Women in Congress

Women in Congress

In this course, Dr Tessa Ditonto (Durham University) explores the representation of women in the United States Congress. In the first module, we explore women’s representation in the US Congress, focusing in particular on the history of women’s representation in the US Congress and statistics on women presently serving in Congress as of 2022. Then, in the second module, we explore the various potential causes of women’s underrepresentation in the US Congress, focusing primarily on structural factors, the candidate emergence process, and the role of voter biases and stereotypes on the numbers of women serving in Congress. Finally, in the third module, we explore Hanna Pitkin’s concept of descriptive representation, and outline arguments for increasing the descriptive representation of women in the US Congress. This course is relevant to both the US Politics and Non-Core Political Ideas: Feminism sections of the AQA and Edexcel A Level Politics specifications.

Women in Congress

In this module we explore women’s representation in the US Congress, focusing in particular on: (i) the history of women’s representation in the US Congress and the history of women’s franchise rights; (ii) statistics on women in Congress as of 2022; (iii) the fact of women’s political underrepresentation in Congress; (iv) analysis of women in Congress as of 2022 when accounting for factors such as party, race, and ethnicity.