





































Gendered Pathways to Power


COMMONWEALTH, Volume 21, Issue 1 (2021). © 2021 The Pennsylvania Political Science Association.  
ISSN 2469-7672 (online). http://dx.doi.org/10.15367/com.v21i1.287. All rights reserved.

Gendered Pathways to Power

Identifying the Role of County Party Chairs  

in the Candidate Recruitment Process  

of Pennsylvania’s Local Elective Offices

DANA BROWN
Chatham University

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has historically fared poorly in terms of 
the proportion of women serving in its governing bodies. After a historic year 
of women in politics in 2018, Pennsylvania increased its proportion of women 
serving in the state legislature from 19% to 26%, which is still far from parity. 
Why are women so underrepresented? Political scientists have tested various 
variables: women’s lack of political ambition, negative gatekeeping by political 
parties, and gender stereotypes negatively impacting female candidates, just to 
name a few. This paper focuses on the role that county party chairs and vice-
chairs play in recruiting female candidates to run for political office in Penn-
sylvania. In this article I ask: what do the recruitment efforts look like on the 
ground and how are the recruitment efforts gendered? In terms of recruitment 
efforts, I expect the stronger county party to have its leaders pull from infor-
mal networks that are extensions of the party leaders themselves. On the other 
hand, I expect weak county parties to cast a wide net for candidate recruitment 
and allow candidates to self-identify, which I call the “volunteer” model. I use 
interview data of county party chairs in order to understand the structure of 
candidate recruitment in Pennsylvania and the impact it may have on candi-
date selection.



Gendered Pathways to Power 31

Scholars have used a myriad of methods and theories to understand 
why women remain underrepresented in elective office.1 However, the 
extant literature specifically on the puzzle of women and politics in 

Pennsylvania is quite scarce. Scholars Deber (1982) and Hansen (1994) have 
focused their efforts on the lack of gender diversity amongst the state’s federal 
delegation.

Deber (1982) asks why so many of Pennsylvania’s congressional candi-
dates are white, middle-aged, and male. Her analysis focuses on the role of 
the individual and how women hold themselves back from running for office 
based on societal norms. She fails to consider the role that institutions such as 
political parties play as gatekeepers to electoral politics. A decade later Hansen 
(1994) primarily investigated why former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate 
Lynn Yeakel lost her bid in 1992 to Senator Arlen Specter. Her work revealed 
four main reasons for the paucity of women in Pennsylvania politics: (1) a 
traditional political culture, (2) the strong party system, (3) a male-dominated 
party structure, and (4) the professionalized legislature. Each worked to keep 
women’s representation low.

This article aims to better understand the underrepresentation of women 
in Pennsylvania politics as a function of the state’s traditional political culture, 
its strong party system, and the candidate recruitment practices of its politi-
cal parties. Specifically, what role do county parties play in recruiting female 
candidates to run for political office in Pennsylvania? Additionally, there is 
tension among the gender and party politics literature as to whether the party 
structure is advantageous to female candidates (Crowder-Meyer 2010) or an 
obstacle (Niven 2006; Sanbonmatsu 2006). Lastly, this article studies candidate 
recruitment practices at the local level, which is important given that most 
individuals who hold elective office do so at the local level (Trounstine 2008).

Relying on county party leader interviews, this article offers a narrative of 
the following three elements of the candidate recruitment process in Pennsyl-
vania: what the candidate process looks like across county parties, the impact 
of these practices on women’s representation, and the role that elite attitudes 
about women and politics play.

Candidate Recruitment

In an attempt to learn about what role political elites and their organizations 
play in perpetuating the underrepresentation of women in government, Niven 
(1998) surveyed county party chairs and locally elected women from four 
states2 to determine if there was a male selection bias in the chairs’ recruit-
ment efforts. Niven found that there was evidence of an in-group preference 



32 Dana brOwn

where the predominantly male party chairs favored masculine traits from 
occupations to personalities. Of the female officeholders surveyed, 64% 
said that party leaders actively discouraged their candidacy. Burrell coined 
the term “selectorate” to refer to party members involved at some stage in 
shortlisting candidates (1993, 291), but from Niven’s research we learn that 
the selectorate can also exist on the local level, which impacts the pipeline of 
female candidates.

Sanbonmatsu (2006) investigated the role that political parties play in the 
candidate recruitment process for state legislatures across six states3 by inter-
viewing and surveying party leaders. The party leaders’ responses were as 
diverse as the states studied, but there were some patterns that emerged. Like 
Niven, Sanbonmatsu found that the “selectorate” recruited candidates from 
the recruiters’ own personal network. Sanbonmatsu also confirmed a correla-
tion between states with strong parties and fewer female candidates. When 
parties were strong, women tended to be ignored while men were actively 
recruited and endorsed.

Crowder-Meyer (2010) found that strong, active, and structured parties ran 
more female candidates than weak parties. Crowder-Meyer found this pattern 
to be even more pronounced in the Democratic Party than in the Republican 
Party when women led the local parties. Parties that worked with non-party 
groups such as community groups, volunteer organizations, and outside inter-
est groups ran more female candidates, as women are more likely to partici-
pate in non-party groups than in political party organizations. Less traditional 
means of recruitment are decidedly more effective at recruiting women:

Party leaders who look for candidates using traditional party member 
and officeholder networks will be more likely to find male candidates, 
while those who look beyond the party in sub-county offices and 
social networks of party members will be more likely to find female 
candidates. (Crowder-Meyer 2013, 409)

I investigate how and when county party leaders rely on informal net-
works to identify potential candidates in Pennsylvania. I consider how county 
party leaders explain the paucity of women in Pennsylvania politics and the 
gendered implications for our representational bodies of government.

