AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION ELECTIONS,
1975 TO 1996:
EXPLORING EXPLANATIONS FOR "EEMINIZATION"*
Rachel A. Rosenfeld
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
David Cunningham
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Kathryn Schmidt
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Since 1972, the proportion of women in American Sociological Association
governance positions has increased. Woman candidates for ASA offices and
the ASA Council have been overrepresented and generally have had higher
odds of winning than male candidates. We examine three possible factors
behind these trends: the general impact of the women's movement, the influence of Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS), and elite dilution. Liberalattitudes fostered by the women's movement appear to have raised voter willingness to select woman candidates. SWS members were overrepresented
among candidates, and SWS membership (for women) and support for its
goals increased chances of being elected. High voting rates of SWS members
could have swayed elections, as well. Contrary to elite dilution arguments,
woman and man candidates differed little from each other or over time in
productivity, honors, or experience, although women were elected earlier in
their careers than were men and were less often employed in the most prestigious graduate departments. In analysis using measures of all three factors
together, gender affected election success, with marginal effects for productivity; effects of SWS membership and professional location were not statistically significant.
T
he American Sociological Society (later
renamed the American Sociological Association [ASA]) was founded in 1905 as a
scholarly organization. In its first year, it had
115 members. It has grown in both function
and membership since then. In 1996, the Association had almost 13,200 members. Recently, the ASA Executive Officer stated that
, . ,,
J
„ , , .
Address correspondence to Rachel A.
Rosenfeld, Department of Sociology, CB# 3210,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NC
27599-3210 (rachel_rosenfeld@unc.edu). We
thank Glen Elder, Joan Huber, and Richard
Simpson for discussions on the past and present
character of sociology and the ASA; David
Charnock, Shirley Harkess, Margaret Harrelson,
Felice Levine, Neil Smelser, Aage S0rensen,
Christine Williams, the past and present/15/f editors, and anonymous reviewers for comments;
Barbara Tomaskovic-Devey, Richard Simpson,
and Ida Simpson for use of their newsletter collections; Carla Howery for ASA documents;
Mary French for SWS membership information;
746
the goals of the ASA were " . . . serving sociologists in their work; advancing sociology
as a science and profession; promoting the
contributions and use of sociology to society" (Levine 1994). Over time, the membership has become more diverse. Perhaps most
striking has been the rising proportion of
woman members, reflecting women's increased share of advanced sociology degrees
/u„,^„„„ f„,^^,„„„•
D
inm\
^^^^^^^ forthcoming; Roos 1997).
the Schlesinger Library for access to SWS newsletters; and Jill Bouma, Tonya Smith, and Art
Alderson for help with data collection. This research was done in part while the first author was
a Visiting Fellow in the Sociology Program of
the Research School of Social Sciences at the
Australian National University and a Fellow at
the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral
Sciences in Stanford, CA. She is grateful for financial support provided by the National Science
Foundation (#SES-9022192). Kathryn Schmidt
acknowledges the support of a National Science
Foundation Graduate Fellowship.
American Sociological Review, 1997, Vol. 62 (October:746-759)
"FEMINIZATION" OF ASA ELECTIONS, 1975 TO 1996
Women also have heightened their leadership in the ASA. While there were a few
woman officers. Council members, and committee members before the 1970s (Roby
1992), women are now overrepresented in
ASA governance relative to their share of the
membership. In 1990-1991, for example,
women comprised 53 percent of officers and
elected committee members and 50 percent
of appointed committees, whereas they were
about 40 percent of the membership as a
whole (Howery 1992; Roos 1997). The proportion of women has generally been higher
in elected than appointed positions (Harkess
forthcoming). In the past few years, this increase in the representation of women has
become more noticeable because it has involved the top offices: In both 1994 and
1996, the entire slate of nominated officers
was comprised of women.
What does this "feminization" of ASA
governance mean? What precisely have the
trends been? To what extent do the changes
in the gender composition of ASA leadership reflect changes in the nature of this
professional organization and in American
values? Are the election winners more likely
to have membership in and backing from
Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS)?
Do the women running and elected differ
from men in their professional stature? We
explore the patterns of women's versus
men's representation in ASA leadership using data on all candidates for ASA offices
and the ASA Council in the 1975 through
1996 elections.'
ASA ELECTION PROCEDURES
The elected officers of the ASA are the president, vice president, and secretary; all are exofficio members of the Council, along with
the president-elect, the vice president-elect.
