Why Few Women Hold Public Office: Democracy and Sexual Roles
The 1974 general elections showed a marked increase in the number of women running for and elected to public office. Despite these gains, however, one should not lose sight -of the fact that relatively few women hold elected public office at any level of government in America today.' Whether a trend toward increased participation of women in elected public office is underway still remains to be seen. Ultimately it will depend on whether the factors that prohibited or inhibited women from participating in the past will continue to diminish in importance in the future. Serious attention should be given, therefore, to identifying these factors and to assessing their impact on women's political participation in the years to come. This article presents the results of a survey conducted among men and women participating in local politics in four suburbs of Westchester County, New York. The regrettable but straightforward conclusion of this study is that the percentage of women holding public office is unlikely to increase by a substantial amount in the future unless radical changes occur in current sexual role assignments. The findings show that the nature of sexual role assignments and role expectations in America (especially those related to child care) are such that