New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

Author(s): Sally J. Kenney

Source: Political Research Quarterly , Jun., 1996, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Jun., 1996), pp. 445-466
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the University of Utah

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FIELD ESSAY

New Research on Gendered

Political Institutions
SALLY J. KENNEY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

This essay reviews four texts that analyze women in political institutions in
order to develop a more general theory of gendered institutions. Scholar-
ship on women in political institutions will be advanced by continuing to
look beyond the confines of the traditional subfields of political science,
drawing on interdisciplinary work in feminist theory, critical race theory,
and the sociology of work. Gender should be theorized, not as a word that
is interchangeable with sex, but as a continuous, variable, and tenacious
process that, while usually leading to women's disadvantage, is challenged,
negotiated, subverted, and resisted. Such scholarship should explore how
masculinity, work, and politics are intertwined.

Before the resurgence of the second wave of the women's movement, political
scientists usually ignored women as voters, activists, and elites (Shanley and
Schuck 1974). In the 1970s, feminist political scientists-a beleaguered few
who were nevertheless less isolated than their predecessors-began to aug-
ment the rare studies that documented women's political behavior. They be-
gan to correct the distortions of women's political activities while criticizing
the omission of women from research in the discipline. This compensatory
political science documented women's political activities while simultaneously
calling into question women's exclusion from political life. Feminists were
dissatisfied with accounts that explained the absence of women by pointing
to flaws in women themselves-their conservatism, lower levels of politicization,
or biological limitations (Bourque and Grossholz 1974). Instead, they bran-
dished democratic theory to call into question the legitimacy of political struc-
tures that systematically exclude, subordinate, and erase the value and potential
contributions of the majority of its citizens. By centering the focus on women,
these pioneers successfully shifted the question of inquiry from "what's wrong

NOTE: Special thanks to Martha Chamallas for recommending readings, for her careful
editorial comments, and her support. Thanks also to John Geer for his comments
and encouragement, and to Dierdre Wendel Blunt and Amy Lynch for research
assistance.

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 Political Research Quarterly

with women" to "what's wrong with the system."I The texts this essay reviews
carry that debate still further. By exploring women's integration in four very
different political institutions, these works reformulate the simplistic and lim-
iting question, "Are women legislators, foreign policy advisors, or lawyers
different from men?" They instead began to explore how political institutions
are gendered. They go beyond cataloguing the attributes of the exceptional
women in male-dominated institutions and go beyond counting the women
at various levels to explore the gendered culture of the institutions as well as
how the particular institutions interact with the larger political culture. "The
term 'gendered institutions' means that gender is present in the processes,
practices, images and ideologies, and distributions of power in the various
sectors of social life" (Acker 1992: 567).
Focusing on gender within and outside of political institutions leads femi-
nist political scientists to rethink the conventional political science paradigm
(Nelson 1989). Long excluded from the intellectual life of the discipline, femi-
nists learned from colleagues in other disciplines who were also exploring
questions of gender (and, in the cases of anthropology, history, sociology, and
literature, had been doing so longer).2 The infusion of ideas from other disci-
plines as well as feminists' immersion as activists in the women's movement
led them to redefine what constituted politics (Fowlkes 1987; McClure 1992;
Sapiro 1991). To understand how the political system excluded, erased, and
oppressed women, one needed to examine, for example, the sexual division
of labor, sexual violence, and the construction of gender identity in child-
hood-topics that moved political scientists beyond the arenas of legislatures,
voting booths, and cabinet meetings. The interdisciplinary group of women's
studies scholars, meanwhile, was moving beyond thinking of women as a
monolithic group to reconceptualizing gender as a category of analysis (Acker
1992). Research on women who were neither white, middle-class, Western,
nor heterosexual undermined fragile generalizations that masked differences
among women. The construction of gender, the anti-essentialists argued, op-
erates differently according to race and class. Moreover, shifting the focus

1 For a summary of the subfield see Carroll and Zerilli (1993). For a bibliography see
Kelly and Fisher (1993). Carroll (1979) demonstrates how political science exagger-
ated differences between women and argued that women's absence from politics was a
function of their sex-role socialization.

2 Bernice Carroll (1980) raised the question early on as to why there was so little fruitful
interaction within political science of feminists with different ideological commitments
compared to other disciplines. See Hawkesworth for a definition of gender as an ana-
lytical category (1994: 97-98), and Peterson (1992: 9).

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 New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

