Women Candidates in American Politics: What We Know, What We Want to Know

Abstract

, are women’s candidacies shaped by stereotypes about their abilities to handle the war on terror? Or, since partisan stereotypes affect Democratic and Republican women differently, do sex and gender considerations play a different role depending on the party of the woman candidate? Does the amount of media attention given to the woman candidate shape whether sex and gender concerns are “activated” in the minds of voters? Is sex and gender important the first time a woman candidate seeks a particular office or runs in a particular district or state? How do gendered concerns take shape in a race with two women candidates? All of these questions serve to remind us that sex and gender are not necessarily constant forces that influence all elections in the same way. - How much of what we know about women candidates is a function of the data we have, which tends to focus on congressional elections and state legislatures? To some (unknown) degree, what we know about the situations facing women candidates is shaped by the offices they seek. So we probably should take care in assuming that our understanding of how sex and gender shapes elections involving women candidates for Congress or statewide office translates to those seeking office of other types and at other levels. - How much of what we know is a function of the current party imbalance among women candidates? If more than 2/3 of women candidates run as Democrats, what we know about how sex/gender considerations operate in elections has been accumulated in a particular framework. Since several recent works find evidence that party matters to women candidates, we need to examine whether this imbalance is likely to be ongoing or whether it is a reflection of the contemporary time. Also, we need to recognize that our understanding of how sex and gender shapes elections may change if the party imbalance among women candidates changes. - What are the experiences of minority women? The small number of women candidates of color has limited our ability to understand whether race and sex interact to shape the reality of these women candidates. This is exacerbated by the fact that our data on women who run for local offices, where there may be more women candidates of color, is the most limited. As we examine the present situations of women candidates, we have to consider whether what we have learned from studying mostly white women candidates be applied to the situations

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