1. Scola, Becki."Women of Color in State Legislatures: Gender, Race, and Legislative Office Holding" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott Wardman Park, Omni Shoreham, Washington Hilton, Washington, DC, Sep 01, 2005 Online <PDF>. 2009-11-22 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p41325_index.html>
Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript Review Method: Peer Reviewed Abstract: This paper investigates the puzzle of women of color’s proportionately higher percentage of office holding in state legislatures compared to white women legislators by testing the predictive capacity of variables commonly used to explain higher percentages of women at the state level. Using an original dataset compiled by the author that includes demographic and legislative characteristics for all 50 states, the results suggest that standard indicators of women’s heightened office holding do not work equally well for all groups of women. Common indicators better explain the proportion of white women in state legislatures than the proportion of women of color state legislators. The study demonstrates that race does make a difference in regards to women’s office holding at the state level when the racial characteristics of female legislators are considered.
