





































Introduction to the Special Issue on Women in Pennsylvania Politics


COMMONWEALTH, Volume 21, Issue 1 (2021). © 2021 The Pennsylvania Political Science Association.  
ISSN 2469-7672 (online). http://dx.doi.org/10.15367/com.v21i1.285. All rights reserved.

Introduction to the Special Issue 
on Women in Pennsylvania Politics

JENNIE SWEET-CUSHMAN
Special Issue Editor

Several years ago, as assistant director of the Pennsylvania Center for 
Women and Politics, I interviewed more than a dozen women serv-
ing in Pennsylvania’s General Assembly about the role women play in 

the legislature. Without exception and across region and party these women 
believe their presence as women matters tremendously in the legislative pro-
cess, to the legislative agenda, and for legislative outcomes. And they are right; 
women’s work in the Pennsylvania legislature leads to more advocacy for 
women’s issues, more collaboration among women, greater bipartisan effort, 
and—ultimately—more bills signed into law (Sweet-Cushman, 2020).

What these public servants have always known about their ability to both 
represent a diverse set of women’s interests well and work effectively as legisla-
tors is starting to become more visible to the general public. On the heels of 
the 2016 presidential election came a period of hyper-focus on gender equality, 
women’s issues, and female candidates running for office at every level. While 
the phenomenon benefitted primarily Democratic women, the 2018 midterm 
election was record breaking for women running and winning across the 
United States. Women now hold 25.2% of the seats in the U.S. Congress: 26 
seats in the U.S. Senate and 101 in the U.S. House of Representatives, a historic 
record for both chambers (Center for American Women and Politics 2020). At 



2 Jennie Sweet-CuShman

the state level, nine women now serve as governors (tying the previous record) 
and hold 29.2% of the states’ legislative seats.

Nowhere were the increases as dramatic as in Pennsylvania, a state ranked 
49th overall in women’s representation prior to the 2018 election (Represent 
Women 2017). The statistics read like a laundry list of dismal attributes. Penn-
sylvania has (still) never elected a woman to the U.S. Senate or as governor. 
The 114th and 115th Congresses had no women in the state’s 20-member 
congressional delegation. The state’s legislature ranked 39th in the nation for 
women’s representation (Center for American Women and Politics 2018), with 
almost no women in leadership on either side of the aisle. Of the state’s 67 
counties, 32 of them fail to have even one woman serving on its legislative 
body (Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics 2016). School boards in 
Pennsylvania are comprised of only 37% women (Pennsylvania Center for 
Women and Politics 2014), whereas nationally women have been near gender 
parity for many years.

However, the 2018 election represented something of a “pink wave” 
(for lack of a better term). The General Assembly saw notable increases. 
Women now hold 13 seats of the 50-member State Senate and 54 seats in the 
203- member State House chamber—26% of the state legislature, an all-time 
high. In another historic first, four women (all Democrats) were elected to the 
state’s congressional delegation. More women than ever ran for political office 
in the state, and more women than ever won political office. Nonetheless, in 
virtually every type of political office in the state, men continue to hold about 
80% of the seats.

While theories abound as to why women are generally underrepresented 
in American politics, why it is so profoundly bad in Pennsylvania is another 
question altogether. Some answers can be found on the institutional level, 
such as the daunting travel distance to Harrisburg (Silbermann 2015) and the 
professionalism and full-time operation of the General Assembly (Thomas 
1996). Some blame likely belongs with the state’s traditional political culture 
(Hill 1981) and, in particular, the parties’ traditional political culture (Free-
man 1986), which certainly contributes to: (1) issues surrounding demand 
for female candidates (Sanbonmatsu 2002; Crowder-Meyer 2013; also both 
Brown and Weikert in this issue); (2) the likelihood that women in the 
state see themselves as potential candidates (Fox and Lawless 2005; Sweet- 
Cushman 2018); and (3) whether voters have an affinity for female candidates 
(Sanbonmatsu 2006; Dolan 2014; Bauer 2015).

This issue of COMMONWEALTH recognizes that gender is increasingly 
important in Pennsylvania politics for voters, party elites, candidates, and the 
actions of our elected officials. We explore each of these aspects in this issue.



