"Far from Ideal:" The Gender Politics of Political Science Author(s): Sue Tolleson-Rinehart and Susan J. Carroll Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 100, No. 4, Thematic Issue on the Evolution of Political Science, in Recognition of the Centennial of the Review (Nov., 2006), pp. 507-513 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27644377 Accessed: 12/02/2010 20:24
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http://www.jstor.org American Political Science Review Vol. 100, No. 4 November 2006
"Far from Ideal:"The Gender Politics of Political Science SUE TOLLESON-RINEHART University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill SUSAN J. CARROLL Rutgers University
Political science has mirrored the political culture even as it has explained it, and at critical times the gendering of political science has left it unprepared to explain notable changes in political we as a across life. Here, examine political science gendered institution three critical time periods: the founding era of the discipline, the 1970s and 1980s, and the present. For each period, we assess the presence, position, and experiences of women in the profession; the norms of gender within the discipline; and the science women as way political deals with and gender subject matter. In general, the position women of in the discipline has improved dramatically over the course of the discipline's first century, and research has more gender-related become institutionalized. Nevertheless, political science has not yet a as an developed full appreciation of gender analytical construct.
Political science has mirrored the political culture has experienced a dynamic interplay between changes even as it has explained it.Nowhere is the power inside and outside the discipline. of the culture's influence on what and how the Earlier scholarship analyzing the relationship be knows more discipline evident than in the gender poli tween gender and politics was the foundation for the tics of science. of political By "gender politics political work of those who have begun to articulate theories we mean the which the of science," processes through gendered institutions and a gendered state (Acker has itself been discipline shaped by prevailing beliefs 1992; Kenney 1996; Duerst-Lahti 2002, 2006; McBride about the intersection of con biological sex, socially Stetson 2002), and various political scientists have im structed and life. At critical the or gender, political times, plicitly explicitly employed this perspective to an of science has left it to gendering political unprepared alyze institutions including legislatures, the executive explain notable in life. changes political branch, campaigns, and social and foreign policy (e.g., back to the classical texts of Western Dating political Duerst-Lahti, 2002,2006; Josephson 1997; Leatherman those who have written about have philosophy, politics 2005; Thomas 2005). Although the framework of gen assumed a fundamental division between public and dered institutions has not been used before to look life. Political science has located itsmost central at private political science itself, it provides an excellent lens concepts, power and the state, in the which to particularly public, through analyze gender in the discipline. and like has means society generally, aligned what it to Sociologist Joan Acker theorized that institutions be a man or woman with and Men have are public private. gendered because gender is in the been as "present viewed public, and thus actors; women and political, processes, practices, images ideologies, and distri have not. Given these and the of generally assumptions butions power in [them]" (1992, 567). Institutions fact that most of its practitioners have been it is take on male, inevitably the characteristics and preferences not that the itself would be of surprising discipline gen their founders and of powerful external actors dered. As a scientists would be result, political unlikely (Duerst-Lahti 2006); in this case, the characteristics and to see questions of until the numbers of women are gender preferences those of masculinity. All actors within in the discipline increased and events external to the an institution have gender; members' experiences discipline caused a reexamination of the within the assumption institution vary according to gender; and that women are not in most political.1 Appreciating changes important, gendered institutions "produce, the gender politics of science is to a and political necessary reproduce, subvert gender," according to Sally of the evo comprehensive understanding discipline's Kenney (1996, 456-57). In this essay we examine lution over its first The of women century. position in political science as a gendered institution across three the profession is an important part of that critical time the evolution, periods: founding era of the discipline, but our view of the of the gender politics discipline the 1970s and 1980s, and the present. For each is period, broader, requiring an analysis of science as we assess the political presence, position, and experiences of a gendered institution, albeit one that over the women in the years profession; the norms of gender within the discipline; and the way political science has dealt Sue with women and as matter. Tolleson-Rinehart isAdjunct Professor of Political Science, Ad gender subject ministrator, UNC Center for Education and Research on Thera of North at peutics, University Carolina Chapel Hill, Department of CB # 120 Pediatrics, 7220, Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC THE FOUNDING ERA: THE TURN 27599-7220 ([email protected]). Susan J. Carroll is OF THE CENTURY Professor of Political Science, Senior Scholar, Center for the American Woman and Politics, Rutgers University, Political science became institutionalized as a 191 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8557 discipline (scarroll@ the a rci.rutgers.edu). during Progressive Era, period when women were 1 For the of as active in social reform movements development gender an analytical construct, as well as very ranging from its uses in the see varying discipline, Carroll and Zerilli 1993, Burns settlement houses to temperance to child labor reform. 2002, and Hawkesworth 2005. women Although did not achieve national suffrage in
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FIGURE 1. Former Presidents of the Women's Caucus for Political Science gather in Atlanta to celebrate the Caucus' thirtieth anniversary. Back row (L-R): Barbara Nelson, Mary Hawkesworth, Susan Tolchin, Karen O'Connor, Molly Shanley, Arlene Saxonhouse, Naomi Lynn, Jennifer Hochschild, and Marie B. Rosenberg. Front row (L-R): Georgia Duerst- Lahti, Carol Nackenoff, Toni-Michelle Travis, M. Margaret Conway, Rita Mae Kelly, Jane Mansbridge, and Marianne Githens
Photo courtesy of APS A.
the United States (despite local exceptions) until the science in its formative years, illustrate the barriers Nineteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution that capable women faced. Breckinridge earned her in 1920, the suffrage movement itself had been active doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1901, but, since 1848 and was very visible by the time the Ameri "Although I was given the Ph.D. degree magna cum can Political Science Association was founded in 1903 laude,... no position in political science or in Eco and the American Political Science Review published nomics was offered me. The men... went off to po its first issue in 1906. sitions in College and University faculties" (quoted in The magnitude of women's activism outside the Fitzpatrick 1990, 82). Instead, she worked as an assis academy stood in stark contrast to the roles and views tant to the dean of women and as the assistant head of women within the newly forming discipline. Not only of a women's dormitory. When Chicago opened a law were women absent from the list of those commonly school in 1902, Breckinridge enrolled in its inaugu considered as the founders of political science, but also ral class and became its first woman J.D. Her former women were nearly absent from the discipline. Only employer, the dean of women, was instrumental in se 10 women received Ph.D.'s in political science between curing an instructorship at Chicago for her after she 1890 and 1919, an estimated 5.5% of all doctorates graduated from law school, but not in political science: awarded across the three decades. Women Ph.D.'s in it was in the new Department of Household Adminis creased in number to 27 in the 1920s and to 51 in tration. the 1930s, but those totals represented only 9% of all Breckinridge went on to have a major impact on the Ph.D. recipients in each decade (Cook 1983, Table l).2 field of social work, teaching the first course in pub Perhaps more significant than the small number of lic welfare administration, introducing the case study women who earned Ph.D.'s, women with doctorates method of social work, founding the journal Social found scant opportunities to pursue careers within the Service Review, and writing and editing more than 30 discipline. A small number flourished in the more wel books (Fitzpatrick 1990). One of them, Women in the coming environments of women's colleges, but overall, Twentieth Century (1933), included four chapters on very few of these early women Ph.D.s had life-long, women's involvement in politics, making it the first ma academic careers in political science (Cook 1983). jor book on women to be written by a political scientist. The experiences of Sophonisba Breckinridge, the This book was largely ignored by the discipline until most famous woman to receive a doctorate in political recently. It was not cited in such noteworthy works as V.O. Key's Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups 2 David Truman's The Governmental Pro all of these women were white. The first ([1942] 1964), Apparently African cess or The American Voter et al. American woman to receive a political science Ph.D. was Merze T?te (1955), (Campbell Its first citation in a science came (Harvard University and Radcliffe College, 1941), followed by Jewel 1960). political journal L. Prestage (Iowa, 1954). See Woodward 2005 and Martin 2005. in 1980, according to the Social Science Citation Index.
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One of the most successful and well published of the the period; instead, it was left to be unearthed and cohort of women political scientists to follow Breck explained decades later?largely by historians (e.g., inridge was Louise Overacker, a student of Charles Baker 1984; Cott 1987). career The some Merriam at Chicago, who spent her atWellesley seeming loosening of gender role strictures from 1925 until her retirement in 1957 (Department during the 1920s and the 1930s and the full mobilization of Political Science at Wellesley College). Following of men's and women's energies during World War II were a re Breckinridge's advice, Overacker initially tried to find followed, not by continued change, but by a position at a Ph.D.-granting institution. Although the turn to views of the differences between the sexes as a women chair of the political science department at major extremely deep and broad. The number of state university did offer her such a position, he later earning doctorates in political science increased in the retracted it on the grounds that sharing an office with 1950s and 1960s, but the proportion of female Ph.D.'s a a woman male professor would be inappropriate for fell from its "peak" of 10% in the 1930s to less than 6% (Cook 1983,16-17). Like Breckinridge and Overacker, of all political science doctorates in the 1950s (Schuck the less renowned women of their cohorts also had 1969). careers were a that shaped and constrained to large In political science scholarship, which had never degree by their gender. understood women's mobilization during the Progres The gender politics of political science in its early sive Era, the extant masculine biases entered a com years also was evident in its published scholarship. Be fortable marriage with the flourishing new behav fore the Review, the Political Science Quarterly was ioralism of the 1960s. With few exceptions, the bias the major journal in the field. Despite women's height took the form of relatively unquestioned assumptions ened public involvement during the Progressive Era about relationships between biological sex and polit and the importance of a massive expansion of suffrage ical behavior?notably, that women were politically to the structure and processes of American politics, disengaged, unsuited to political life, and predisposed Political Science Quarterly published only 10 articles to conservatism. The discipline was satisfied to leave women or dealing with (out of 1038) between 1886 and these assumptions untested, tested badly, in ways 1925 (Nelson 1989, 6). Similarly, the Review published that the energetic young behavioralists would not have only three articles (out of 406) on women in the years accepted in their other research. Sex was frequently between its birth in 1906 and 1924 (Shanley and Schuck employed as an independent demographic variable in 1974). the survey research of the period, but not yet evident was as an John Burgess, who has been called the father of any idea of gender analytical construct that areas political science in the United States (Somit and "... illuminates of inquiry, frames questions for Tanenhaus 1967, 3), founded both Political Science investigation, identifies puzzles in need of exploration, Quarterly and one of the first two graduate programs and provides concepts, definitions, and hypotheses to in political science (at Columbia University). By all ac guide research" (Hawkesworth 2005, 144). was an counts, Burgess opponent of women's suffrage Philip Converse's noted essay, "The Nature of Be (Nelson 1989; Dietz and Farr 1998), but he was hardly lief Systems inMass Publics" (1964), provides a classic were as an con alone. His anti-suffrage views widely shared by example of the absence of gender analytical other political scientists (Dietz and Farr 1998).3 For struct. Converse "explained" away women's political example, the authors of three of the four major text engagement (or lack thereof): "The wife is very likely books used in the early 1900s, as identified in 1916 by to follow her husband's opinions, however imperfectly the Haines Committee of the APS A, opposed women's she may have absorbed their justifications at a more suffrage (Nelson 1989, 7-8; Shanley and Schuck 1974, complex level" (233); his only evidence for this asser 634-35). Women could hardly have felt welcome in a tion came from dividing his sample by sex and assuming discipline whose leading figures publicly rejected even that aggregate results for women reflected their general their right to vote. "opinion follower" status. Later work illuminated the an In analysis of the four major textbooks identified continuum of interactions between gender roles, ide by the Haines Committee, Barbara Nelson found them ology, belief systems, and political engagement (e.g., a em to take "state-centered construction of politics," Burns, Schlozman, and Verba 2001; Carroll 1989; phasizing masculine domains (1989, 8). Early political Tolleson Rinehart 1992). At the time, though, the omis on as as a scientists focused the state their central theo sion of gender theoretical and analytical construct retical and analytical construct (Somit and Tanenhaus left the discipline unprepared to explain what was 1967), and Dietz and Farr (1998) have demonstrated about to happen. convincingly that the state was conceived in distinctly masculine terms, even to the point of referring to the state as a "man." Their state-centric focus and mas DECADES OF CHANGE: THE 1970s culine biases prevented the first generation of politi AND 1980s cal scientists from seeing or understanding the lasting political relevance of women's public involvement in The contemporary women's movement erupted in thel960s, and by 1969, political science was beginning 3 to feel the effects of feminism outside and within the President Woodrow Wilson, a political scientist, was instrumental Women entered science in much in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, but, apparently, from discipline. political expediency rather than belief (Graham 1983-1984). larger numbers in the 1960s; the number of doctorates
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awarded to women in 1967 and 1968 alone reversed feminist praxis. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick named her path the decline begun in the 1950s and brought political breaking book Political Woman (1974), Jane S. Jaquette women to science's proportion of with Ph.D.'s closer called her anthology Women and Politics (1974). Susan that of other fields. Women who had established suc Bourque and Jean Grossholtz directly challenged the cessful careers during the 1950s despite the obstacles discipline in their essay "Politics an Unnatural Prac they faced, like Victoria Schuck at Mount Holyoke, tice: Political Science Looks at Female Participation" Marian Irish at Florida State University, and Roberta (1974), and Marianne Githens and Jewel L. Prestage Sigel at SUNY-Buffalo and later Rutgers, were role titled their edited volume A Portrait of Marginality models for their students in the 1960s. New women (1977) as rebuttals to earlier assumptions that women's political scientists, many of whom were active in the political roles were inconsequential and their political ex women's movement, began to demand and capitalize identities moribund. Similarly, Susan Moller Okin on never canon professional opportunities their predecessors posed the gendered biases of the Western in as a more knew, and the discipline whole became reflec Women inWestern Political Thought (1979). was tive about its position as a gendered institution. Major As the women's movement reaching its peak of scholarly breakthroughs would follow the transition effectiveness in the 1980s, changes in the profession as a were from using "sex" demographic variable to using and its scholarship also accelerating. In the 1980 as an men women "gender" analytical and theoretical construct in election, and appeared to cast their votes was both qualitative and quantitative research. for different candidates, and the "gender gap" born By the late-196()s, feminist women political scientists (Mueller 1988). By no means did all of political sci were using their growing understanding of the influ ence acknowledge the gender gap or its significance to ence of gender to change the discipline. Concerned po electoral and policy outcomes, but this external event litical scientists, men as well as women, petitioned the brought greater interest and visibility to women and APSA to study the status of women in the discipline, politics research. So, too, did the battles waged over and in response the APSA established the Committee issues associated with women's movements, such as the on the Status of Women in the Profession (CSWP) in Equal Rights Amendment and reproductive rights, and the spring of 1969 (Mitchell 1990). Later that year, at the increasing numbers and influence of women public the APSA conference in New York, women scattered officials in the United States and elsewhere. a as a handwritten notices around the halls, announcing Although political science discipline had not women a new re meeting to create an organization of political anticipated these developments, host of scientists to apply external pressure on the APSA. That search projects examining and explaining them were meeting marked the beginning of the Women's Caucus pursued by some of the steadily increasing numbers of for Political Science (WCPS)?replete with the "con women who earned doctorates and joined faculty ranks women sciousness raising" stories with which resocial throughout the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., Carroll 1985; ized themselves in the women's movement of the day. Randall 1987; Gelb and Palley 1982; Katzenstein and Kirsten Amundsen offered a resolution at the business Mueller 1987; Mansbridge 1986). The journal Women meeting condemning the Roosevelt Hotel, where the & Politics, first published in 1980, served as an outlet some new new meeting was held, for denying her entry into the Men's for of this scholarship, and other work Bar, the only place in the hotel where food was avail began to find its way into the "mainstream" political women able by the time the business meetings had concluded. science journals. More political scientists and Virginia Gray told of going to the University of North more published scholarship helped the discipline grasp new on Carolina Press booth to examine scholarly works, the significance of and analyze feminism's influence only to be given a copy of the Wildflowers of North political life to a much greater extent than had been Carolina, which the press representative had brought true decades earlier, when the discipline failed to ex movement in along for the "little ladies" (Glad 1979). plore the suffrage and women's activism Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the WCPS, usually the Progressive Era. in coalition with the CSWP, demanded of the APSA In 1986, after years of organizing the gender poli Council that women be placed on all committees, for tics panels at APSA meetings, the WCPS appointed warded recommendations of women for APSA offices a committee that established an Organized Section and committee posts, supported open job listings, and on Women and Politics Research, thus separating the pressured the association to provide child care at its activities of professional advocacy from those of schol meetings (Glad, 1979). The WCPS also spearheaded arship on gender (Aragon 2003, 38). The name of a one successful effort to prevent the APSA from meet the Organized Section notwithstanding, of the ing in states that had failed to ratify the Equal Rights most important developments of the late 1970s and Amendment, forcing the association to move its 1979 1980s was the transition from the earlier "women out to vis conference of Chicago. and politics" scholarship that attempted make Female political scientists did not just craft an agenda ible women's political involvement to "gender poli nor dis of change for the discipline; they were also filling tics." Gender politics research neither replaced women scholarly lacunae. The emergence of "women and placed the earlier and politics work but, rather, politics" scholarship in the 1970s sought tomake visible explicitly introduced gender as an analytical and the cor women's political lives and political roles, and to oretical framework. Gender politics work also opened new as rect the distorted picture of women depicted in the opportunities to explore within-sex differences an earlier literature. Exemplars of this work illustrate the well as between-sex differences?for example, by a new a intersections of race and and synthesis of critical perspective with kind of alyzing gender ideology
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or and gender, by plumbing the still largely unexamined baccalaureate and masters departments, and 17% of on influence of gender men's political orientations. Ph.D.-granting departments (Brintnall 2006). Perhaps most women are more Gender politics research emerged in virtually all sub troubling however, likely than are men as fields of political science by the mid-1980s, and became to be hired into non-tenure-track jobs full a formal field of doctoral study when Rutgers Uni time or part-time instructors (APSA 2005a, 4); they versity created the first women and politics graduate held 40% of adjunct positions and 30% of visiting posi program within a department of political science. tions in 2006 (Brintnall). Women of color are especially underrepresented on political science faculties (APSA 2005a, 11). THE VIEW FROM MIDSTREAM: ONE Substantial evidence that the CENTURY AFTER THE FOUNDING suggests experiences of women in political science still differ from those of men and that the dominant culture of science As the Review oberves its centennial, political science political is still less comfortable for women than for men?in is midstream in the process of becoming a gender that science is still much a inclusive discipline. The glass is half full when viewed short, political very gen dered institution. The climate for women in against the backdrop of the founding era, but half political science in the words of Judith the first empty when judged against the objectives of gender remains, Shklar, woman of "far from ideal" parity in professional life and seamless incorporation president APSA, (quoted in Hoffmann The APSA convened a Na of gender politics scholarship into the canon. 1989, 833). more tional Science Foundation-funded in 2004 Women certainly have far professional oppor workshop to consider the status of women in academic tunities and occupy amore central role in the discipline political science in the United States. The official today than they did in the early 1900s or even the report (APSA the and recommendations 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps the major sign of progress 2005a), presenting findings of those in identified areas for women is their presence in leadership positions in attendance, major problem to the continued the APSA. Year after year, the WCPS, frequently in contributing under-representation of women an alliance with the Committee on the Status of Women, in political science, including inhospitable advocated for the nomination of women to the APSA institutional climate, a culture of research that devalues and the between Council and to the position of President of APSA. collaboration, chronological overlap the Eventually their efforts paid off. After choosing a suc demanding pre-tenure years and the years when are cession of 84 male presidents, the association chose family responsibilities greatest. Judith N. Shklar as the first woman president of APSA The graduate school experience clearly remains in in 1989.4 In 1996, Elinor Ostrom became the second fluenced by gender. Although women are not signifi more than men to leave school woman to hold that office. Susanne Hoeber Rudolph cantly likely graduate before a their reasons for was elected as the fourth woman to head the organi completing degree, leaving differ. For men the most common reason is zation the year that APSA celebrated its centennial the lack of for women the most com anniversary, 2003. Rudolph followed Theda Skocpol employment opportunities; mon reason is into office (2002) and was succeeded by Margaret Levi their perception that the work environ ment is or (2003), the first time that APSA had had three women unfriendly unsupportive. Among graduate women are men to en presidents in succession. APSA also is moving in the students, less likely than report to or assistance in and direction of gender parity among its other officers and couragement publish publishing, are more no council members; two of seven officers and six of 16 they likely to report receiving help in initial searches council members serving in 2006 are women (APSA job (APSA 2005a, 4, 29, 30). a 2006). Women faculty also face gendered work environ one Women have made progress at the entry level of the ment, although where gender dynamics vary from as one to another and are more sub discipline well, earning larger proportions of Ph.D.'s department generally tle than in the The 2005 APSA than in the past. They earned 37% of political science past. report observes, doctorates in 2000, 33% in 2001, and 42% in 2002 "Because political science has long been, and remains, a male-dominated at the the (APSA 2005a, 3).Women are now as likely as men to be profession top, discipline has a hired at major research institutions (Lopez 2003). De distinctive culture and organizational structure" women The effects of this culture are diffi spite that progress, however, still constitute less (APSA 2005a, 6). to women than one-fourth of all political science faculty across the cult document because may not speak out are about difficulties for fear of sanctions. country, and they concentrated in the lower ranks. gender-related Some one or two In 2006, women were 37% of assistant professors and departments still have only women, and the small of women sci instructors, 29% of associate professors, and only 18% given proportion political entists who are not uncommon of full professors inAmerican political science depart full professors, it is for women to be without senior women ments; women currently chair approximately 20% of junior faculty in their departments, leading Committees on the Sta tus of Women at both national and regional levels to 4 to career Shklar did not identify with feminism (Hoffmann 1989,833) but her urge departments implement mentoring pro career was marked by gender nonetheless. The Harvard Government grams for junior faculty. Balancing work and family her in a de Department employed permanent, part-time lectureship responsibilities is another problem that needs at her two books Princeton and Harvard spite (with University Presses) conflict between the two will bene and numerous articles. in 1971 did she become a tenured tention; easing Only fit both female and male et Harvard professor and the first female member of the department faculty (Ackelsberg al., (Hoffman 1989,833). 2004).
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As with the status of women in the profession, there and outside the United States. Others have raised are new and research in new signs of recent improvement in the position of questions moved directions, gender-related scholarship within the discipline. In gen including recent work that focuses on under-studied more women eral, gender-related scholarship has become insti subgroups of women, especially of color (see tutionalized, and women and politics has become more Cohen 2003); on the significance of constructions of securely entrenched as an enduring subfield within po masculinity (e.g., Beckwith 2001); on the importance new as litical science. Two new journals have joined Women & of concepts such gender consciousness and Politics (recently renamed Journal of Women, Politics feminist consciousness (e.g., Tolleson Rinehart 1992); & Policy and redefined as more interdisciplinary in on broadening our conception of the "political" by or focus) in publishing gender-related scholarship. The examining grassroots activism challenging the pub International Journal of Feminist Politics has published lic/private split (e.g., Ackelsberg 2003); on analyzing work on gender politics since 1999, and the first issue of state feminism (e.g., Lovenduski 2005); on contesting Politics & Gender, the official journal of the Organized fundamental theoretical assumptions and political Section for Women and Politics Research, appeared in concepts such as "power" (e.g., Hawkesworth 2005); 2005. The Organized Section has grown into one of the and on challenging conventional epistemological largest APSA sections, with more than 600 members assumptions and approaches (e.g., Phelan 1994). (APSA 2005b). Scholars have organized around more specialized interests as well; one example is the Femi CONCLUSION nist Theory and Gender Studies Section of the Interna Political science, as a institution, has shown tional Studies Association (ISA), which has more than gendered itself to be of over its first century. 200 members and sponsors more than 20 sessions at capable change The status of women has improved, the professional ISA conferences (Feminist Theory and Gender Studies environment has in become more women Section centers that conduct research, many ways 2005). Finally, and on has in to women friendly, scholarship gender expanded education, and programming related and and Nevertheless, re politics have been established on campuses across the scope quantity. gender parity mains an elusive Women are county in recent years (e.g., American University, Iowa goal. underrepresented at virtually every level of the discipline, from grad State University, University of Massachusetts-Boston, uate school to APSA leadership, and they continue and Nicholls State University), joining the Center for to face gender-related obstacles in their professional American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers lives. Moreover, women and re University, the first such center founded in 1971. politics scholarship mains somewhat marginalized in the discipline. The production of scholarship focused on women, Scholars of women and politics maintain that no as gender, and feminism has grown considerably over the pect of politics can be understood without an under past several decades. Whereas in the mid- to late-1970s of the ways that gender influences underlying a scholar could conceivably read everything that had standing assumptions and dynamics, just as the history of polit ever been written or published on women and politics ical science in its first century cannot be fully under across the entire discipline, in 2006 the same scholar stood without an examination of its own would have difficulty merely keeping abreast of gender gender pol itics. Although the study of gender and politics poses related research and writing in her or his specific sub important epistemological, theoretical, and empirical field (e.g., American politics, political theory, compar challenges for the discipline (e.g., Carroll and Zerilli ative politics, or international relations). At the 2005 1993; Flammang 1997), many political scientists remain Annual Meeting of the APSA, by our count, nearly unfamiliar with research, even in their 80 papers on and were pre gender politics focusing gender politics areas of We it will not take another sented on 21 different with 16 devoted expertise. hope panels, panels for the to how to More century discipline fully appreciate just exclusively gender-related topics. gender critical is to our of both related research is its way into gender understanding politics finding disciplinary jour and science. nals as well. For example, the Review published only political 24 articles on women between 1906 and 1991, including REFERENCES three articles in the 1970s and seven in the 1980s (Kelly and Fisher In in the five 1993, 544-45). contrast, years Ackelsberg, Martha A. 2003. "Broadening the Study of Women's between 2001 and 2005, the Review has by our count Participation." In Women and American Politics: New Questions, Susan J. Carroll. Oxford: published seven gender-related articles, equal to the New Directions, ed. Oxford University Press. number published in the 1980s, plus a response to one Ackelsberg, Martha, with Gayle Binion, Georgia Duerst Lahti, of these articles. Jane Junn, Laura Van Assendelft, and Bang-Soon Yoon. 2004. 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