural correlates. Data base is a mail survey of the 688 women serving in state legislatures in 1977. As a group, women state legislators were heavily in support of ERA. Opposition to ERA is significantly higher among female legislators with lower education, less legislative seniority, who are Republican, from states with legislative party leadership opposed to ERA, in states which elect relatively large percentages of women legislators, and who are from states with moralistic as opposed to traditionalisme political cultures. Group size, psychological and political security, and personal experience of sex discrimination are suggested as explanations.

The Impact of Parenthood On Political Participation

dren in the home.1 The role of motherhood and the attendant responsibilities of child-rearing were cited frequently by women who were political party activists as making political office holding unlikely. Lee's work is not the first to note the presence of children as an important restraining condition. Kirkpatrick's study of women state legislators found that most women postponed running for office until their children had left home or were at least in school.2 Both Lee and Kirkpatrick stress that this late start, caused by waiting until children are grown, figures importantly in not only reducing the number of women who run for office, but also in curbing their opportunity to achieve higher elected office or important positions in the legislatures. As Lee notes: The discouraging effect of children on women's desire to seek public office also greatly restricts their ability to run for office after the children have left home. Because of children, women may fail to gain the experience in their twenties, thirties, and early forties that their male counterparts are acquiring. When, at last, they are free, they may lack the political know-how and NOTE: The data used in this paper were collected by the Center for Political Studies of the

Women State Legislators: Styles and Priorities1

Women State Legislators: Styles and Priorities¹

Women and Access to Political Office: a Comparison of Female and Male State Legislators

The status of women in state legislatures is examined in terms of representation across the United States. A sample of female state legislators and a sample of male state legislators are compared on social and political career characteristics, including marital status, education, occupation, age when one began serving, election mobility, party leadership, and tenure. Party leadership, education, age and, to a lesser extent, occupation were found to distinguish female from male legislators. But party leadership significantly differentiated only between female and male legislators with less than a college degree. Overall, access to state legislative office seems to depend on the same characteristics which define success in society as a whole; for certain groups of women, however, achievement within party ranks provides an alternative mechanism to this end.