Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

Party Convergence and Divergence Among Republican Women Recent work on party asymmetry in the United States characterizes the Democratic Party as a group-oriented party and the Republican Party as an ideologically oriented party. Gender studies of opini...

Examining men and women donors v non-donors in the R Party, Baker and Schneider find that R women donors’ preferences converge with men’s. But, women non-donors are more moderate than women congressional donors (& all R men). Rs exhibit unexpected ideological heterogeneity. #GenderSky #PoliSky

Beyond Elections: Unpacking the Gender Gap in Political Ambition Across Political Roles The gender gap in political ambition is often suggested as a key factor in women’s political underrepresentation. Recent work highlights that this gap is prominent for elected positions, but less f...

Is the gender gap in political ambition smaller for non-elected (vs elected) positions? Based on an original survey among young population in Belgium, Wauters and coauthors find a gender gap for all political roles that disappears when controlling for structural factors.

Read more now 👇 #GenderSky

The Catch-22 of Conflict and Women’s Candidacies: Evidence from Afghanistan’s Legislative Elections in 2010 and 2018 Incorporating women into the political sphere promotes civil conflict resolution and reduces conflict recurrence. But will women throw their hats into the political ring amid ongoing conflict? Whil...

Out now! "The Catch-22 of Conflict and Women’s Candidacies: Evidence from Afghanistan’s Legislative Elections in 2010 and 2018" by Victoria Stratton, Thorin Wright and Magda Hinojosa.

Gender Quotas and Women’s Substantive Representation: Evidence from Municipal Governments in the Dominican Republic Do municipal gender quotas increase women’s substantive representation at the local level? The literature on gender quotas has shown that when quota laws are well-designed and enforced, they can in...

In this new article, Lambert and Pineda Moquete explore municipal gender quotas and substantive representation in the Dominican Republic, where quotas apply to most—but not all—seats. They find that female politicians are champions of women's interests, raising awareness and driving policy change.

Understanding Female Legislators’ Substantive Representation in the Australian Parliament Female legislators are typically assumed to act for other women when policymaking. Contemporary literature challenges this, and a need to “tow the party line” complicates the process of attributing...

New open access research from Vacaflores and Stephenson!

DRW = SRW? A study of private member’s bills in Aus (1995-2022) shows gendered differences in policy proposals. Women MPs propose more bills, on more feminized issues, using more human-centered language. #GenderRepresentation #PolicyResearch

JWPP Special Issue Call_2025.docx Political Parties and Women’s Agency: Old Challenges and New Trends Co-edited by Teresa Sacchet (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), Simone Bohn (York University, Canada), and Kristin Wy...

Interested in gender and political parties❓✅
Looking for an outlet for your research❓✅
Want to work with awesome guest editors❓✅

Check out this 🚨Call for Papers🚨 for JWPP's 2026 Special Issue with guest editors Teresa Sacchet, Simone Bohn, and Kristin Wylie!

The authors investigate whether public perceptions of Congressional support for campaign finance reform are shaped by politicians’ gender, race, and party. BC women are underrepresented in public office and may face campaign finance barriers, the reform debate may affect fundraising strategies.

Agents of Change? Women Candidates and Support for Campaign Finance Reform Most Americans believe there is too much money in politics and are sympathetic to reform. Using nationally representative survey data, we study how the public views the likelihood that members of C...

Curious about the interaction of gender, campaign finance, and public opinion in US politics? Check out "Agents of Change? Women Candidates and Support for Campaign Finance Reform" - our latest article from Samantha Koprowski, Amy Benner, and Kira Sanbonmatsu!

Introduction Published in Journal of Women, Politics & Policy (Vol. 42, No. 1, 2021)

Ahmed summarizes the volume's contributions as "situated in a Black feminist tradition which recognizes that the personal is indeed political and that our power is centered in our solidarity." Read the introduction to this timely SI at www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.....

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy Volume 42, Issue 1 of Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

Today, we come back to "The Politics of Radical Self-Care: Practicing Liberation for Political Resistance", a 2021 special issue edited by Zahra Ahmed. Get the full list of important and incisive articles here: www.tandfonline.com/toc/wwap20/4....

