In the 20 years since the founding of Politics & Gender, gender and politics scholarship has coalesced into a distinct body of research and community of scholarship (Sawer Reference Sawer2025; Tripp Reference Tripp2025). The research published in this journal and others cuts across the traditional political science subfields, methodological approaches, and regional boundaries. While engaging with different topics and parts of the larger discipline, gender and politics research distinguishes itself through its turning around a shared understanding that gender plays a critical explanatory role in our political worlds – whether that be in the gendered ways that politics is enacted or the gendered consequences of political actions. There is a shared language of scholarship amongst researchers.
However, unlike in the traditional subfields in the discipline, there are few opportunities to receive formal training in conducting gender and politics scholarship within doctoral studies. Instead, this training occurs through collaboration with supervisors, at conferences, and through articles and textbooks. To contribute to this education, this Notes from the Field outlines advice for junior scholars who are looking to write their own gender and politics scholarship and engage with this community of research.
At the 2024 American Political Science Association Meeting in Philadelphia, Politics & Gender convened a pre-conference workshop about writing gender and politics research. The half-day workshop featured panels on getting your writing done, framing your contribution, publishing in the journal, and disseminating your research. As the day progressed, certain key themes emerged surrounding the nature of gender and politics research and practical advice about engaging in this field of scholarship. As a junior scholar myself, the advice below reflects what I found to be the most insightful takeaways of the workshop, ones that have helped my own understanding of what gender and politics scholarship should aspire to look like.
Find Your Interlocutors
A key theme that emerged throughout the workshop is that engaging in research of any kind, but especially gender research, is an act of co-creation and participating in a larger conversation. You do not need to look further than the pages of this journal to see how gender scholarship builds on the work of others by taking up theories, testing hypotheses in new contexts, and posing new questions based on the conclusions of past research. This borrowing of theories and re-testing of hypotheses is a form of scholarly conversation; each new piece of research talks both to the scholarship that has come before and generates new questions that can be taken up in future work.
Entering into this scholarly dialogue can often feel overwhelming for junior scholars. The large amount of literature out there can make finding who you want to speak to with your research feel like an insurmountable task. It is not the case that your research needs to speak to all gender and politics scholarship that has ever been written, but rather that you engage in a community of research that excites you and sparks new avenues of inquiry.
During the panel on framing your research, Bethany Albertson (University of Texas at Austin) suggested doing your own sort of intellectual ethnography. To be able to participate in scholarly conversations, junior scholars need to know what research they find engaging and that makes sense to them as scholars. The only way to find this research is to seek it out. Performing an ethnography of scholarly communities allows one to find this research. What does this look like in practice? It means going to conferences, participating in workshops, reading specialized journals in depth, taking a wide variety of classes, and seeking connections with scholars whose work you admire. Through engaging with different intellectual communities in a variety of ways, junior scholars can begin to figure out who they want to be in conversation with.
In the twenty years since the first issue of Politics & Gender was published, the number of “sites” to do this intellectual ethnographic work within the gender and politics subfield have multiplied. Larger conferences like the European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) bring together hundreds of scholars across the spectrum of gender and politics research. National and regional conferences such as the American Political Science Association (APSA) and the Western Political Science Association (WPSA) meetings provide opportunities to connect with and learn from other scholars within specific gender and politics divisions. Gender and politics scholars also gather in more subject or methodologically specific groups like the Empirical Study of Gender Research Network (EGEN), Women in Legislative Studies (WiLS), and the Gender and Political Participation (GPP) Working Group.
In the panel with former editors, Christina Wolbrecht (University of Notre Dame) argued that the benefit of being a gender and politics scholar is the breadth of interlocutors one can have. She encouraged junior scholars to be in conversation with both gender and politics scholars and also communities within the traditional subfields that speak to your research. Doing this intellectual ethnographic work broadly leads to richer scholarship that does the critical work that an incorporation of gender demands of researchers.
Once junior scholars have done their ‘ethnography’ and found the scholarly conversations they wish to be a part of the second step is actively participating in these conversations. This dialogue is first and foremost found in a paper’s literature review. The journal’s current editor, Mona Lena Krook (Rutgers University), underlined the importance of your literature review when submitting to Politics & Gender and engaging in gender and politics scholarship. A strong literature review demonstrates that you know who your major interlocutors are and exactly how you’re engaging with their work. This is done both through careful citation and a presentation of a clear argument.
Several panelists in our workshop pointed to the fine line of citational best practices. Your literature review should include a balance of both classics of the field and recent publications with whom you directly engage as you demonstrate to editors and readers that you have a grasp on the breadth of the field. Trying to include all of this literature can seem overwhelming, which is where a clear argument becomes essential. A strong literature review tells a story about what contradictions or unsolved puzzles exist in the literature and what questions are left to be asked. In other words, a strong literature review demonstrates why your contribution speaks to existing conversations and what makes you a valuable interlocutor.
A final thread that came out of our panelists’ discussions on participating in scholarly conversations was the importance of the ethos of intellectual generosity in gender and politics research. Rather than proving past scholars wrong or looking to upend existing paradigms, there is a tradition in gender and politics research of co-creation. This looks like a critical appraisal of research that assumes best intentions, that uplifts the voices of marginalized scholars, and that looks to build a larger communal body of work.
