Essay On Gender Differences In Congress

Superior Essays
My topic of interest is gender difference in US Congress voting on child welfare laws. This is an important issue because legislators greatly impact our society and how it runs. In the past several decades, the amount of female legislators has significantly increased, holding around 15-20 percent of seats in Congress. Is the increasing inclusion of women in government changing the laws of our country? Will women’s issues be more prevalent in Congress? How will this change in the demographics of Congress impact our nation? Stereotypically, women are known to be more compassionate, empathetic, warm and family-oriented. Due to these traits attributed to women, it can be reasoned that female legislators would be more inclined to vote favorably on child welfare laws, as they are in the best interests of the child. Determining if gender does influence voting in Congress would be beneficial as it could be an important variable for explaining political views and voting. Research Question: I will research whether female legislators more likely to vote favorably on child welfare laws compared to male legislators? My research question is important because the amount of females in Congress has increased significantly and by determining if the increase in women has changed our nation’s laws and interests brought before Congress will be beneficial to understand how changes in values can help shape the laws. I will use roll-call voting records of Congress to determine the voting difference between male and female legislators on child welfare laws. Literature Review: Do women in government positions make a difference? Thomas (1991) conducted a study to determine whether the increasing amount of women in state legislatures was associated with policy priority differences. Women are more likely to place priority on legislation involving women, children and family issues compared to men. It was found that female legislators are more likely to sponsor legislation dealing with women’s issues. Thomas (1991) discovered “female legislators made priorities of bills dealing with children and the family more often than men did” (p. 967). In addition, more often women introduced bills based on priorities of children and families. However, Thomas did include that for women’s interests to appear, at least 10% representation of women in the statehouse is needed, and 15% is required before women can have any potential influence. Furthermore, the study found that 13% of men’s priority bills concerning women, children and families passed, where as around 29% of women’s bills of the same issues passed. This is more than double and shows that women are more successful in passing bills concerning women, children and families. This study shows that women do make a difference in government, especially concerning women, children and families. Are women more liberal compared to their male counterpart? …show more content…
Welch (1985) found that there was an absolute difference in voting between men and women. Men vote 20 points more conservatively on a scale of 0 to 100. This difference is substantially and statistically significant. Welch somewhat attributes this difference in voting to constituency bases of men and women. Women are more likely to represent Northern and urban constituencies with high proportions of blacks and immigrants. Furthermore, Welch (1985) said that female’s greater liberalism may be “because they are in a minority position, they may have more ‘liberal’ sentiment on domestic social-welfare issues” (p. 127). Women do vote more liberally, however, the gender gap in voting continues to narrow. Another study was conducted to determine the effects of gender on congressional behavior. Vega and Firestone (1995) found that female members of Congress had slightly more liberal voting behaviors when compared to their male counterparts. However, they found that party, constituency and district characteristics were better predictors of voting than gender. Does gender effect legislative roll-call voting? Hogan (2008) conducted a study to determine if there was a gender difference in voting on economic and regulatory policies. Hogan used the voting behavior of representatives in the state houses of 28 states. Hogan found that Democratic female legislators were around 0.17 of a standard deviation less conservative than Democratic male legislators. Republican female legislators were 0.06 of a standard deviation more conservative than Republican male legislators. However, political party affiliation had a statistically significant effect on both men and women. Hogan theorizes that greater pressure among parties to adhere to

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