from women to gender allowed feminists to investigate the gendering of insti-

tutions and processes where women were largely absent, such as the state
department or the military, and to explore to what extent the state itself is
gendered (Enloe 1990; Franzway, Court, and Connell 1989: 6-10; Grant and
Newland 1991; Pateman 1988; Peterson 1992; Tickner 1992).
Feminist political scientists have had much success in opening up a dia-
logue on gender issues in even the most intractable subfields (you know who
you are). The discipline could hardly be said to reward anyone whose scholar-
ship focuses on gender. Yet the discipline values more highly work that ad-
dresses central or fundamental questions of the subfields rather than asks new
ones or crosses subfields or disciplines. For example, those whose interest is
in the legislative process might be interested in research on women legisla-
tors, not because of an interest in women or gender per se, but because of
what such research reveals about fundamental questions regarding legislative
behavior. As the subfields become more receptive to such scholarship, the
attractions of operating intellectually and socially solely within one's subfield
become very strong. For example, in some ways it is more comfortable and
intellectually rewarding for me as someone who studies women and the law
to interact solely with other public law scholars, rather than those who work
on gender in entirely different subfields.
This essay argues that scholarship on women and gender in political in-
stitutions will be advanced by continuing to look beyond the confines of the
traditional subfields, narrowly defined. Recently published texts whose sub-
ject matter appears to rest squarely within one area of study-legislative be-
havior, bureaucracies, or law-draw on and add to the insights of feminist
theorists. This essay searches for the general insights we may glean from study-
ing women and gender across political institutions and offers my thoughts on
the direction of future research. With the advent of postmodernism, I would
no longer claim my purpose is to build a general or universal theory of women
or gender in political institutions. I would argue more modestly, however, that
the best scholarship on women and gender in political institutions will be that
which draws on interdisciplinary work in feminist theory and places its work
in an historical context (Sapiro 1991: 178-81). Furthermore, those works that
adopt a variety of methods, and those that employ what some would call a
feminist methodology will advance our understanding more than those that
adopt more conventional social science approaches. I encourage scholars to
move beyond questions about whether women are different and move toward
an exploration of how institutions are gendered. I examine four recently pub-
lished texts on women in four types of institutions, roughly corresponding to
the three branches of government (and the press): Nancy E. McGlen and
Meredith Reid Sarkees's Women in Foreign Policy: The Insiders, Cynthia Fuchs

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 Political Research Quarterly

Epstein's Women in Law,3 Sue Thomas's How Women Legislate, and Nan
Robertson's The Girls in the Balcony.

SOME COMMON THEMES

The four works form a continuum with respect to their optimism about the rate
and sustainability of progress for women within their political institutions. Thomas
sees progress on the numbers of women in legislatures as unstoppable.

Whether or not circumstances conspire in the near future to create growth

spurts on each level of government, steady future increases in the pro-
portions of women in legislative bodies are inevitable .... It would be
naive to believe that no backlash, no struggle to maintain power will
ensue. That this will occur is certain; what is also certain is that with
time, women will overcome resistance and take their rightful place be-
side men in the public arena (1994: 153, 155).

Although Thomas sees progress as inevitable, she does not minimize the sig-
nificant and persistent obstacles women legislators attribute to sexism. De-
spite a greater social acceptance of women politicians, "Women still felt, as
did their sisters in the seventies, that politics was a place that was, in many
respects, hostile to women" (1994: 48).
Epstein, like Thomas, classifies the changes as significant and is optimis-
tic: "I am convinced that the story of women lawyers is essentially a success
story" (1993, xiii [preface to the 1983 edition]). Her work provides a compre-
hensive and nuanced account of the persistence of sexism and gendering and
the complexity of the obstacles to women's full participation in the profession.
Although Epstein's preface to the 1993 edition expresses the concern that
many young women lawyers are more pessimistic about their collective suc-
cesses then the evidence of progress warrants, she does not see progress as
unimpeded or unstoppable.

The future of women in the legal profession cannot be viewed as a simple

progression from exclusion to inclusion, with accession to all the rights,
privileges, and responsibilities due to any true member of the profes-
sion .... In the past decade, men have relaxed their hold on the legal
profession, permitting women to enter, but they have not released their
hold (1993: 382).

Robertson, like Epstein, celebrates victories while continuing to recog-

nize obstacles. Unlike Epstein's nuanced, scholarly, and complex account of
how the obstacles operate, Robertson's narrative deftly and precisely traces

3 Epstein's work is relevant to all the branches of government, beyond the judiciary (and,
perhaps, excepting the press) since they include many lawyers.

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 New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

how the attitudes and behaviors of individuals accumulate to form an

institution's policy of progress, stagnation, or obstruction. She documents the
gains in hiring, promotion, assignment, and pay for women at the New York
Times at all levels following the lawsuit (although they are "nothing to crow
about" [1992: 239]). Her account of the 1988 reunion of the plaintiffs with
other women employees of the New York Times, however, reveals continuing
discrimination on all measures. Her final chapter is aptly named "Promises,"
indicating her position that although much has changed, many problems re-
main (defined largely in terms of individuals' attitudes). In addition to illus-
trating the powerful forces of prejudice and discrimination through the stories
of individuals, perhaps the most enduring lesson of Robertson's account is
how individuals and institutions can shamelessly and pompously proclaim
their institution's embodiment of the liberal values of equality and nondis-
crimination while refusing to rectify their own clearly identified failure to live
up to those values.
McGlen and Sarkees are even less optimistic than the other three. They
have less progress to report ("agonizingly slow progress" [1993: 298]) and
more severe obstacles to analyze. Both Epstein and McGlen and Sarkees present
broad accounts of different types of obstacles: societal, environmental, and
individual. Like Thomas, McGlen and Sarkees ultimately focus on the limita-
tions of societal views, in particular, societal views about women as leaders
and as warriors. The conclusion of a senior state department official after Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait that the first lesson to be learned is "don't send women as
Ambassadors" (April Glaspie) is sobering (McGlen and Sarkees 1993: 300).
Less than half (48.1 percent) of their respondents expected the influence of
women in the Departments of State and Defense to increase in the future
(1993: 305). While optimistic about changing views of women's employment
and impressed by the efforts of the women pioneers, McGlen and Sarkees
conclude that "the future role of women in the foreign policy process is thus
highly contingent" (1993: 305).
The four texts also differ in their methods and approaches to the study of
women and gender within institutions. They differ in the number and type of
variables that matter, in how they go about examining the intersection and
interplay of the variables, and the number of settings they consider. All com-
bine different kinds of methods: interviews, surveys, and aggregate statistics.
They differ, however, in how they use narratives and "rich description." To
oversimplify, they differ in whether they are merely telling the story (aware of
their role in shaping and constructing that reality) or whether they are testing
hypotheses. Sociologist of work Steinberg suggests that special methods are
required to uncover how institutions are gendered: "The feminist approach to
developing organizational theory has a methodological corollary. It calls for

