Female Participation In Politics

Great Essays
After a slow progression, dating back to women’s suffrage, the presence of women in politics and congress has increased. Most recently (2009), it was recorded that women make up 90% of Congress while 73% of women serve in the House of Representatives. Additionally, this year for the first time in American history, there was a female candidate in the 2016 Presidential Election. While evidently there has been tremendous progress and an increase of female participation in politics during the last twenty years, females are still underrepresented in politics and electoral races as a whole. It is estimated that at the current rate of progress, it will be 2076 between women achieve equal representation. The reasons for this phenomenon are numerous, …show more content…
For instance, with men, younger and less-experienced males are encouraged to run for office and are judged on their potential. In comparison, only women who have an extensive party experience and a strong background are accepted party candidates. Evidently, there is a higher standard set for women than there is for males. Similarly, women also see bias within political parties by being chosen as a candidate only for unwinnable contests while being overlooked for races in which the party has a good chance of winning. Clearly, this practice is used as a tool for keeping women out of leadership positions. Both of these practices could be explained by a 1998 study conducted by David Niven where it is found that party elites consistently prefer and recruit candidates that are similar to themselves. Women are often not party elites. A final noteworthy aspect of female candidates and political parties is, it has been found that female candidates that identify with the Republican party are actually disadvantaged at winning the election solely due to their sex. Because women are more likely to be democrats, even when female candidates identify with the Republican party, they are still looked at as more …show more content…
Voters’ gender stereotypes have had potentially negative implications for women candidates, especially those in higher office. . As Ford states, voters prefer male characteristics in candidates in higher office. This inevitability creates a lose-lose situation for female candidates who have to appear strong enough for leadership but feminine enough to be authentic. This was a challenge Hillary Clinton faced in the 2016 Presidential Election. When she smiled, she was deemed as unqualified, when she did not smile; she was called “cold”. The presence of gender stereotypes remained relevant in the 2016 Presidential Election when Clinton was often criticized of things that her male counterpart or previous presidential candidates would have never been criticized for. For example, when Clinton was sick at a 9/11 Memorial, the media accused her as being “too old” and “too sickly” to be president. Hillary Clinton is younger than her once running-mate, Donald Trump. In addition, America has had presidents who have had medical problems in the past, such as FDR, who died after being elected to a third term. The idea that Clinton is “too old” or “too sickly” to serve, while older men or sick male candidates and elects are seen as “strong” clearly demonstrates the difference in standards female candidates are held to in opposition to male

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In The United States today, all citizens are eligible to vote for political candidates, political decisions and even laws. Up until 1920 in The United States, women did not bore the right to vote, regardless of their race or ethnicity. Also present in today’s society, while it may not be in all areas, women and men are equal in workplaces, schools, etc., and this ideology of equality has been adopted by the vast majority of society. But it was not always like this, from early 1900s and below, women had few to no rights. Men were the overall rulers in the household, and had complete control over their wives.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the beginning of the 20th century, women in Europe were still expected to take care of the household and children. Almost all nationally important decisions were made by males and female influence on politics was negligible. When the First World War erupted, all countries had to transform the male labor force into armed forces, but the nation’s economy had to continue with production and that was an opportunity for females to prove their position in the society. (Doc2.) During the war, females became more involved in the social struggle and had more influence.…

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Texas Political Culture

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Women, the poor, and minorities historically have enjoyed only low levels of political participation and representation in government relative to their numbers in the population. Although these groups have made great progress in being heard and putting their own in office over the past three decades, they still face significant obstacles caused by the relative lack of economic resources (wealth and income), lower education levels, and for immigrants, language barriers. Many women face the additional challenge of fulfilling traditional responsibilities as primary caregivers to their children, while trying to manage professional careers, whether in politics or in other…

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Question: How did women shape progressive era politics? One way that women shaped the progressive era politics was by joining social clubs. Although the original intent of these social clubs was to promote self improvement and to provide cultural activities, clubwomen turned their focus to reform efforts as their society, economy and political atmosphere declined. The reform efforts began locally and as they progressed, they reached both the state and federal level with the intent of changing laws to address the various social ills in the country.…

