Organizational Roots of Gender Polarization in the State Legislature

Abstract

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.