United States: Gendered Institutions, Processes, and Outcomes

Dittmar argues that the exclusion of women at the nation’s founding and amid the creation of today’s constitutional system reinforced a long-established norm of male dominance in political leadership within American political institutions. The dominance of men and masculinity persists in U.S. politics today, most clearly in the underrepresentation of women at all levels of elected office. She reviews the history of women’s formal and informal eligibility for and acquisition of political offices, discussing both barriers to and strategies for increasing women’s political representation. Included among those strategies is making a strong case to aspirants, voters, and practitioners about the value of electing women. She concludes by revealing the ways in which women both disrupt and influence American political institutions, processes, and outcomes.