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Looking for Gender in Women's Campaigns for National Office in 2004 and Beyond: In What Ways Is Gender Still a Factor?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2006

Barbara Burrell
Barbara Burrell
Affiliation:
Northern Illinois University
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Extract

In 2004, 39 individuals were newly elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Eight of these individuals were women. Women went on to win two special elections held in 2005, while a man won the third contest. This increase in the numerical representation of women in the lower house of Congress in 2004–5 was a positive counter to the lack of progress women made in advancing their numbers in other elective offices, such as the U.S. Senate, governorships, and state legislatures in 2004. These gains in representation, however, only amounted to a 15.5% membership for women in the U.S. House of Representatives. Who were these successful women, and what does their election suggest to us about women and political officeholding and about gender as a factor when men and women run for public office in the early years of the twenty-first century? Do their campaigns and election reflect the continued relevance of gender, or are they indications of the demise of gender as a factor in elections?

Type
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER AND POLITICS
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , September 2006 , pp. 354 - 362
Copyright
© 2006 The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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