Black Women Vs White Women Essay

Women are handicapped by institutional challenges in the first and second stages of the candidate emergence process. Recruitment is one of the many institutional challenges handicapping women when considering and making a bid for political office. Recruitment is a major institutional factor that handicaps women in the first stage of the candidate emergence process because women who are not encouraged and recruited to run are less likely to run, and unlike men, women need to be in contact with women’s organizations to increase the likelihood that they will be recruited to run. Women are significantly less likely to have received encouragement to run for office by electoral gatekeepers. In a 2008 survey of men and women in the Candidate Eligibility …show more content…
However, women of color are affected by these challenges differently than white women. Although black women face racial and ethnic biases, black women specifically may have a few advantages. Black women have often shown to be more ambitious than white women in politics (Thomas and Wilcox 168). Black women are more likely to enter politics at higher rates than white women, and black women can benefit from a black and women’s vote coalition (Thomas and Wilcox 168). This could be seen as a slight institutional advantage for black women, also paired with the fact that the Voting Rights Act created several new majority-black districts (Thomas and Wilcox 168). Due to black women having a longer tradition of working and raising a family, the sociocultural expectation of women focusing on family responsibilities instead of pursuing professional opportunities may have less of an effect on black women and black women may feel more prepared to balance work and raising a family. Further supporting the idea that black women may be more politically ambitious than white women, black women make up a larger proportion of representatives of their respective racial groups than white women (Thomas and Wilcox