Research and Scholarship

Lists percentages of women and men voting for presidential candidates 1980-2012. The gender gap in voting refers to the difference in the percentage of women and the percentage of men voting for a given candidate. A gender gap in voting for presidential candidates has been apparent in every election since 1980.

This chapter analyzes the 2008 Democratic presidential primary to consider the ways in which a male spouse challenges a female candidate’s image as a capable and independent executive.  Dittmar examines the media’s framing of both male and female spouses on the campaign trail and analyzes the extent to which coverage reflects a transgendering, or equal gender valuing, of candidate spouses’ roles. She finds a combination of spousal role evolution and constraint in media frames, simultaneously empowering presidential spouses while attributing greater gender power to the masculine partner – whether candidate or spouse. 

An analysis of women voters and the role they will play in the 2012 elections. 

This paper examines the factors that account for the rapid rise in the number of women legislators in New Jersey, focusing primarily on the time period from 2004 through 2011. Central to the analysis is the question of what it would take to bring about enduring change in a political system characterized by a strong, male-dominated party system like that found in New Jersey.

Analysis of results from an unprecedented nationwide survey of state legislators conducted in 2008 by the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.

This book is part of the CAWP Series in Gender and American Politics published by the University of Michigan Press in association with CAWP. Political theorist S. Laurel Weldon demonstrates that social movements provide a hitherto unrecognized form of democratic representation, and thus offer a significant potential for deepening democracy and overcoming social conflict.