Gender quotas are used to elect most of the world’s legislatures. Still, critics contend that quotas are undemocratic, eroding institutional legitimacy. We examine whether quotas diminish citizens’ faith in political decisions and decision-making processes. Using survey experiments in 12 democracies with over 17,000 respondents, we compare the legitimacy-conferring effects of both quota-elected and non-quota elected local legislative councils relative to all-male councils. Citizens strongly prefer gender balance, even when it is achieved through quotas. Though we observe a quota penalty, wherein citizens prefer gender balance attained without a quota relative to quota-elected institutions, this penalty is often small and insignificant, especially in countries with higher-threshold quotas. Quota debates are thus better framed around the most relevant counterfactual: the comparison is not between women’s descriptive representation with and without quotas, but between men’s political dominance and women’s inclusion.

One oft-cited reason for women's political underrepresentation is that women express less political ambition than men. We reframe the puzzle of women's ambition deficit, asking why men have an ambition surplus. Drawing on the concept of symbolic representation, we theorize that political symbols convey to men their capacity for exceptional political leadership. We test our expectations with a US-based survey experiment in which respondents watch one of three ‘two-minute civics lessons’. Men who watched a video featuring the accomplishments of the Founding Fathers reported significantly more political ambition than men assigned to the control group. Additional studies indicate that the effects are specific to the Founding Fathers (as compared to early American statesmen). Men are also more likely than women to identify the Founding Fathers as inspiring figures and to feel pride when considering them. Our findings suggest how history is told contributes to men's persistent political overrepresentation.

A much-circulated image during the Donald Trump administration showed Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Republican House Freedom Caucus discussing the removal of maternity coverage from the Affordable Care Act—with not a single woman or person of color among them. In another image, white men watched approvingly as Trump signed an executive order reinstating the global gag rule, which bans foreign nongovernmental organizations that receive American aid from supporting abortion access. These images contrast with one from early in Joe Biden’s presidency. In his first address to Congress, Biden was backed by two women occupying the second- and third-most-powerful positions in the country, Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, respectively. After acknowledging “Madame Speaker, Madame Vice President,” Biden said, “No president ever said those words and it is about time.”

Previous work suggests that observing women officeholders increases women’s political ambition. Yet, jumps in women’s representation in the United States’ “Years of the Woman”—following the Anita Hill testimonies and the election of Donald Trump—are linked to women’s exclusion from political decision-making. Drawing on focus groups with prospective women candidates, we theorize that exclusion when combined with a gendered policy threat increases women’s political ambition. Using survey experiments replicated across different samples, we show that women who read about an all-male city council poised to legislate on women’s rights report increased ambition compared with their pretreatment ambition levels and to women in other treatment groups. Women’s increased sense of political efficacy drives these results. When women’s rights are not under discussion, men’s overrepresentation does not move (or even depresses) women’s ambition. Seeing the policy consequences of their exclusion causes some women to seek a seat at the table.

Politics is increasingly dominated by crises, from pandemics to extreme weather events. These Critical Perspectives essays analyze crises’ gendered implications by focusing on their consequences for women’s descriptive and substantive representation. Covering multiple kinds of crises, including large-scale protests, climate shocks, and war and revolution, the contributions reveal three factors shaping both the theoretical conceptualization and empirical analysis of crisis and women’s representation: (1) the type of crisis, (2) the actors influenced by the crisis, and (3) the aftermath of the crisis. Together, the contributors urge scholars to “think crisis, think gender” far beyond the supply of and demand for women leaders.

Background: Antibiotics targeted against Clostridioides difficile bacteria are necessary, but insufficient, to achieve a durable clinical response because they have no effect on C. difficile spores that germinate within a disrupted microbiome. ECOSPOR-III evaluated SER-109, an investigational, biologically derived microbiome therapeutic of purified Firmicute spores for treatment of rCDI. Herein, we present the interim analysis in the ITT population at 8 and 12 weeks. Methods: Adults ≥18 years with rCDI (≥3 episodes in 12 months) were screened at 75 US and CAN sites. CDI was defined as ≥3 unformed stools per day for <48 hours with a positive C. difficile assay. After completion of 10–21 days of vancomycin or fidaxomicin, adults with symptom resolution were randomized 1:1 to SER-109 (4 capsules × 3 days) or matching placebo and stratified by age (≥ or <65 years) and antibiotic received. Primary objectives were safety and efficacy at 8 weeks. Primary efficacy endpoint was rCDI (recurrent toxin+ diarrhea requiring treatment); secondary endpoints included efficacy at 12 weeks after dosing. Results: Overall, 287 participants were screened and 182 were randomized (59.9% female; mean age, 65.5 years). The most common reason for screen failure was a negative C. difficile toxin assay. A significantly lower proportion of SER-109 participants had rCDI after dosing compared to placebo at week 8 (11.1% vs 41.3%, respectively; relative risk [RR], 0.27; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.15–0.51; p-value <0.001). Efficacy rates were significantly higher with SER-109 vs placebo in both stratified age groups (Figure 1). SER-109 was well-tolerated with a safety profile similar to placebo. The most common treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) were gastrointestinal and were mainly mild to moderate. No serious TEAEs, infections, deaths, or drug discontinuations were deemed related to study drug. Conclusions: SER-109, an oral live microbiome therapeutic, achieved high rates of sustained clinical response with a favorable safety profile. By enriching for Firmicute spores, SER-109 achieves high efficacy while mitigating risk of transmitting infectious agents, beyond donor screening alone. SER-109 represents a major paradigm shift in the clinical management of patients with recurrent CDI. Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier NCT03183128. These data were previously presented as a late breaker at American College of Gastroenterology 2020.