' The histories of racial and ethnic minorities
within sociology and the ASA are also important,
and we include the race and ethnicity of the candidates where possible. We focus, however, on
gender rather than race/ethnicity because of the
relatively small number of African American and
other minority candidates. Further, racial and ethnic dynamics within the ASA and sociology generally seem different from those of gender, although minority men and women also have in-
747
past president, and past vice president. The
secretary-elect serves as a nonvoting member. Presidents and vice presidents serve for
one year, and secretaries for three. In addition, there are 12 elected Council membersat-large, with 4 beginning their terms each
year. Candidates for ASA offices and the
Council can appear on the ballot in two
ways. The first is through nomination by the
Committee on Nominations, itself elected
from a slate of candidates nominated by the
Council members-at-large. The Committee
on Nominations does not select a particular
slate, however. Instead, the Committee prepares a confidential, ranked list of many
more candidates than are needed to run for a
particular slot and presents this list to the
secretary. The secretary then contacts nominees to see whether they are willing to run,
maintaining the order and confidentiality of
the list. A number of candidates usually decline to run. Since 1974, a second route to
candidacy is by petition: To add a candidate
for president or vice president, at least 100
eligible voters must sign a petition; 50 signatures are required to add candidates for
other positions {ASA Constitution and ByLaws 1991). The number of candidates added
to the ballot this way fluctuates over elections, leading to variation in the total number of candidates.^
Both nomination processes and members'
voting patterns can affect the gender composition of ASA offices and the Council. We
examine three factors that potentially influence the characteristics of ASA candidates
and winners: (1) external sociopolitical
forces, in particular the women's movement
and subsequent changes in gender attitudes;
(2) political activism and bloc voting within
the ASA, especially by SWS (Roby 1992;
creased their representation on the ASA Council
and in other aspects of the association (Blackwell
1992; Conyers 1992; Roby 1992; Roos 1997;
Sewell 1992). In fact, minority racial/ethnic
group members, too, were overrepresented in
ASA governance by 1991: 14.4 percent of the total ASA membership was racial or ethnic minority compared with 26.3 percent of elected officers and Council members and 21.4 percent of
elected committee members (Howery 1992).
^ The ASA Constitution and By-Laws also provide for write-in votes, but no write-in campaigns
took place in the ASA elections we studied.
748
Wilkinson 1992); and (3) organizational
change in the ASA itself, including "elite dilution" and what Simpson and Simpson
(1994) describe as the organization's transformation from a disciplinary to professional
association.
EXTERNAL POLITICAL EORCES,
FEMINIST ACTIVISM, AND
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
The U.S. Women's Movement and
Gender Attitudes
One explanation for women's advances in
ASA governance is that ASA members have
been influenced by the contemporary
women's movement. The ongoing and new
activities and successes of the women's
movement were highly visible in the late
1960s and early 1970s. Favorable public
opinion toward women holding positions of
authority jumped significantly in the early
1970s and has sustained additional increases
since then (Rosenfeld and Ward 1996). Politically, sociologists tend to be to the left of
even other academics (Huber 1995) and may
be especially responsive to movement demands for the inclusion of women and minority men, particularly during times when
opportunities for sociologists are expanding,
as in the 1960s and early 1970s (Huber
1995; Roby 1992; Sewell 1992). During
those years, the ASA urged sociology departments to support federal affirmative action goals required at most universities
(Roos and Jones 1993), reinforcing such responsiveness. Sensitivity to issues of inclusion of women and minorities continues
within the ASA and among many sociologists and may lead individual ASA members
to vote for candidates from previously
underrepresented groups. To the extent that
women are overrepresented as candidates
and being a woman increases the chance of
being elected (net of other factors), we might
be observing a general effect of tbe social
and cultural changes that have been part of
the civil rights and women's movements. If
ASA members follow attitudinal trends of
the general population, women's election advantage should increase somewhat over time,
with perhaps the largest increases occurring
early in the period we study.
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
Sociologists for Women in Society
To adequately understand the effects of the
women's movement on ASA elections, we
look beyond the opinions of individual members to tbe influence of a social movement
organization—Sociologists for Women in
Society. In 1969, the ASA Women's Caucus
presented resolutions addressing biases
against women in sociology departments and
the discipline as a whole. SWS was founded
in 1971 (Roby 1992). It is not an official
ASA group, but it has acted botb within and
outside the ASA to advance the causes of
women in sociology and in society. Generally, the ASA responded positively to the
Women's Caucus and SWS (Roby 1992).
The 1970-1971 Council established a number of committees to consider the needs of
women and minorities, including the Committee on tbe Status of Women in the Profession (Sewell 1992:58).
