Essay Questions
Chapter Four: Women Seeking Office – The Next Phase of Political Integration
1. In your judgment, what is the most significant barrier to women successfully winning
elective office in U.S. politics? Why does it remain a barrier to office for women? Design
a short or long-term strategy to overcome the barrier you've identified and elect more
women to public office. In your answer, be sure to specify whether you are talking about
local, state, or national office and be sure to cite at least three research studies included in
Chapter Four.
2. Evaluate the success of women candidates since the elections in 1992, which was
labeled by some as the "Year of the Woman." Given the relatively small numbers of
women in elective office at the state and national levels, did 1992 signal a new era for
women candidates? Why haven’t we witnessed another watershed year in electing
women to office in large numbers? Was 1992 about electoral victories for women or
about women as candidates? Explain based on the research reviewed in Chapter Four.
3. Identify and explain three reasons women may have a harder time raising political
money than men. Does the research presented in Chapter Four suggest that women will
continue to have difficulty raising money? In what ways is money important for women
seeking office? Is money as important now as it was when women first started
campaigning for office in larger numbers? Have groups like EMILY’s LIST and WISH
LIST made a substantial difference in closing the finance gap between men and women?
4. How do gender stereotypes influence a woman candidate's campaign for public office?
Do the media serve as a help or a hindrance in overcoming negative stereotypes? Using
the 2008 primary campaign of Hillary Clinton detailed in Chapter Four, identify the ways
in which the media emphasized gender throughout the campaign. In each instance, assess
whether the media’s gender emphasis helped or hurt candidate Clinton.
5. What will it take for a woman to be elected president? Using the research on women
candidates, campaigns, and vote choice, design a scenario in which you see a woman
elected president in the U.S. When do you predict it will happen? What will have
changed within the political system and in the United States such that a woman is
elected? Be sure that your analysis is grounded in research, not purely hypothetical.
Since 2008 featured a pretty good test of this hypothesis, be sure to include examples
from the 2008 primary campaign in your answer.
6. Define and explain the significance of the “candidate emergence” process to the overall goal of
electing women to public office. Richard Fox and Jennifer Lawless propose three major theories
for why women disappear from the candidate emergence process. Name and explain at least one
key factor within each theory (this means you have to also identify each theory) to explaining
why women are less likely than men to be political candidates. Finally, identify one program
described in Chapter Four that is designed to raise the number of women in office and evaluate its
likelihood of success given what you know about the importance of the candidate emergence
process from the Fox and Lawless research.
7. Political parties serve a variety of functions in American politics, but they play a major role in
recruiting candidates to run for public office. Some have argued that political parties serve as
political gatekeepers and introduce a barrier to women’s’ candidacies. Evaluate the evidence that
parties are a help or a hindrance to women’s electoral success. Be sure to note where and how it
works differently for Republicans and Democrats.