All Politics Is Local

Simply because women are holding office at local governments at slightly 
higher rates than the federal level, this in no way means that women are 



Gendered Pathways to Power 33

present in local governments at a desired level (Dolan, Deckman, and Swers 
2007). Thus, studying candidate recruitment at the local level is still a largely 
underdeveloped and highly relevant area to explore in order to better under-
stand the underrepresentation of women in Pennsylvania politics. Pennsylva-
nia has many of the variables that women and politics scholars use to predict 
lower representation of women, such as a professional legislature, traditional 
political party structure, and support for traditional gender roles4 (NCSL 
2017). In light of Crowder-Meyer’s (2010) arguments that strong parties may 
potentially benefit women’s candidacies, Pennsylvania boasting a historically 
“strong” party system represents a good test case of the role that parties may 
play in the recruitment process.

Candidate Recruitment Typology

I anticipate that Pennsylvania’s county political parties will rely mostly 
on informal recruitment efforts to identify candidates. Informal candidate 
recruitment is defined as political party officials identifying and encouraging 
potential candidates to run who are already “favored” by party elites, thereby 
perpetuating the political culture of exclusivity. Informal recruitment tends to 
draw from men and women who are close with party officials, if they are not 
already party activists themselves. The unintended gendered consequence of 
this informal recruitment effort is that party leaders may be choosing from 
male-dominated networks (Crowder-Meyer 2013; Niven 2006; Sanbonmatsu 
2006).

Drawing from previous work that has found Pennsylvania’s political cul-
ture to be traditional and conservative, I can anticipate that this culture will 
have an impact on candidate recruitment practices (Brown 2015; Deber 1982; 
Hansen 1994). Therefore, I argue that party elites will discuss the paucity of 
women in politics through a discriminatory lens of benevolent sexism. Glick 
and Fiske (2001) define benevolent discrimination as being in the “woman’s 
best interest,” which allows it to be more widely accepted and pervasive.

Political Party Strength and Recruitment Efforts

County party strength derives a portion of its power from voter registration. 
Therefore, in each of the 67 county parties in Pennsylvania, one will find a 
party that is stronger than the other—a majority party and a minority party. 
I expect the stronger county party to engage in informal recruitment efforts. 
However, due to the overall political culture of the state that was deemed 
strong (Hansen 1994; Mayhew 1986), the minority county party may also 



34 Dana brOwn

engage in informal recruitment activities as a default due to lack of resources. 
While the stronger party may be informally recruiting from an exclusive tier 
of individuals in the community; the weaker party may use its informal net-
work to draw from as well, with differing electoral success. I also anticipate 
that the minority party may also engage in “volunteer” recruitment and allow 
candidates to self-identify and come forward to the party given the lack of 
institutional resources at their disposal. However, if desperate to field a can-
didate for an open position, the weaker party may engage in “formal” recruit-
ment efforts. Unfortunately, there are gendered outcomes in all of these types 
of recruitment efforts.

Methods

Thirty chairs and vice-chairs, representing 23 counties, were interviewed 
out of the universe of 281 chairs and vice-chairs across Pennsylvania. The 
interviews were conducted via telephone between September 2012 and March 
2013. Of the 30 interviews, 18 were Democrats and 12 were Republicans, 14 
women and 16 men. The interviews lasted, on average, half an hour and were 
recorded. The interview topics included: the party’s role in recruitment; the 
activities of the county party; party assistance with candidates; observa-
tions on the role of gender in seeking election; what groups, if any, the party 
works with to identify candidates; and observations as to why there are so few 
women in Pennsylvania politics. Interviews were chosen as a form of inquiry 
in order to understand party elites’ complex attitudes toward recruitment and 
more specifically what role gender plays, if any, in their local politics.

I rely on an interpretative approach (Soss 2005). The interpretative 
approach is one that allows the researcher to remain analytical and not simply 
code and accept a respondent’s description on face value. Rather, researchers 
must make sense of statements contextually to give it meaning.

Analysis

From the interviews, patterns emerged: 15 interviewees identified using infor-
mal recruitment through personal/organizational networks; 0 interviewees 
identified solely relying on formal recruitment through paid advertisements; 4 
interviewees described a lack of recruitment by using the volunteer approach; 
3 respondents spoke of using a mix of informal and formal models; and 7 
spoke of recruiting by using both informal and volunteer efforts. This section 
will highlight examples of these patterns of recruitment discussed by Penn-
sylvania county party leaders.



Gendered Pathways to Power 35

Informal Recruitment Model

The most prevalent of the various types of recruitment was informal, which 
is typified by 15 interviewees. The interviewees explained the informal pro-
cess of party leaders talking to people they know about possible openings in 
upcoming elections. Evidence of informal recruitment was plentiful and dis-
cussed by county party leaders in all pockets of the Commonwealth. Describ-
ing his candidate recruitment method, Roger Lund, the Democratic Chair 
of Adams County, provides a thorough explanation of his county’s informal 
recruitment method and why formal advertisements are less desirable:

It’s mostly through other party mechanisms because you can advertise 
something in the paper and you get some wing-nut that wants to be 
on your party’s ticket, and so we try to not do that. It’s more of a case 
of networking through people we know. We will put the word out 
through our county committee and say, ‘Do you have people within 
your church, do you have people within civic organizations that belong 
to the fireman’s fire halls or whatever that might have an interest in 
running for office?’ And a lot of times we’ll also look at people who 
are sitting on borough councils, mayors throughout the county to see 
if they have any interest in running for offices that are higher level. 
So, we cast kind of a wide net, we don’t do any advertising per se, it is 
word of mouth. (Lund 2012)

