Female Officials in the Feminist Capital: The Case of Santa Clara County

Abstract

TU rNTIL RECENTLY, most studies of elected women in the United States have had a national or state focus,1 in spite of the fact that most female officials serve at the county and city levels. In 1980, 15,320 out of a total of 16,136 female officeholders nationwide were in city and county governments. Furthermore, while women as a percentage of elected officials remained fairly constant between 1975 and 1980 at the congressional (3 percent) and state (10 percent) levels, their proportions doubled in county positions (from 3 to 6 percent) and tripled in municipal posts (from 4 to 13 percent) (CAWP 1981a). Studies of women in local government began in earnest in 1975. In that year the Center for the American Woman and Politics (CAWP) conducted a national survey of women in municipal and county (along with state and congressional) offices (Johnson and Stanwick 1976). CAWP's 1977 survey included a comparison sample of male officeholders (Johnson and Carroll 1978). While there have been a few other reports from nationwide samples (e.g., Karnig and Oliver 1976; MacManus 1976; Welch and Karnig 1979), most of the literature on women in local office consists of case studies scattered throughout the country: Connecticut (Mezey 1978b, 1980a, 1980b); Westchester County, New York (Lee 1976); New York City (Van Hightower 1977); Pennsylvania (King and McAuliffe 1976); suburban Chicago (Merritt 1977, 1980); Houston (MacManus 1981); and Hawaii (Mezey 1978a, 1978c). Enough cases and nationwide studies have been generated so that one can begin to find patterns in women's local-level officeholding and to draw comparisons with officials in higher positions. One of the most striking patterns to emerge at all levels is that, compared to men in office, women have distinctive recruitment patterns and attitudes (Johnson and Carroll 1978). While such differences do not emerge in every local study (see, for example, the mixed results in Stewart's [1980] anthology), they have been sufficiently consistent to draw scholarly attention to the precise nature of and reasons for such differences.

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