Introduction to the Special Issue on Women in Pennsylvania Politics 3

Sarah Niebler and A. Lanethea Mathews-Schultz analyze Pennsylvania 
exit poll data they collected in both 2016 and 2018 to explore patterns in vot-
ing decision-making. They find, much like broader research on vote choice, 
that political party is the major driver of attitudes toward female candidates. 
However, more nuanced attitudes about women in politics are conditioned by 
gender, with women of both parties being more likely than men to see gender 
as playing a role in women’s political representation. This research provides 
rich insight into what drives Pennsylvania voters and how their views of poli-
tics may be influenced by their gender and their views of women in politics.

One of their findings is that there is significant belief (30% or more) in 
Pennsylvania’s electorate, across party and gender, that female candidates get 
less support from party leaders. Dana Brown tackles precisely this problem 
in her qualitative exploration of party leaders’ approach to candidate recruit-
ment. We know from previous research that candidate recruitment is fre-
quently a gendered selection process. Across more than 30 interviews with 
county party chairs and vice chairs of both the Republican and Democratic 
parties, Brown identifies a mixed approach to recruitment, all of which pre-
dominately leads to the recruitment of male candidates. As she writes, “Only 
one county party chair spoke of intentionally including women as part of the 
pool of candidates” (this issue, 48).

How then did the 2018 midterm elections result in such a marked increase 
in the number of women running (and winning) political office in the Com-
monwealth, and is it likely to continue into 2020 and beyond? Joshua Weikert 
interviewed female candidates who sought political office in 2018 to get a 
sense of how they were recruited, what their motivations were, and how per-
sistent they were. In doing so, he hopes to determine whether the “pink wave” 
of 2018 was another singular “year of the woman” (like 1992), or a continu-
ing trend in Pennsylvania politics. His findings are encouraging. The can-
didates—both successful and unsuccessful—whom he interviewed reported 
some success in volunteering as candidates or being recruited by the party and 
a marked intent to stay engaged in politics by recruiting others or running 
again in the future.

Weikert’s findings are most encouraging given the compelling evidence 
that gender parity in representation is important from a democratic perspec-
tive: when people feel they are represented in their government, they are more 
likely to trust that government (Mansbridge 1999; Gay 2002). Given the his-
toric low of American trust in government, a mere 17% of citizens according 
to Pew Research Center (2019), increased representation of women must be 
perceived as a move in the right direction. There are also more applied reasons 
why women’s underrepresentation may be of concern. When women’s voices 



4 Jennie Sweet-CuShman

aren’t part of the conversation, public policy is often created that doesn’t con-
sider their unique lived experiences. Furthermore, women frequently bring 
a unique leadership and governance style to their roles as elected officials 
(Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, and Van Engen 2003; Schneider et al. 2016). 
The legislators I interviewed in the General Assembly all agreed that women 
approached their jobs in a distinct, positive way (Sweet-Cushman 2020).

Benjamin Melusky in his article offers a high-profile example of precisely 
why women’s representation can have broad and meaningful consequences 
in the realm of public policy. Drawing on gender role socialization theory, 
Melusky demonstrates how the presence of women, with their differently 
socialized legislating style, impacts the state budget process. He finds that 
this frequently divisive battle in the state legislature is made easier by compro-
mise-inclined female legislators and concludes that the annual process would 
benefit from the continued addition of female legislators to the body. Presum-
ably, so too would other lawmaking processes.

It bears repeating: never in the Commonwealth’s history has there been 
a female governor or U.S. senator. That should be shocking to those who call 
the Keystone State home. The exit polls conducted by Niebler and Mathews-
Schultz reveal just how ill-informed voters are about women’s underrepresen-
tation—only 8% accurately identified how many women were in the state’s 
congressional delegation. The authors included in this issue draw attention 
to the obstacles to electing more women, particularly the role of Pennsylva-
nia’s strong political parties. As Niebler and Mathews-Schultz demonstrate, 
that partisan attachment strongly influences vote choice. If, as Brown finds, 
women are typically not inherently part of party recruitment processes, 
there will be fewer women on the partisan ballot to choose from when voters 
approach with their partisan lens. Demand for female candidates is unlikely 
to change.