In this introductory explanation of how recruitment is done at the 
county level, Mr. Lund identifies the possible gendered consequence of put-
ting “the word out.” When instructing other committee members to recruit 
candidates, he begins by stating that they begin with an informal process by 
“networking through people we know” (Lund 2012). He goes on to mention 
organizations that are heavily male dominated: fire halls, borough coun-
cils, and mayor’s offices. The “people we know” he mentions will most likely 
look much like the people doing the recruiting. Mr. Lund is describing a 
potentially gendered process with gendered consequences, even though he 
believes he casts “a wide net.” In sum, the process in Adams County, located 
in south-central Pennsylvania, is quite typical of county parties as their 
process begins internally and then looks outwardly at those related to the 
party network. This example is one that echoes the work of Sanbonmatsu 
(2006) and Crowder-Meyer (2013) as it has all of the hallmarks of an informal 
recruitment process, yet the process is being led by the minority party of the 
county (the Democratic Party).5



36 Dana brOwn

Similarly, the Republican Chair of Blair County, Mr. Stickel, articulates 
the informal process that often begins internally to identify and recruit can-
didates before moving on to the outside community:

I, as chairman or sometimes somebody who is on that committee 
will sort of identify somebody who has risen to the top. We get to 
know them through the campaign so somebody who’s out there now 
working for a presidential candidate, or one of our other candidates, 
who really steps up and takes a leadership role—that’s really the first 
chance we get to know some people. Then sometimes we’ll discuss 
with them, “Have you ever considered running for office? Here are 
some needs.“ The second thing that we do, that we’re starting to do 
more and more, is work with the Chamber of Commerce, to work 
within other organizations to see people who are in leadership posi-
tions there who’ve done a good job and support our principles and our 
platform. (Stickel 2012)

Again, it is important to note that county party leaders may not be inten-
tionally recruiting from one gender more than the other through their infor-
mal recruitment process. However, many county parties continue to rely on 
the same internal and informal structures of the party that helped create the 
gender gap of elected officials in Pennsylvania politics. Further, the organiza-
tion that the chair identifies to help with recruitment, the Chamber of Com-
merce, is heavily male dominated as it is an entity that promotes business 
interests to governing bodies. What is most interesting about Mr. Stickel’s 
interview is that while he believes he has an open-door policy on candidates, 
many of the tactics on how and when to recruit candidates can lead to favor-
ing the male party regulars.

Mixed Model: Informal and Volunteer

Jeff Smith, Republican Chair of Butler County, provides an example of infor-
mal networks and a volunteer model being deployed to recruit candidates by 
his Republican Party:

We would talk to the committee people, and this is primarily at the 
municipal level, maybe talk to other municipal officials in that area 
to try to identify somebody. We’ve also—we’re trying to get the word 
out through the committee people through the periodic occasional 
speaking opportunities that if people are interested in running to be 
sure and contact me. (Smith 2012)



Gendered Pathways to Power 37

In Mr. Smith’s example, Republican committeemen and women are asked 
to dispatch around the county and speak to groups. In this instance they are 
relying on the party’s network to meet with organizations and recruit from 
the groups they speak to. As he continued with his statement, he made it clear 
that people were able and encouraged to self-identify and then be vetted by 
the party apparatus.

One area of agreement among party leaders was incumbency protection. 
While not all county party leaders mentioned incumbency, when leaders did 
speak of it, they spoke of deferring to incumbents on their decision to run 
again. The process of most county party leaders was to allow incumbents first 
right of refusal to run, and if the incumbents declined to run, then and only 
then would the county parties begin to recruit for those seats.

Mixed Model: Formal and Informal Recruitment

While no county party leader identified relying solely on formal recruit-
ment efforts exemplified by paid advertisements, three county party leaders 
explained that they use formal and informal methods in order to recruit can-
didates. One of those county party leaders was Allegheny County Democratic 
Committee Chair Dr. Nancy Mills. At the time of the interview, a special elec-
tion was under way and Dr. Mills6 used that election as an example in many of 
her comments on recruitment. When asked if the recruitment process for the 
election was formal or informal she responded in the following way:

I have been open to anybody who would call to inquire. Now, this 
would just be the informal by word of mouth—the insiders know that 
the seat’s coming up, I let the public know too because I’ve been inter-
viewed by the Tribune Review and the Post-Gazette on this subject. So, 
now to get into a formal invitation to apply . . . we send out a letter to 
all of the chairs of the different municipalities within the 42nd district 
to advise them that we are going to be nominating a candidate for that 
seat. We also advertise it on our website and we also send out a press 
release to all the media to advise the general public what seat it is, 
when it will be available, and what the filing dates are to be a candidate 
for the seat. So, we have informal and formal. (Mills 2012)

What is typical in her response is her reliance on informal “word of mouth” 
and the expectation that “insiders know that the seat’s coming up.” Because 
it is a special election in the second-most populous county in the state, there 
is increased press coverage that many other elections would not garner. So, 
Dr. Mills, the party chair, uses the press to share the information with the 



38 Dana brOwn

public as well as on the Democratic Party’s website. Due to the fact that this 
is a special election, no primary was to take place—in order to get on the bal-
lot, one needed to be nominated by the Democratic Party. Hence, the role of 
“insiders” and party officials played very prominently. In Allegheny County 
the Democratic Party relies on a mix of both formal and informal processes 
to ferret out candidates. More generally, Dr. Mills explains that recruitment 
is ongoing:

