Gendered Partisanship in the U.S. House of Representatives

The United States Congress has changed in two significant ways over the past two decades: there has been an increase in partisan polarization and in the number of women elected. Scholars have devoted considerable attention to each of these changes in isolation but have yet to explore the important connections between them. In this project, I begin to fill this significant gap in scholarship by developing and testing a theory of “gendered partisanship ” that explains the closely interwoven relationship between these changes. My analysis is based on a systematic study of congresswomen’s strategic responses to increasing partisan polarization and changing institutional rules, gender stereotypes, and the pursuit of power inside the House of Representatives from 1987-2012. I find that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, congresswomen often demonstrated less loyalty than their male counterparts, particularly Republicans, all else equal. By the mid-1990s, the gender gap closed, and congresswomen have begun to express more party loyalty than their male colleagues