Five days into the U.S. government shutdown in 2013, Republican Senator Susan Collins took the Senate floor and challenged her colleagues to work together to put an end to the impasse. In the midst of a fierce partisan standoff, she pieced together a bipartisan coalition – disproportionately comprised of women – that would lay the foundation for the federal fiscal plan later signed into law. Although the large role female senators played in forging a compromise attracted considerable media attention, the senators themselves suggested this was par for the course. Senator Collins explained: “I don't think it's a coincidence that women were so heavily involved in trying to end this stalemate. Although we span the ideological spectrum, we are used to working together in a collaborative way.”

Female senators in the United States are certainly not in lockstep politically, but their custom of monthly meetings and their history of collaborating across party lines on other projects set the tone for constructive bargaining to end partisan gridlock. Indeed, women in the U.S. Senate have a track record of crossing party lines to develop legislation that promotes their shared interests. The Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act (Barbara Boxer, D-CA and Olympia Snowe, R-ME), legislation to provide health care to the first responders to the attacks of September 11, 2001 (Lisa Murkowski, R-AK and Kristen Gillibrand, D-NY), and legislation amending the tax code to meet the needs of stay-at-home moms (Barbara Mikulski, D-MD and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-TX) are just a few of many examples. Senator Mikulski describes these bipartisan feats and others as “the power of two women building a coalition to accomplish a mutual goal.”

This kind of collaborative behavior is not unique to the United States. As women gain access to parliaments worldwide in record numbers, legislative collaboration appears to be on the rise. Stories of women working together to accomplish bipartisan goals appear in popular media and academic discourse across the globe.