The SWS has paid special attention to
ASA elections. The organization regularly
reminds its members to vote (e.g., Kronenfeld 1986), which could effectively promote
certain candidates, especially as overall
ASA voter participation has declined. The
proportion of eligible ASA members voting
went from more than half in 1970 to less
than one-third in the 1990s (Simpson and
Simpson 1994). In tbe 1995 election, only
3,200 of the 10,732 eligible members (29.8
percent) returned their ballots (Footnotes
July/August 1996:1). Part of this drop may
be due to changes in tbe pool of eligible
voters, such as the inclusion of students in
1992. SWS members, however, have a high
voting rate. D'Antonio and Tuch (1991)
showed tbat while under half of non-SWS
members voted in the 1985 and 1986 elections, the SWS voting rates were 75 percent
and 67 percent. The SWS has around 1,000
members (Harkess forthcoming). If all SWS
members were also eligible ASA members,
they would comprise about 9 percent of
those eligible to vote. But if we generalize
from D'Antonio and Tuch's results and assume tbat about 70 percent of SWS members still vote, tbey could represent over
one-fifth of the 1995 ASA voters ([.70 x
1,000] / 3,200). Although these numbers are
rough, tbey illustrate tbat SWS members
could have a significant impact on election
"FEMINIZATION" OF ASA ELECTIONS, 1975 TO 1996
outcomes if they tend to vote for the same
candidates.
To help elect ASA representatives favorable to SWS's goals, SWS also collects candidate information beyond that provided by
the ASA. In 1972, it began surveying those
standing for election about their feminist activities and attitudes. Survey results have
been printed either in the SWS newsletter or
as a separate document sent to SWS members. From 1977 to 1982, SWS endorsed candidates based on whether their candidate's
memberships, actions, research, and proposed activities within the ASA showed that
they were active feminists. SWS membership
seems to have been a primary consideration
among these criteria (SWS Newsletter October 1979:9). Endorsement was presented as a
tactic to avoid splitting SWS votes (SWS
Newsletter April 1979:1). In 1983, SWS returned to providing only candidates' responses to its survey after members expressed
concerns about the SWS endorsement process at annual meetings and in the newsletter.
SWS now has an active e-mail listserver,
which can transmit information about elections and other relevant matters quickly.
We investigate some of the ways that
SWS activities, rather than just general ASA
membership attitudes, may have affected
candidates and outcomes in 1975-1996
elections. If SWS members were overrepresented among those running for and elected
to ASA offices and the Council, and if SWS
survey responses and endorsement affected
who won (controlling for other factors) then
we could conclude that SWS activities were
partly behind women's gains in ASA governance. If we do not find such effects, however, this does not mean SWS was without
influence, as we do not measure voting,
committee activity, or willingness to run for
election.
Organizational Change and Elite Dilution
Sewell (1992) argued that one reason women
were excluded from participation in ASA
leadership before the 1970s was that
. . , the control of an all-white male power
structure , . . informally set "universalistic"
professional standards for office holding that
were difficult for women and minority sociolo-
749
gists to meet, given the conditions existing in
the universities and colleges in which they
were employed, (P, 57)
Part of SWS's mission was to question those
criteria. Another part was to facilitate
women's progress in achieving better jobs
and greater research resources. Specific legislation and attitude change stimulated by the
women's movement nationally also broadened women's opportunities within academe
(Roos and Jones 1993).
Women have increased their relative representation among sociology graduate students
and faculty. They are still underrepresented,
however, in the higher faculty ranks, especially at the most prestigious institutions: In
1993-1994, women comprised 23 percent of
associate and full professors in sociology
graduate departments (Roos 1997; also see
Harkess forthcoming). Thus, we might expect
to find that woman candidates, officers, and
Council members have held Ph.D.s for a
shorter time than the men with whom they
compete because the pool of "distinguished"
women is younger, on average, than the pool
of "distinguished" men. Further, because they
have had shorter careers, woman candidates
as a group might show less "distinction" by
the usual measures. They also might have
faced more constraints in career choices and
opportunities, even after federal pressures in
the early 1970s for affirmative action in universities (Roos and Jones 1993).
Simpson and Simpson (1994) found that
the proportion of ASA officers holding jobs
in the top 10 U.S. sociology departments has
decreased over time, a development they
viewed as part of a general broadening of the
ASA's functions and of "elite dilution." By
"elite dilution," Simpson and Simpson mean
that as the ASA shifted from a scholarly organization to a professional society, criteria
for leadership changed—from scholarly
achievements to other characteristics, such as
providing representation for various subgroups in sociology. Their figures showed
that since the 1950s the ASA has shifted from
spending the majority of its budget and Council discussion time on furthering sociological
research and graduate training to spending
much more time and money on sociological
practice, undergraduate teaching, and representation of minorities, as well as organiza-
750
tional maintenance (Simpson and Simpson
1994). Because of this diminishing focus on
the discipline, they argued, faculty from
Ph.D.-granting departments had less control
of the association. At the same time, the ASA
was gaining new members who were not at
graduate training institutions. The increasingly diverse group of eligible voters might
also use election criteria other than scholarly
distinction. To the extent that there is "elite
dilution" or changes in voting criteria beyond
just that of gender, there should be a decline
in credentials among both men and women
candidates (and thus election winners as
well). However, if male candidates' credentials have remained relatively constant while
those of female candidates have been significantly lower, then elite dilution could be
linked to the growing presence of women in
the organization.