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 Political Research Quarterly

heavy reliance on intensive case studies of well-selected organizations to un-

cover systematic patterns of social behavior" (1992: 580). Acker agrees:

But it is necessary to go beyond gender as category, social role, or iden-

tity in order to understand how gender differentiation and women's dis-
advantage are produced. For example, the processes creating and
maintaining sex segregation are complex and vary with time and place
(e.g., Cockburn 1985), having as much to do with employers' calcula-
tions of their advantage and their exploitation of gender differences as
with male workers' collective creation of their identities as men and
workers or female workers' identification with their domestic roles. Meth-
odological implications follow from this sort of conceptualization; quali-
tative and historical studies are necessary to comprehend concrete
practices and processes (1992: 566).
At one end of this continuum lies Nan Robertson. Since she is a journal-
ist, it is not surprising that her work is what some social scientists might
dismissively label mere description. She tells the story of the women who
brought suit against the New York Times for sex discrimination. While her aim
is to report the names of who did what when with what consequences, to
record for history the stories of brave women seeking social justice, as is the
case with all good journalism the line between it and the case study is a diffi-
cult one to draw. Robertson's story provides specific illustrations and confir-
mation of more general patterns. She vividly documents how tokenism and
gendering operated by recounting how even her closest male colleagues who
had a high opinion of her abilities failed to consider her for plum assignments
or expressed surprise when she won a Pulitzer Prize (1992: 236). She shows
the high emotional and economic costs of litigation and demonstrates how
the institution operates to reward those not party to the suit while punishing
the "troublemakers." In short, she provides much important information about
tokenism, the gendering of institutions, and "othering," without framing the
information with theoretical works or presenting the material as a case to test
general theories. Although she documents vividly the gender ethos of her
workplace, provides evidence of systemic discrimination, and occasionally
refers to the women's movement, her story is about individuals-the women
who fight, reluctantly or with gusto, the women who side with the men, the
men who are openly sexist, the men who refuse to let the evidence contradict
their sense of themselves as "good to women," and the smaller group of men
who are supportive or capable of changed consciousness. Robertson describes
these people rather than theorizes about processes.
At the social science end of the spectrum lies Thomas. She attempts to
test hypotheses about women legislators in general. Therefore she does not
present the story of the gender integration of state legislatures by identifying

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 New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

individual women in each state or legislature. Nor does she focus on the cul-
ture of particular institutions to show how tokenism operates in these settings
or how the particular institutions are gendered. Thomas does introduce some
elements of the individual stories through illustrative quotations. She aptly
demonstrates the importance of numbers and percentages in affecting policy
change and more far-reaching structural change in the institution. She pro-
vides a sophisticated analysis of the simplistic questions: "are women legisla-
tors different from men?" and explores some of the determinants of when the
answer is yes and when it is no.
Because she is focusing on the aggregate, however (though supplemented
by interviews), she is unable to explore under what conditions institutions lag
behind social norms and when they lead them because of the efforts of well-
placed individuals (either promoting or obstructing social change) or the op-
eration of environmental factors particular to that institution. Focusing on the
totality leads to a flattening of the variable "society's attitudes about women's
roles" (or the numbers of women) as the causal agent determining the degree
to which women's agenda will be furthered within the institution. Similarly,
she cannot explore in depth when the efforts of exceptional individuals can
combine with factors internal to the institution to impede or promote change.
Thomas does, however, begin to address this point by considering the effect
of a women's caucus (1994: 100-101). But by noting its presence or absence
as a variable rather than presenting historical and personal accounts (why
Bella Abzug was an obstacle to the formation of the Congressional Caucus for
Women's Issues, for example [Gertzog 1984: 164-81]) we know little about
what historical, individual, and institutional cultural factors determine when
women will come together to define themselves as a group and seek to further
a shared agenda. As Thomas recognizes, the number of women in each legis-
lature is but one important factor in this story.
I would place Epstein next to Thomas on the continuum. Epstein's project
is broader in scope and time because her topic is the entire legal profession
rather than one particular subgroup of it. Because Epstein is what McGlen
and Sarkees would call a minimizer, unlike Thomas and McGlen and Sarkees,
Epstein does not pose the question, "are women lawyers different from men?"
but explores instead how gender differences are constructed, deployed, and
recreated in a variety of settings. All three works combine survey research
with in-depth interviews. Epstein and McGlen and Sarkees, however, discuss
specific individuals, groups, lawsuits, and events, and intertwine the aggre-
gate findings with particular histories. While survey research can tell us much
about women in political institutions and is an essential foundation, a more
ethnographic approach reveals the gendering of institutions. Epstein inter-
weaves her conclusions from interviews throughout the text while McGlen

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 Political Research Quarterly

and Sarkees include extended interviews (and pictures) of individual women.

