Developments in gender and U.S. politics: A call for intersectionality

Matthews, Morgan

doi:10.1111/soc4.12716

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 121 publications

(97 reference statements)

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“…Despite election-to-election fluctuation, the overall trend toward women's preference for Democrats has been steadily increasing the party's own willingness to nominate women for office and support their candidacies at all levels. Simultaneously, the supply of women candidates for Congress has disproportionately grown on the Democratic side, especially as state legislatures have shown increasingly gendered partisan patterns of representation (Matthews 2019). From 1998 to 2019, the number of Democratic women in the House of Representatives increased from 37 to 88, while the number of Republican women fell from 17 to 13 (CAWP 2019).…”

Section: The Gendered Partisan Binary In the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The party she leads has distinctively changed its appearance as a whole, since only 38% of current Democratic congressional representatives are White men (but 90% of Republicans are). While party was a poor predictor of the proportion of women in the legislatures of individual states in the 1980s and 1990s, by 2011 Democratic Party control itself had become the primary determinant of the gender composition of state legislatures (Matthews 2019).…”

Section: The Gendered Partisan Binary In the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Crisis of Masculinity for Gendered Democracies: Before, During, and After Trump

Ferree

2020

Sociological Forum

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The mobilized masculinity of democracies today is often presented as either a natural way for men to respond to the economic and political challenges of globalization or as a return to the patriarchal style of politics of the past. This article argues instead for an understanding of liberal democracy itself as gendered, being the collective masculinity of brotherhoods representing rivalrous nations. The first great transition from patriarchies and monarchies to brotherhoods and democracies is not being unmade now but facing a second transition to a different understanding of gender and power. This normative rise of a partnership model in families and politics is incomplete and highly contested everywhere. In the United States, it has become a partisan conflict expressed in gender terms. The Republican defense of the brotherhood state and its exclusive version of national good is countered by a newer but increasingly institutionalized vision of democracies as representing women and men equally. By more explicitly demasculinizing family headship and political leadership, social justice movements and the Democratic Party symbolically resist the restoration of gender norms privileging breadwinners and brotherhoods.

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Section: The Gendered Partisan Binary In the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Gendered Partisan Binary In the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Crisis of Masculinity for Gendered Democracies: Before, During, and After Trump

Ferree

2020

Sociological Forum

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“…In 2020, two‐thirds of the women elected to state legislatures were Democrats (CAWP 2021). These demographic changes leave open questions about the relations of power in partisan institutions after women legislators, most of whom are now Democrats, achieve elective office (Matthews 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organizational Roots of Gender Polarization in the State Legislature

Matthews

2021

Sociological Inquiry

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Political institutions in the United States have become increasingly polarized. This paper asks how gender has been part of party polarization’s institutionalization and what consequences gender has on relations of power in increasingly divisive legislative work. Drawing on interviews with 21 New Hampshire state representatives and archival legislative and committee leadership records, I analyze the process and changing meanings of partisanship in the everyday work of the legislature. As this state’s moderate conservative caucus disbanded and the Republican Party lost its long‐standing control, more divisive Republican alliances masculinized legislative politics as combative. Meanwhile, the newly competitive Democratic Party began to actively showcase women as party and committee leaders. State representatives’ accounts demonstrate the gendered meanings and consequences of party polarization in the legislative workplace beyond what is captured by traditional measures of ideological polarization. These findings show how gender polarization produces new forms of institutionalized political inequalities in the hierarchical legislative workplace.

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On Political Misogyny

DOVI

2024

Am Polit Sci Rev

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Many political scientists hold that vitriolic speech against high-profile women has only negligible effects on other women in politics. They also contend that the prevalence of such vitriol is consistent with gender bias having no significant negative impact on most women in politics. This article argues that these sanguine positions rest on inadequate and untested assumptions regarding misogyny, and the role it plays in politics. In the service of putting us in a position to test the relationship between gendered discourse in particular elections and the structural obstacles faced by women in politics, this article develops a conceptualization of political misogyny: nasty claim-making that instills repugnant connotations into women’s collective political identities (e.g., their partisan identities). Attention is also paid to how political misogyny can distribute hatred burdens disproportionately among different groups of women.

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Developments in gender and U.S. politics: A call for intersectionality

Abstract: Since "women and politics" scholarship emerged in the 1970s, social, institutional, and theoretical developments have shaped the trajectory of U.S. scholarship in this field.First, the presence of women in formal politics has

Cited by 4 publications

References 121 publications

The Crisis of Masculinity for Gendered Democracies: Before, During, and After Trump

The Crisis of Masculinity for Gendered Democracies: Before, During, and After Trump

Organizational Roots of Gender Polarization in the State Legislature

On Political Misogyny

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