Susan J. Carroll

“She Brought Only a Skirt”: Print Media Coverage of Elizabeth Dole's Bid for the Republican Presidential Nomination

This article analyzes two data sets to determine differences in print media coverage of Elizabeth Dole and five other Republican contenders for the presidential nomination in 1999: George W. Bush, John McCain, Alan Keyes, Gary Bauer, and Steve Forbes. Our findings indicate that Dole received a differential amount and type of print media coverage that was decidedly gendered and may have hindered her candidacy. Dole did not receive an amount of media coverage consistent with her standing as the number two candidate in the polls throughout the time period we examined, and the press paid more attention to Doles personality traits and appearance than to the traits and appearance of other candidates. Journalists also repeatedly framed Dole as the “first woman” to be a serious presidential candidate and focused on her gender more than any other aspect of her candidacy, suggesting implicitly, if not explicitly, that she was a novelty in the race rather than a strong contender with a good chance of winning.

Reflections on Gender and Hillary Clinton's Presidential Campaign: The Good, the Bad, and the Misogynic

I began the 2008 campaign season without much academic interest in Hillary Clinton’s campaign. As a political scientist whose work focuses on gender and U.S. politics, and as a senior scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), I knew I would spend considerable time talking to the press about Hillary Clinton. And I certainly understood the historic nature of Clinton’s candidacy — that she was taking the next big step toward putting a woman in the White House by actually entering and running through the primaries, something no woman had done since Shirley Chisholm entered some primaries and had her name placed in nomination at the Democratic convention back in 1972. On a personal level, I was certainly supportive of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. In fact, I always expected that the first woman candidate to make a sustained and serious run at the White House might well look a lot like Margaret Thatcher — that is, that she would be a Republican, ideologically conservative, and an opponent of much of the agenda of organized feminism. Perhaps it is all a matter of expectations, but since I was expecting Margaret Thatcher to show up,

More women can run : gender and pathways to the state legislatures

List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgments Chapter 1 Rethinking Candidate Emergence Chapter 2 Can More Women Run? Reevaluating Pathways to Office Chapter 3 Gender and the Decision to Run for Office Chapter 4 Republican Women State Legislators: Falling Behind Chapter 5 Democratic Women State Legislators: On the Rise Chapter 6 The Future of Womens Officeholding Appendix Bibliography Index

Political Elites and Sex Differences in Political Ambition: A Reconsideration

This study examines the political ambitions of representative national samples of women and men holding comparable elective offices in 1981. In contrast to the findings of previous research on sex differences in political ambition, most of which focused on party activists, women are found to be as ambitious for public officeholding as their male counterparts. Two possible explanations for the differences in results between this and earlier studies are tested. The first is that the findings of earlier studies were misleading because they failed to control for officeholding status, thereby masking underlying similarities in the ambitions of women and men who had similar levels of officeholding experience. The second is that the ambitions of political women, relative to those of political men, increased over time. Because neither of these explanations receives empirical support, differential selection into party activist and public officeholding elites is suggested as the most likely reason for the difference in findings. The implications of the findings for the numerical representation of women in national and major statewide offices are discussed.

The Disempowerment of the Gender Gap: Soccer Moms and the 1996 Elections

(VNS) exit poll showed that 54% of women, compared with 43% of men, voted for Bill Clinton, resulting in a gender gap of 11 percentage points. This gender gap contrasts with the much smaller gender gap of 4 percentage points in presidential voting in 1992 and gender gaps of 6 to 9 percentage points in the 1980, 1984, and 1988 elections. Moreover, according to the VNS exit poll, womens votes provided the margin of victory for Clinton; men split their votes evenly between the two presidential candidates while women showed a strong and decisive preference for Clinton over Dole (Center for the

Far from Ideal: The Gender Politics of Political Science

Political science has mirrored the political culture even as it has explained it, and at critical times the gendering of political science has left it unprepared to explain notable changes in political life. Here, we examine political science as a gendered institution across three critical time periods: the founding era of the discipline, the 1970s and 1980s, and the present. For each period, we assess the presence, position, and experiences of women in the profession; the norms of gender within the discipline; and the way political science deals with women and gender as subject matter. In general, the position of women in the discipline has improved dramatically over the course of the disciplines first century, and gender-related research has become more institutionalized. Nevertheless, political science has not yet developed a full appreciation of gender as an analytical construct.

Unrealized Opportunity? Term Limits and the Representation of Women in State Legislatures

Abstract Using data from the state legislative elections of 1998 and 2000, this article examines empirically the expectation prevalent in the women and politics literature that the implementation of term limits will lead to increases in the numbers of women legislators. At the state house level, in both elections more women were forced to leave state house seats because of term limits than were elected to house seats that were vacated by term-limited incumbents. In contrast, at the state senate level, women increased their numbers in term-limited seats in 1998 and maintained their numbers in 2000. Thus far, women have fared better in term-limited seats for state senates than for state houses because of a “pipeline” effect whereby some women representatives who have been term-limited out or who face a term-limited future have successfully taken advantage of opportunities to seek senate seats that opened up because of term limits.

Do term limits help women get elected

Objective. We examine the proposition put forward by term limit advocates and some scholars that the implementation of term limits will lead to increases in the numbers of women serving in state legislatures. Methods. Data are examined for all state house races in the six states that implemented term limits in 1998. Results. Although there was some variation across the states, the overall number of women serving in state house seats that were term‐limited actually decreased following the election. Conclusions. More research is needed as more states implement term limits in future elections. However, our analysis suggests that term limits, unaccompanied by efforts to recruit women to run for term‐limited seats, may be insufficient to increase the number of women state legislators.

Moms Who Swing, or Why the Promise of the Gender Gap Remains Unfulfilled

In 2004, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the voter turnout rate for women was 60.1% compared with 56.3% for men, and across the United States 8.8 million more women than men voted. Women have voted at higher rates than men in all presidential elections since 1980, with the gap between women and men growing slightly larger in each subsequent election year. Moreover, in 2004, women outvoted men (in terms of both turnout rates and actual numbers) in every racial and ethnic group—African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and whites (Center for American Women and Politics 2005a).

Reflections on Activism and Social Change for Scholars of Women and Politics

How should scholars view and relate to activism and social change? Concern over this question is neither new nor limited to political scientists. Nevertheless, because of the special relationship between our academic enterprise and the larger womens movement outside the academy, this concern is particularly acute for those of us who approach the study of politics from a feminist perspective.