Understanding structural changes such as industrialization, economic
growth, or the demands of a wartime economy for domestic labor, analyzing
attitudinal changes in women's role in society, and monitoring the numbers
and positions of women in institutions are all crucial information for under-
standing how institutions are gendered. Responding to and resisting broader
trends, however, are individuals set in a particular historical context. McGlen
and Sarkees demonstrate the importance of exceptional individuals-men and
women-in bringing about or impeding change within institutions. They ef-
fectively intersperse the aggregate information about women's employment,
attitudes toward women, and numbers of women with the stories of women,
usually in the first person. These accounts demonstrate how what Duerst-
Lahti calls the "gender ethos" of an institution affects the spirit, aspirations,
perceptions of, and opportunities provided to individual women (1987). The
narratives also vividly demonstrate that the individual women responded to
the structural constraints differently and conceptualized them differently.
McGlen and Sarkees confirm Cockbum's finding that the particular views of
individual men in institutions help to establish the institutional culture and
determine the success of both the short and long agendas (Cockburn 1991:
39, 226). McGlen and Sarkees cite a 1984 State Department report as con-
cluding "The single most important factor in achieving equal employment
opportunity in the Department of State is the commitment demonstrated by
the Secretary of State and the UnderSecretary for Management" (1993: 84).
They later note: "As one woman respondent indicated, the chain of command
can have devastating influence on a woman's effectiveness when those mili-
tary officers in charge decide to discriminate" (1993: 87). While Robertson
and McGlen and Sarkees both provide vivid and concrete examples of the
effect of the views of men at the top, Cockburn also demonstrates the effect of
hostile middle managers (1991: 44).
All four works provide interesting comparisons between different groups
of women-the pioneers of the 1960s and 1970s and the more recent cohort
who entered the profession in the 1980s and 1990s. Both groups report con-
tinuing if often more covert or subtle obstacles. Perhaps one of the more inter-
esting and also encouraging findings is the difference in aspirations and
perceptions of the newer cohort of women. In the 1950s and 1960s, women
lawyers or legislators recognized their uniqueness and that they faced over-
whelming obstacles to practice their professions at all, let alone to aim for
distinction. Women lawyers now want to make partner and to move from the
library or trust and estates work into litigation. Epstein reports women com-
paring themselves to "similarly situated" men rather than women non-law-
yers. Women legislators want to continue to excel at constituency service but

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 New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

also to chair committees and assume leadership roles. Robertson, Epstein,

and Thomas document this generational effect. Robertson describes one of
the original plaintiffs in the suit against the New York Times reporting her
surprise at the meeting.

When she came up from Washington, Eileen [Shanahan] said, she knew
she was going to see old friends and find out how they were doing, and
meet some younger women she knew by their bylines alone. What she
did not expect was that she would be thrilled. "I am thrilled to hear
women stand up here and say, 'I'm good, I'm the best. I was the best-
qualified person for that job and I still am and I'm not grateful that they
gave me the job; I deserved it!' I have to tell you that that is the most
tremendous difference" (1992: 224).

Thomas found that the first generation of women legislators reported work-
ing harder and being better prepared than their male colleagues but perceived
themselves to be less effective (1994: 34-35). By the 1980s, in contrast, women
legislators still saw themselves as harder working than male legislators but at
least as effective. More importantly, compared to their male counterparts (40
percent) they thought their ranks should contain greater numbers of women
(92 percent) (1994: 48-49). (McGlen and Sarkees's greater pessimism may be
the result of their finding that 25.8 percent of men but only 2.8 percent of
women surveyed thought there were adequate numbers of women in the De-
partments of State and Defense and that resistance to women increased as one
ascends the hierarchy [1993: 275-76]). This psychological shift from consid-
ering oneself lucky to be plying one's trade at all, whether as legislator, lawyer,
or foreign service specialist, to demanding that one have the same opportuni-
ties for growth as one's male cohort has revolutionary implications. What leads
women to reject the gender coding of an institution, to refuse to be limited to
their social role, to form together with groups of other women and to seek
social change through lawsuits? What makes women run for office and form a
Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues?
Robertson, McGlen and Sarkees, and Epstein offer some insight into the
more narrow question of why women bring sex discrimination lawsuits. Alison
Palmer, who led a class-action lawsuit against the Department of State re-
ported: "I felt that if I didn't proceed my only reason for not going was this
fear, and for the rest of my life, whenever I thought about this (which would
be a thousand times a day, depending), I would know myself to have been a
coward" (McGlen and Sarkees 1993: 117). While contemporary feminist theory
may have provided the framework for these works, the three works that pains-
takingly document the experience of women in particular institutions with
attention to both theory and history have an important insight to offer recent
feminist legal theory. Lawsuits are a catalyst for significant and enduring insti-

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 Political Research Quarterly

tutional change. Contemporary feminist legal theory is moving in the direc-

tion of a more critical discourse analysis of legal action. Optimism for litiga-
tion is "mainstream" and liable to earn one the derogatory label of "liberal
feminist." Carol Smart warns liberal feminists to be skeptical and critical of
"law's imperialism"--the belief that all wrongs can be righted through the le-
gal system and that law can be used simply as a tool for social change (1989:
12-13). Such scholars document the pitfalls and limitations of litigation: the
costs (emotional, physical, and psychological) to the plaintiff, the failure to
control how issues are defined, the undesirability of handing over of issues to
elites, and the greater likelihood that the legal system will co-opt and exhaust
feminists rather than deliver to them progressive social change.
Yet Epstein recounts case after case of law firms pressured into hiring
agreements by litigation, of law students using litigation to bar firms that dis-
criminate from recruiting at their schools, and consent decrees that ended law
firms' patronage of male-only clubs (1993: 184-89). Robertson demonstrates
how legal action documented and exposed widespread discrimination in pay
that had been previously concealed and forced the New York Times to adopt an
affirmative action program (1992: 178-212). McGlen and Sarkees show the
dramatic results of Alison Palmer's lawsuits against the State Department (1993:
114-21). And Cockburn describes the consciousness-raising effects of a com-
parable worth lawsuit (1991: 130-31). Lawsuits have played only the most
indirect of parts in increasing the number of women legislators. In this set-
ting, the employment analogy breaks down.
Having said that lawsuits may bring about more social change (at least in
the U.S. context) than critical legal theory suggests, it is worth noting that the
beneficiaries of the changes are without exception not those who labored long-
est to bring them about. For example, the New York Times, under pressure
from discrimination lawsuits, did not respond by promoting those most dedi-
cated to documenting and exposing the discrimination (i.e. the troublemak-
ers) but other women, largely unconnected with the legal battles.

