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One of the earliest paths to power for women in the United States Congress was through political widowhood. In fact, this route to office still exists today. While literature on widows primarily explores factors associated with their entrances into Congress, this article examines their actions once in office by comparing their behavior to that of their late husbands. Specific questions explored include: do widows share the same political ideologies as their husbands? Do they vote differently on policy issues, particularly those considered important to women? Are they more likely to sponsor women's issues bills? Examining differences among these pairs offers a unique test for assessing the potential gender differences between male and female legislators. Thus its significance extends beyond the literature on political widows, and adds to the growing research assessing the impact of gender on the substantive representation of women. KEYWORDS. Widows, widowhood, women, gender, Congress doi: 10.1080/15544770802212224

Research on women's political representation in postsocialist Europe has highlighted the role of cultural and political factors in obstructing women's access to legislative power, such as the prevalence of traditional gender stereotypes, electoral systems, and the absence of a feminist movement. Yet, the role of women political elites in enhancing or hindering women's access to political power in the region has so far remained uncharted. This article seeks to fill some of the existing gaps in this literature by examining the views of women politicians with regard to women's political under-representation and their assessments of strategies for redressing this imbalance. Findings from the analysis reveal that although women politicians recognize gender inequalities in representation as a problem requiring intervention, how the problem is perceived, and the preferred measures to deal with it, is largely shaped by the social and cultural context in which these actors are embedded. Keywords: women and politics: culture; political elites; legislative recruitment; political representation; postsocialist Europe

In this article we examine the patterns of gendered representation and related legislative advocacy within Latino delegations to four state legislatures in the Southwest. Most agree that one of the most significant changes in American politics in the post-civil rights era is the increasing election of women and people of color, but there is less agreement about the magnitude, consistency, and impact of this representation. Moreover, little is known about how these patterns vary by state. First, we examine the patterns of gendered and ethnic election in the states of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas from 1990-2004. We find considerable variation across these states, relative to both women and Latinos, but the presence of Latinas within the Latino/a delegation has noticeably increased across all the states and at a rate that outpaces the increase in women in the legislatures overall. Second, using original survey data supplemented with elite interviews, we explore perceived differences in the representational priorities and related behaviors, issue agendas, and policy successes between Latinas and Latino men. We find a number of similarities but also find distinct differences that reveal Latinas place greater emphasis on representing the interests of multiple minority groups, promoting conflict resolution, and building consensus in both the legislature asa whole and within the Latino caucus. Latinas also are more likely than Latino men to introduce and successfully pass legislation that addresses the issue agenda held by both Latina and Latino legislators, doi: 10.1300/J501v28n03_06 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: [c] 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.] KEYWORDS. Gender, ethnicity, Latina, Latino, state legislature, legislator, representation, women, elected officials, policy

The entry of the 1997 cohort of Labour women into public life offers a test case of whether, and under what conditions, women politicians have the capacity to `make a substantive difference'. We outlines the theory of the politics of presence and discuss how to operationalise this in a testable model. We, use the British Representation Study survey of 1,000 national politicians (including parliamentary candidates and elected Members of Parliament) conducted in the 2001 general election. The analysis centres on the impact of gender on five scales measuring attitudes and values on issues that commonly divide British party politics. Once we control for party, there are no significant differences among women and men politicians across the value scales concerning the free market economy, Europe, and moral traditionalism. Yet on the values most directly related to women's interests--namely the affirmative action and the gender equality scales--women and men politicians differ significantly within each party, even after controlling for other common social background variables that explain attitudes, such as their age, education, and income. The conclusion considers why these findings matter for the composition of parliament, the public policy agenda and for women's roles as political leaders.

I. INTRODUCTION In Hobbes's political theory, women do not occupy a social or political position very different from that of men. Some recent commentators (1) have claimed that there is [...]

This paper examines whether congresswomen and congressmen differ in their levels of job satisfaction, the levels of benefits they derive from working in the House, and the relationship between specific benefits and job satisfaction. By relying on a survey of former members of Congress, the paper finds only modest gender differences in the level of job satisfaction and members' perceptions of obtaining specific benefits from the job, but significant gender differences in the sources of job satisfaction. Most specifically, congresswomen's job satisfaction was most greatly influenced by whether their families benefited from the job whereas family benefits had only a modest effect on men's job satisfaction. Conversely, congressmen's satisfaction was more strongly related to their perceptions of the financial benefits to House service than was congresswomen's satisfaction.

An independence gap, in which women are on average 6 percentage points less likely than men to view themselves as political independents, has existed in the United States for at least 40 years. Women opt for weak partisanship, while men choose the leaning-independent category. Demographic differences between men and women do not explain this gap. Indirect evidence indicates it may be due to men placing a greater value on separateness and women placing a greater value on connections with others. When leaning independents are ignored, the partisan gender gap appears to be due mainly to women's greater attraction to the Democratic Party, but when these independents are folded in with the appropriate partisan group, the gender gap is seen to be due equally to mens' greater attraction for the Republicans., Numerous scholarly studies and journalistic accounts focus on women's greater preference for the Democratic Party. These accounts pinpoint 1980 as the beginning of the gender gap. Yet, a longer standing [...]

The influence of the social and political environment on candidacies and electability is an important element of political recruitment structures. We investigate several contextual factors that may affect the likelihood of women becoming candidates to, and members of, the British House of Commons and the U.S. House of Representatives. Using data from the 1992 British General Election and the 1992 U.S. congressional elections, we find both similarities and differences in the contexts promoting women's candidacies in the two countries. Overall, there is not an especially distinctive pattern in either country to women's candidacies or electability. Women have moved beyond 'sacrificial lamb' status, but incumbency remains the most formidable electoral barrier in both countries.

Based largely on in-depth interviews with the majority of women local councillors in Northern Ireland, this article addresses two substantive issues: the reasons for the numerical underrepresentation of women and the issue of gender difference. The authors illustrate and explore these questions within the context of both the councillors' own responses and that supplied by a concurrent survey of the general population. While the councillors and the general population favour the increased representation of women in public office, evidence of a gender cleavage - while present - is perceived to be more potential than actual, given the dominance of the mutually reinforcing cleavages of nationality and religion. This research was financed primarily by a grant from the Nuffield Foundation and secondarily by one from the Lockheed Foundation, administered by Queen's University, Belfast. The results cited from the wider probability survey are derived from an ESRC-funded project ('The Political Participation, Interests and Attitudes of Women in Northern Ireland' - ROOO 23 2726) currently being undertaken by the authors. The authors benefitted from the comments of members of the 'Gender and Power' workshop at the 1992 session of the European Consortium for Political Research held at the University of Limerick, at which an earlier version of the paper was first presented, and from the comments of two referees.