#GenderSky

Gendered Ambivalence: The Structure of Attitudes About Female Candidates I argue that the gender-role incongruity between being a woman and the masculine stereotypes of political leadership roles will lead to more ambivalence about women relative to men and that gendere...

In this article, Nichole Bauer finds that strong partisans with high levels of sexism exhibit higher levels of ambivalence toward Democratic and Republican women candidates. These ambivalent attitudes were especially strong in 2016 where voters had more ambivalence about Clinton relative to Trump.

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy All journal articles featured in Journal of Women, Politics & Policy vol 45 issue 4

It's mid-September, and we bid you remember, check out our new issue full of great research on politics and gender!

See the lineup at: www.tandfonline.com/toc/wwap20/4...

Still Underrepresented? Gender Representation of Witnesses at House and Senate Committee Hearings We know very little about the women who testify before congressional committees. Here we present data on the women who appeared as witnesses out of the 36,950 persons who gave testimony before 7,75...

In this recent article, Collin Coil, Natalie Williamson, Caroline Bruckner, Karen O’Connor, and Jeff Gill draw attention to the striking lack of women testifying before Congress and highlight factors that could drive diversity and inclusion on witness panels.

Read more here 👇

The Boundaries of “Women of Color”: The Political Implications of Non-Hispanic Whites’ Perceptions of Women of Color Women candidates are increasingly referred to as “women of color.” But who the public sees as women of color is unclear. We ask how non-Hispanic whites, who are still the largest voting group, perc...

🚨NEW ARTICLE🚨 The term “women of color” (WOC) is widely used in US politics. But which women do white Americans perceive to be included in the group “women of color”? This study analyzes the boundary drawing effects of whites’ perception of which racial/ethnic groups are believed to be WOC.

The 2018 Congressional Midterms, Symbolic Empowerment, and Ayanna Pressley’s Mobilizing Effect: A Case Study for Future Analysis of Historic Firsts Ayanna Pressley was elected in 2018, becoming the first Black woman from Massachusetts to serve in the US House of Representatives and the first person of color to represent its only majority-minor...

Thinking about Kamala Harris's candidacy for president? Check out this insightful work by Evelyn Simien, using an intersectional approach to analyze symbolic empowerment & Ayanna Pressley's 2018 midterm campaign. A useful, contextually relevant framework and example of how to study historic firsts!

“What’s Her Job?” Agentic Women, Sexism, and the Consequences for Political Candidate Emergence Agentic women are frequently stereotyped negatively in politics. While public opinion suggests higher levels of egalitarian gender attitudes toward women in politics, these analyses miss important ...

Take a gander at this new research from Philip Chen, Melanee Thomas, Tania Gosselin, & Allison Harell! They contribute to the literature on gender and candidate emergence using a survey experiment set in the context of Canada's multiparty system. See the results and explanation at the link below!!

“We Are the Woman and We Are the Man”: Insights from Focus Group Analysis on How Scholars Should Measure Sex and Gender Traditional ways of measuring sex and gender – often by conflating the two – have been criticized on empirical and normative grounds. This article presents the results of 15 focus groups conducted ...

How do we measure sex & gender? Recent work has critiqued traditional measures which conflate the two. This paper presents the results of 15 focus groups w/regular people & chronicles a) how folks think about their gender; & b) how info from these self-reflections can help us measure gender better.

Solidarity Through Difference? How Italian and Spanish LGBTQIA* Organizations Frame Solidarity Through an Intersectional Lens Although Western-based LGBTQIA* mobilizations have often been considered rather internally fragmented and isolated from other movements, recent investigations show that LGBTQIA* organizations have ...

How do LGTBQIA* organizations frame issues and discuss solidarity with other organizations on social media? Learn about this and more in Aurora Perego's recent article "Solidarity Through Difference? How Italian and Spanish LGBTQIA* Organizations Frame Solidarity Through an Intersectional Lens"!

Bringing the Ts and (N)Bs to the Table: Estimating Intersectional Candidate Gender Identity and Sexuality Effects on Vote Choice Research has shown that LGBTQ+ candidates continue to face penalties at the ballot box, with particularly acute penalties for transgender candidates. However, the nuanced intersection of gender ide...