Not one of the plaintiffs regretted becoming a plaintiff, even though not
one thought it had helped her in her own career. But all thought the
effort was for others, those who would come after .... The plaintiffs'
stalled careers at the Times were in distinct contrast to those of the women
who came after them (Robertson 1992: 212, 216).

Those who challenge discriminatory practices of Wall Street firms will see the
success of their efforts largely in the hiring of new associates. Many beneficia-
ries of lawsuits will believe that discrimination is a thing of the past, that
affirmative action is a bad thing, and that they got where they are by merit
alone (Robertson 1992: 212). Alison Palmer unhappily reports:

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 New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

What I think is very interesting, this last lawsuit, the one we've just won
and gotten all these goodies for over 200 women FSO's [Foreign Service
Officers], not a single woman has said 'thank you' to me in any way,
shape, or form, which I find quite amazing (McGlen and Sarkees 1993:
120).

All of the works merit close examination to see whether they are successful
on their own terms. I would argue that they are. They are impressively solid pieces
of scholarship that make major contributions to their subfields as well as the
subfield of women and politics. Their careful analyses help move the focus away
from the simplistic and ultimately retrograde inquiry of "are women different from
men?"4 These works provide rich material to mine for feminist theorists across
disciplines. I would like to encourage the subfield of women and politics to con-
tinue its forward trajectory shifting from women in to the gendering of political
institutions. Drawing on the work of feminist theorists, sociologists of work, and
legal scholars would enhance such scholarship. But as interdisciplinary feminist
theory and feminist scholarship pulls us in this direction, the discipline of politi-
cal science may be exerting countervailing pressures. Shifting from women in to
the gendering of political institutions makes it more difficult for scholars to situate
themselves neatly within the paradigms of conventional political science subfields.
The gendering of political institutions may well be unintelligible within the disci-
pline as currently constituted. It may be what Sapiro calls "intellectual treason"
(1991: 180).

DEFINING GENDERED

What, then, does it mean to argue that political institutions are gendered?5
First, it means that all people within the institution have a gender. There is no
universal category of foreign service officer, reporter, law partner, or legisla-
tor. These works document that women report clearly being seen as and treated
as women holders of a role. Work is part of the construction of masculinity for
many workers. Jobs, as well as institutions, have gender, and institutions will
mount enormous efforts to contain threats to the gendered identity of the
institution. Once we understand the process of "othering" the gendered cul-

4 I agree with Runyan in her review of McGlen and Sarkees that "their findings with
respect to the minimalist/maximalist debate are less interesting and more predictable
than the rich data that emerged from their surveys, interviews, and institutional analy-

sis. .... [the minimalist/maximalist debate] which is itself a problematic and oversimpli-
fied characterization of contemporary feminist theorizing, especially in the wake of
postmodernist thought" (1994: 333-34). See Kenney (1995).
5 For a discussion of formal rights as gendered, see Kingdom (1990). For a superb analysis of
gender, androcentricism, and feminist methodology in policy studies see Hawkesworth
(1994).

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 Political Research Quarterly

ture of institutions leads us to anticipate new forms of resistance rather than

simple progress, as Cockburn and Bell (1992) predict and demonstrate.
Second, the experience of participants within an institution will vary ac-
cording to gender. Not only will women most likely have fewer opportunities
than men, but their perceptions of the obstacles and the existence of circum-
scribed opportunities will vary by gender (Epstein 1993: 214). Thomas docu-
ments this clearly.

Perhaps ironically, men's perceptions of women's difficulties do not coin-

cide with women's perceptions of them. Male officeholders saw less sex-
ism and stereotyping of women than did the women themselves, and
they less often perceived that women had to exert greater effort to prove
competence. It is interesting to note that men expressed less belief than
women in stereotyping or sexism and then identified areas of deficien-
cies for women that tended to conform to stereotyping (1994: 37).

Finally, political institutions produce, reproduce, and subvert gender. All

of the works recognize that gender is not a static thing that inheres in a bio-
logical category of women, but rather something that is socially constructed,
variable, and subject to negotiation. Each political institution has a distinc-
tively gendered culture and interacts with larger issues of gender being nego-
tiated and renegotiated in the larger society. Scott would admonish us to
continue to explore the interaction: "When historians look for the ways in
which the concept of gender legitimizes and constructs social relationships,
they develop insight into the reciprocal nature of gender and society and into
the particular and contextually specific ways in which politics constructs gen-
der and gender constructs politics" (1988: 46). To say that an institution is
gendered, then, is to recognize that constructions of masculinity and feminin-
ity are intertwined in the daily culture of an institution rather than existing
out in society or fixed within individuals which they then bring whole to the
institution.

