Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: We examine the relative representation of men and women as reflected in the roll call votes cast by members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. We do so by assessing the proximity of men’s and women’s preferences to their members’ overall patterns of roll call voting and by comparing the preferences of men and women in particular issue domains to their representatives’ votes in those domains. When represented by men, male constituents’ views are somewhat better reflected in roll call voting than are female constituents’ preferences, but the reverse is true for constituents represented by women. Party registers an even greater impact than does the sex of the Member of Congress. Republicans represent men better than women, but Democrats represent women better than men. Combining both party and sex effects, we find that descriptive representation improves the relative influence of women represented by Republicans, but makes little difference when gender groups are represented by Democrats. Such is the impact of party effects that our analysis suggests that women tend to be better represented by a male Democrat than they are by a female Republican.