Abstract

Political science has a rich tradition of empirical work on women and gender in governmental institutions. Legislative studies, in particular, has benefited from the attentions of scholars who have sought to “gender political institutions” by emphasizing the gendered aspects of the formal governmental arena . Among the main focuses of these studies are questions around: the substantive representation of women; the recruitment, promotion and behavior of female representatives within legislatures; how best to shift gendered institutional cultures; and whether and how best female representatives are able to access centers of power, accumulate institutional resources and affect decisions on an equal basis once present in governmental institutions .