Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- Political Women and American Democracy
- 1 Introduction: What We Saw at the Revolution: Women in American Politics and Political Science
- 2 Gender as a Category of Analysis in American Political Development
- 3 Gender, Public Opinion, and Political Reasoning
- 4 Gender in the Aggregate, Gender in the Individual, Gender and Political Action
- 5 What Revolution? Incorporating Intersectionality in Women and Politics
- 6 Women's Movements and Women in Movements: Influencing American Democracy from the “Outside”?
- 7 Representation by Gender and Parties
- 8 Women as Candidates in American Politics: The Continuing Impact of Sex and Gender
- 9 Women as Officeholders: Linking Descriptive and Substantive Representation
- 10 Theorizing Women's Representation in the United States
- 11 Political Women in Comparative Democracies: A Primer for Americanists
- 12 Conclusion: Between Participation and Representation: Political Women and Democracy in the United States
- References
- Index
2 - Gender as a Category of Analysis in American Political Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- Political Women and American Democracy
- 1 Introduction: What We Saw at the Revolution: Women in American Politics and Political Science
- 2 Gender as a Category of Analysis in American Political Development
- 3 Gender, Public Opinion, and Political Reasoning
- 4 Gender in the Aggregate, Gender in the Individual, Gender and Political Action
- 5 What Revolution? Incorporating Intersectionality in Women and Politics
- 6 Women's Movements and Women in Movements: Influencing American Democracy from the “Outside”?
- 7 Representation by Gender and Parties
- 8 Women as Candidates in American Politics: The Continuing Impact of Sex and Gender
- 9 Women as Officeholders: Linking Descriptive and Substantive Representation
- 10 Theorizing Women's Representation in the United States
- 11 Political Women in Comparative Democracies: A Primer for Americanists
- 12 Conclusion: Between Participation and Representation: Political Women and Democracy in the United States
- References
- Index
Summary
According to President George W. Bush, a nation's commitment to liberty and democracy should be gauged by its willingness to extend rights and political recognition to women. As the world's first modern democracy, one might expect that the United States has led the way in granting equal rights to women. Furthermore, champions of political liberalism contend that our government's commitment to legal, individual rights and nondiscrimination has created equal opportunity for all, regardless of race or sex. Yet an examination of American political history reveals the persistence of gender hierarchy in U.S. politics, a stubborn resistance to the idea that gender should not matter to one's political standing, and, at best, an incomplete realization of the liberal ideal of equal rights for all. From a comparative perspective today, the United States is far behind other Western democracies in extending social rights that particularly benefit women and in the proportion of women who hold office in the national government. This has led some scholars to consider whether gender inequality is a deep-seated feature of the American political system and whether liberal political structures will ever provide for equal rights and recognition for women. Scholarship on gender and American political development can move us closer to an analytic framework that clarifies the paradoxical place that women hold in the American system.
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- Political Women and American Democracy , pp. 12 - 30Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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