Entering the Arena? Gender and the Decision to Run for Office
Author(s): Richard L. Fox and Jennifer L. Lawless
Source: American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Apr., 2004), pp. 264-280
Published by: Midwest Political Science Association
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Entering the Arena? Gender and the Decision
to Run for Office
Richard L FOX Union College
Jennifer L. LawleSS Brown University
A critical void in the research on women s underrepresentation in elective office is an analysis ofthe initial decision to run for
office. Based on data from our Citizen Political Ambition Study, the first large-scale national survey of potential candidates,
we examine the process by which women and men emerge as candidates for public office. Wefind that women who share
the same personal characteristics and professional credentials as men express significantly lower levels of political ambition
to hold elective office. Two factors explain this gender gap: first, women are far less likely than men to be encouraged to
run for office; second, women are significantly less likely than men to view themselves as aualified to run. Our findings call
into question the leading theoretical explanations for women's numeric underrepresentation and indicate that, because of
vestiges of traditional sex-role socialization, prospects for gender parity in U.S. political institutions are less promising than
conventional explanations suggest.
When the 108th Congress convened, 86% of
its members were male (CAWP 2003). This
places the United States 59th worldwide in
terms of the number of women serving in the national
legislature (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2003). The dearth
of women in elective office is also evident at the state and
local levels: 88% of state governors, 88% of big-city mayors,
and 78% of state legislators are male (CAWP 2003).
Particularly striking about these large gender disparities
in elective office is that neither qualitative investigations
nor empirical analyses reveal a political system rife with
gender bias. Rather, individual accounts of women candi?
dates who face overt gender discrimination once they enter
the public arena are increasingly rare (Schroeder 1999;
Witt, Paget, and Matthews 1994; Woods 2000). Moreover,
in terms of fundraising and vote totals, often considered
the two most important indicators of electoral success, researchers
find that women fare just as well as, if not better
than, their male counterparts (Burrell 1998; Darcy, Welch
and Clark 1994; Dolan 1998; Fox 2000; Smith and Fox
2001; Thompson and Steckenrider 1997). In fact, based
on a national study of voting patterns, Seltzer, Newman,
and Leighton state emphatically: "A candidate's sex does
not affect his or her chances of winning an election...
Winning elections has nothing to do with the sex of the
candidate" (1997,79).
In light of the seeming contradiction between a po?
litical system that elects few women and an electoral en?
vironment that is unbiased against women candidates,
political scientists focus on two theoretical explanations
for women's numeric underrepresentation. First, they
point to the incumbency advantage, where reelection
rates for legislative positions are consistently above 90%.
Under these circumstances, increasing the number of
electoral opportunities for previously excluded groups
can be glacial (Carroll and Jenkins 2001; Darcy, Welch,
and Clark 1994; Jacobson 2000). Second, researchers
point to the "eligibility pool" to explain the low num?
ber of women candidates and elected officials (Conway,
Steurnagle, and Ahern 1997; Darcy, Welch, and Clark
1994; Duerst-Lahti 1998; Thomas 1998). Simply too few
women occupy high-level positions in the professions
Richard L. Fox is Associate Professor of Political Science, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308 (foxr@union.edu). Jennifer L. Lawless
is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, Prospect House, Box 1844, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912
(jenniferJawless@brown.edu).
For comments on previous versions of this article, we thank David Brady, Barbara Burrell, Kathy Dolan, Mo Fiorina, Amy Gangl, Kent
Jennings, Jane Mansbridge, Terry Moe, Kira Sanbonmatsu, Wait Stone, and Sean Theriault. We are grateful to the Carrie Chapman Catt
Center, the Center for American Women and Politics, the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society, California State University,
Fullerton, Union College, and Stanford University for providing the funding to carry out the survey on which our results are based.
American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 48, No. 2, April 2004, Pp. 264-280
?2004 by the Midwest Political Science Association ISSN 0092-5853
264
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GENDER AND THE DECISION TO RUN FOR OFFICE 265
that serve as pipelines to careers in politics (Clark
1994).
Common to both of these explanations is the ex?
pectation that, as more women enter the pool of qualified
candidates, women will increasingly be presented
with good opportunities for political success and electoral
victory. Further, each explanation expects that potential
women candidates will respond to political opportuni?
ties in the same ways that men traditionally have. The
incumbency explanation relies on the premise that both
sexes, when presented with similar electoral opportunities
for open seats, will employ similar cost-benefit analyses
when deciding whether to enter the race (e.g., Kazee 1994;
Schlesinger 1966; Stone and Maisel 2003). The eligibility
pool explanation posits that as women's presence in the
fields of law and business becomes more comparable to
men's, so too will their economic status and their like?
lihood of seeking elected positions (Darcy, Welch, and
Clark 1994). Accordingly, most studies of gender and po?
litical candidacies conclude that the remedy for gender
disparities in elective office is an increase in women's proportions
in the pipeline professions.
To assess prospects for gender parity in our electoral
system based on these institutional explanations is to fail
to consider a critical piece of the candidate emergence
process: the manner in which gender interacts with the
initial decision to run for office. With the exception of one
poll conducted by the National Women's Political Caucus
(1994) and one single-state study of potential candidates
(Fox, Lawless, and Feeley 2001), little scholarly attention
is devoted to the process by which gender affects men and
women's emergence as candidates for public office.
A wide body of literature on the impact of traditional
gender socialization in the electoral process, how?
ever, continues to find that sex plays a significant role
in the manner in which actual candidates and officeholders
retrospectively assess their initial decisions to run
for office (e.g., Fowler and McClure 1989). Although this
body of research does not speak directly to potential can?
didates, it identifies several specific ways in which the
decision calculus involved in deciding whether to enter
an electoral contest may differ significantly for poten?
tial women and men candidates. Studies comparing geographic
regions, for instance, find that women are more
likely to emerge as candidates when they live in areas
with less traditional political cultures (e.g., Fox 2000; Hill
1981; Rule 1990). Other investigations find that women
in politics are more concerned than men with balancing
their career and familial responsibilities (Fox, Law?
less, and Feeley 2001; Jamieson 1995; Witt, Paget, and
Matthews 1995). Analyses also point to the fact that, since
their entry into the public sphere has not traditionally
been embraced, women candidates and office-holders
are more concerned with their qualifications, substan?
tive credentials, and policy expertise and motivations, all
of which help them gain legitimacy in the political arena
(Dodson 1998; Fowler and McClure 1989; Niven 1998;
Sanbonmatsu 2002b; Swers 2002). In short, these empir?
ical findings, coupled with the lack of scholarly attention
devoted to the initial decision to run for office, suggest that
it may be erroneous to conclude that we have a "genderneutral"
electoral process simply because "end-stage" assessments
indicate that women and men perform equally
well in elections.
