Women as Party Leaders: Are the Barriers Partisan?

<p>Even though women make up roughly 51% of the population of the United States, they are underrepresented in all branches of American government. Although there has been recent literature on women in politics and women and parties, very little has been done on women in party leadership. Research suggests that there are fewer women in elected office because of a lack of supply, or qualified and willing women, or a lack of demand, an electorate willing to vote for a woman. This study seeks to understand the levels of participation of women as party delegates in state party conventions and whether the barriers that they face are specific to each party Using a survey data set of over 5000 state party convention delegates, I analyze how women participate and the parties’ ideals on women’s role in politics. While I expected to find more Democratic women in leadership roles, this study has shown that perhaps the barriers are not specific to party as more Republican women delegates have held a party or government office than their Democratic women delegate counterparts. This paper suggests that the political culture of the Republican Party discourages women from joining, but once they join, they are equally as likely as Democratic women to hold leadership positions.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2021

Author dc:creator

• Yates, Amanda B

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kathanne Greene
• Mark Brockway
• Iliyan Iliev

• women as party elites
• women as state delegates
• descriptive representation
• women as party activists
• women in politics
• substantive representation

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/845

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1906