We do not have a specific committee just to recruit candidates because 
it’s too specific . . . that’s why we have chairs in all of our municipali-
ties. So, if they’re going to look for a candidate, for instance, for the 
school board in Moon Township, then the local chair is looking all the 
time . . . every meeting they go to within the community . . . you sort of 
get into the feel of it, you’re always looking for someone to run some-
day and so people . . . say you were in Moon Township and they saw 
you and thought, “Boy, Dana would be a great candidate,” they might 
invite you to be a member of the local committee so that you can learn 
the political process from the real grassroots and understand what the 
procedure is to become a candidate. (Mills 2012)

Unfortunately, the informal recruitment process may also have a gendered 
outcome, as it relies on individuals’ own subjective ideas about what a leader 
looks and sounds like. We know from gender stereotype research that indi-
viduals can react to leadership styles in a very gendered way (Bauer 2015, 
2018; Ditonto 2017; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993). However, Mills makes it 
very clear that her party is actively recruiting and targeting women to run for 
public office. Dr. Mills is well aware of the interviewer’s role and work at the 
Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics at Chatham University and has 
participated in the center’s Ready to Run™ Campaign Training for Women 
as a speaker on party politics. This is important to acknowledge because the 
interviewee kept actively stating the role of the party in recruiting women, yet 
at the time of the interview there was only one woman from the county serv-
ing in the state legislature. Only recently, in the 2018 election, did Allegheny 
County elect six women to the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives 
and two to the state senate.7 It is possible that social desirability affected her 
responses given how few women were actually serving at that time.

I was able to determine that the Allegheny County Democratic Commit-
tee (ACDC) uses a mix of informal personal networks and formal news and 
website outlets as the primary mechanisms for recruitment. The volunteer 
model at the ACDC was discouraged, as Dr. Mills stated, “It doesn’t work 



Gendered Pathways to Power 39

by just coming in from the outside and say I think I’ll run. Pay your dues, 
maybe that’s the easiest way to describe it. You hear it all the time. I hate that 
expression, but I think that it probably does apply” (Mills 2012). One could 
also interpret that as the majority party in the county with 56% of the voters 
in the county supporting Obama in 2012 (Politico 2014), her discussion of 
volunteerism is a signal of the negative gatekeeping that occurs when a volun-
teer emerges. Similar to Mr. Stickel, the Republican Chair of Blair County, Dr. 
Mills first looks internally to insiders and her networks to recruit, but differs 
in that she favors “paying one’s dues” to the party before getting the support 
to run. Paying one’s dues and being told to “wait your turn” are gendered 
responses with gendered consequences as it is men who have tended to be with 
the party for longer periods of time (Sanbonmatsu 2006).

Other organizations use a mix of recruitment methods as well. As Marilyn 
Levin, Chair of the Democratic Party of Dauphin County stated:

Currently, we have a candidate recruitment committee. . . . They have 
been given a budget so that they can advertise in local newspapers or 
the major newspaper if they choose. . . . In the past . . . me and the can-
didate’s chairman did most of the work finding people. Well, I don’t 
think that’s a successful way to build an organization, so I’ve set this 
new way up and we’ve expanded the candidate’s committee. I’ve given 
them free reign to go ahead and recruit candidates and interview can-
didates. (Levin 2012)

Ms. Levin articulated a process wherein a committee of individuals seeks 
potential candidates and reviews their resumes, and the two ways to reach 
those potential candidates, through paid advertisements and networks of the 
recruitment committee.

Volunteer Recruitment Model

The volunteer model was articulated by four county party leaders. This model 
is one that waits for potential candidates to approach the political party com-
mittee. Bill Benner, Republican Chair of Perry County, offers a primary exam-
ple of relying on “volunteerism” to recruit candidates for public office:

While it’s not a formal process, it’s when there is a vacancy, often 
someone has pre-positioned themselves to run for that vacancy, or 
perhaps two or three people have pre-positioned themselves to run 
for that vacancy. So, the committee themselves really is not engaged 



40 Dana brOwn

actively in trying to go out and find folks, usually folks come out to 
us. (Benner 2012)

Mr. Benner makes clear that candidates are self-determined as the com-
mittee members respond only when candidates present themselves. Even 
more to the point is a male Democratic County Party Chair who did not want 
to be identified. When asked about his county party’s recruitment process 
he responded: “Well, I don’t think there’s anything terribly serious about it; 
there are people who raise their hands and volunteer, so to speak, and then 
come to the county committee in search of support.” From this I gather that 
the committee is quite passive and does not seek candidates, but rather can-
didates self-identify. Thus, the process can be inherently gendered favoring 
entrepreneurs who historically have been male (Lawless and Fox 2005, 2010; 
Sanbonmatsu, Carroll, and Walsh 2009).

Another example of the volunteer recruitment approach can be found 
in the Republican Party of Blair County. Mr. Donald Belsey, Party Vice-
Chair states, “as far as the process is concerned, no, it doesn’t exist. The most 
important thing that we come across is the fact, people themselves, if they 
opt to become candidates then they approach us” (Belsey 2012). Again, I 
would argue that this type of recruitment has a very gendered consequence. 
The lack of targeted recruitment and failure to ask women to run trans-
lates into fewer female candidates. Both Lawless and Fox (2010) as well as 
Crowder-Meyer (2013) indicate that if and when parties do intentionally 
recruit women to run for public office, women are more likely to agree to be 
candidates. Yet, this is not happening regularly across the county parties in 
Pennsylvania.

