Women Men And U S Politics

Challenging the conventional wisdom about gender and U.S. politics.

Studies of gender and American political life most often focus only on women. This book fills the gap by examining and comparing the roles and behavior of both men and women in political decision-making, public policy, and political institutions. Now updated and expanded, the book presents a full complement of empirical studies of real and imagined gender gaps. New to this edition are chapters on the media, legislative behavior, foreign policy, and the future of the gender dimension in American politics. The book is structured to parallel the typical course on the American political system.

It Still Takes A Candidate serves as the only systematic, nationwide empirical account of the manner in which gender affects political ambition. Based on data from the Citizen Political Ambition Panel Study, a national survey conducted of almost 3,800 'potential candidates' in 2001 and a second survey of more than 2,000 of these same individuals in 2008, Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox find that women, even in the highest tiers of professional accomplishment, are substantially less likely than men to demonstrate ambition to seek elective office. Women are less likely than men to be recruited to run for office. They are less likely than men to think they are qualified to run for office. And they are less likely than men to express a willingness to run for office in the future. This gender gap in political ambition persists across generations and over time.

Presents a comprehensive reference to the role of women in American politics and government, including biographies, related topics, organizations, primary documents, and significant court cases.

Presidential elections: gendered space and the case of 2016 / Georgia Duerst-Lahti and Madison Oakley -- Disrupting masculine dominance? Women as presidential and vice presidential contenders / Kelly Dittmar -- Voter participation and turnout: the political generational divide among women deepens / Susan A. MacManus -- Voting choices: the significance of women voters and the gender gap / Susan J. Carroll -- Trumpeando Latinas/os: race, gender, immigration, and the role of Latinas/os / Anna Sampaio -- African American women and electoral politics: the core of the new American electorate / Wendy G. Smooth -- Congressional elections: women's candidacies and the road to gender parity / Richard L. Fox -- Political parties and women's organizations: bringing women into the electoral arena / Barbara Burrell -- Gender and communication on the campaign trail: media coverage, advertising, and online outreach / Dianne Bystrom -- Women's election to office in the fifty states: opportunities and challenges / Kira Sanbonmatsu

Original and drawing from the best available research in psychology and political science, this book is designed to summarize and extend interdisciplinary research that addresses how and why men and women differ as citizens, as political candidates, and as officeholders.

Women have become a strong force in electoral politics, as candidates, office holders, and vocal constituents. In Running as a Woman, Linda Witt, Karen Paget, and Glenna Matthews explore the significant issues for women in public life: their marital status, the threat of sexual innuendo, what’s involved in becoming a credible candidate, and raising enough money to run. They also explain how voters are mobilized to vote for women, how the media cover them, how they get their campaign message out, what it’s like to lose, and what difference women make once elected. In addition, Running as a Woman includes a compelling history of women in politics that both records the political role women have played throughout the last two centuries and explains how and why women have continually been stifled in their attempts to enter political life. While the 1992 elections were hailed as a giant leap forward for women, the 1994 elections created a skepticism that real, permanent changes occurred. In Running as a Woman, the authors set the record straight with a chapter that analyzes the results of the 1994 elections and their relevance for women today.

This book examines citizens' attitudes about sexual harassment in the #MeToo era, seeking to determine how much these attitudes may have changed over the past few years. Using an innovative experimental research design, the authors look at how people react to allegations of harassment made against a fictional member of Congress. They consider whether those reactions vary with the offender's party affiliation, gender, and response to the allegations. Appropriate for students, scholars, and general readers alike, this book offers a timely analysis of an important political issue.