THEORETICAL INSIGHTS

1. Numbers affect power in institutions: Reading the texts, one is immediately

struck by the enduring relevance of Rosabeth Moss Kanter's central insight
that in institutions numbers matter.6 Kanter's Men and Women of the Corpora-
tion posited that women's behavior (although she would extend her claim to
other nondominant groups in institutions) and ability to affect change as well
as how other actors in the institution perceive them, and how they perceive
themselves, depends on their number in the institution. To understand how

6 For a sophisticated analysis of the application of Bell and Kanter to Title VII case law,
see Chamallas (1994).

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 New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

institutions are gendered, we must first know the proportion of women-are

they tokens or minorities, or at parity? We need to know if the institution is
uniform, skewed, tilted, or balanced. Thomas skillfully documents how the
number of women legislators determines not only whether they can pass their
priority legislative agenda items and get members of the dominant group to
support their aims, but also whether women have any hope of changing the
structures of the institutions and the rules of the game (1994: 105-27). McGlen
and Sarkees contrast the number of women at the Departments of State and
Defense to explain differences in initiatives to improve the status of women
(1993: 73-78). Epstein documents the consequences of greater numbers of
women in Wall Street firms between the '50s and '60s and '70s and now (1993:
181) and demonstrates the impact of new women associates in law firms on
changes in policies at the firms (1993: 196-206). And Robertson demonstrates
the impact of a critical mass of women employees at the New York Times, all of
whom suffered widespread discrimination in pay and assignments (1992: 40-
51).
2. Numbers affect the culture of an institution: Kanter went farther that merely
asserting that their numbers determine whether women can affect policy changes
within an institution. As sociologist Steinberg notes: "Integrating women into male
institutions cannot be reduced to majority X's and minority O's" (1992: 579). The
number of women in an institution also determines how the dominant group sees
them and how they see themselves: how the institution is gendered. The number
of women determines the room available for individual self-expression, the kinds
of work they are asked to do, how their contribution is judged, and the extent to
which they are included in informal channels of power. Nelson elaborates: "Many
theorists, myself included, assert that all of social life is gendered, reflecting the
differences between and among women and men in activities undertaken, oppor-
tunities available, outcomes experienced, and values held and assigned to them
(1989: 4).
3. Gender has no universal content-it is produced and reproduced in daily
interactions: Feminist theorist and historian Joan Scott defines gender this way:

My definition of gender has two parts and several subsets. They are in-
terrelated but must be analytically distinct. The core of the definition
rests on an integral connection between two propositions: gender is a
constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differ-
ences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying rela-
tionships of power (1988: 42).7
Scott argues that the attributes associated with men and women and deemed
masculine and feminine vary, not only across time, culture, race, and class,

See also Jones and Jonasdottir (1988) and Jones (1990).

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 Political Research Quarterly

but institution. That is to say that what it means to be masculine, as well as

which jobs are reserved for men is, in part, institutionally specific. Moreover,
the meaning attached to these attributes is continually renegotiated and
reinscribed.
Joining Kanter's insight that numbers matter with Scott's reminder that
gendering is a continuous process-one that takes place repeatedly at the seem-
ingly trivial level of personal interactions, helps make sense of women's ac-
counts of their day-to-day lives in male-dominated institutions. State
Department officials reported to McGlen and Sarkees that they, like all tokens,
must prove themselves over and over again-the battle does not stay won (1993:
68). Every time they confront someone new they must overcome presump-
tions about gender which cancel the presumptions they are entitled to be-
cause of their role.8 They will be taken for the secretary, assumed to not know
about "throw weights," assumed to not be as tough, and feared as emotional-
"fear of the shrieker" (McGlen and Sarkees 1993: 49-51). While the pattern is
a general one that Kanter outlines-one's gender is incompatible with one's
role and, on a daily basis, this point will be made repeatedly in subtle or overt
ways-Scott's point would be that the content of the specific shortcomings of
the non-dominant group member will vary from institution to institution.
Perhaps even more troubling for those seeking progress, if a woman foreign
policy expert or journalist's competence ever is established, rather than sub-
ject to continuous challenge and need for proof, she will be regendered as a
man, or alternatively, a third sex (McGlen and Sarkees 1993: 99-100; Robertson
1992: 224). By recoding the competent woman as an honorary male, the job
and the qualities associated with it remain gendered male (McGlen and Sarkees
1993: 35). Another example would be the way Margaret Thatcher's woman-
hood was somehow eclipsed by the way she wielded power. "Woman" and
"Prime Minister" thus remain irreconcilable.
4. Gender is oppositional and hierarchical: Any understanding of gender
would be incomplete without reference to de Beauvoir's concept of the "Other."
De Beauvoir argued that gender was not only socially constructed and contin-
gent, but that the genders were not reciprocal: what it is to be a man is to be
not a woman. Men are defined and define themselves in opposition to a set of
categories assigned to women, usually whatever qualities or characteristics
are less valued for the fully human, rational, creative, or competent.

For him she is sex-absolute sex, no less. She is defined and differenti-
ated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the
incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject,

s Some reported, however, that the military command structure at the Department of
Defense made the problem less severe.