This article presents the results of the Citizen Politi?
cal Ambition Study, the first national survey of potential
candidates in the "eligibility pool" for all levels of elective
office. Our analysis fills a theoretical and methodological
void in the literature that examines gender's role in the
electoral process. Foremost, our unique research design
allows us to assess whether men and women potential
candidates who share the same personal characteristics
and professional credentials hold similar levels of political
ambition at the earliest stage ofthe candidate-emergence
process. We find that at the aggregate level, women, even
in the top tier of professional accomplishment, are less
likely than their male counterparts to consider running
for political office. This suggests that the costs to entering
the political arena are different for women and men. We
then use gender socialization as a lens through which to
explain the individual-level differences we uncover. The
results of our systematic analysis of the initial decision
to run for office indicate that current theories accounting
for women's underrepresentation are inadequate and
that prospects for gender parity in U.S. political institu?
tions are less promising than the conventional wisdom
suggests.
The Citizen Political Ambition Study
The Citizen Political Ambition Study serves as a breakthrough,
for it provides the first research design that allows
for an examination of gender differences in the manner in
which women and men emerge as candidates for the first
public office they seek. Despite the importance of exploring
this question, research in this area is limited because an
empirical study ofhow people choose to run for office is
very difficult to execute. Many undocumented considerations
enter the decision to run, thereby causing a number
of sample design issues to confront. Primarily, when a po?
tential candidate decides not to enter a race, the decision
is often unknown, thereby making it difficult to assemble
a reasonable sample. In addition, many individuals
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266 RICHARD L. FOX AND JENNIFER L. LAWLESS
who ultimately run for office may never have cons
themselves potential candidates prior to being recru
to run. It is difficult to construct a sample that acc
for local and state party organizations' widely varyin
cruitment efforts. Finally, political concerns can im
research attempts to identify potential candidates (
and Stone 1998). These methodological difficultie
generally meant that information pertaining to pol
ambition and the decision to run for office comes en
from samples of actual candidates and office-holder
Rohde 1979).
More recently, a small group of scholars have
tempted to examine questions of political am
among potential candidates (Kazee 1994; Ston
Maisel 2003). These candidate emergence studies
ploy a "reputational approach" for sampling; a p
potential candidates is compiled by seeking out f
cross-section of communities current office-holders
"political informants," many of whom are party lea
convention delegates, county chairs, elected official
political and community activists. Researchers ask t
formants to name prospective, viable candidates, typ
for election to the House of Representatives. The pro
are then contacted and surveyed, as are many cu
office-holders who are positioned to run for higher
While the reputational approach allows scholar
shed substantial light on questions of ambition for
level office, it succumbs to several notable limit
when we turn to the initial decision to seek entry in
political sphere. In most states, politics is a career l
(see Black 1972; Jacobson 2000; Kazee 1994; Prinz
Rohde 1979; Schlesinger 1966). Prospective candidate
state- and national-level positions may have already
the initial decision to run when they opted to enter
for a local office. Studies that focus on the decision
seek high-level office, therefore, are likely to ident
potential candidates individuals for whom the initia
cision to run has long since passed. Further, cont
only elected officials and informants for the names
tential candidates restricts the sample to individuals
are currently deemed ready to run. Men and women
may be well positioned to consider a candidacy later
are overlooked. The reputational approach also invit
possibility of informants' own gender, race, and cla
ases to influence the prospects they name (Maise
Stone 1998). This concern is particularly relevant
we turn to questions of gender, since bias can easily
sult in too few women being identified and, ther
prohibit statistical comparisons among women
pool.
In an effort to overcome the limitations of the rep?
utational approach, we developed the "eligibility pool
approach." This research design involves compiling a ran?
dom, national sample of citizens who occupy the professions
that are most likely to precede a career in politics.
The sample is stratified by sex, so as to avoid informant
bias and ensure an equal number of men and women
potential candidates. Our approach also allows us to con?
sider a broad range of potential candidates, since we can
tap into interest in running for offices other than those at
the state or national level.
To execute the Citizen Political Ambition Study, we
administered by mail a four-page survey to a national
sample of 6,800 men and women, each of whom could
be considered part of the "eligibility pool" (for a detailed
description of the sampling design and methods,
see Appendix A). The survey asks respondents about their
socio-demographic backgrounds, familial arrangements,
political outlooks and experiences, and perceptions and
willingness to run for office. The sample consists of an
equal number of men and women in the three professions
that tend to yield the highest proportion of political
candidacies: law, business, and education (CAWP 2001;
Dolan and Ford 1997; Gray, Hanson, and Jacob 1999;
Moncrief, Squire, and Jewell 2001). A group of political
activists supplements the national sample.
This conception ofthe eligibility pool serves as a stringent
test case through which to explore gender differences
in political ambition. Female lawyers and business leaders
have already entered and succeeded in male-dominated
fields, which suggests that the women in the sample may
have overcome the forces of traditional socialization to
a greater extent than the overall population of potential
women candidates. Women comprise only approximately
15% ofthe partners in the nation's law firms (National As?
sociation for Law Placement Foundation 1999) and less
than 5% of the chief executive officers, presidents, senior
vice presidents, and chief financial officers in the
largest companies throughout the United States (Reutter
2000). Although this sampling design allows us to compare
levels of political ambition across these professions,
it does not allow us to determine whether the gender dynamics
within each profession require more extraordinary
commitments of time and effort by women than
men, which would preclude investments in the political
arena. We balance this gendered conception of the eli?
gibility pool by equally representing educators and po?
litical activists, two professions from which women are
more likely than men to emerge as candidates (CAWP
2001).
Our results are based on responses from 3,765 re?
spondents (1,969 men and 1,796 women). After taking
into account undeliverable surveys, this represents a 60%
response rate, which is higher than that of typical elite
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GENDER AND THE DECISION TO RUNFOR OFFICE 267
sample mail surveys (see Carroll 1994; Fox, Lawless,
and Feeley 2001; Stone and Maisel 2003). No remarkable
socio-demographic, geographic, or professional
differences distinguish the samples of men from women
professional elites (see Appendix B for a description of the
sample). In short, our approach and sample allow us to
offer a more complete assessment of the extent to which
the dearth of women in elective office can be attributed to
institutional inertia, as opposed to vestiges of traditional
sex-role socialization.
