Feminizing Political Institutions

Feminizing Political Institutions considers representation from a new perspective by looking at how changes within the demographic composition of a political institution can change the way citizens think about and engage with politics. This book advances and tests an original theory of institutional stereotype change which argues that when women’s descriptive representation increases so that there are more women serving in elected political office people will start to associate political institutions with more feminine qualities. People not only see political institutions as masculine, but people see institutions through the lens of white-masculinity. Breaking down the perception of political institutions as “white” institutions requires a greater disruption in representation beyond simply electing more women. This book illustrates the unique effect women of color’s descriptive representation has on undoing the white-masculine perceptions of political institutions. Feminizing Political Institutions uses a series of original and innovates survey experiments to show the unique feminizing effects of women’s descriptive representation. This book shows that women’s descriptive representation shifts the stereotypic perceptions of political institutions, and these stereotypic shifts affect people’s engagement with political institutions.