ABOUT THIS BOOK

Barbara Burrell presents a comprehensive comparative examination of men's and women’s candidacies for the U.S. House of Representatives in elections from 1994 through 2012. Analyzing extensive data sets on all major party candidates for 10 elections—covering candidate status, party affiliation, fund-raising, candidate background variables, votes obtained, and success rates for both primary and general elections—Burrell finds little evidence of categorical discrimination against women candidates. Women compete equally with men and often outpace them in raising money, gaining interest group and political party support, and winning elections.

Yet the number of women elected to the U.S. House has expanded only incrementally. The electoral structure limits opportunities for newcomers to win congressional seats and there remains a lower presence of women in winnable contests despite growing recruitment efforts. Burrell suggests that congressional dysfunction discourages potential candidates from pursuing legislative careers and that ambitious women are finding alternative paths to influence and affect public policy.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Barbara Burrell is a professor emeritus at Northern Illinois University, where she was a member of the Political Science faculty and a faculty associate in the Women’s Studies Program. She is the author of A Woman’s Place Is in the House: Campaigning for Congress in the Feminist Era (University of Michigan Press, 1994), a landmark study of women candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives from 1968 through 1992.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Acknowledgments

One. Introduction

Two. Women’s Campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives beyond the “Year of the Woman”

Three. Men’s and Women’s Presence and Performance in Primary Elections for the U.S. House

Four. Winning in November: Men’s and Women’s Performance in General Elections for the U.S. House

Five. Financing Men’s and Women’s Campaigns for the U.S. House

Six. Political Parties, Women’s Organizations, and the Election of Women to Congress

Seven. The Victors: The Men and Women Elected to the U.S. House

Eight. Gender, Policy Making, and Leadership: Descriptive and Substantive Representation

Nine. The 2012 Election and Summary Ideas

Notes

References

Index

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