Candidates and Campaigns

Discussion of the barriers and opportunities women face in seeking state legislative and statewide executive office and the differences across states in women's officeholding. Party is a key factor in understanding women's candidacies and women's representation. 

This chapter focuses on the history and treatment of women as presidential and vice-presidential candidates.  It begins with an overview of the pioneering women who have dared to step forward as presidential or vice-presidential candidates throughout American history.  It then turns to the 2008 campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, analyzing the ways that gender stereotypes influenced the strategies they employed, the media’s coverage of their campaigns, and public reactions to their candidacies. It also examines Michele Bachmann’s 2012 primary campaign, asking whether the pioneering candidacies of Clinton and Palin altered the path

Despite slight gains in congressional representation in 2012, women make up only 18.3% of the United States Congress. Research points to multiple reasons for women's political underrepresentation, including the need for more women to run. But when women do run, how do they fare?

Analyzing nationwide surveys of state legislators conducted by CAWP, More Women Can Run challenges assumptions of a single model of candidate emergence with a relationally embedded model of candidacy. It reorients research on women's election to office and offers strategies for political practitioners concerned about women's political equality. Video of a book talk given by Carroll and Sanbonmatsu available here. 

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. 

Do men and women take similar or different paths to public office? This paper examines the occupational and educational backgrounds, family situations, and prior political experiences of women state legislators and their male counterparts. 

 This paper explores the variation among and between campaign consultant perspectives, highlighting areas where gender matters more or less and recognizing the influence of consultants’ identities on their perceptions of gender and campaigns. As political actors with a growing presence and influence on campaigns, political consultants provide important insight to the campaign process and the gender dynamics therein. This insight contributes to a deeper understanding of campaigns as gendered institutions, whereby gender norms and expectations are embedded in the culture, structure, and processes of electoral politics.

Sanbonmatsu evaluates the role of political parties in electing women to office. She argues that the history of U.S. parties indicates that women’s organizations and movements, women leaders, and women voters are the keys to making political parties a help rather than a hindrance to women’s representation.

This paper investigates the routes that women take to the mayor’s office in big cities (with populations of 30,000 and above) using the 2008 CAWP Mayoral Recruitment Study. The authors investigate the backgrounds of women mayors and their decisions to seek municipal office for the first time.