DATA
We limited our analysis to elections for ASA
officers and Council members because these
are the most central positions for ASA governance. From 1975 to 1996, 326 candidates
ran for these posts. We counted repeat contenders each time they ran. We started with
the mid-1970s, after the sharp increase in
women's participation in the early 1970s and
after reorganization of the composition of the
Council (as Roby 1992 discusses).
Most of our data came from the SWS
Newsletter (later Network News), ASA Footnotes, and SWS and ASA election supplements. We worked from complete sets of the
SWS newletters and Footnotes; some of the
election supplements were missing, and we
tried to find that information from other
sources.
Candidates' SWS membership, activities,
and endorsement data came from the SWS
newsletters, election supplements, and the
1994-1995 SWS membership list. The main
source of career characteristics was candidate biographies appearing in the 19751996 ASA Footnotes or election supplements;
we filled in some missing data from various
editions of the ASA Guide to Graduate Departments and the ASA Membership Directory. Participation in the ASA and its sections
was taken from candidates' biographies. We
used Webster and Massey (1992) to rank
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
U.S. departments of sociology, where most
candidates were employed.^
For each candidate we counted the number
of articles published in the five years before
an election from on-line Sociofile (for 19741996) and from hard copy Sociological Abstracts (for 1971-1973). Most of these articles were refereed. We did not count book
chapters or transcribed discussions, for example. The on-line Library of Congress catalog provided the number of books ever published before candidacy; we counted each
edition or translation as a separate book.
We also used information from Footnotes
to identify candidates who were winners of
ASA-sponsored honors, all of which were
instituted after 1972: Career of Distinguished
Scholarship (1979), Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship (1979, later Distinguished
Scholarly Publication), the Common Wealth
Award (1979, for outstanding public service).
Distinguished Contribution to Teaching
(1981), Distinguished Career in Practice
(1986), the Dubois-Johnson-Frazier award
(1973, for outstanding sociological contribution in the tradition of these men), and the
Jessie Bernard award (1977, for scholarly
contribution more fully including women's
roles in society). Because these awards were
relatively new, we coded separately whether
a candidate won an award after running in a
particular election, as well as before running.
The prestige of candidates who were elected
before the 1980s would be underestimated
otherwise, given that they had fewer opportunities to receive these honors.
RESULTS
Gender over Time
Nearly twice as many men as women ran for
office or Council from 1975 to 1996 (214
men versus 112 women), but the women who
' The 1996 National Academy of Sciences
rankings were released while we were finishing
this research. Although the NAS figures are perhaps better for studying the recent past, the
Webster-Massey rankings reflect relative departmental prestige over the longer period we study
here. They also are highly correlated with earlier
rankings, such as those by Roose and Anderson
(1970) and Jones, Lindzey, and Coggeshall
(1982).
"FEMINIZATION" OF ASA ELECTIONS, 1975 TO 1996
751
100
Election winners
Candidates for ASA office/Council
80-
' • ! Disproportionate wins for women
• • H
Disproportionate losses for women
1975
1995
Figure 1. Annual Percentages of ASA Office/Council Candidates and Election Winners Wiio Were
Women: ASA Elections, 1975 to 1996
ran were much more likely to win (60 percent compared with 34 percent).'' As Figure
1 shows, there is only a slight upward trend
in the percentage of candidates running for
offices or the Council who were women;
1994 and 1996 were outliers. Comparing the
percentage of ASA membership that was
women (in Table 1) with the percentages of
woman candidates (indicated by the solid
line in Figure 1) shows that women have
been a disproportionate number of election
contestants many times before the 1990s.
Likewise, the probability of a woman candidates' being elected has gone up and down,
with perhaps a weak increase, over time as
one can see by comparing the percentages of
candidates who were women with the percentages of winners who were women in Figure 1. (The shaded area above the solid line
shows disproportionate wins for women and
the shaded area below shows disproportionate losses). Using a bivariate logistic regression to examine this trend by five-year inter•* In contrast, while racial/ethnic minorities—
male or female—were overrepresented among
candidates (22 percent overall compared with 14
percent of the membership in 1991 [Howery
1992]), they were less likely than were whites to
vals (plus the seven years of the 1990s), we
found that women were as likely as men to
win elections in the last half of the 1970s, but
since then they have had an advantage, although not a strictly increasing one. The odds
ratios are: .96 for 1975-1979, 4.82 for 19801984, 4.24 for 1985-1989, and 4.71 for
1990-1996.5 In other words, in the 1980s and
1990s, women's chances of being elected
rather than losing were nearly five times those
of men's. The jump between the 1970s and
later mirrors the dramatic increase in favorable public attitudes, with a lag of several
years.
Of course, the chance of any particular
woman's winning an election depends on the
number of women competing. Council candidates do not run directly against one another; as there are multiple seats, more than
one candidate wins. For this reason and because there could have been different trends
in voting for Council versus offices, we dis' Odds ratios give women's probability of winning versus losing relative to men's probability
of winning versus losing. An odds ratio of 1 indicates that women's chatices of being elected were
the same as men's, while ratios larger than 1
show that women had a greater chance of winning.