Gender, Candidate Emergence,
and Prospects for Women's
Representation
General studies of political ambition conclude that, as rational
actors, potential candidates are more likely to seek
office when they face favorable political and structural
circumstances. The number of open seats, term-limit requirements,
levels of legislative professionalization, partisan
composition of the constituency, and the party of the
potential candidate relative to that of the incumbent are
among the factors men and women consider when seeking
elective positions or deciding whether to run for a higher
office (Black 1972; Kazee 1994; Moncrief, Squire, and
Jewell 2001; Rohde 1979; Schlesinger 1966; Stone and
Maisel 2003). In conceptualizing ambition this way, the
decision to run for office is primarily a strategic response
to an opportunity structure; with the exception of gen?
eral gauges of political interest, flnancial security, and
political experience, potential candidates' personal cir?
cumstances are treated as relatively exogenous. This
framework predicts that women and men from similar
professional and socio-demographic backgrounds are
equally likely to move from the pool of eligible candidates
into positions of elective office.
But this rational choice approach to ambition is almost
certainly flawed when we consider potential candi?
dates who do not currently hold office. In order to leave
the pool of eligible candidates and run for office, poten?
tial candidates undergo a two-stage process that serves as
a precursor to the strategic side of the decision to run.
First, they must consider running for elective office; po?
tential candidates will never emerge as actual candidates if
the notion of launching a campaign and what that entails
does not enter into their frame of consciousness. Only
after the notion of a candidacy crosses a potential candidate's
mind can he/she determine that the benefits to
entering the electoral arena outweigh the costs. The central
question before us, therefore, is whether sex interacts
with either stage of this process by which qualified individuals
select to be actual candidates.1
Results from the Citizen Political Ambition Study reveal
that gender does, in fact, play a substantial role in the
initial decision to run for office. Figure 1 depicts the pro?
cess by which potential candidates move into positions of
political power. The leftmost box contains roughly equal
samples of men and women who comprise the pool of
potential office-holders: lawyers, business leaders and executives,
educators, and political activists. The figure's final
box illustrates the likelihood that a candidate wins
the race. As we would expect from the body of literature
on gender and elections, there is no statistically significant
gender difference between men and women's likelihood of
winning political contests: 63% of the women and 59% of
the men in the eligibility pool who ran for office launched
successful campaigns.2 Of course, this finding means only
that there appear to be no gender differences at the end
stage of the electoral process.
The second and third boxes in the figure shed light
on the gender dynamics of the candidate emergence pro?
cess. The second box from the left is comprised of those
members of the eligibility pool who "considered" running
for any political office. More than half of the respondents
(51%) stated that the idea of running for an
elective position at least "crossed their mind." Turning to
the gender breakdown of the respondents who consid?
ered a candidacy, though, a significant gender difference
emerges: 59% of the men, compared to 43% of the women,
considered running for office (difference significant at
p < .01).3 And, as indicated by the logistic regression coefficients
in Table 1, sex remains a significant predictor
of considering a candidacy even after controlling for
1 It is also important to acknowledge that women may process the
strategic side of the decision to run differently than men. Our
eligibility-pool approach means that we must forego analysis of
the structural variables that might exert an impact on the deci?
sion to enter the electoral arena. If we focused on a single race or
election, the number of potential candidates would be extremely
small. Accordingly, in order to study the initial decision to run, we
assembled a broad sample at the expense of analyzing the strate?
gic aspects of the decision calculus. Unquestionably, this approach
carries consequences for our conception of ambition (see Barber
1965 and Lasswell 1948 for a similar conception).
2The absence of a gender gap in the probability of winning an
election is not due to the fact that women tend to run for lower
status offices than do men. Eighty-eight percent of the men and
90% of the women who won their races sought local-level positions;
11% of the men and 10% of the women who won their races ran
at the state level; and 1% of the men and none of the women who
ran for a federal level office won their elections.
3Although the proportion of respondents who considered running
for office differs by profession, with lawyers and political activists
most likely to have considered a candidacy, the gender differential
is statistically significant at p < .01 within each subgroup.
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268 RICHARD L. FOXANDJENNIFER L. LAWLESS
Figure 1 Candidate Emergence from the Pool of Prospective
Candidates
POOL OF
PROSPECTIVE
CANDIDATES
(comprised of roughly
equal numbers of
women and men
chosen from the
professions and
backgrounds that are
likely to precede a
political candidacy:
law, business,
education, and
political activism)
PROBABILITY THAT
POTENTIAL
CANDIDATE
CONSIDERED
RUNNING FOR
OFFICE
Men: .59
Women: .43
Difference significant
atp<.01.
PROBABILITY THAT
POTENTIAL
CANDIDATE
SOUGHT OFFICE
(sub-sample of those
who considered
running)
Men: .20
Women: .15
Difference significant
atp< .01.
PROBABILITY
THAT POTENTIAL
CANDIDATE HELD
OFFICE (sub-sample
of those who ran)
Men: .59
Women: .63
Difference not
statistically significant.
education, income, race, political party and attitudes,
previous campaign experience, and whether the respon?
dent ever received external encouragement to run for of?
fice, most of which are traditional correlates of politi?
cal interest, participation, and ambition (see Bledsoe and
Herring 1990; Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; Fox,
Lawless, and Feeley 2001; Stone and Maisel 2003; Verba,
Schlozman, and Brady 1995; see Appendix C for variable
coding).
Such high levels of interest in considering a candidacy
may appear suspect, even among a sample of professional
elites. The measure, however, is aimed to capture even the
slightest inclination of pursuing a candidacy. Nonetheless,
in order to ensure that respondents' attitudes toward
considering a candidacy were not merely an artifact of
being asked the question, we asked potential candidates
whether they took any of the steps required to mount
a political campaign. More specifically, they were asked
whether they ever investigated how to place their name
on the ballot or ever discussed running with potential
donors, party or community leaders, family members,
or friends. Comparisons between men and women's answers
to all of these questions again highlight stark gen?
der differences. Table 2 reveals that, across professions,
men are always at least 50% more likely than women to
have engaged in each of these fundamental campaign steps
(gender differences significant at p < .01). Based on a variety
of measures, what started out as a gender-balanced
eligibility pool winnows to one that is dominated by
men.
