Women Who Win: Social Backgrounds, Paths to Power, and Political Ambition in Latin American Legislatures

Research on women in Latin American politics in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s showed that very few women ran for and won political office and that those who did often did not fit the mold of the typical legislator. Yet significant cultural, social, and political changes have occurred over the past 30...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Politics & gender 2011-03, Vol.7 (1), p.1-33
Main Author: Schwindt-Bayer, Leslie A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Candidates
Costa Rica
Elections
Females
Latin America
Latin American studies
Legislative behaviour
Legislative Bodies
Legislators
Political activity
Political change
Political Parties
Political Power
Politicians
Politics
Social Background
Survey data
Women
Womens studies
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Summary:Research on women in Latin American politics in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s showed that very few women ran for and won political office and that those who did often did not fit the mold of the typical legislator. Yet significant cultural, social, and political changes have occurred over the past 30 years, and few studies have reexamined the types of women who win political office in the region today. In this article, I examine the social backgrounds, paths to power, and political ambition of women and men elected to national legislatures in Argentina, Colombia, and Costa Rica. I argue that women and men are likely to be more similar than different, given the tight constraints imposed on legislative candidates in democratic elections, and empirically examine this hypothesis with data from an original survey of legislators conducted in 2001–2. I find that, indeed, women and men are quite similar on an array of characteristics. Women who win elected office in Latin America today do so by playing the traditional, male-defined, political game.
ISSN:1743-923X
1743-9248
DOI:10.1017/S1743923X10000541