752
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
Table 1 . Percentages of ASA Members, Council Candidates, and Council Election Winners Who
Were Women: ASA Elections, 1975 to 1996
Year
Percent
Woman ASA
Members"
1975
1976
1977
15"
1978
1979
1980
c
1981
1982
c
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
Number of cases
Mean
C
C
c
c
33
c
34
C
c
35
C
40
C
c
41
38
C
43
c
Number of
Candidates''
12
10
12
12
8
9
10
11
9
8
8
8
8
8
Percent
Woman
Candidates'"
Percent
Woman
Winners'"
33.3
50.0
1.50*
40.0
25.0
50.0
1.25*
33.3
25.0
.0
25.0
25.0
.00
.75
1.00
33.3
75.0
30.0
27.3
44.4
75.0
25.0
2.25*
2.50*
25.0
50.0
37.5
50.0
12.5
50.0
50.0
75.0
50.0
8
9
10
8
10
8
8
8
12.5
44.4
30.0
50.0
50.0
62.5
25.0
50.0
50.0
25.0
25.0
100.0
50.0
75.0
75.0
75.0
50.0
50.0
202
72
36.0
45
51.1
Percent Woman
Winners/Percent
Woman Candidates
.92
1.13*
2.00*
1.50*
1.33*
1.00
2.00*
2.00*
2.25*
1.67*
1.50*
1.50*
1.20*
2.00*
1.00
1.47
» Harkess (forthcoming, chap. 3); Howery (1992); Roos (1997, table 8).
^ Data from 1972.
" Data not available.
''ASA Footnotes (various issues) and candidates' biographical sketches.
* Women overrepresented among winners of Council seats relative to their representation among Council
candidates.
aggregate the two types of elections. Table 1
shows that women have been overrepresented among winners of Council seats relative to their representation among the Council candidates in most of the last 22 years,
although there is not a statistically significant
increase in overrepresentation across election
years. In 1981, for example, women were
30.0 percent of the Council candidates
(roughly their representation in the ASA as a
whole), but 75.0 percent of those elected—a
ratio of 2.50 (75/30).
Since 1975, 23 of the races for president,
vice president, and secretary have had only
male candidates; 7 have had only women (of
which 5 were in the 1990s).* Of the 21 races
* Ail candidates nominated for office in 1994
were women, but petitions added one woman and
one man to the slate for president and one man to
the slate for vice president. The woman petition
candidate won the presidential election, and a
woman nominee became vice president. Despite
discussion about an antifeminist backlash at that
time, there were no petitions to add other candi-
"FEMINIZATION" OF ASA ELECTIONS, 1975 TO 1996
in which women have competed for office
against men, women have won over 70 percent of the time—and they have won all
mixed-sex races since 1987 (see Table 2). In
these contests between male and female candidates, however, women ran for president
only eight times; women have won all four of
these races since t98t. One must keep in
mind that in its entire history the ASA has
had only seven woman presidents: one in the
early post-war era (Dorothy Swaine Thomas),
one in the t970s (Mirra Komarovsky), three
in the 1980s (Alice Rossi, Matilda White
Riley, and Joan Huber), and two in the 1990s
(Maureen Hallinan and Jill Quadagno).
Women have gained access to this top position more slowly than to other ASA offices or
to Council seats. If trends continue, however,
we may see an increasing number of woman
ASA presidents in the future.
Thus, we provide some evidence here that
the women's movement and the larger social
context of which it has been a part provided
an initial and ongoing (though not necessarily increasing) impetus for the "feminization" of the ASA.
Sociologists for Women in Society
From the 1977 through the 1982 ASA election, SWS endorsed 4t of 98 candidates for
ASA offices and Council. There was almost
no difference in chance of being elected by
endorsement. Women, however, were more
likely than men to both win elections and be
endorsed by SWS. Among women, SWS endorsement did not seem to affect election
success (see Table 3). The men endorsed by
SWS were actually less likely to win (27.8
percent versus 37.7 percent). In general,
then, SWS endorsement did not positively
influence election outcomes.
Although we do not have a complete set
of SWS survey results, it seems that survey
responses did make a difference in ASA
elections. Most candidates returned the survey: Only t2 out of. 128 candidates in the
dates after the announcement of nominations for
officers including only men in 1995 and only
women in 1996 (for a discussion of this and other
elections, see Harkess forthcoming). Most petition candidates (39 out of 47) and all officer petition candidates (except in 1975 and 1994) have
been men.
