Getting a High Heel in the Door: An Experiment on State Legislator Responsiveness to Women’s Issue Lobbying

Date01 September 2021
DOI10.1177/1065912920939186
Published date01 September 2021
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920939186
Political Research Quarterly
2021, Vol. 74(3) 729 –743
© 2020 University of Utah
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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920939186
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Article
Studies of women’s representation largely confine their
focus to mechanisms of descriptive representation, often
proposing that women are best served by elected officials
with whom they share a marginalized gender identity
(Phillips 1998; Sapiro 1981; Williams 1998). This focus
is well-merited; an impressive body of literature demon-
strates that legislators are likely to take increased interest
and action on behalf of constituent groups that share their
descriptive characteristics (Broockman 2013; Burden
2007; Butler and Broockman 2011; Canon 1999; Carnes
2012; Grose 2005; Reingold 1992, 2000; Whitby 2000).
Women in politics bring gendered life experiences to
political institutions, ultimately reflecting different
interests than their male counterparts (Gilligan 1992;
Mansbridge 1998; Sapiro 1981; Thomas 1991). Research
suggests that political activity by female legislators is
substantively different than male legislators otherwise
similar in partisanship, seniority, and district characteris-
tics (Dodson 2006; Reingold 2008). In state legislatures
specifically, Holman and Mahoney (2018) find that espe-
cially with the presence of a woman’s caucus, increases
in women’s aggregate descriptive representation leads to
increases in women’s collaboration on women’s interest
legislation (even across party lines).
If descriptive representation leads to substantive
representation, the current political outlook in American
legislative politics looks historically hopeful for women.
The 2018 election cycle brought the proportions of
women serving in state legislatures to new heights.
Women now make up 28.7 percent of all state legislators
nationwide, marking a sizable increase from 25.1 percent
in 2017.1 In states like Nevada (50% women) and
Colorado (47% women), women’s numerical representa-
tion in state legislatures mirrors that in the general popu-
lation, achieving a representational ideal of proportionality
optimal for aggregative and deliberative democracy
(Mansbridge 1998).
Nevertheless, the impressive electoral gains for female
descriptive representation in 2018 did not extend consis-
tently across the United States. In seventeen states,
women make up less than 25 percent of legislators; this
statistic fails to reach even 20 percent in six of these
939186PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920939186Political Research QuarterlyWiener
research-article2020
1Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Elizabeth Wiener, Department of Political Science, Emory University,
Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
Email: ewiener@emory.edu
Getting a High Heel in the Door:
An Experiment on State Legislator
Responsiveness to Women’s Issue
Lobbying
Elizabeth Wiener1
Abstract
Are women in office more likely to providvae access to women’s lobby groups than men in office? If so, how can
women’s strategic lobbying increase the responsiveness of male legislators? This paper presents a field experiment
examining how women and men in state legislatures respond differently to women’s organizational lobbying. My
findings suggest that substantial gender gaps do exist; women are twice as likely to respond to a women’s issue
group’s simple meeting request. That said, meeting requests signaling constituent mobilization have heterogeneous
effects across legislator gender, doubling the likelihood that a male legislator will respond and effectively closing
gender gaps in responsiveness. My results identify how women’s lobbying can employ distinct lobbying strategies on
descriptive and nondescriptive representatives to successfully gain their attention. In distinguishing differing pathways
toward maximizing opportunities for women’s organizational inclusion in policymaking, this paper importantly informs
women’s groups lobbying in state legislatures, wherein low levels of descriptive representation often persist.
Keywords
gender, lobbying, women’s advocacy, field experiment, legislator behavior, state politics

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