TRENDS: Do Women Seek “Women of Color” for Public Office? Exploring Women’s Support for Electing Women of Color

• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920971793
• Date: 01 June 2021
• Published date: 01 June 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920971793

Political Research Quarterly

2021, Vol. 74(2) 259 –273

© 2020 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920971793

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Article

Scholars frequently invoke the term “women of color”

(WOC) in their research, and, increasingly, the media

make reference to WOC in news stories. Despite this

common usage, researchers have failed to investigate

whether the phrase WOC is politically advantageous.

That is, do all women, black, Latina, Asian, white, and

mixed-race women, support WOC candidates? This

omission is unfortunate considering the large body of lit-

erature about race and gender politics concerned with

descriptive representation and the extent of coethnic vot-

ing and gender affinity effects.

As a whole, we are starting to know more about sub-

sets of race-gendered identities, though we know less

about the label WOC. How do different subgroups of

women respond to the prospect of electing more WOC to

Congress? How do WOC fare in reaching elective office?

Additionally, do all women, black, Latina, Asian, white,

and mixed-race women, support electing more WOC?

Using original, national public opinion data, we draw

on theories of intersectionality and social identity to inves-

tigate how different subgroups of women respond to the

prospect of electing more WOC to Congress.1 In so doing,

we control for preferences for electing more “women” to

Congress in order to isolate the racial component

of women’s preferences. This paper does not directly

examine who belongs to the umbrella identity and what it

means, if anything, for these individuals but takes a dif-

ferent approach. Consistent with group differences in the

historic processes of racialization, our findings reveal

considerable complexity within the WOC umbrella. We

found that white women expressed the least support for

having more WOC in Congress compared to the other

racial groups. Black, Latina, Asian, and mixed-race

women also differed from one another. Black women

were the most enthusiastic supporters of WOC, followed

by Latinas. Finally, the largest racial gap in preferences

occurred between black and white women.

Studying WOC in Congress is a timely enterprise.

WOC are increasingly winning elective office, and the

media are increasingly using the term WOC. These two

facts suggest additional reasons that scholars should be

interested in our study. Though WOC in Congress remain

971793PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920971793Political Research QuarterlyMatos et al.

research-article2020

1Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Yalidy Matos, Rutgers University, 89 George Street, Hickman Hall,

New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.

Email: yalidy.matos@rutgers.edu

TRENDS: Do Women Seek “Women of

Color” for Public Office? Exploring

Women’s Support for Electing

Women of Color

Yalidy Matos1, Stacey Greene1, and Kira Sanbonmatsu1

Abstract

Scholars frequently invoke the term “women of color” (WOC) in their research, and, increasingly, the media make

reference to WOC in news stories. Despite this common usage, researchers have failed to investigate whether the

phrase WOC is politically advantageous. That is, do all women, black, Latina, Asian, white, and mixed-race women,

support WOC candidates? This omission is unfortunate considering the large body of literature about race and

gender politics concerned with descriptive representation and the extent of coethnic voting and gender affinity

effects. Using original public opinion data, we draw on theories of intersectionality and social identity to hypothesize

about how different subgroups of women respond to the prospect of electing more WOC to Congress. Consistent

with group differences in the historic processes of racialization, our findings reveal considerable complexity within

the WOC umbrella. Even within this complexity, we found that black and white women are the most distinctive in

their preference for electing WOC. We contribute to the gender and race fields by identifying WOC as a politicized

identity, and thus complicate and expand the study of descriptive representation.

Keywords

women of color, congressional candidates, descriptive representation, intersectionality, race/ethnicity, gender