753
Table 2. Candidates for ASA OfTice and Election
Winners, by Sex: Mixed-Sex Races for
Office, ASA Elections, 1975 to 1996
Number Number
of Women of Men Sex of
Running Running Winner
Year
Office
1975
President
Vice president
1
2"
2
1
M
F
1976
President
1
2
M
1978
Vice president
1
1"
F
1979
President
1
2
M
1980
President
Vice president
1
1
1
1
M
F
1981
President
1
1
F
1982
Vice president
2
2
M
1984
President
Vice president
1
1
1
1
F
F
1985
Vice president
1
M
1987
President
1
1
F
1988
Vice president
Secretary
1
1
1"
1
F
F
1989
Vice president
1
1
F
1991
Vice president
1
1
F
1992
Vice president
1
1"
F
1993
Vice president
1
1
F
1994
President
Vice president
3
2
1
I
F
F
Sources: ASA Footnotes (various issues) and candidates' biographical sketches.
Noie: In races for ASA offices from 1975 to 1996,
23 races had only male candidates, 7 had only female candidates (1976 vice president; 1979 vice
president; 1990 vice president; 1991 secretary; 1994
secretary; 1996 president, vice president), and 21
had both male and female candidates.
" A candidate was a racial or ethnic minority.
elections for which we had SWS information did not respond. None of the eight men
failing to respond were elected, and only
one of the four women. We rated responses
as "feminist" or "egalitarian-but-not-feminist/other" on their expressed degree of enthusiasm for general feminist and specific
SWS goals. An example of the second type
of response would be "I treat everyone
alike," and of the former "Women have
come a long way, but we still need to be
concerned about diversity on other than a
754
simple gender dimension," plus statements
about academic, organizational, and community activities on behalf of women. Type
of response to the SWS survey was correlated with being elected: Almost all of the
women gave feminist responses, and 61.8
percent of them won their races. Forty-one
percent of men who gave the feminist responses won, compared with only 29.2 percent of the men offering other replies.
SWS membership had an effect on election
success, in and of itself. We conservatively
identified about 36 percent of the candidates
as SWS members (probably a low estimate
because of missing SWS supplements for
some elections), a disproportionate representation. Of all candidates who were SWS
members, 56.9 percent were elected, in contrast with about one-third of the other candidates (see Table 3). "Founding mothers"—
those who helped found the SWS—were especially likely to be voted in: Almost threequarters of those we could identify were
elected. Only women, though, seemed to
benefit from SWS membership. Among male
candidates, about 34 percent of both SWS
members and nonmembers won their elections. Further, over time there does not seem
to be an increasing likelihood of SWS membership leading to election (results not
shown).
We do not have measures of all of SWS's
influences on ASA leadership. But among
the indicators we present here, there is mixed
and conditional evidence that the SWS has
had an impact on the numbers of women
elected to ASA offices and Council.
Professional Prestige and Service
There are no explicitly stated criteria for
ASA office and Council, aside from ASA
membership requirements. To the extent that
the president, especially, represents the discipline to government agencies and the
broader society, one could argue that he or
she should be a "distinguished" scholar or
practitioner. On the other hand, one could argue that the ability to represent the membership as a whole and to do the tasks associated with these positions are the most important qualifications.
Measures of "distinction" in science, including social science, are problematic (Cole
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
Table 3. Percentages of Candidates Elected to
ASA Office and Council by SWS Endorsement, SWS Survey Response, and
SWS Membership: ASA Elections, 1975
to 1996
Variable
Percent
Elected
SWS Endorsement
Total:
Endorsed
39.0
41
Not endorsed
38.6
57
Women:
Endorsed
Not endorsed
47.8
23
50.0
4
Men:
Endorsed
Not endorsed
SWS Survey Response
Total:
No response
Non-feminist response
Feminist response
Women:
No response
Number
of Cases
27.8
18
37.7
53
8.3
12
28.0
25
51.6
91
25.0
4
Non-feminist response
Feminist response
.0
61.8
47
Men:
No response
Non-feminist response
.0
29.2
8
24
40.9
44
Feminist response
1
5^5 Membership
Total:
Status not known
Not a member
Member
Women:
Status not known
Not a member
Member
33.3
96
36.0
114
56.9
116
36.4
22
50.0
68.0
12
78
Men:
Status not known
32.4
74
Not a member
Member
34.3
34.2
102
38
Sources: SWS Newsletter/Network News (various
issues), SWS election survey responses, SWS 19941995 membership list, ASA Footnotes (various issues), and candidates' biographical sketches.
"FEMINIZATION" OF ASA ELECTIONS, 1975 TO 1996
1979). Further, as Simpson (1988:202)
points out, ". . . election success depends on
visibility and that. . . visibility may be obtained in various ways," including through
previous organizational involvement. Such
involvement might also provide necessary
preparation for leadership.
Woman candidates have had shorter careers than the male candidates—a median of
18 years as compared with 24 years since
gaining their doctorates (see Table 4). Despite this discrepancy in career ages, there
were surprisingly few gender differences on
various measures of "distinction." Productivity is often seen as a necessary, if not sufficient, criterion for academic success. Books
possibly have a stronger and more lasting
impact on the discipline than any one journal article, but in some departments and subfields cumulative research presented in refereed articles is what counts (Clemens et al.