When we move to the third box in the fig
amine those members of the sample who act
elective office, gender differences again emer
they are of a smaller magnitude: 20% of the
pared to 15% of the women, who considered
office actually chose to seek an elected positio
significant at p < .01). Once again, this gende
withstands statistical controls for the aforem
mographic, political, and structural variab
column 2).4 It is also noteworthy that wom
candidates' lower levels of political ambition
sult of the fact that women are not as inter
in politics and the seemingly male-domin
arena (see Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 200
and Kelly 1992; Carroll 1994; Darcy, Welch
1994; Fox 1997). Women in the sample are
than men to express a high degree of interest
(49% of women, compared to 41% of men)
4Statewide structural variables (not shown) tend
whether a potential candidate decides to enter a rac
this to the fact that nearly 85% of the respondents wh
sought local, county, or municipal level positions. T
variables would have an effect only at statewide and
levels.
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GENDER AND THE DECISION TO RUN FOR OFFICE 269
Table 1 Candidate Emergence from the Eligibility
Standard Errors)
Significance levels: *p < .05; **p < .01.
Table 2 Gender Differences in Considering a
Run for Political Office (across
professions)
Note: For each item, the Chi Square test comparing women and
men is significant at p < .01.
(41% of women, compared to 31% of men) politics (dif?
ferences significant at p < .01). Women, therefore, are at
least as well positioned as men not only in terms of pro?
fessional accomplishment and socioeconomic status, but
also general interest in the political sphere.
Together, the second and third boxes of Figure 1
illustrate the precarious assumption on which current
prescriptions for increasing the number of women in po?
sitions of political power are predicated. Despite starting
out with relatively equal proportions of similarly situated
and equally credentialed women and men as potential
candidates, and regardless of the fact that women are just
as likely as men to win elections, men are nearly twice as
likely as women to hold elected office: 7% of the men,
compared to less than 4% of the women, from the ini?
tial pool of potential candidates hold an elective position
(difference significant at p < .01).
For more than a decade, scholars focusing on gender
and elections have pointed to the importance of the can?
didate emergence process and the initial decision to run
as the critical areas on which we must focus if we are to
achieve a complete understanding of prospects for gen?
der parity in our political institutions (e.g., Sanbonmatsu
2002b; Niven 1998; Fowler and McClure 1989). Empir?
ically, our results provide the first piece of evidence?
nationwide?that women elites are significantly less likely
than their male counterparts to emerge as candidates.
Theoretically, our results indicate that the conventional
institutional explanations that account for women's numeric
underrepresentation are incomplete and somewhat
misleading. The challenge to which we now turn is to
account for the sources of the gender gap in the initial
decision to run for office.
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270 RICHARD L. FOX AND JENNIFER L. LAWLESS
Traditional Gender Socialization and
the Gender Gap in Political Ambition
Gender socialization theory offers the most compelling
lens though which to understand the gender gap we uncovered
in Figure 1. Traditional sex-role socialization, de?
fined by Conover and Gray as a "division of activities
into the public extra-familial jobs done by the male and
the private intra-familial ones performed by the female"
(1983, 2-3), has historically resulted in men's entry into
the public world of politics and women's relegation to
the private realm of the home. As we enter the twentyfirst
century, the extent to which socialized norms and
traditional family structures impede women's entrance
into politics is certainly diminishing. But recent studies
of gender in the electoral process, based largely on women
who have already entered the electoral arena, identify four
general areas in which vestiges of traditional gender role
orientations may affect both the likelihood of consider?
ing a candidacy and the propensity to launch an actual
campaign.
Political Culture
Evidence suggests that the political environment can have
a gendered effect on citizens' attitudes about entering
the political system. Hill (1981) finds, for example, that,
among citizens who choose to run for office, women are
more likely to emerge as candidates in states that estab?
lished an early pattern of electing women to the state legislature,
support women's participation in public affairs,
and do not have a tradition of sex discrimination in in?
come, or gender disparities in educational achievement.
Women are less likely to run for office in states with a tra?
ditional culture (Hill 1981; Nechemias 1987; Rule 1990),
such as those located in the south (Fox 2000). Despite the
fact that the men and women in the Citizen Political Am?
bition Study are similar in terms of geographic dispersion,
we might expect that women in certain political environments
will be less likely to think about running for office,
whereas the political culture in which men exist will not
have an impact on the decision to seek an elective position.
Family Responsibilities
Many of the barriers to women's advancement in formerly
male fields is drastically changing; women now en?
ter law schools and MPA programs at equal levels with
men (McGlen and O'Connor 1998). Similarly, women's
presence in the fields of business and law has increased
dramatically over the last thirty years (Darcy, Welch, and
Clark 1994; Reingold 2000). But women in positions of
power have historically faced greater demands than men
regarding how to balance their career and familial responsibilities
(see Jamieson 1995; Witt, Paget, and Matthews
1994). Contemporary studies of family gender dynamics
reveal that women, even in two-career households, are
still more likely than their spouses to spend time raising
children and completing household tasks, such as cleaning
andlaundry (Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; McGlen
and O'Connor 1998). This division of labor often results
in women candidates and elected officials feeling obligated
to consider family responsibilities more carefully
than do their male counterparts (Burrell 1994; Conway,
Steuernagel, and Ahern 1997; Fowler and McClure 1989).
When we consider the household division of labor in
the Citizen Political Ambition Study sample, we see that
women who live with a spouse or partner are approxi?
mately seven times more likely than men to be respon?
sible for more of the household tasks; the numbers are
similar for childcare arrangements. These results might
account for women's lesser likelihood of considering a
run for office.5
Self-Perceived Qualifications
A third consideration that might have a gendered im?
pact on the initial decision to run for office pertains
to respondents' self-perceived qualifications. The litera?
ture on gender socialization tends not to include these
types of perceptions among the various ways that patterns
of traditional socialization manifest themselves. In
depth examinations of campaigns, however, continue to
show that gender stereotypes affect the manner in which
media, party recruiters, and candidates assess men and
women's electoral prospects (Flammang 1997; Fox 1997;
Kahn 1996;Niven 1998). Voters also engagein such stereotyping.