Kicking off Pride by highlighting this article on LGBTQ candidates: A new pre-registered study by Howard and Wehde finds US public does not penalize transwomen more than transmen political candidates; however, bisexual candidates are penalized less than gay candidates. Find out more here:

Not Tough Enough? Gender Stereotypes and Vote Choice in Switzerland While many studies examine the effect of gender stereotypes on electoral chances of women candidates in the U.S. little research investigates this relationship outside two-party systems and experim...

Start your week with a just-published article by Ruprecht & Zumbrunn!

Gender stereotypes matter for female candidates’ election chances: In Switzerland, voters holding male issue stereotypes are more likely to elect male candidates, while those with female issue stereotypes elect female candidates.

Open Season: The Targets of Dobbs Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization took the unprecedented step of revoking a constitutional right that citizens had relied upon for half a century. The opinion created a legal chaos with ...

Among the articles included in the amazing special issue on Dobbs v. Jackson is this piece by Pamela Sandberg, in which Sandberg examines what groups have become legal targets in the wake of Dobbs, including medically compromised patients, the intellectually disabled, immigrants, and doctors.

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy Volume 45, Issue 2 of Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

New week, new issue! Vol. 45 Issue 2 of JWPP is available now at the link below with five great research articles in the field of gender and politics.

“Sorry That Happened to You”: Testifying, Trauma, and the Politics of Child Marriage in the United States In the United States, the marriage of minors remains legal in 40 of 50 states despite evidence that the practice often leads to the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse of girls. As a political is...

In a 🚨New Article🚨 Amber Lusvardi @anlusvardi.bsky.social explains how a small group of activists got a low salience political issue on legislative agendas across the United States. Lusvardi finds that traumatic storytelling was a key element in agenda setting on the movement to end child marriage.

Gender, Sexism, and Contempt in Candidate Evaluation Several recent studies have shown that the emotion of contempt, which is often linked to negative appraisals of competence and integrity, is the most important negative emotion in some electoral co...

New article from JWPP! Ditonto and Mattes analyze how sexism and gender-based prejudices may influence voters’ emotions in response to female political candidates in general and to those who violate gender norms, finding strong differences in emotional responses between sexist and nonsexist voters.

Call for Papers👀: Gendered Experiences of Democracy👇

The Journal of Women, Politics & Policy is looking to continue its string of fantastic special issues (check 'em out here -> www.tandfonline.com/journals/wwa... ) with an issue on democracy and gender. See the full call below and propose a paper!

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy Deconstructing Dobbs: Reproductive Rights in the Wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and Beyond Special Issue Guest Editors: Amanda Roberti and Wendy Wright. Volume 45, Issue 1 of Journal of Women...

🚨NEW ISSUE ALERT🚨

25 million women live in states without access to abortion. The US Supreme Court's opinion in Dobbs has significantly changed the landscape of reproductive freedom in the US.

Read about the extensive fallout of the Dobbs case in our special issue in @jwpp.bsky.social !

Sneak preview: Cassidy and Clarke find membership in a women’s group leads to more gendered – but encouraging – political advice at a critical stage in the U.S. candidate pipeline.

How does gender affect political mentorship opportunities? Cassidy & Clarke investigate in an experiment w/ thousands of verified activists, political donors, & party leaders.

Check it out! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Female Candidates’ Incumbency and Quality (Dis)Advantage in Local Elections As springboards to higher office we need to better understand women’s electoral success at lower-level offices to eliminate the gender gap among elected officials in the United States. To help unde....

male candidates get a bigger boost from incumbency and previous elected experience than female candidates in local elections
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Denial of Care: Framing the Loss of Abortion Rights Post-Dobbs After Dobbs, abortion access advocates try to make clear the harm of abortion criminalization. Two figures came to dominate the landscape: the reproductive martyr and the tragic abortion provider. ...

My article on how we talk about the loss of abortion rights post-Dobbs is out! www.tandfonline.com/eprint/P2XK9...

It is problematic to focus our stories on morally sympathetic characters that obscures a larger field of lack of abortion access that provides a better diagnosis of the harm of Dobbs.