1995). Generally, the woman candidates we
studied had published fewer books over their
careers than the men, but they had published
the same number of books per year and the
same median number of articles during the
previous five years.^
In terms of other indications of professional distinction, the woman and man candidates were about the same: They were represented equally on editorial boards of major
sociology journals and held almost the same
number of ASA awards, with women having
a slight edge (largely due to the Jessie Bernard award, which women are much more
likely to win than men). Woman candidates
also had been as active in ASA sections and
regional sociology organizations as men (although they were less likely to have been
presidents of such organizations, similar to
ASA patterns; see Simpson 1988).
Where women and men differed noticeably
was in their institutional locations and prior
' A few men were extreme outliers in the number of articles published, which increased men's
mean on articles published. The mean and median
were about the same for books published by men
(and women). Women's name changes, as well as
somewhat shorter careers, could affect their measured productivity, especially in terms of books
(given that we count articles only for the preceding five years). Based on the women we were able
to trace who had changed their names, we expect
such effects to be minimal.
755
general ASA positions. Only one-third of the
woman candidates worked at universities
with graduate departments rated among the
top 20 by Webster and Massey (1992), compared with over one-half of the men.^ Other
departmental ratings lead to a similar contrast. These results reflect the underrepresentation of women in leading graduate departments. To the extent that institutional
prestige adheres to the individual, woman
candidates for ASA offices and Council were
less prestigious. The women on the ballot also
were less likely to have previously served on
the Council or as an ASA officer, which are
routes to further ASA leadership roles. Given
women's successes in the last two decades,
we would expect this discrepancy to decrease
among candidates in the future.
The "elite dilution" argument, however, is
about changes over time, specifically, the declining "quality" of candidates. While there
have been some differences between the
women and men who have run for ASA offices and Council seats, recent increases in
the number of woman candidates have not
contributed to a general decline in quality. If
anything, both woman and man candidates
have become more qualified over time, as
measured by productivity, honors, and experience (see Table 4).' One notable exception
* Only a few candidates were not members of
a sociology department. When they were not, we
assigned them the ranking of the sociology graduate department at their university. Eighty-seven
percent of the candidates were in universities with
rated departments. The seven percent completely
outside academia tended to be in prestigious research settings, such as NIMH and RAND.
' Some of these increases could reflect expansion in the number of honors and journals available. We cannot easily control for that, but even
if the absolute increases represented relative stability, this would contradict the assumption of declining quality. One could debate whether the increasing proportion of candidates who were officers or Council members of the ASA or its sections supports the continuing-quality or the elitedilution argument. On the one hand, previous participation shows commitment to and experience
within the organization that is part of preparation
for good leadership. On the other hand, it could
indicate the increasing importance of ASA politics rather than or in addition to academic scholarship for nomination and election to ASA office
or Council.
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
756
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'FEMINIZATION" OF ASA ELECTIONS, 1975 TO 1996
757
is with respect to university location: The
gap between women and men has widened
over time, and the proportion of woman candidates in top-20 departments was lower in
the 1990s than in the late 1970s, although it
was slightly higher than in the last half of the
1980s. Even here, however, the percentage of
candidates in top-20 departments for women
and men combined is about the same in the
earliest and latest periods—44 to 45 percent.
Table 5. Logit Coefficients from the Regression
of Election to ASA Office or Council on
Sex, SWS Membership, and Career
Variables: ASA Elections, 1975 to 1996
Sex (1 = female)
1.53"
(-39)
4.64
Multivariate Logistic Regression Models
SWS member (1 = yes)
-.04
(-36)
.97
Career age
.01
(-02)
1.01
Number of articles published
in the 5 years before election
.05
(.04)
1.05
Number of books published
.03
(-02)
1.03
In top-20 department
(Webster/Massey)
-.14
(-30)
.87
While we have broken down some of our results by year or sex, many of the factors we
have discussed as affecting election are
intercorrelated. For example, women were
more likely to win elections, but they also
were more likely to be SWS members and to
have fewer books published than were men.
Table 5 presents the results of a logistic regression model that includes variables representing all three of the forces that we have
suggested may affect ASA elections—general gender preferences, SWS influence, and
candidates' credentials.'"
Being a woman had the largest impact on
winning an election to ASA office or the
Council, with a marginal effect of the number of articles published (using a one-tailed
test at the /? < .10 level). These results are
robust across different model specifications.
SWS membership net of other factors, including sex, had no influence on election
success. When we estimated this model separately by gender, we found a positive effect
of published articles for women and a marginal positive effect of published books for
men (results not shown).
In terms of election outcomes, then, gender politics of a general sort and, to a much
smaller extent, academic distinction (as indicated by publication) both played a part." It
Variables
Coefficient
Constant
-1.30*'
(-54)
Chi-square
Odds
Ratio
28. 9 4 "
Note: Numbers in parentheses are standard errors.
