From the perspective of women's experiences, it is easy to see that democratic representative institutions can be tools of oppression. After all, formal democratic institutions have been either a form of governance that has only ruled over women (e.g., women were formally prohibited from holding elected offices) or a form of governance in which women have ruled and been ruled unequally (e.g., the number of female representatives have been significantly lower than the number of male representatives). Moreover, informal representative institutions, for example, interest groups, do not seem to work for women as well as they do for powerful men (Strolovitch 2007). These facts suggest that democratic representative institutions need to be viewed suspiciously. We should not assume that representative institutions in democracies necessarily benefit all women. We need to recognize how they can divide women, pitting some women's interests and preferences against other women's interests and preferences. Democratic representative institutions can function to preserve the status quo, distributing benefits unjustly among different men and women.

Racial disparities in the justice system, particularly as they relate to the death penalty, have received increasing scholarly and public-policy scrutiny recently. Comparatively little attention has been paid to the role of the defendant's sex in cases of violent crime, though research has been conducted on how the victim's sex affects court decisions. This article seeks to extend this line of inquiry by asking how women accused of killing their spouses or nonspousal intimate partners are treated by the judicial system. I present a theoretical framework that elucidates the impact of intersectionality and sexual stratification on structuring outcomes for women defendants in cases of violent crimes. To test implications derived from this framework, I utilize an original data set of homicide cases from Oakland County, Michigan, from 1986 to 1988. I find that female defendants were convicted more frequently than were male defendants, and that there is an interactive effect with race. Further, I find that the conviction rate was higher if the victim was an alleged batterer of the defendant. Finally, my data indicate that sentencing decisions have a clear racial aspect to them. I conclude with suggestions for future research.

In 2005, a record nine women served as their state's governor. Of these, eight were elected. A crucial and often difficult step for women to be successful in gubernatorial elections is for them to win the nomination for governor by their political party. From 1976 to 2004, only 79 women have won their party's nomination for governor. The record number of women nominees in a single year is 10, set in 1998 and 2002. Even with these recent successes, women as governors are both fairly rare and an understudied area of political science. In this study, we explore two different explanations for the nomination of women to elected office: the pipeline and sacrificial lamb models. Although some research argues that the sacrificial lamb model is outdated and has been replaced by the pipeline model, we find that both of these models are relevant for the study of female gubernatorial nominations, but in the same way for each political party. By examining gubernatorial election data from 1976 to 2004, we present evidence suggesting that the pipeline model helps to explain the nomination of Democratic women, while the sacrificial lamb model helps to explain the nomination of Republican women. Though preliminary, these findings have important implications for the growing, pro-Democratic, partisan imbalance of women officeholders.

How can scholars advance the study of gender and politics with over-time research? Scholars often call for more historical research and for more attention to time as a contextual variable. But it is rare that scholars have an opportunity to reflect on the use of time in gender scholarship. What is gained by thinking about time? What is the research agenda for studying gender and politics over time? What methodological approaches are particularly promising? Kira Sanbonmatsu and Claudine Gay invited leading scholars to discuss these questions at a roundtable at the 2007 Midwest Political Science Association meetings. The following essays assess existing scholarship, suggest new research questions, and identify fruitful research approaches. The authors discuss different ways to theorize about time. And they remind us of the dangers of neglecting time in gender research.

Women continue to be underrepresented in politics. A contemporary focus on inequality, however, belies the remarkable changes that have occurred in women's political representation, participation, and impact over time. Thus, scholars are increasingly calling for longitudinal theory and research that focuses on change across time. In this essay, we advocate moving to a longitudinal approach, which, we argue, has four broad implications for theories on women and politics. First, in shifting from a static to a longitudinal perspective, we may find greater support for existing theories that have to date generated only weak or mixed empirical evidence. Second, in contrast, we may also identify limitations of documented findings, which may not generalize broadly across time. Third, some theories imply over-time processes but have never been modeled as such. Thus, a longitudinal approach promises new, and potentially more rigorous, hypothesis testing of existing theories. Finally, theorizing over time may generate new explanations for stasis, growth, or decline in women's political representation or participation that have not, to date, been considered.

One might break research questions about gender and politics over time into two basic categories. On the one hand, there are questions that speak to processes unfolding, perhaps rather slowly, over time. In this long-haul category, we might find studies of such things as generational shifts in patterns of attitudes about gendered political roles (Jennings 2006) or of the development of gendered national identities with evolving constitutional interpretations (Ritter 2006). On the other hand, there are inquiries about the dynamics, or instability, of shorter-run patterns. These intellectual pursuits might include seeking to explain short-haul phenomena like changes in partisan gaps between men and women, perhaps even within the duration of a single campaign season (Sapiro and Conover 1997). Both categories, of course, are incredibly important realms of inquiry. My argument is for improvements in our studies of shorter-term dynamics and, ultimately, for the integration of studies of both short- and long-run processes, with improved measurement and modeling strategies as the crucial tools we need to get there.

What can be learned from the broad sweep of history about gender and politics? Are there ways to study gender politics from a more historical perspective that differ from the methods and approaches typically taken by scholars focused on the contemporary political record? Finally, does attentiveness to gender politics over time challenge any of our basic understandings or presumptions about gender politics today, and does it lead us to new questions and research agendas? I begin by exploring the contribution that scholarship within the field of American political development (APD) can make to the study of gender politics over time. The essay then turns to conceptualizing gender, a concept that is defined in a wide variety of ways across the humanities and social sciences. The third section applies some of the conceptual approaches described in the first two parts of this essay to an analysis of three cases in American political history. Finally, I conclude with a call for the inclusion of gender more broadly in the study of politics.

Historical perspectives form the backdrop and the context for much work on gender in comparative politics scholarship, yet history itself has rarely been incorporated as the lens through which the theorizing of gender occurs. The current growth of interest in gender studies in American political development is strangely not reflected in contemporary trends of historical institutionalism within comparative politics (see Gretchen Ritter's essay in this issue). Although scholars of comparative politics working on gender or women almost always incorporate historical perspectives in their analyses, history is generally drawn on as background or to provide context. History itself is generally not the primary focus of their analysis and historical processes are not used to generate theory. It has been only recently that scholars, especially in the field of historical institutionalism (HI), have begun to think about new ways in which history could be used to develop theory and create new empirical knowledge in the field of comparative politics and gender.