Funding: Seres Therapeutics

Disclosures: None

Figure 1.

Mental health problems have a significant impact globally in terms of social and economic costs. Increasing access to and uptake of mental health interventions (particularly by men) remains a challenge for service providers. The current study sought to examine the efficacy of a delivering a Stress Control intervention in partnership with a community sporting organisation (the Gaelic Athletic Assocaition, GAA) in ameliorating mental health difficulties in a general population. Measures of anxiety, depression and quality of life were administered before and after the delivery of the 6-week programme. A focus group was conducted afterwards to gather qualitative data on participants’ experiences of the intervention. Statistically significant decreases in depression scores were found following attendance at the course: t (94) = 3.14, p = .002, with a large effect size (0.5) (n = 95). There was an increase in the number of male attendees compared with clinic-based courses. Thematic analysis of the focus group data revealed a number of key themes including increased accessibility in terms of the scale and context of the delivery of the course. Delivering large-scale psychoeducational courses like Stress Control in partnership with the GAA represents a promising avenue for increasing access (for males in particular) to an effective intervention for improving mental health outcomes

Wildlife is an essential component of all ecosystems. Most places in the globe do not have local, timely information on which species are present or how their populations are changing. With the arrival of new technologies, camera traps have become a popular way to collect wildlife data. However, data collection has increased at a much faster rate than the development of tools to manage, process and analyse these data. Without these tools, wildlife managers and other stakeholders have little information to effectively manage, understand and monitor wildlife populations. We identify four barriers that are hindering the widespread use of camera trap data for conservation. We propose specific solutions to remove these barriers integrated in a modern technology platform called Wildlife Insights. We present an architecture for this platform and describe its main components. We recognize and discuss the potential risks of publishing shared biodiversity data and a framework to mitigate those risks. Finally, we discuss a strategy to ensure platforms like Wildlife Insights are sustainable and have an enduring impact on the conservation of wildlife.

Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) are sites identified as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations on the basis of an internationally agreed set of criteria. We present the first review of the development and spread of the IBA concept since it was launched by BirdLife International (then ICBP) in 1979 and examine some of the characteristics of the resulting inventory. Over 13,000 global and regional IBAs have so far been identified and documented in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems in almost all of the world’s countries and territories, making this the largest global network of sites of significance for biodiversity. IBAs have been identified using standardised, data-driven criteria that have been developed and applied at global and regional levels. These criteria capture multiple dimensions of a site’s significance for avian biodiversity and relate to populations of globally threatened species (68.6% of the 10,746 IBAs that meet global criteria), restricted-range species (25.4%), biome-restricted species (27.5%) and congregatory species (50.3%); many global IBAs (52.7%) trigger two or more of these criteria. IBAs range in size from < 1 km2 to over 300,000 km2 and have an approximately log-normal size distribution (median = 125.0 km2, mean = 1,202.6 km2). They cover approximately 6.7% of the terrestrial, 1.6% of the marine and 3.1% of the total surface area of the Earth. The launch in 2016 of the KBA Global Standard, which aims to identify, document and conserve sites that contribute to the global persistence of wider biodiversity, and whose criteria for site identification build on those developed for IBAs, is a logical evolution of the IBA concept. The role of IBAs in conservation planning, policy and practice is reviewed elsewhere. Future technical priorities for the IBA initiative include completion of the global inventory, particularly in the marine environment, keeping the dataset up to date, and improving the systematic monitoring of these sites.

Efficient milking systems, in terms of labour demand, capital investment and cow udder health are critical to successful dairy herd expansion. The objective of this study was to establish the effect of two primary influencing factors on efficient milking performance, i.e. parlour size (number of milking units) and pre-milking routine (full and nil) of spring-calved cows, in a single-operator side-by-side, swing-over milking parlour. Efficiency parameters investigated in a 5×2 factorial design included milk-flow and yield, row time, over-milking duration and operator idle time. Five combinations of parlour size (14, 18, 22, 26 and 30 milking units) each with two different pre-milking routines (Full: spray, strip, wipe, attach clusters, and Nil: attach clusters) were examined with one milking operator. The trial was carried out over 40 milking sessions and cows (up to 120) were randomly assigned to groups (n=14, 18, 22, 26 or 30) before each milking session. Row within a milking session was the experimental unit. The experiment was carried out at both peak and late lactation. The data were analysed with a mixed model using GenStat 13.2. The full pre-milking routine reduced time to milk let-down and milking time, increased average flow rate but did not affect milk yield. As milking unit number increased, the duration of over-milking (defined as time at milk flow rate <0·2 kg/min) increased more with a full compared with nil routine. Thus, the use of pre-milking preparation decreased milking time per cow but as parlour size increased, milking row times, as well as the proportion of cows that were over-milked, also increased, thereby reducing overall efficiency. These results have implications for milking management in single-operator swing-over, tandem and rotary parlours with seasonally calved herds.