Have a Real Engagement with Gender
A second key theme that emerged throughout the workshop was the importance of engaging deeply with gender as a concept and analytical framework. Rather than “adding women and stirring,” strong gender and politics research considers the ways gender, as a social phenomenon, moves and is moved by politics. The very first edition of Politics & Gender provides guiding insights into what this means in practice. Beckwith (Reference Beckwith2005) suggests that we should think of gender both “as a category and as a process.” (p.128) Research using gender as a category focuses on how gendered identities shape engagement in political processes, such as exploring how women run electoral campaigns or how men organize in men’s rights movements. Research that examines how policies produce outcomes that affect men and women differently or investigates the masculinization of international security engages with gender as a process, highlighting how aspects of our political worlds are gendered.
Beckwith’s framework is just one of many ways to engage explicitly with gender in research. Whatever framework is adopted, incorporating gender into one’s research is a political act. As Hawkesworth (Reference Hawkesworth2005) asserts in the journal’s first edition – and Wolbrecht echoed in the workshop – such research affirms that the political world is inherently gendered and that political science research is poorer without this perspective. The scholars on the panel on framing your contribution offered a variety of strategies for junior scholars to take gender seriously in their research.
Elena Gambino (Rutgers University) suggested that scholars explore how feminist and queer theory can be applied to explain their empirical findings. She argued that feminist theory makes explicit claims about how gender constitutes individuals and shapes relationships between gendered subjects. Drawing on these gendered explanations from feminist theory can help scholars better understand their results and, in turn, the political world. Gambino cautioned, however, that the use of feminist and queer theory should be explicit. Taking gender seriously in research requires scholars to be transparent in their methodology and about the feminist theoretical foundations of their findings and conclusions.
Another way through which scholars can take gender more seriously in their research is by examining how it interacts with other categories of identity. At the panel, Gabriele Magni (Loyola Marymount University) made a compelling case for incorporating sexuality into gender and politics research, outlining two central arguments. First, studying sexuality is intrinsically important. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) politics are becoming increasingly central in political debates, with issues like access to sports and bathrooms for transgender individuals dominating elections and legislative agendas. Incorporating sexuality into studies of gender also resists flattening gendered categories like “woman” by prompting questions about the lives and experiences of LGBTQ+ women. Second, taking sexuality seriously benefits the field as a whole. Considering the intersections of gender and sexuality can deepen our understanding of core topics in the field, such as intersectionality, representation, policymaking, and social movements. These areas of inquiry are enriched by examining the relationship between gender and sexuality.
Consider the Positionality and Political Context of Your Research
A final broader theme from the workshop considered how research – especially on gender – does not exist in a vacuum. Research itself is political, with implications for both the researcher and the broader world. Natasha Behl (Arizona State University) spoke about how the underlying politics of a project shape its framing within political science research. Critical anti-racist and anti-colonialist politics, for example, influence not only the design of research projects, but also challenge what kinds of research are deemed acceptable within the discipline. As much research on marginalized groups is conducted by scholars who are themselves marginalized, Behl urged researchers to reflect on the potential risks they might face depending on the critical ways they frame their work. She encouraged junior scholars to find scholarly communities where their work will be accepted and to strategically position their research based on their long-term goals in academia.
Gender and politics research is also political in that it can have real impacts on politics and policy, especially when disseminated beyond academia. In their panel on disseminating research, Kelly Dittmar (Rutgers University-Camden and the Center for American Women and Politics) and Anna Mahoney (Rockefeller Center for Public Policy at Dartmouth College) encouraged scholars to incorporate public scholarship into their research pipelines. Gender and politics research often has actionable conclusions that could improve lives if scholars share their results with the public. Organizations such as a university’s media relations office, the Op-Ed Project, and the Scholars Strategy Network can help researcher disseminate their findings effectively. When translating findings for the media or public consumption, Dittmar and Mahoney advised identifying the key actionable points and identifying what those findings mean for your intended audience.
Have an Open-Minded Approach to Writer’s Block
In addition to broader themes about engaging in gender and politics research, the workshop featured actionable advice to improve academic writing. In her presentation on getting writing done, Kelly Clancey (Epilogue Editing) offered practical strategies for tackling the challenges of writing. She began by reminding participants that writing is difficult for everyone, whether due to having other commitments, perfectionism, or imposter syndrome. Overcoming these challenges requires addressing them directly. When it feels like everything gets in the way of writing, possible solutions might include creating a realistic writing schedule that is blocked out in your calendar or joining a writing group for accountability. Clancey also recommended breaking the writing process into smaller, manageable chunks and embracing messy as part of an iterative process. Overall, maintain an open-minded approach to different productivity strategies that can help to improve your writing and overcome barriers to getting words on the page.
Concluding Note
For junior scholars, entering a community of scholarship can be both exciting and intimidating. Events like the Politics & Gender workshop look to demystify the process of not only writing but also becoming a member of the community of scholars working on gender and politics research. These trainings in gender and politics research should be understood as an opportunity to learn but also as an invitation to be an interlocuter in gender and politics scholarship.
To help further breakdown the “hidden curriculum” in academia, Politics & Gender published a Critical Perspectives section on “Demystifying Publishing: A Short Guide for Early Career Researchers,” in June 2023. Conceived and edited by early career researchers Brit Anlar and Hannah Phillips (Reference Anlar and Phillips2023), the symposium features advice from the editors on submitting to Politics & Gender (Franceschet, Krook, and Wolbrecht Reference Franceschet, Krook and Wolbrecht2023). It also offers insights for engaging with the publishing process, in terms of seeking publication opportunities (Scott Reference Scott2023), publishing as a Ph.D. student (Höhmann Reference Höhmann2023), undertaking reviews for journals (Montoya Reference Montoya2023), and responding to reviewers (Sundström Reference Sundström2023). These articles complement the advice given at the APSA 2024 Writing Workshop, offering additional tools for becoming part of the gender and politics community.
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