Women, Politics, and Policy: A View from the States

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Submission to Division 31: Women, Gender, and Politics and Division 29: State Politics & Policy for Co-Sponsorship

We are proposing a panel of five distinct papers that examine the relevance of gender in state politics and policymaking. Together, these papers contribute meaningfully to the overall Conference theme of Democracy: Retrenchment, Renovation, and Reimagination.

The first paper by Maya Kornberg speaks to the subtheme of democracy and retrenchment. She employs a mixed methods research design to survey state legislators following the January 6th 2021 insurrection and finds that state lawmakers, particularly women and people of color, report higher levels of hostility and violence compared to their white male colleagues. Her findings have important - and chilling - implications for our democratically elected legislative bodies and those seeking to serve within them.

If the opening paper of our panel serves as a cautionary tale for democratic legislatures and the serious challenges lawmakers, particularly women and people of color face, the remaining four papers speak to the promise of renovating and reimagining these vital institutions. In her paper, Jamil Scott examines patterns as to where Black women emerge as candidates for state legislature and how those patterns differ from other women and men of color.

The remaining three papers consider the work of women lawmakers and women’s policy advocates to renovate and reimagine legislatures in three states where they and their interests have traditionally been underrepresented; Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Virginia. In their paper, Jennie Sweet-Cushman and Ava Krepp measure gendered legislative effectiveness in the Pennsylvania State Assembly and consider how factors like party polarization impact women’s representational opportunities. In their paper, Clare Daniel and Anna Mahoney evaluate the work of reproductive health advocates in Louisiana to address maternal and infant health care in a state that has highly restrictive abortion policies and stark racial disparities in birth outcomes. Finally, in her paper, Rosalyn Cooperman examines legislative activity in the Virginia General Assembly during the Democratic trifecta and how Black and white women Democratic lawmakers employed a division of labor to secure and expand contraception and abortion access in the Commonwealth.

Together, these papers demonstrate the vital space women lawmakers and advocates occupy within and across state legislatures to ensure these institutions hold true to their promise of inclusive, participatory democratic representation.

Sub Unit

• Division 31: Women , Gender and Politics Research

Individual Presentations

• Political Violence and American Democracy in the States - Maya Kornberg, NYU Brennan Center for Justice; R. Grady Yuthok Short, Brennan Center for Justice

• Where and When They Emerge: Black Women’s Entry into State Legislative Politics - Jamil Shatema Scott, Georgetown University

• A Decade Increasing Women’s Representation in the Pennsylvania General Assembly - Jennie Sweet-Cushman, Chatham University

• Small Strategic Wins: Reproductive Rights Activism in GOP-Controlled Louisiana - Clare M Daniel, Tulane University; Anna M. Mahoney, Dartmouth College

• Women Working for Reproductive Justice in the Virginia General Assembly - Rosalyn Cooperman, University of Mary Washington

Chair

• Heather L Ondercin Appalachian State University

Discussant

• Heather L Ondercin Appalachian State University