Gender Differences In Congress

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The 114th Congress of the United States first convened on January 3rd, 2015, and will serve until that same day in the year 2017. Centuries of legislative precedent, progress, and persistence have led to the most diverse Congress in the history of the United States. Sadly, this success only highlights a failure of our government. In fact, only 20% of Congress is comprised of female legislators, eighty-eight in the House of Representatives and twenty in the Senate. If our republic were truly a “representative democracy” then we would expect the gender composition of its legislature to align itself more closely with the gender composition of its citizenry; the female population constitutes 50.4% of the total population of the United States.…show more content…
Members of academia worked to determine whether representatives of a specific gender were inherently superior to their counterparts. In a world obsessed with efficiency, the debate regarding the superiority/inferiority/equality of a specific gender in Congress centered on “legislative effectiveness,” an awkward metric that varies based on author and study. As a result the academic community is far from consensus concerning a potential disparity in legislative effectiveness between the genders at both the national and state levels. I argue that the political environment of a legislature, and other nuances of legislative politics, can lead to a variation in legislative effectiveness that inequitably impact representatives of both genders. The unequal nature of a stimuli’s impact can be contributed to the sociological and psychological differences of men and women. This study is a replication of research conducted by Craig Volden, Alan E. Wiseman and…show more content…
Researchers have noted that women are more likely to introduce and pass legislation in an environment where they are expected to receive support. It was found that states with a higher percentage of female representation in the legislature are more likely to introduce and pass legislation concerning these issues than states with lower percentages of female representation. Women specific groups and caucuses within legislatures were also cited as elements that contributed to a fruitful environment for legislative proposals by female legislators. Most who assert that an introduction-rate disparity does exist in legislation concerning “family issues” attribute that disparity to dissimilar life experiences, expectations, and gender norms. The implication being that an individual’s gender will significantly influence their legislative agenda. Research concerning the impact of race on legislative actions has indicated that African American representatives also pursue distinctive legislative policies. Similarly, a disparity in culture and expectations based on race was cited as a means for this legislative disparity. These relationships help depict actions taken by minorities of a legislature, meaning they choose

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