Parties may go on to invoke any or all recruitment practices depending on 
the electoral climate at the time. The Chair of the Blair County Republican 
Party, Mr. Stickel discusses the intersection of recruitment practices, incum-
bency protection, and gatekeeping:

Sometimes people will come to us and say, “Hey, I’d like to run.” Let 
me go on to say that nobody needs my permission to run and that 
might be unique. I know that there are some county committees, not 
necessarily Democrats or Republicans are unique to that, but there are 
county committees or county chairmen that feel like you need to get 
their blessing to run. That’s not why I’m here or why our committee’s 
here. If you’re committed to run then we’ll help you. We only recruit 
candidates where there is no candidate, or where there’s essentially 
a very weak candidate. As a committee we don’t go out and recruit 



Gendered Pathways to Power 41

candidates to run against incumbents, not that we absolutely sup-
port incumbents, but we’re not going to find somebody to run against 
them. (Stickel 2012)

Mr. Stickel argues that if a newcomer from outside the party structure 
wants to run and there is no incumbent, the party will not prevent him or her 
from running, which is not the case in all county parties. Certainly, if you are 
an outsider coming to the party, they too will encourage you and you will not 
need to wait in order to run for public office.

Based on previous political science work, all of the recruitment models 
identified have a potential gendered consequence that favors male candidates. 
Given all of the work done on the gendered political ambition gap (Lawless 
and Fox 2010) and knowing that men are more likely to run for office sim-
ply to “fulfill a long-term goal” (Sanbonmatsu, Carroll, and Walsh 2009), the 
volunteer model leads us down a path where mostly males will self-identify as 
candidates. It is quite possible that many party leaders, including Mr. Benner, 
view the “volunteer” model as being gender neutral, but the political science 
literature points to a very gendered consequence that can favor male candi-
dates from this recruitment practice.

Gatekeeping

Overall, there were only a few cases of gatekeeping articulated by the party 
leaders. Previous work on Pennsylvania has indicated that it is a strong party 
state, meaning that one would expect to have strong gatekeeping measures, 
especially that of a formidable endorsement process. Therefore, political new-
comers like women would have a difficult time breaking into this old system 
that essentially promotes from within. Moreover, the Pennsylvania party sys-
tem has been previously described as the primary gatekeeper as to whether or 
not a candidate could even run, let alone seek the endorsement.

A male Republican County Chair explains the role of many county parties 
regarding gatekeeping, recruitment, and endorsement:

Once upon a time before I was chairman [there] had [been] a very 
heavy machine, [county] party machine, and you see it a lot in the 
counties and suburban southeastern Pennsylvania. Montgomery 
County, Delaware County, Chester, Bucks, these are known for having 
very strong machines such that, really the only way you get to run for 
office and have a viable chance of winning is if you have the blessing 
of that machine.8



42 Dana brOwn

A handful of examples offered by county party leaders in the interviews 
revealed that they mainly deterred candidates from running if they felt that 
the potential candidate lacked name recognition or had some type of crimi-
nal background. So, for some potential candidates, party leaders would redi-
rect them and encourage them to involve themselves in the community more 
before running for office. If a potential candidate had a criminal background, 
they deterred the candidate from running to protect the party and the indi-
vidual from humiliation. Other leaders acted as gatekeepers by redirecting 
potential candidates to offices more appropriate to match the individual’s 
credentials. A Republican male county party chair stated that he deterred 
candidates:

Not for any fundamental reason, meaning, not because I want to clear 
the field for anyone; but I have suggested to people that while they’re 
free to run, they may not have what’s really required to run at the level 
they’re choosing. And I would suggest that they try something more 
appropriate to them.9

The party leader’s words are very subjective here, which can lead to male 
selection bias (Niven 2006).

We know from experimental work (Bauer 2015, 2018; Ditonto 2017; Huddy 
and Terkildsen 1993) that gender stereotypes often inform how an individual 
evaluates candidates both on traits as well as on issue competencies. There-
fore, it is always a bit concerning when any party official has chosen to be 
the arbiter of experience in order to run. Delving deeper into the process of 
gatekeeping, State Senator Wayne Fontana who served briefly as Vice-Chair 
of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee:

So, in order to gain name recognition, in order to run a campaign to 
beat an incumbent possibly, it may take a lot of money, and it may not 
be able to be attained. So, you may have to wait. You may have to say, 
“Well don’t run this time, run next time,” or you need to begin to work 
the political system and get your name out there on your own, a year 
or two ahead by just going out and meeting people and those kinds 
of things before you actually run for office. And a lot of times it’s a 
timing thing, it’s about the timing of the actual race. (Fontana 2012)

Similar to Senator Fontana, Christopher Decker of the Republican Party of 
Pike County explained that he might engage in negative gatekeeping through 
an “off-the-record conversation with a candidate and telling them that it 



Gendered Pathways to Power 43

might not be in the best interest of the party just because it would cause a 
split, or they would lose . . . but it would have to take some very serious cir-
cumstances for that to happen” (Decker 2012).

Other examples of gatekeeping were explicitly based on gender stereo-
types. Ruth Ann Shaffer, Democratic Vice-Chair of York County, provided 
examples of when she and/or another party leader had to deter a candidate 
from running. Ms. Shaffer quickly offered an example involving a woman 
who was turned away to rethink running for school board until her children 
were older. She stated:

It was a woman and she didn’t have, again it was for school board, and 
we told her she’d be perfectly fine to run for the school board, but she 
needed to be honest and realistic about how much time she would be 
able to give to the school board because she had—I think it was five 
children and they were all under the age of 16. Education wise she was 
great, but since most of us had served on a school board, we knew how 
much time was involved and we told her to think about it and come 
back the following week. And she came back and thanked us for lis-
tening to her and she decided not to until her children were older and 
we said that would be great. She really would have been well qualified, 
but we didn’t know that she would have the time for that. We’re pretty 
frank. (Shaffer 2012)

Based on Ms. Shaffer’s example, the county party leaders did not immediately 
turn the woman away from running, but they did plant the seed of doubt in 
her head and had her think about it. Returning to the political ambition and 
confidence literature, it is not surprising that the woman erred on the side of 
caution about being able to manage the elective and domestic duties. Addi-
tionally, a female county leader who has some authority on the matter deterred 
the potential candidate, which is not surprising given that both women and 
men are susceptible to perpetuating gender stereotypes. Interestingly, not one 
county party leader gave an example of suggesting to a male candidate that he 
reconsider running because he had young children at home.