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 New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

he is the Absolute-she is the Other .... I have lingered on this example

because the masculine attitude is here displayed with disarming ingenu-
ousness. But men profit in many more subtle ways from the otherness,
the alterity of woman. Here is a miraculous balm for those afflicted with
an inferiority complex, and indeed no one is more arrogant towards
women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about
his virility (1949: 16, 25).9

If "lawyer" or "legislator" or "diplomat" contain within them the stated as-

sumption that the occupant of that role is a man (hence the need for the
marked designation "lady MP"), the very meaning of the role itself is defined
in opposition to women. To draw on psychoanalytic accounts, if forming one's
identity as a boy or becoming a man depends in large part on distinguishing
oneself from the mother as a woman and from girls, then the very notion of
being a lawyer, or foreign service officer, or legislator is intertwined with notions
of masculinity-a masculinity that takes its shape from being "not woman."
Epstein defines this with respect to the field of law:

The legal community has long been successful in maintaining cohesion by

creating its own confrontations and adversaries; by welcoming "ins" and
repelling "outs." Sometimes that task has been easy-the outsiders literally
come from outside; another country, another place. But where the facts are
not obvious, justification may come merely from the act of defining certain
people as outsiders. Women, forever integrated with the lives and commu-
nities of men, have been defined as "outsiders" serving the purpose of rein-
forcing the bonds of male association. Rationalizations may follow the
exclusion rather than account for it; rationalizations change, become dated
and absurd, yet new ones arise because what is necessary is that the division
remains-that outsiders are labeled by those whose interests are served by
creating a sense of difference (1993: 80-81).

5. Masculinity is constructed and fiercely defended: Psychoanalytic accounts

of the construction of masculinity may help to explain the special humiliation
male law students report experiencing when they do less well than women in
an environment in which all students are ranked competitively against one
another. "We do know, however, that many a man feels diminished when a
woman does better than he; and in law school, which is so evaluative and
where grades count for so much, it is not surprising to find women the butt of

9 Derrick Bell makes a similar point about othering with respect to race: "Black people
are the magical faces at the bottom of society's well. Even the poorest whites, those who
must live their lives only a few levels above, gain their self-esteem by gazing down on
us. Surely, they must know that their deliverance depends on letting down their ropes.
Only by working together is escape possible. Over time, many reach out, but most
simply watch, mesmerized into maintaining their unspoken commitment to keeping us
where we are, at whatever cost to them or to us" (1992: v, 8).

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 Political Research Quarterly

antagonism" (Epstein 1993: 65). Brigadier General Evelyn Foote relayed the
same point with respect to the military.

The presence of women who are as competent and productive as a man

is a devastating blow to the psyche of a lot of men who thought only
men could be soldiers. It is a real blow to the ego of many males that
women are doing so well in the military (McGlen and Sarkees 1993:
128).

Understanding the process of "othering" helps to account for the virulence of

the opposition to women's full inclusion and participation as majority leaders,
foreign service officers, partners in firms, or reporters on political beats. The
opposition exceeds what one can rationally comprehend as merely an interest
in monopolizing economic power.

We must put aside this contradiction for the moment, however, to look
at what happens when positive action for sex equality introduces to men
the idea that women too can run organizations, control computers and
manage men. Many women may write this off as 'mere' liberal feminism,
women buying into the system. Men nonetheless, often respond as though
the end of the world were at hand (Cockburn 1991: 47).

Some men's opposition to women legislators, judges, diplomats, or journal-

ists can be explained by the threat women's full participation poses to the
construction of masculinity itself. Sociologists have long studied the connec-
tion between work and the construction of masculinity.

Indeed, as Cockburn brought to our attention in her contemporary clas-

sic, Brothers (1983), for men, work is not just about earning a paycheck
but also about constructing a masculine identity. If women can perform
male work competently, she argues, then the men performing these jobs
are not real men (Steinberg 1992: 576).

6. Political institutions can be theorized as workplaces: Feminist scholars study-

ing the gendering of political institutions are thus well served by those who
have studied the sociology of work. Although some state legislators are part-
time or unpaid, and despite the distinctive features of political institutions,
courtrooms, defense departments, embassies, and statehouses are workplaces,
peopled by those in pursuit of a career. Sociologists such as Cockburn docu-
ment how work is intertwined in the construction of masculinity itself (1983:
132-40). The connection between masculinity and certain jobs is most evi-
dent in those jobs closely associated with waging war (Cooke and Woollacott
1993), but sociologists who study workplaces other than the military docu-
ment this interconnection. Looking at political institutions as workplaces also
enables us to draw on the sophisticated and well-established body of work on
employment discrimination. Legal scholar Vicki Schultz, for example, implic-

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 New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

itly expands upon the frameworks of Kanter, Scott, and de Beauvoir to illus-
trate how workplaces are gendered. By this she means that certain jobs are
more masculine or feminine than others and are reserved for one group rather
than another with alarming consequences for women's pay and opportunities.
More importantly, however, Schultz argues that one's career aspirations, inter-
twined as they are with one's gender identity, change over time in response to
work experience. Contrary to what courts have held in such high-profile cases
as EEOC v. Sears,10 women do not arrive at the workplace with fixed, un-
changing job expectations (in this case low ones due to "feminine values").
Schultz's point is that the employer bears some responsibility for creating,
recreating, and reinforcing rather than subverting job segregation by sex and
tracking women into dead-end jobs (Chamallas 1994: 2383-84). What politi-
cal scientists can appropriate from her work, however, is that the determina-
tion of who should do what job, which workers possess what attributes, and
how those jobs and attributes are distributed across sex is continuously nego-
tiated. The workplace, like political institutions, is gendered. Gender is con-
tinually produced in the workplace rather than something existing, stable,
and fully formed, prior to one's entry in it.
7. Gender is reinscribed: If understanding the process of "othering" as set
out by de Beauvoir helps to understand the construction of certain occupa-
tions as masculine and helps explain deep-seated opposition to women's par-
ticipation in them, it also explains why the continued gendering of institutions
will reinscribe notions of gender that lead to women's subordination rather
than liberation. Many of those who theorize gender as a continuous process of
change and negotiation do not see this process as leading inevitably and irre-
versibly toward progress. While they note the substantial progress for women
in achieving electoral office, political appointments, or partnerships in law
firms, they also carefully document how gender is then reinscribed in the
institutions in pernicious ways. Sociologists of work note that when women
enter certain jobs they often cease to be stepping stones for higher positions
(Cockburn 1991: 49; Steinberg 1992: 579). Cockburn reports that in the four
institutions she studied, sexism was not restricted to the older generation of
power holders who would eventually wither away (1995: 165). "Male power
is not dying out with the retirement of the old traditionalist men. It is being
reproduced in new, one might say literally 'virulent,' forms that are appropri-
ate and effective for the late twentieth century" (1991: 158).
8. Institutions will try to contain progressive change: Political scientists can
draw on discrimination law, as well as sociology, for inspiration, in this case,