"p < .01 (one-tailed test)
is not surprising that factors other than gender have had such a small role. As seen in
Table 4, the men and women standing for
election were relatively similar in many respects, and the candidates formed a highly
selected group of sociologists. Gender is one
distinctive characteristic, and apparently it is
indeed used as a criterion by voters.
CONCLUSIONS
Starting in the early 1970s, women have increased their participation in almost all aspects of the American Sociological Association. They currently constitute more than
"* Because we have the universe of candidates half of the ASA officers and Council memfrom 1975 through 1996, we do not need to use majority status candidates. In contrast with
significance tests. One could, however, think of women, overrepresentation of minorities in ASA
1975-1996 as only one possible sample of elec- governance comes from disproportionate nomination years and candidates. Therefore we do use tions alone, rather than from both higher levels
significance tests to guide our interpretation of re- of nominations and of election. Further, section
sults in logit models.
involvement increased the chances of winning,
" Consistent with our earlier description, we and previous office or Council service decreased
found that even net of our other variables, racial/
ethnic minority group members had odds of win- chances (net of sex, SWS membership, book pubning more than 50 percent lower than those for lication, and being in a top-20 department).
758
bers. In this paper, we focused on the process of ASA elections to understand the
meaning of this change in representation.
For officer and Council races, most of the
rise in women's election success occurred in
the 1970s and early 1980s, with women generally remaining overrepresented as candidates and winners since then. Overall, our
analysis supports the idea that, at least in
terms of elections, "feminization" has been
more than merely a reflection of organizational change or internal social movement
activity. Trends in candidate credentials over
time, at least in terms of our admittedly
crude measures, do not support Simpson and
Simpson's (1994) fear of "elite dilution"—a
continuing movement away from distinguished leadership. SWS, as the most highly
organized group concerned with ASA elections, certainly has had an impact beyond
what we were able to observe. But general
changes in attitudes and opportunities seem
to be the exogenous factors behind women's
election success.
What are the implications of women's advances into ASA leadership roles? Roos
(1997) notes that much of the discussion of
sociology's "decline" followed women's
rapid increases in the field. Contrary to predictions of further decline, however, sociology seems to be rebounding at a time when
women still hold a disproportionate number
of ASA offices and Council memberships
(although not of the most prestigious academic positions).
We hope our study of data from the last 20plus years of ASA elections, by upholding or
correcting some of our beliefs about
women's successes, will allow clearer thinking and debate about the purpose and nature
of ASA leadership. There are many aspects
of this leadership, of course, that we have not
examined. We have not looked at whether
women's presence, especially feminist
women's presence, has had perceptible consequences in terms of Council policies and
decisions, representation in other parts of the
organization, interactions with the Executive
Office, or the strength of various subdisciplines. One might, for example, look at the
associations between the gender, professional credentials, and organizational participation of Council members-at-large and of
the Committee on Nominations, and between
AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
these characteristics of Committee on Nominations members and of candidates nominated. Aside from voting behavior and anecdotes, we really do not know much about the
gender attitudes of much of the ASA membership. Groups other than women and racial/ethnic minorities have organized to influence the nature of the American Sociological Association and U.S. sociology generally, but we need to know more about how
they went about this and how successful they
have been. We also know little about how the
routes to ASA leadership and types of incumbents' activities have changed over.time. Finally, we must compare the ASA with other
professional organizations, with and without
strong women's caucuses, to understand
what is unique and what is shared in the
ASA's history. These are issues of interest to
sociologists both as practitioners and as
members of their discipline. Recent concerns
about the nature of sociology and how it is
organized, as well as similar concerns among
those in other disciplines, have already led
to a start on this research agenda.
Rachel A. Rosenfetd is Lara G. Hoggard Professor of Sociology and a Fellow of the Carolina
Population Center at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is author of Farm
Women: Work, Farm, and Family in the United
States (University of North Carolina Press,
1985). and with Jean O'Barr and Elizabeth
Minnich is editor o/Reconstructing the Academy
(University of Chicago Press, 1988). Her research interests include work-family links in advanced industrialized societies, job-shifting in the
early life course, and the contemporary U.S.
women's movement. In collaboration with Heike
Trappe, she is examining gender inequality in
early adult life in the former East Germany, the
former West Germany, and the United States.
David Cunningham is a Ph.D. candidate at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His
current research addresses the role of social
capital in the reproduction of inequality. He is
also interested in developing a model that explains variation in the responses of governments
to protest groups.
Kathryn Schmidt is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her ongoing research examines the contexts within
which workers disclose personal information to
coworkers and employers. Her other research interests include contingent work and theoretical
perspectives on work and gender issues.
"FEMINIZATION" OF ASA ELECTIONS, 1975 TO 1996
759
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