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Women, Political Action and Political Participation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2020

Virginia Sapiro
Virginia Sapiro*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

The intriguing thing about the study of political behavior is that it focuses our attention directly on “the people” in a political system. Without the existence and actions of people a political system has no meaning — it could not exist. There have been attempts to break this rule, but they have not been successful. There is a spot under the North Sea off the coast of England, for example, that continued to have parliamentary representation long after the sea had buried what was once the important port of Dunwich. This was one of the famous “rotten boroughs”. This make-believe borough, however, required the political action of real people to have political meaning, even if the real people had to act in rowboats.

Type
Research Article
Information
News for Teachers of Political Science , Volume 36 , Winter 1983 , pp. 15 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1983

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References

Footnotes

1. “Empirical” studies are those in which the researcher attempts to use scientific methods, including especially systematic observation and measurement.

2. Andros,meaning “man,” thus “androcentric” meaning “centered on men.“

3. Note that candidate support is not the same thing as party identification. We shall return to this question in Chapter 5.

4. This will be discussed further in Chapter 4.

5. Prejudice: A pre-judgment; a final evaluation made before the evidence is in. Prejudices can be so rigid that it is impossible to see the evidence even after it has come in.

6. Generalization: A statement we feel we can make about the characteristics or patterns of behavior or thought not just about the particular case or people we observe, but more generally about cases or people who fall into the category we observe; e.g., a pattern we believe holds not just for women in a particular study, but for women more generally. The difference between a generalization in the scientific sense and a prejudice is that when scientists generalize they are making statements about tendencies or probabilities within a group based on prior observation. A prejudice is an often irrationally developed and rigid assumption about individuals within a group.

7. Hypothesis: A tentative statement, based in previous but incomplete knowledge, which we intend to test against the evidence; in short, an educated guess we intend to check out further.

8. “Normative” questions are those which concern arguments of value judgment — what is important, good, bad, or just. The line between what is “empirical” and “normative” can be very fine indeed. Empirical and normative analyses are generally functionally interlocked. My decision about what is important enough to study (even if I will do an empirical study) is a normative decision. Also, in order to make a good case in a normative argument I need to use empirically derived information. For example, if I wish to make a case that people should be required to stand on their heads once a day because it would make them happier (a normative argument), I had better be able to show that people who stand on their heads are happier than those who do not (an empirical statement).

9.. Many researchers use “sex” only to refer to specifically biological attributes of human beings, and use “gender” for those variable characteristics of men and women which are shaped by culture. Taking the primary role of “breadwinner” is thus part of the traditional male gender role because it is prescribed by culture or society and not biology as something men and not women do.