Running Comes Before Winning: Explaining the Gender Differential in State Legislatures

What factors influence the likelihood that a woman runs for, wins, and holds political office across the country? Is it easier to explain why a woman runs in, than that she ultimately represents, a certain district? I compare a series of state-level and district-level independent variables and relate them to two different dependent variables: that a woman ran for a district seat, and that a woman represents a district. I explore what, and how much, political geography and contextual factors can explain. My preliminary findings show that it is easier to explain the probability that a woman runs, than that if she wins, and that cultural rather than institutional factors tend to be more statistically significant. I compare my findings to those of the past, and consider how they reflect the changing role of women and what they mean for the future of female political representation. The key to increasing female political representation may be encouraging more women to run by understanding the decision as a personal but also environmental one, combining “political ambition” and “political geography” approaches. Introduction In this paper, I explore why women remain greatly underrepresented in American politics as officeholders. I begin by describing the background of this problem, its historic and systemic nature along with meaning and significance not just for women but American politics and society as a whole. I continue by looking at previous research that has been done in this area. In approaching this issue, I look at each state legislative district across the country, noting if a woman ran for that seat in its most recent election1 and if a woman held that seat before the November 2016 election. I analyze a series of factors, on the district and state level that are either cultural, institutional, or demographic in nature, searching for those with predictive qualities as to why women are more prominent politically in some areas than others. My findings show that, using this style of analysis, we can explain what state and district conditions influence whether woman ran for a district seat, more than if a woman currently holds the seat. In both models, cultural and demographic, rather than institutional and structural, variables are more indicative, which I break down and discuss in further detail. The institutional factors that were important related to the availability of political opportunity for women. I contemplate what this means for the future of women in politics, and how stakeholders can best work to solve the problem and achieve gender equity in political representation. Background As far back as the Revolution and our country’s founding, American women have been involved in a politics. However, it has largely been through means outside the scope of 1 I indicated if a woman ran in that district’s most recent election. For some districts, that was the general election was back in 2012 or 2014, given different term lengths. If the most recent election for that district seat was a special election, I considered that the most recent election. formal influence and institutional power, in organizing, volunteer, and grassroots capacities. Women have historically been denied both access to, and the attainment of, formal legislative, executive, and judicial power. Barriers to women’s entrance and success in the public sphere and political arena are systemic, both social and legal: they are reinforced by traditional gender roles along with the historical denial of property rights and the right to vote for women. The first female member of Congress, Jeanette Rankin, was elected in 1916, just four years before the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote was ratified. The passage of this amendment was the culmination of a 72-year-old battle thought to begin in 1848 at Seneca Falls. It was not until 1975 that the first woman, Ella Grasso of Connecticut, was elected to the position of governor in her own right. This legacy can still be seen as the long struggle to achieve gender equality in politics continues. Over the course of 84 years from Rankin’s election in 1916 to the end of the 20th century, a total of 200 women have been elected to the United States Congress. The election of 1992 saw the entrance of 28 new women elected into Congress, essentially doubling representation overnight. The proportion of total women state legislators nationwide increased from 4.5 percent in 1971, to just above 20 percent in 1995. However, despite these gains in the late 20th century, women today remain vastly underrepresented in American politics. The disparity in gender representation today persists at the federal, state, and local level and across all branches of government. It has also stagnated and in many cases, reverted and gotten worse. As indicated in the graph below, the total proportion of women among state legislators decreased from 24.5 percent in 2010 to 23.3 percent in 2011. Women accounted for 9.1 percent of state legislators in 1977, a statistic that later plateaued at around 21.5 percent in 1997 (Hogan, 2001). Today, women make up an average of 24.2 percent in state legislatures. Looking within states and at their respective legislatures, there is wide variation across the country. In some of these states, the representation of women in their state legislatures has also fallen during recent years (CAWP, 2014). In no state has the percentage of women serving exceeded 50 percent, with Vermont as the highest with 41.1 percent in 2014 and Louisiana ranking last with 12.5 percent (CAWP, 2014). In the 2008 elections, women constituted 54 percent of voters, however only made up 24 percent of state legislators. Similarly on the municipal level, of the 1,392 mayors of U.S. cities with populations over 30,000, 245, or 17.5 percent were women (U.S. Conference of Mayors 2015). These gaps are notable for their scope, existing across all levels of government, and depth. They are also both systemic and interrelated. The absence of women serving on the state and local level feeds into a lack of women on the federal level. As women who entered politics during the wave of the 1990s retire, there is concern that there are not enough young women to take their places. The current, 114th Congress, sworn in just under 100 years after women were granted the right to vote, is only 19.4 percent female (CAWP, 2016). Women made up just over 50 percent of the United States population in 2015, yet less than one-fifth of Congress (U.S. Census, 2015). Following the November 2016 election, the number of 104 women serving in this body remained exactly the same. The stark and persistent gender gap leaves the United States ranking 33rd in terms of women in the national legislature among 49 high-income countries, according to Pew Research Center, and 97th overall when compared to a total of 193 other parliamentary countries, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Although women have served as heads of state of other countries, the United States has yet to elect a female president. “Understanding why more women do not hold elective office is an important normative question with implications for the legitimacy of our democracy,” writes Sanbonmatsu (2009, 792). The gender gap prevents our political system from exemplifying the American values of representative democracy and self-governance. Furthermore, research shows that women tend to govern more collaboratively and effectively than men as legislators – a bipartisan coalition of women credited with putting together the compromise that ended the 2013 federal government shutdown. Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman find in 2009 that female members of congress have higher Legislative Effectiveness Scores than men. Women legislators pass twice as many bills than men on average. The benefits of electing more women have been described both in terms of real and symbolic representation. In “Not All Cues Are Created Equal,” Lonna Rae Atkeson finds support for the hypothesis that female citizens in states with visible female candidates show higher rates of political engagement. Exposure to women in positions of power can lead to eventual desensitization and reduction of backlash, along with increases in girls’ personal self-belief and ambitions. The social and psychological impact of seeing women in leadership is not just limited to the United States, a study looking at the impact of gender quotas on village councils in India finding a “role model” effect. Seeing more women on village councils led to diminishing of gender gaps in educational attainment, along with changes in girls’ personal aspirations and parental expectations. Now in particular, it is important to study the reasons underlying the lack of women in politics, stagnated progress, and what it means for the future. This is especially important given the question of how the effects of Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign will manifest. Many academics have sought to explain the gap and thus subsequently how it may be closed in the future. They have identified different phenomenon and factors that underlie it, and may contribute to its prevalence. This body of research spans decades, many of their proposed explanations holding true throughout and others reflecting the changing status of women during this period. I outline this research in the next section, and explain how it has led to my primary research question: what factors influence the probability that a woman runs for, and holds, political office across the country? I explore two primary schools of thought, concerned with this question: first, the “political ambition” approach, and second the “political geography” approach. Literature Review Political Ambition Gender socialization and the “political ambition gap” have been cited as fundamental deterrents for women in politics. Richard Fox and Jennifer Lawless employ this political socialization approach in studying the gen