10 EEOC v. Sears, Roebuck and Company, 628 F Supp. 1264 (N.D. Ill. 1986), aff'd 839 E 2d.
302 (7th Cir. 1988).

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 Political Research Quarterly

appropriating the insights of critical race theory. Derrick Bell, in his essays
Faces at the Bottom of the Well, analyzes the intractability of racism. He argues:

racism in America is not a curable aberration--as we all believed it was at

some earlier point. Rather, it is a key component in this country's stabil-
ity.... we risk despair as the necessary price of much-needed enlighten-
ment. Facing up to the real world is the essential prerequisite for a renewed
vision, and for a renewed commitment to struggle based on that vision
(1992: x-xi).

I would argue that a careful examination of critical race theory, such as that of
Derrick Bell, can provide insights to feminists about the intractability and
resilience of sexism as well as insights into the intersection of racism and
sexism for women of color. Bell argues that racism is not an aberration in our
liberal democracy but an essential component of it (1992: 10). Similarly, it is
no oversight or accident that allows women to be excluded from political life
or participation in the military. Political institutions are in a very real sense
constructed on the basis of women's exclusion. Cockburn and Bell would
caution us against seeing progress with numbers as the end of gendering in
institutions. Instead, the gendering will alter to accommodate changes in
membership while simultaneously disadvantaging the newcomers.
Cockburn, Bell, and Chamallas would warn us that the numbers are un-
likely steadily to increase automatically. At some point, the point at which
women go from minority to parity according to Kanter, more than the mascu-
linity of individuals is at stake. The gender ethos of the entire institution is
threatened. Cockburn argues that at this point the dominant group will work
to contain the threat (1991: 49, 68-69). There is an informal ceiling on the
number of women the institution can absorb and still maintain its gendered
identity. Epstein discusses this containment with respect to Wall Street firms
(1993: 194). She also describes how new gender stereotypes can be deployed
to make sense of women's changed roles. "For every stereotype that was used
in the past to rationalize women's segregation in the hidden legal specialties,
another stereotype can be mustered to explain women's entry into the areas of
law once forbidden to them." Women cannot litigate because they are passive
and yielding or they can because they are naturally argumentative. Finance
bores them or alternatively they are good at details (1993: 108). Thus a di-
chotomous gender system is rebuilt rather than demolished by women's pres-
ence. Cockburn documents what she calls the tension between the short agenda
and the long agenda of equal employment opportunity." The short agenda

" For an account of the long agenda item of making organizations less hierarchical and
more consensual, see lannello (1992). See recent feminist interest in the phenomenon
of the Femocrat (Eisenstein 1991; Franzway, Court, and Connell 1989).

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 New Research on Gendered Political Institutions

might include efforts to recruit and promote equally qualified women and
minority men. The long agenda provides an alternative conception of power,
breaking down hierarchy in the workplace (1991: 125). Similarly, Thomas
distinguishes between women legislators' public policy goals-passage of leg-
islation funding battered women's shelters, funding childcare, instituting com-
parable worth-and the more structural changes to legislative norms and
campaign finance (1994: 128-48). The two exist in a certain degree of tension
as success on the short list may endanger progress on the long list.

CONCLUSION

Future scholarship will continue to explore how political institutions are

gendered. Such work should neither ignore women nor feminism. It should
treat gender as a continuous, variable, and tenacious process that, while usu-
ally leading to women's disadvantage, is challenged, negotiated, subverted,
and resisted. It should explore how masculinity, work, and politics are inter-
twined. These four works, to greater or lesser degrees, succeed in moving
beyond the important work of documenting exclusionary practices, explor-
ing whether women are different from men, and questioning simple liberal
assumptions about the march of progress for women in institutions. They
employ different methodologies to expand our understanding of how women's
experiences in male-dominated institutions have changed over time-and the
role of lawsuits in shaping that experience and changing the institutions. The
study of political institutions benefits from the insights of feminist theorists
such as de Beauvoir and Scott, as well as sociologists of work such as Kanter,
Cockburn, Acker, and Steinberg and those who theorize about discrimination
law: Bell, Schultz, Chamallas. Such scholarship will advance our understand-
ing of the gendering of institutions by adopting an eclectic methodology that
draws on ethnography as well as survey research-one that moves us beyond
social science methods narrowly understood. I worry, however, that the disci-
pline as traditionally constituted will be unable to appreciate the work of
scholars who pursue the most fruitful methodologies and ask the most inter-
esting questions about gender and political institutions.

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