While there are cases of negative gatekeeping across Pennsylvania, there 
were some county party leaders who indicated that they were actively chang-
ing their by-laws to ensure that they were no longer gatekeepers. Rather, they 
preferred to have the primary process take place and give voters the power to 
act in that capacity. One can chart this transition with fewer county parties 
engaging in an endorsement process than they once had and certainly with 
fewer leaders actively deterring candidates. However, when party leaders do 



44 Dana brOwn

choose to deter folks, it could have a more negative impact on women’s candi-
dacies than men’s—whether it is through subjective comments about “waiting 
your turn,” making sure the office sought and the candidate’s qualities are 
a match, or the sexist comments that women should wait until their child-
rearing responsibilities dissipate.

Pennsylvania’s Political and Social Culture

“It’s traditional.” Throughout many interviews there was a statement, example, 
or insinuation that Pennsylvania’s political, social, and cultural orientation 
was “traditional” in some fashion. However, party leaders were also quick to 
explain that both the state’s culture and party organizations were very slowly 
transitioning to a less conservative atmosphere. I did not specifically ask what 
the culture of the state was, but two questions in particular seemed to really 
draw it out: (1) “Have you noticed any patterns that women and men take to 
get elected to county or state office in terms of past experience? Recruitment? 
Officeholding?” (2) “Some people say that men make better candidates for 
some elective offices than women. Or, that women make better candidates 
for some offices than men. Based on your experience as a county party leader, 
why do you think people believe this?” Through these questions, respondents 
established themselves in one of three camps: first, they believed that many 
citizens of Pennsylvania, but not themselves, still hold onto strong gender 
stereotypes; second, they believed in traditional gender stereotypes, without 
explicitly stating it; or third, gender stereotypes may have mattered, but Penn-
sylvania was slowly changing like the rest of the United States. In total, many 
leaders provided very stereotypic examples of offices that were better suited 
for men and women. By doing so, the county party leaders tangentially spoke 
about the culture of the political parties and their communities.

William Miller, Democratic Chair of Clarion County, was reluctant and 
not proud to say it, but in his county, women rarely run for elective office. 
According to the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics at Chatham 
University, only 21% of Clarion County’s elected officials were women in 2012 
when the interview took place. Why? He states because it is “so traditional 
here” (Miller 2012). When asked to further explain that statement, Mr. Miller 
clarified:

Well, I mean, you look back in history here, I doubt if there’s ever been 
a woman even run for sheriff, let alone serve, and the same with coro-
ner. I’ve been here 30-some years and can’t ever remember a woman 
running for coroner. Mostly the [female] candidates that have been 



Gendered Pathways to Power 45

successful here have been in the prothonotary’s office, in the trea-
surer’s office. We’ve only ever had, that I can remember, one auditor 
that a woman had accepted that position. So, yeah that’s pretty much 
the way it has been. Like I said the coroner and sheriff are the two 
primary examples. (Miller 2012)

He went on to explain that many women in his county are active in local poli-
tics and are engaged, but they are not running for office; rather, they are sup-
port staff to those positions. His explanation as to why women are not engaged 
on that electoral level is telling of the culture both socially and politically:

And I think it might be the type of area we are. We have a very rural 
population here and it’s, I don’t want to say male dominated, but I 
guess there is a little bit of that and so I think that’s possibly it. The 
society up here is rural and, I don’t know whether it has to do with 
religion or just sociology, or whatever. (Miller 2012)

Mr. Miller and other county party leaders spoke of the cultural divide: rural 
versus urban areas. He also mentioned that the gender disparity in office 
might be a symptom of the lack of diversity in women’s professions in his rural 
area. He pointed out that if there are not many female lawyers in his county 
that will impact who runs for district attorney or judges, for example. Perhaps 
women in his rural area do not feel that they can or should pursue the law as a 
profession because it goes beyond their construct of what a woman’s role is in 
their society. After all, there are plenty of women in the labor force in Clarion 
County. According to Palmer and Simon (2012) these demographic variables 
are indicators of women’s presence in elected bodies. Thus, the culture, the 
demographics, and party system collide in every county to affect women’s 
pathway and likelihood of holding elective office.

In response to the question if there were any patterns in men and women 
getting elected to office, Megan Carpenter, Republican Chair of Beaver 
County, said:

I would have to say, sadly, that it is very rare for a woman to get elected 
here. We have two representatives on our side and a senator on our 
side who are all male. The other ones are all male that are on the 
Democrat side. . . . It seems like it’s a lot harder for women to get 
elected quite honestly, and I think that’s regardless of your party. We 
do have a few row offices in the courthouse that are female that are 
Democrats. (Carpenter 2013)



46 Dana brOwn

Ms. Carpenter’s comment is one that was echoed by many county party lead-
ers on both sides of the aisle. Her quote makes sense, as there are so few women 
who hold or have held elective office in Pennsylvania. However, according to 
some political leaders, like Ms. Carpenter, there seems to be some traction for 
female candidates running for county row offices. Row offices are the county-
wide elective offices like controller, treasurer, prothonotary, coroner, register 
of wills, and so on. Many of the offices are more administrative in nature. 
According to the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics at Chatham 
University, women hold approximately 37% of the countywide positions. 
Marcia Williams, Vice-Chair of the Adams County Democratic Committee, 
buoys the point:

The one area where there are female candidates successful is in the 
county row offices. The clerk of courts, the prothonotary, the county 
treasurer; the men don’t seem to run for those offices. I guess because 
they’re considered “office work.” . . . The men are not running for 
those offices except on rare occasions . . . almost always female can-
didates of both political parties . . . so, we do have women in office in 
the county, but they are holding the administrative positions rather 
than the commissioner positions, or the state legislature positions. 
(Williams 2012)

Ms. Williams and Ms. Carpenter both notice the same pattern in their coun-
ties of women getting elected to the more administrative offices even though 
they are on opposite sides of the political aisle and are from different geo-
graphical areas. This is a pattern that, unfortunately, neatly maps gender ste-
reotypes—returning to the notion that Pennsylvania’s culture is traditional, 
which informs the recruitment efforts of both parties. It seems that women 
can and do run for office and assumingly are encouraged to do so for adminis-
trative row offices, but not necessarily the commissioner races or other policy-
making offices. In sum, the social and political culture of Pennsylvania is still 
overwhelmingly draped in gender stereotypes. Positions with more executive 
or primary decision-making powers were identified as male positions and the 
administrative offices were identified as women’s work. One local office that 
was deemed to be better for male candidates was that of township supervisor, 
but that one needed a bit more explanation, which A.C. Stickel, Republican 
Chair of Blair County, provides:

Township supervisors, that used to be really known more as a county 
road supervisor, or township road supervisor. I know that sounds very 



Gendered Pathways to Power 47

sexist that a woman can’t drive a dump-truck, but that used to be the 
way it was, not so much anymore as the townships have grown and 
become larger municipal governments. (Stickel 2012)

Mr. Stickel and a few other leaders were quick to explain the evolution of the 
township supervisor position and why it has roots in a gendered division of 
labor. Per Mr. Stickel’s own explanation, men may make better candidates for 
this position because historically it is a position that required manual labor, 
which women were/are believed unable to do successfully. It is also possible 
that women are less likely to seek such positions because they know that the 
work is gendered and therefore they would not taken seriously as a contender 
for the office. I argue that it is beliefs about the nature of political offices, 
like township supervisor, row offices, and others, that inform the recruitment 
efforts. All of these ideas are built on gender stereotypes, which are deeply 
rooted in the political and cultural psyche of Pennsylvanians.

In sum, the culture of the county party is one that is rather conservative 
and relies on gender stereotypes to largely inform who should be active in 
politics as well as how they should be involved. The expectation seems to be 
that women and men follow gender stereotypes and are involved in politics 
based on gender roles. Women may be able to be accepted as leaders as long as 
their domains are contained within “women’s work” like administrative row 
offices and men take on positions like commissioner and district attorney.

Discussion

Many scholars have identified the political party as an important variable in 
understanding the dearth of women in elective office (Cotter et al. 1984; Deber 
1982; Hansen 1994; Mayhew 1986; Niven 2006; Sanbonmatsu 2006; Sorauf 
1963). To begin to dissect this relationship, I have focused on the possible role 
that candidate recruitment has played in oversupplying male candidates to 
the Pennsylvania electorate. Thirty interviews were conducted representing 
at least 23 different counties. As one would suspect, each county has its own 
culture and storied past when it comes to politics, yet some patterns did begin 
to emerge as county leaders spoke of their recruitment process.

A majority of the interviewees spoke of an informal recruitment process 
that is typified by first speaking to individuals who are related to the politi-
cal party structure and then moving outward to trusted organizations and 
clubs. Many leaders believe this to be a gender-neutral process in that they are 
“casting a wide net,” by speaking to different individuals and organizations. 
We know that these circles are gendered (Crowder-Meyer 2013; Sanbonmatsu 



48 Dana brOwn

2006). Additionally, some of the organizations cited for assistance with 
recruitment have a traditionally male-dominated membership. If you are a 
county party leader recruiting from predominantly male spaces, you will get 
predominantly male candidates for public office.

Similarly, there were three leaders that spoke of recruitment in terms of 
using both an informal and formal process. Again, the party leaders articu-
lated the formal process as inclusive and open to the community. However, 
men are more likely to believe themselves fit to serve, even when coming from 
the “feeder” professions to politics like business and the law (Lawless and Fox 
2010). Party leaders who rely on formal advertisements to the community are 
unintentionally allowing a gendered process to take place.

Lastly, the third unique type of recruitment was described as a volunteer 
model. Party leaders again believed that they were leaving their door wide 
open to many different candidates by allowing community members to self-
identify as candidates. Similar to the formal recruitment model, the process 
is inherently gendered. The only difference is that the county party is taking a 
more passive role than those that employ the formal model. Taken together, all 
of these types of recruitment lead to an oversupply of male candidates for the 
Pennsylvania electorate. Only one county party chair spoke of intentionally 
including women as part of the pool of candidates. None of the other county 
party leaders spoke of engaging in an intentionally gender-inclusive effort for 
candidate recruitment.

