Publication Date

5-5-2017

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Schraufnagel, Scot D.

Degree Name

B.S. (Bachelor of Science)

Legacy Department

Department of Political Science

Abstract

Women are constantly being underrepresented in the American political system. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the importance of women in state legislature and why constituency size might matter in order for them to be elected. The scope is how constituency size affects the amount of women being elected to state legislature. Do states with smaller constituency have more female legislature? The limits are that women believe that they are not qualified enough to run for office. When women run, they are just as likely as men to win, but they are not even putting themselves in the race. In answering the research question, this paper will focus on a quantitative, cross-sectional time series model for the year 2010 with the fifty American States as the unit of analysis. The dependent variable is the percent of women in state legislatures in America, and it will be tested using a variety of other independent variables. According to the data, there is no statistical significance between constituency size and the percent of women in state legislature. It is important to note, however, that states that had suffrage before the 19th amendment, on average, have about 3% more women in state legislatures than other states. Women are able to bring different perspectives that drive effect solutions, therefore, Democracy without women is impossible.

Extent

14 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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