How democratic has U.S. democracy been for women? How political have U.S. women become since “the revolution” (Wolbrecht, this volume)? Certainly since the publication of Jeane J. Kirkpatrick's Political Woman in 1974, there has been a revolution in women's political and legal status, mass participation, feminist movement activism, and voting behavior. Political Woman, politically active women, and a highly political women's movement emerged alongside important legislative achievements (e.g., the proposal of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972 and passage of Title IX in 1974), landmark Supreme Court decisions (most notably Roe v. Wade in 1973), and significant implementation of antidiscrimination laws by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

What have been the subsequent impacts and political trajectory of this revolution of political women? What do we know about political women and democracy in the United States? The chapters in this volume, in answering these questions, share two major commonalities at their outset: their attention to distinctions of “sex” and “gender,” and their appreciation of the impact of gendered institutions on political women and of political women's influence in gendering political parties, policy processes, and state structures.