As the interviews continued, it became clear that the paucity of women in 
Pennsylvania politics was not solely due to candidate recruitment processes, 
as those (in)actions do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, the gender imbalance in 
elective office is a culmination of a gendered candidate-recruitment process, 
a conservative culture, and a gendered gatekeeping process by the parties. By 
the way the leaders share their stories, women are less willing to volunteer 
to become candidates and they are recruited at a lower rate because they are 
not in the informal circles that are staged as the upcoming farm team. When 
women did run, party officials were quick to point out what positions they 
were most likely to run for—administrative row offices at the county level. 
Overall, according to the party leaders, the lack of women in Pennsylvania 
politics is rooted in traditional gender stereotypes as women are not found in 
the informal circles in which candidate recruitment occurs and/or because 
women do not want to volunteer for public leadership, as women are “too 
smart for politics.”

Male and female county party leaders cited family work-life balance as 
well as women not being readily available as a reason for the gender gap. 



Gendered Pathways to Power 49

Another observation was confirmed with the interview data and that was the 
role that gender stereotypes played in matching potential candidates to public 
office. Very clear patterns emerged in the interview data: male candidates 
would be better at the more “masculine” offices that focused on law, order, 
and executive powers, whereas female candidates would be better at offices 
that focused on justice and legislative and administrative powers. So, when 
women can and do run for office, they should run for the feminine offices. 
This line of thinking stems directly from the traditional and conservative 
culture described by the party leaders.

Another narrative that unveiled itself in the interviews was also one of 
unawareness of the gendered nature of their gatekeeping role. The leaders 
often believed that they were sage advice givers, informing potential candi-
dates of conflicts and time commitments. Yet, examples provided were ones 
that deterred women from running for office. Other examples of gatekeeping 
were more non-descript and gave loose responses about how one evaluates 
leadership skills. Unfortunately, again, this can lead to a male selection bias 
(Niven 2006).

Yet, even with all of these variables at play to depress women’s candidacies, 
there were increases of women’s representation at both the state and federal 
levels. These increases coincide with an increase in the number of women’s 
organizations working to increase descriptive representation. Examples of 
such independent political interventions on behalf of women include politi-
cal action committees, organizations, and programs.10 Prior research claims 
independent organizations can play a positive role in increasing gender diver-
sity among candidates (Sanbonmatsu 2006). Future research could inquire as 
to the effectiveness of these women’s organizations and programs and how 
they may shape the balance of power in Pennsylvania’s governing institutions. 
Are women’s candidacies more successful with the support or education pro-
vided by one of these entities? How do these entities impact the traditional 
culture of the state? If change is to come to the state of Pennsylvania to provide 
for greater descriptive representation of its inhabitants, the change will most 
likely need to occur outside of the pre-existing party structure. In order to 
dramatically increase women’s representation at the local, state, and federal 
levels in Pennsylvania, candidate recruitment processes must be intention-
ally diverse and inclusive. Given the evidence provided by this study, there is 
a potentially positive role for county party leaders to play in diversifying the 
pool of candidates, as Crowder-Meyer (2013) anticipates. However, education 
around the gendered impact of the party leaders’ (non)actions would be nec-
essary for change to occur.



50 Dana brOwn

NOTES

1. Some recent studies investigating the roots of this underrepresentation have fallen 
into the following categories: lack of political ambition to run among potential female 
candidates (Bauer 2015, 2018; Fox and Lawless 2004; Kanthak and Woon 2015; Shafer 
2008); lack of recruitment efforts by political parties and elites (Crowder-Meyer 2013; 
Niven 1998; Sanbonmatsu 2006); institutional constraints such as the incumbency advan-
tage (Burrell 1994; Fox 1997); and reliance on gender stereotypes by voters (Bauer 2015, 
2018; Ditonto and Mattes 2018; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993; Sanbonmatsu 2002).

2. Niven surveyed the county chairs of New Jersey, California, Ohio, and Tennessee.
3. The six states included in Sanbonmatsu’s (2006) study are Ohio, Alabama, North 

Carolina, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Iowa.
4. The National Conference of State Legislatures identifies four states that have full-

time professional legislatures: California, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania. Of 
those four, Michigan has the highest proportion of women in its state legislature at a rate 
of 35.8%. Pennsylvania holds the lowest percentage of the four states.

5. An example of Democrats being the minority party in Adams County is the fact 
that Barack Obama received only 35% of the county vote in 2012.

6. At the time of this publication Dr. Mills is serving as Chair of the Democratic Party 
of the state of Pennsylvania.

7. At the time of the interview, one woman from Allegheny County was serving in the 
Pennsylvania State House of Representatives, Erin Molchany. However, she did not receive 
the party’s endorsement in 2012 or 2014. She lost the party’s 2012 endorsement to Martin 
Schmotzer, who was accused of stealing $50,000 from Allegheny County when he worked 
there in 1997. She lost the 2014 endorsement to an incumbent Democratic colleague, State 
Rep. Harry Readshaw, after redistricting.

8. Confidential interviewee, 2012.
9. Confidential interviewee, 2012.
10. Anne Anstine Excellence in Public Service Series, Emerge Pennsylvania, Women 

for the Future Pennsylvania, Ready to Run Campaign Training for Women, and 
RepresentPA. 

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Dana m. brown is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Poli-
tics and assistant professor of political science at Chatham University. She has presented 
research on women in politics, political psychology, political media, and political par-
ticipation by women of color. She is also active in the community. She currently serves in 
the following capacities: Governor Wolf ’s Pennsylvania Commission for Women, PLEN’s 
(Public Leadership Education Network) Board of Directors, Adagio Health’s Advisory 
Council, a delegate to the Vision 2020 program at Drexel University, and the Pennsylvania 
Advisory Committee to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.


	Structure Bookmarks
	Candidate Recruitment
	All Politics Is Local
	Candidate Recruitment Typology
	Political Party Strength and Recruitment Efforts
	Pennsylvania’s Political and Social Culture
	Discussion
	NOTES
	REFERENCES