Even by the late 1990s, for example, approximately
15% of General Social Survey respondents openly agreed
that "women should take care of running their homes and
leave running the country up to men." More than 20% of
Americans agreed with the statement: "Most men are bet?
ter suited emotionally for politics than are most women."
Regardless of their actual qualifications and credentials,
women have likely been socialized to perceive themselves
5Eighty-four percent of men in the sample were married, com?
pared to 66% of women; and men were 17 percentage points more
likely than women to have children (differences significant at p <
.01). Consistent with earlier analyses of professional women, these
findings suggest that to achieve the professional accomplishment
of this group, some women may have eschewed traditional family
arrangements (see Carroll and Strimling 1983).
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GENDER AND THE DECISION TO RUN FOR OFFICE 271
as less qualified to enter politics. In fact, when ask
place themselves on a continuum from "not at all q
fied" to avery qualified" to run for office, the male
tial candidates in our sample are nearly twice as lik
the female potential candidates (26%, compared
to deem themselves "very qualified" for an elected
tion (difference significant at p < .01).
We might also expect traditional socialization to
a role in the degree to which potential candidat
on their self-perceived qualifications when conside
candidacy, since we know from the ambition theory
ture that politicians tend to behave in ways that m
their likelihood of attaining higher office (Schl
1966). Even though the literature is silent concern
initial decision to run (Williams 1993; see also
1993), we might expect women to be more likel
their male counterparts to emphasize their subs
credentials, perhaps in an effort to gain legitimac
their candidacies (see Fowler and McClure 1989
1996; Sanbonmatsu 2002b).
Ideological Motivations
Finally, traditional gender socialization may influe
decision to run for office in terms of ideological m
vations. Surveys of actual candidates reveal that
are more likely to become involved in politics when
vated by policy issues surrounding the interests of
and children (Swers 2002; Thomas 1994; see also
1998). Further, women candidates and elected offic
often seen as more credible than men regarding "w
issues," such as health care, the environment, and
ing the poor (Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a, 1993b;
1991). Whereas men of all political proclivities mig
equally likely to think about a candidacy, wom
need an additional policy boost to spur them on to
sider running for office, if for no reason other t
legitimacy conferred by a focus on women's iss
interests.
Traditional Gender Socialization and
Considering a Candidacy
In order to explore the degree to which traditional gen?
der socialization accounts for the gender gap in potential
candidates' likelihood of considering running for office,
measures of political culture, familial arrangements and
responsibilities, self-perceived qualifications, and ideo?
logical motivations supplement the explanatory variables
used in the logistic regression equation in Table 1 (see
Appendix C for coding).6 Somewhat surprisingly, sex re?
mains a significant predictor of considering a candidacy
even after controlling for the series of socio-demographic
and political variables, as well as the "traditional socializa?
tion" variables. When we calculate the substantive effects
of the logistic regression coefficients in the first column o
Table 3, we see that, on average, women are 14 percentag
points less likely than men to consider running for office
The "average" woman has a predicted probability of 0.56
of having considered a run for office; an identical man
in the sample has a 0.70 likelihood of thinking about a
candidacy (difference significant at p < .01)7
Unexpectedly, most of the traditional gender social?
ization variables fail to meet conventional levels of sta?
tistical significance. Neither political culture nor family
structures and arrangements influence the likelihood of
considering a candidacy, although both men and women
are less likely to think about running for office as they
age.8 Women's circumstances of being the primary caretakers
of the home and the children do not depress their
likelihood of running. And ideological motivations do not
have an impact on the propensity to consider running for
office. The traditional barriers to women's entry into the
political sphere, therefore, no longer appear to imped
their likelihood of thinking about a political candidacy.
Of course, we cannot fully dismiss these variables
effects without examining the degree to which they in?
teract with the sex of the respondent. The second col
umn of Table 3 presents the results of an interactive
model that predicts whether a respondent considered run?
ning for office. Only one interaction term?self-perceive
qualifications?achieves statistical significance. The in?
teraction between the sex of the respondent and th
respondent's self-perceived qualifications is so strong
though, that it mitigates sex's independent effect.9 Table 4
6Regression analysis with controls (dummy variables) for three o
the four professions do not change the direction on any of th
coefficients or any of the levels of statistical significance.
7 Our analysis is based on setting all continuous independent vari
ables to their means and dummy variables to their modes. All anal
ysis was performed separately on each profession subsample; sim?
ilar results across professions indicated that pooling the data was
appropriate.
8The results are similar when age is coded in terms of cohorts.
9 Regression analyses with interaction terms between the significan
background variables and the sex of the respondent indicate that th
traditional correlates of political ambition do not exert differenti
impacts on men and women. Because of concerns about multi
collinearity, the regression analysis was performed including only
the statistically significant interaction term, as well as including th
interaction terms one at a time. In each of these specifications, th
only interaction term that achieves statistical significance is female
* self-perceived qualifications.
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272 RICHARD L. FOXAND JENNIFER L. LAWLESS
Table 3 Who Considers Running and Who Runs for Office (of those respondents who considered
it)?: Logistic Regression Coefficients and Standard Errors
Significance levels: * p < .05; ** p < .01.
which displays the substantive impact of perceived quali?
fications on the likelihood of considering a political can?
didacy, indicates that the gender gap narrows considerably
and becomes statistically insignificant as women perceive
themselves as increasingly qualified to run for political
office. Men's likelihood of considering a candidacy in?
creases from 0.60 to 0.87 as they move along the continuum
of perceiving themselves as "not at all qualified"
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GENDER AND THE DECISION TO RUN FOR OFFICE 273
Table 4 Predicted Probabilities of Considering Running for Political
Office, by Self-Perceived Qualifications
Note: Predicted probabilities are based on setting the variables included in the regression (Table 3,
column 2) to their respective means. Dummy variables are held constant at their modes.
to "very qualified" for holding an elected position. The
impact of self-perceived qualifications on women's pre?
dicted likelihood of considering a run is nearly double that
for men. Women gain a 53 percentage point boost when
they assess themselves as "very qualified." Although men
have a higher base likelihood of considering a candidacy,
women's perceptions of their qualifications work to lessen
the political ambition gender gap. In fact, for women,
self-perceived qualifications are the strongest predictor
of considering a run for office.10
One additional gendered finding emerges from the
regression results. The consideration of a candidacy de?