    • 235 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Girls Just Run

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Girls Just Wanna Not Run: The Gender Gap in Young Americans’ Political Ambition by Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox Based on the results of a new survey of more than 2,100 American college students between the ages of 18 and 25 which assessed the likelihood of running for public office in the United States of America and the “gender gap in ambition”, Jennifer L. Lawless, Associate Professor of Government at American University, and Richard L. Fox, Professor of Political Science at Loyola Marymount University, discovered that men were twice as likely to report that they “definitely” plan to run for office than women whereas women were 50% more likely to indicate that they had “absolutely no interest” in a future candidacy, as seen in…

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    November and the 2016 presidential election is approaching up rapidly, and with each day, the competition only seems to become fiercer. One can turn on any TV new station, and he or she will only see a barrage of presidential hopefuls competing with each other for airtime. At this moment in time, there are 21 candidates running in the election: six of them are Democrats, and the other fifteen are Republicans. Within this large array of politicians, the two that stand out the most are Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina. This is because they are the sole female hopefuls, and they are running for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively.…

    • 1793 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Therefore, women are not politicians. Furthermore, women do not need to go to college. Additionally, “feminine women are stereotyped as less competent for leadership positions” (Helgeson, 2017, p. 92).…

    • 229 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Liberal Women Case Study

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Democrats and Republican women who run for office have different ideals. Women who are involved in politics have to stick together and to take their positions seriously. Liberals generally make sure that they stick with the issues they revolve around changing society’s beliefs. Conservatives prefer to keep things like they were and to have old-fashioned beliefs. They are portrayed differently by the media because of the issues that they speak of and the networks that favor one party over the other.…

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women in Canadian politics: Challenges that continue to matter for all Canadian women voices The recent 2015 elections set record highs for Canadian women politicians. The 2015 federal election beat the record for the most female candidates in a single election, and the Alberta 2015 general election resulted in the closest a governing party has ever come to obtaining gender parity with 25 women and 28 men elected as members of the ruling NDP (Women in Canadian politics, 2018). Alberta’s Premier, Rachel Notley, has appointed a cabinet with equal representation from women and male politicians, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also has appointed a fully gender balanced Cabinet, and women make up 47.5% of the appointed Senate (Women, 2018). However,…

    • 1204 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Breaking The Glass Ceiling November is fast approaching along with the pressure on who to vote for. This year’s candidates come from two completely opposite backgrounds. Hillary Clinton is the first female nominee to be nominated for presidency; she was the elected democratic nominee. Donald Trump is an entertainer and a business man; he was the elected republican nominee. Voting is already an extremely tough decision to make.…

    • 1858 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    A Theoretical Prespective of First Lady Michelle Obama While many men and women alike, perceive the simple participation of females in political aspects of life to be achieving equality, this is simply not the case. Accounting for factors addressing the relation between portrayal and an individual 's behaviour also shape one 's political agency or freedom. This, when considering historical context, is especially true in regards to women in politics.…

    • 2095 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Woman and men have been subjected to very different social and cultural pressures that could explain their differences in voting. In their study of voting gaps in the old south, Fullerton and Stern identify lack of political interest due to their role in the home as a reason for their lack of voter participation in the past (2008). The erosion of the idea of female domesticity and the feminist ideas that swept the nation can explain why the gap closed and why women are increasingly voting in higher proportion than men. The perception of women’s role in society has changed and with that the social attitude about women voting has as well, prompting more women to vote (Fullerton & Stern 2008). Another cultural factor that may explain the gender…

    • 397 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Differing from the late eighteenth century with radical views against women and the feminist movement, the Victorian Period saw women rise in power to become head of the domestic aspects of the family from running the shop they lived over to overseeing the work carried out by servants. Linda Nochlin argues in her essay, Women, Art, and Power, that the assumptions about the role of women in society are reflected in the art produced during that period. As women gained agency and became partners to their husbands, art also progressed to show women and their independence. An example of this transition can be seen in the portraits of Mary Wollstonecraft, a strong advocate for female rights.…

    • 1186 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Political Women Summary

    • 212 Words
    • 1 Pages

    1. What is the main idea of the video? (2-3 sentences) The video discussed the role of women in political systems around the world, and how they are attempting to achieve political equality. There are many international agencies who are trying to help women combat the discrimination they face.…

    • 212 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    In some cases, women underestimate their credentials…

    • 2000 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays