Women in World Government

Women in World Government

Introduction

Gender is not synonymous with women, nor is it simply the social construction of biological sex (Butler, 1990). As a result, to explore the consequences of gender for women in political leadership is to look beyond the usual sex variable on a survey. It is to take gender as a category of analysis seriously and particularly to recognize the contributions feminist theorists have made to the discipline, something political scientists have been slow to do. Although recent work suggests progress, political scientists still lack a common language for the study of gender (Beckwith, 2005). They too often treat gender as a dichotomous variable rather than recognize the heterogeneity within males and females. Their heavy reliance upon a left-right, liberal-conservative ideological scale leaves no space for seriously considering gender ideology and the ways it intersects with other ideologies (Duerst-Lahti, 2002a; Johnson, Duerst-Lahti, & Norton, 2007).

Leadership, like other processes, is gendered. Leadership of and in institutions, like other institutionalized practices and the institutional structures themselves, is also gendered (Duerst-Lahti & Kelly, 1995; Rosenthal, 2002). These processes, practices, structures, and institutions exist within hierarchies of power, including gender hierarchies that generally privilege men over women. Women and men who cross these institutions and processes do so as a lived experience, bringing all of their characteristics (e.g., sex, race, class, education), beliefs, and life lessons of individual bodies with them. As a consequence, women and men who attempt to lead in the political realm cross through institutionalized gender power that shapes and structures their lived experience of leadership. Each reality is more than an individual choice or individualized discrimination. It is the product of institutionalized gender structures. As a result, women and men have different experiences. Consequently all women and all men do not have the same experiences because the heterogeneity of their selves and their lived experiences in particular bodies also shapes their leadership.

To complicate leadership one step more, leadership is necessarily a relationship between leaders and followers, and leadership always occurs in a context that is simultaneously bounded by enduring structures and relatively fluid practices, which are the product of any situation and historical moment. Context matters greatly because it sets the contingencies for lived experience of both leaders and followers, and the meaning and consequences of experience shift with contexts. Therefore, the leadership of a wealthy, white, suburban congresswoman on Capitol Hill or in the executive branch will vary greatly depending upon the context and, very importantly, upon the perception of the followers. Perception of followers is key to leadership, as is correspondence between the context, the leader as a person, and leader's behavior.

Empirical Progress toward Gender Heterogeneity in Leadership

Politics has been largely populated by men since the founding fathers established political institutions. Nonetheless, in early stages of development, occasionally an incumbent's wife would be allowed to inherit an office, particularly in administrative posts, but formal politics largely existed in a state of masculine homogeneity and homo-sociability. Since the early 20th century, women's progress ...