pends significantly on the degree to which an individual
receives encouragement to run. When we calculate the
predicted probabilities of considering running for office,
we see that a woman who has never received encourage?
ment to run for office, either from a political actor or a
nonpolitical source, has only a 0.20 predicted probability
of having considered it. Men's likelihood is significantly
higher (0.32), but still falls far below the mean level of
considering a run. When a respondent receives external
support to run from both a formal political actor and a
nonpolitical source, the likelihood of considering a can?
didacy more than doubles. Women's likelihood of con?
sidering running increases to 0.75; and men's predicted
10 Several of the background variables included in the regression
analysis are significant predictors of whether a respondent considers
a run for office, but their substantive effects are smaller than
those associated with self-perceived qualifications. White men and
women are 12 percentage points more likely than their African
American and Latino counterparts to have thought about a can?
didacy. As women and men's incomes increase and the opportunity
cost of giving up their current careers for an elective position
becomes greater, the likelihood of considering a run for office decreases
by 7 percentage points. Political experience and familiarity
with the electoral environment also spur the likelihood of thinking
about a candidacy by 9 percentage points. In each case, though,
women are 10-15 percentage points less likely than men to have
considered running.
probability of considering a run grows to 0.85.11 Despit
the fact that external support for a candidacy boosts bot
men and women's likelihood of considering a run fo
office, 43% of the men, compared to 32% of women re?
ceived encouragement to run from a party leader, elect
official, or political activist (difference significant at p
.01 ).12 Thus, even if traditional gender socialization doe
not affect potential candidates' reliance on external sup
port, these results corroborate the conclusions of scholar
who suggest that vestiges of patterns of traditional gend
socialization in candidate recruitment hinder the selec?
tion of women candidates (Sanbonmatsu 2002a; Niven
1998).
Traditional Gender Socialization
and Running for Office
As revealed in Figure 1, the gender gap in political am?
bition concerns not only the likelihood of considering a
candidacy, but also the probability of actually seeking po?
litical office. Of the potential candidates who considered
running for an elected position, men were one-third more
likely than women to turn the consideration into an ac?
tual candidacy. This gender gap is smaller than the gap in
terms of considering whether to run for office, but this
result is largely to be expected, since we know that gen?
der does not predict electoral outcomes. In other words,
nWe confirmed our distinction between "political actors" and
"nonpolitical sources" using principal component analysis with
varimax rotation.
12 Political parties, in particular, are often critical in candidate re?
cruitment and nomination, especially at the state legislature and
congressional levels (Aldrich 2000; Jewell and Morehouse 2001).
Results from the Citizen Political Ambition Study indicate no party
differences, either in terms of who was encouraged to run, or who
has considered running for office.
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274 RICHARD L. FOX AND JENNIFER L. LAWLESS
the striking gender differences we see in cons
candidacy should begin to dissipate as we move c
the "gender neutral" end stage of the electora
Although the sample size is relatively small
and 105 women sought elective positions), w
sess the extent to which traditional gender socia
influences this second stage of the candidate em
process.
The third column in Table 3 displays the logistic re?
gression coefficients predicting who launches a candidacy,
controlling not only for the baseline correlates of politi?
cal ambition, but also the traditional gender socialization
variables, and the level of office the respondent expressed
interest in seeking.13 Before proceeding with the analy?
sis of the coefficients, it is important to note two vari?
ables that are not included in the multivariate analysis. As
was the case with the regression equations presented in
Table 1, structural variables did not achieve conventional
levels of statistical significance, so we omitted them from
our analysis. Less than 4% of the men and women who
considered running for office actually sought a statewide
or congressional position.
The second type of variable omitted from the logis?
tic regression equations are respondents' self-perceived
chances of winning a race. A growing body of litera?
ture on political ambition and strategic politicians in?
dicates that potential candidates are more likely to enter
electoral contests when they perceive themselves as likely
to win (Black 1972; Jacobson 2000; Rohde 1979; Stone
and Maisel 2003). A study geared to uncover the initial
decision to run cannot easily tap into this variable. Of
the men and women in the sample who actually sought
elective positions, 52% of men and 51% of women contend
that they would have been "likely" or "very likely"
to win their race. Certainly, some respondents are accurately
gauging how likely they thought they would be to
win at the time they ran, but election results may shade
some respondents' answers to this question. Prospects
of winning, therefore, are omitted from the multivariate
analysis.
Despite these omitted variables, the logistic regres?
sion coefficients in Table 3 shed light on the factors that
lead men and women who have considered running for
office to decide to enter actual electoral contests. Not only
are most of the traditional gender socialization variables
and interaction terms statistically insignificant, but sex is
also not a statistically significant predictor of whether a
potential candidate enters an actual race (see Table 3, col-
13We do not use a selection model to analyze the data because we
are not adding any independent variables at the second stage ofthe
process; a selection model would be unidentified.
umn 4). Based on the logistic regression coefficients, the
"average" male respondent has a 0.17 predicted probabil?
ity of entering a race; female potential candidates' likeli?
hood is slightly greater than 0.12.
The regression results suggest that the gender gap in
political ambition is significantly alleviated by the second
step of the process, in large part because so many women
weed themselves out by never having considered running.
The variables that predict men's likelihood of entering an
electoral contest also predict women's likelihood, and the
magnitude of each variable's effect is not conditioned by
sex. Even in terms of external support, gender differences
seem to disappear. When we focus only on those poten?
tial candidates who considered a candidacy, we see that
receiving encouragement for the idea still exerts an equal
and significant impact on women and men, but at this
stage, women and men are also equally likely to receive it
(60% of men, compared to 57% of women). In short, as we
move throughout the candidate-emergence process, the
effects of gender seem to dissipate. But far fewer women
than men reach this stage of the process.
These findings do not mean that sex is irrelevant at
the second stage of candidate emergence. The gender gap
in self-perceived qualifications is smaller at this stage, and
women are no more likely than men to rely on these per?
ceptions when determining whether to turn the consideration
ofa candidacy into an actual campaign. But women
are still disadvantaged in terms of their self-assessed qual?
ifications. Twenty-six percent of the women who con?
sidered running for office deem themselves "very quali?
fied," compared to 36% of men (difference significant at
p < .01). When a potential candidate considers himself/
herself highly qualified, the likelihood of launching a can?
didacy increases by more than 63%. This translates into
a 10 percentage point increase for men and a 9 percent?
age point increase for women. Men and women might
rely similarly on this factor when determining whether to
enter an electoral contest, but men and women potential
candidates are not similarly situated in terms of how they
perceive their own qualifications.