However, as Weikert reveals, supply of female candidates very well might 
change. Many of the 2018 candidates who ran initiated their own candidacies, 
effectively working around the gendered system of recruitment that Brown’s 
interviews describe. While it isn’t clear whether these women received the 
type of support they needed from their party after they initiated their candi-
dacies, they were clearly very successful in 2018 and, as Weikert reports, they 
remain motivated to promote other candidates (women candidates, perhaps) 
and to stay engaged themselves.

Ultimately, electing more women just for the sake of electing more women 
isn’t necessarily anyone’s goal. The broader point is that when women are 
underrepresented, women’s needs are underrepresented in policymaking and 
women’s strengths in governance are also underrepresented. Melusky gives 



Introduction to the Special Issue on Women in Pennsylvania Politics 5

us but one example, the state legislative budget process, in which all Penn-
sylvanians benefit when women are at the table, but it is not hard to imagine 
that more collaborative, collegial, and bipartisan environments would benefit 
other policy areas as well. Future elections may reveal whether Pennsylvania 
voters come to agree.

REFERENCES

Bauer, Nichole M. 2015. “Emotional, Sensitive, and Unfit for Office? Gender Stereotype 
Activation and Support Female Candidates.” Political Psychology 36 (December): 
691–708.

Center for American Women and Politics. 2018. “Women in State Legislatures, 2018.” 
Available at https://cawp.rutgers.edu/women-state-legislature-2018.

———. 2020. “Women in the U.S. Congress, 2020.” Available at https://cawp.rutgers.edu/
women-us-congress-2020.

Crowder-Meyer, Melody. 2013. “Gendered Recruitment without Trying: How Local Party 
Recruiters Affect Women’s Representation.” Politics & Gender 9 (December): 390–
413.

Dolan, Kathy. 2014. When Does Gender Matter?: Women Candidates and Gender Stereo-
types in American Elections. New York: Oxford University Press.

Eagly, Alice H., Mary C. Johannesen-Schmidt, and Marloes L. Van Engen. 2003. “Trans-
formational, Transactional, and Laissez-Faire Leadership Styles: A Meta-Analysis 
Comparing Women and Men.” Psychological Bulletin 129 (July): 569–591.

Fox, Richard L., and Jennifer L. Lawless. 2005. “To Run or Not to Run for Office: Explain-
ing Nascent Political Ambition.” American Journal of Political Science  49 (July): 
642–659.

Freeman, Jo. 1986. “The Political Culture of the Democratic and Republican Parties.” 
Political Science Quarterly 101 (3): 327–356.

Gay, Claudine. 2002. “Spirals of Trust? The Effect of Descriptive Representation on the 
Relationship Between Citizens and Their Government.” American Journal of Political 
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Hill, David B. 1981. “Political Culture and Female Political Representation.” The Journal 
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Mansbridge, Jane. 1999. “Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? 
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———. 2016. “Fact Sheet.”
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6 Jennie Sweet-CuShman

Silbermann, Rachel. 2015. “Gender Roles, Work-Life Balance, and Running for Office.” 
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Sweet-Cushman, Jennie. 2018. “Where Does the Pipeline Get Leaky? The Progressive 
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———. 2020. “Gendered Legislative Effectiveness in State Legislatures: The Case of Penn-
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Jennie Sweet-Cushman is an associate professor of political science at Chatham Univer-
sity, where from 2013 to 2019 she also served as the assistant director of the Pennsylvania 
Center for Women and Politics and was awarded the Buhl Professorship in 2020. Her 
research focuses on women’s political ambition and representation in the United States as 
well as gender equity in academia. Her recent work has appeared in PS: Political Science & 
Politics; Politics, Groups, and Identities; and Politics and the Life Sciences; and her ongoing 
project on the first-in-the-nation majority-female Nevada state legislature was awarded 
the 2019 Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for research in women and politics. She was the 2020 
recipient of the APSA CQ Press Award for Teaching Innovation. 