Conclusion and Implications
The results from the Citizen Political Ambition Study offer
evidence that the leading theoretical explanations for
women's continued exclusion from high elective office?
incumbency and the eligibility pool?are inadequate.
These theories assume that, because the electoral arena
is gender neutral, women will, over time, become more
likely to run for office, win elective positions, and bring
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GENDER AND THE DECISION TO RUN FOR OFFICE 275
gender parity to our electoral institutions. These explana?
tions for women's under-representation do not, however,
take into account the selection process by which poten?
tial candidates become actual candidates. The evidence
uncovered in our study reveals that it is at the candidate
emergence phase ofthe electoral process that critical gen?
der differences exist. Women are far less likely than men
to emerge from the pool of eligible candidates and seek
elected positions. Thus, even though women who run for
office are just as likely as men to emerge victorious, the
substantial winnowing process in candidate emergence
yields a smaller ratio of women than men. The pool of
candidates who run for office, therefore, looks quite dif?
ferent than the eligibility pool of potential candidates with
whom we began. This finding reveals the danger of honing
in on electoral performance as a gauge for gender neutrality.
Aggregate analyses of vote shares and campaign
fundraising totals indicate only that the very end of the
electoral process may be gender neutral.
The gender gap in political ambition among the pool
of eligible candidates can be attributed to two critical as?
pects of the candidate-selection process. First, women
are significantly less likely than men to receive a polit?
ical source's encouragement to run for office. This dif?
ference is very important, since potential candidates are
twice as likely to think about running for office when a
party leader, elected official, or political activist attempts
to recruit them as candidates. Second, women are signif?
icantly less likely than men to deem themselves qualified
to run for office, yet more likely to rely on their selfperceived
qualifications when considering whether to en?
ter the electoral arena. In other words, women, even in the
top tier of professional accomplishment, tend not to con?
sider themselves qualified to run for political office. And
recruitment patterns?or lack thereof?appear to solidify
women's self-perceptions.
It is hardly surprising that among those members of
the sample who did run for office, there was no gender disparity
in outcomes. The women who enter political races
are no different from the men. Virtually all are supported
by formal political actors and nearly all deem themselves
qualified to run. Together, these findings also suggest that
the end stage ofthe electoral process may not be as "gender
neutral" as it is commonly described. After all, if women
are more likely than men to doubt their own qualifica?
tions, then it stands to reason that women who think they
are "qualified" are actually more qualified than men who
self-assess this way. And if party leaders and other recruiters
are less likely to encourage women to run, then
women whom party leaders suggest for candidacy may
also be more "qualified" than men they encourage. Thus,
the women who fare just as well as their male counterparts
may actually be more qualified than their male counterparts.
If women must meet higher standards in their selection
to feeder positions for high-level office, the apparent
absence of voter bias against women candidates might re?
flect the higher average quality of women candidates, as
compared to men.
Although our findings suggest that some of the older
gender socialization mechanisms, such as political culture
and family responsibilities, do not seem to serve as critical
factors in the early stages of candidate emergence (at least
among a pool of potential candidates who have already
overcome many socialization barriers by virtue of their
professional success), results from the Citizen Political
Ambition Study indicate the gendered nature of external
support and qualifications. Reliable measures of recruitment
activities by political parties and local political organizations
do not currently exist. In a similar vein, we
have little data to help pinpoint the source of women and
men's different beliefs about their own qualifications. Researchers,
therefore, may want to begin to turn to these
more subtle and nuanced ways that outgrowths of tra?
ditional gender socialization continue to exert an impact
on women in politics. Further, more detailed investigations
pertaining to the gendered nature of professional
subcultures could shed light on the different opportunity
costs women and men potential candidates must
absorb when they consider running for political office.
Understanding the origins of these differences is the key
to gauging long-term prospects for gender parity in U.S.
politics.
Appendix A
The Citizen Political Ambition Study
Sample Design and Data Collection
In developing the "candidate eligibility pool," we drew
a national sample of women and men from the four
professions that are most likely to yield political candidacies
for state legislative and congressional offices:
law, business, education, and politics. An analysis of the
professional occupations of members in the second session
of the 107th Congress reveals that law and business
are the top two professions for men, followed by edu?
cation and politics.14 For women, the numbers are reversed,
with education and politics as the leading two
professions, followed by business and law. Similar patterns
exist among state legislators: men are most likely to
be attorneys, followed by business leaders and educators,
14These figures are drawn from the Almanac of American Politics
(Barone and Ujifusa 2002).
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276 RICHARD L. FOX AND JENNIFER L. LAWLESS
whereas women are most likely to be teachers or school
administrators, followed by business leaders and atto
neys (CAWP 2001). Thus, a clear consensus indicates that
these are the four most prominent professions for aspirin
politicians.15
In assembling the sample, we created two equal-sized
pools of candidates?one female and one male?that he
the same professional credentials. Because we wanted
make nuanced statistical comparisons within and betwee
the subgroups of men and women in each profession, w
attempted to compile a sample of 900 men and 900 wome
from each.
Turning specifically to the four subsamples, for
lawyers and business leaders, we drew from national directories.
We obtained a random sample of 1,800 lawyer
from the 2001 edition of the Martindale Hubble Law
Directory, which provides the addresses and names of
practicing attorneys in all law firms across the coun?
try. We stratified the total number of lawyers by gen?
der and in proportion to the total number of law firms
listed for that state. For business leaders, we randomly
selected 900 businessmen and 900 businesswomen from
Dun and Bradstreefs Million Dollar Directory, 2000-
2001, which lists the top executive officers of more than
160,000 public and private companies in the United
States. We ensured that men and women held comparable
positions.
No national directories exist for our final two cate?
gories. To compile a sample of educators, we focused on
college professors and administrative officials, and public
school teachers and administrators. Turning first to the
higher education subsample, we compiled a random selection
of 600 colleges and universities from the roughly
4,000 schools listed in U.S. News and World Reporfs "Best
Colleges" guide (2000), from which we sampled 300 male
and 300 female professors and administrative officials.
Because we did not stratify by school size, the college and
university portion of the sample yielded a higher num?
ber of educators from smaller schools, although there is
little reason to expect this to affect levels of political ambi?
tion. We then compiled a national sample of 1,200 public
school teachers and principals (through an Internet search
of public school districts and individual school websites).
We acknowledge that this might result in a bias toward
schools that have websites, although a 2001 study by the
15While not focusing on professional backgrounds, some scholars
have found different eligibility pools for Democrats and Republi?
cans (e.g., Bond, Fleisher, and Talbert 1997). This literature tends
to deal with the distinction between "experienced" and "inexperienced"
candidates, with Democrats more receptive than Republi?
cans to candidates lacking electoral experience.
U.S. Department of Education found that 98% of pub?
lic schools had internet access and 84% had a Web page
(Cattagni and Westat 2001).
Our final eligibility pool profession?"political
activists"?represents citizens who work in politics and
public policy. We endeavored to survey 900 men and 900
women leaders from political interest groups and national
organizations with state and/or local affiliates. The list was
then further narrowed so as to strike a partisan and ide?
ological balance. We randomly selected state branch and
local chapter executive directors and officers of organiza?
tions that focus on the environment, abortion, consumer
issues, race relations, civil liberties, taxes, guns, crime,
social security, school choice, government reform, and
"women's issues." This selection technique, which pro?
vided a range of activists, yielded 744 men and 656 women
as potential candidates.16
We employed standard mail survey protocol in conducting
the study. Potential candidates received an initial
letter explaining the study and a copy ofthe questionnaire.
Three days later, they received a follow-up postcard. Two
weeks later, we sent another copy of the questionnaire
and a follow-up letter. We supplemented this third piece
of correspondence with an e-mail message when possible
(for roughly one half of the lawyers, educators, and po?
litical activists). Four months later, we sent all men and
women from whom we did not receive a survey another
copy ofthe questionnaire. The final contact was made the
following month, when we sent, via e-mail, a link to an
on-line version of the survey. The survey was conducted
from August 2001 to July 2002.17
From the original sample of 6,800, 554 surveys were
either undeliverable or returned because the individual
was no longer employed in the position. From the 6,246
remaining members ofthe sample, we received responses
from 3,765 individuals (1,969 men and 1,796 women). Af?
ter taking into account respondents who left the majority
ofthe questionnaire incomplete, we were left with 3,614
completed surveys, a for a usable response rate of 58%,
which is higher than that of typical elite sample mail sur?
veys, and substantially greater than the expected response
rate of 40% (Johnson, Joslyn, and Reynolds 2001).18
16For a more detailed description ofthe sampling methods, please
contact the authors.
17We uncovered no differences in responses when we compared
surveys of individuals who returned the questionnaire before versus
after September 11th.
18Response rates within the four sub-samples were: lawyers?68%;
business leaders?45%; educators?61%; political activists?68%.
Nonresponse is probably inversely correlated with interest in run?
ning for political office, but does not differ across sex.
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GENDER AND THE DECISION TO RUN FOR OFFICE 277
Appendix B
Demographic and Political Profile of the Pool of Potential Candidates
Note: Sample sizes for each question vary slightly, as some respondents chose not to answer some demographics questions.
Levels of significance in chi-square and difference of means tests comparing men and women: *p < .05; **p< .01.
Appendix C
Variable Description*
Variable
Standard
Range Mean Deviation Coding
Dependent Variables
Considered Running for
Office
Sought Elective Office
0,1
0,1
.51 .50
.18 .38
Indicates whether respondent ever considered running for local,
state, or national level office (1) or not (0).
Indicates whether respondent ever sought local, state, or national
level office (1) or not (0).
Independent Variables?Traditional Correlates of Ambition
Sex (Female) 0, 1 .47 .50 Indicates whether respondent is a woman (1) or a man (0).
.39 .49
5.42 1.03 Indicates respondent's high
Ranges from less than high sch
Indicates respondent's annual h
under $25,000 (1) to more than
Indicates whether respondent is
Education
Income
Race (White)
1-6
1-6
0,1
(continued on next page)
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278 RICHARD L. FOXAND JENNIFER L. LAWLESS
Appendix C
Variable Description* (continued)
Variable Range Mean
Standard
Deviation Coding
Indicates whether respondent self-identifies as a Democrat (1) or
not (0).
Indicates whether respondent self-identifies as a Republican (1)
ornot(O).
Indicates how many of respondent's members of Congress
(House of Representatives and Senate) he/she can name.
Indicates how closely respondent follows local and national news.
Ranges from not very closely (2) to very closely (8).
Indicates whether respondent agrees that government officials
pay attention to people like him/her. Ranges from strongly
disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).
Indicates respondent's degree of experience working on political
campaigns. Ranges from no campaign experience (0) to
worked on a campaign and ran for office in school (2).
Indicates whether a party official, nonelected activist, or elected
official ever encouraged the respondent to run for office.
Indicates whether a friend, family member, spouse, or business
colleague ever encouraged the respondent to run for office.
on
Factor score derived from principal component analysis w
varimax rotation. Indicates how "moralistic" respondent
political culture is.1
Indicates respondent's age.
Indicates whether respondent is married (1) or not (0).
Indicates whether respondent is responsible for less than h
half (1), or the majority (2) ofthe household tasks.
Indicates whether respondent is responsible for the major
the child care tasks (1) or not (0; which includes those
respondents who have no children).
Indicates respondent's level of self-perceived qualifications
holding elective office. Ranges from "not qualified (1) to
qualified" (4).
Factor score derived from principal component analysis with
varimax rotation. Indicates how likely the respondent is to be
driven by "women's issues" when deciding whether to
participate politically.2
* Regular type indicates the means and standard deviations of the variables when referring to the entire sample (analyzed to determine the
likelihood of considering a run for political office). Italics indicate the means and standard deviations of the variables of the sub-sample
of respondents who considered running for political office.
1 Percentage of women in the state legislature and percentage of the statewide vote Gore received in 2000 load on this factor. This measure
correlates highly with Elazar's (1984) political culture scheme (r = .60; p < .01), but is superior to his measures because it is current.
2Abortion, gay rights, the environment, and health care, which are typically deemed "women's issues" (see, for example, Carroll 1994), all
loaded on this factor. Crime, the economy, and foreign policy loaded on a separate factor. As might be expected, education did not load
on either factor, a probable result of the fact that both political parties have attempted to own the issue and use it in campaigns.
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GENDER AND THE DECISION TO RUN FOR OFFICE 279
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