THE SEX AND COLOR OF POLITICS
Political scientist challenges assumptions of race and gender in politics with new NSF-funded study

LSU assistant professor of political science Kate Bratton compares most studies of race and gender to two train tracks parallel to one another.

“There are plenty of studies on the impact of race in politics and the impact of gender in politics, but there aren’t many that examine both,” says Bratton. “Individuals in politics are not merely just male or female, nor do they just identify themselves as belonging to a particular racial or ethnic group. They have multiple identities. Gender intersects with race and ethnicity. The reality is that the train tracks do cross. They can’t stay parallel when we study them.”

Realizing the tremendous changes over the past few decades in the politics of race, ethnicity, and gender in the U.S., Bratton and her collaborators from Duke University and Emory University are looking at the policy interests and legislative effectiveness of minority female legislators. They are collecting data from legislatures in 25 states over 24 years, which collectively represent the entire country based on factors such as proportions of women, African Americans, and Latinos in the state legislature; party control; and ideological climate. Her study could not have come at a better time.

“Much of this type of data hasn’t been updated since 1989, so its important for us to look back and examine the experiences of women and people of color in legislative bodies,” says Bratton.

To answer many of their questions, Bratton and her colleagues are focused on examining six groups, male and female genders in three ethnic groups: Black, Latino, and all other ethnicities. One question Bratton and her colleagues want to answer is how increased diversity in state legislatures has influenced what issues are debated and voted on? For instance, female legislators may be more likely to take up policy debates on child care. Attention to that issue may encourage men to increasingly recognize this issue as important. Therefore, Bratton and her colleagues examine whether legislatures with a relatively high percentage of women direct more attention to issues that are commonly thought of as “traditional women’s issues”.

A second part of their project focuses on collaboration and networking. They will address whether women are more likely to collaborate than their male colleagues and whether such collaboration transcends racial, ethnic, and partisan barriers. Finally, Bratton and her colleagues will look at the success rate of passing legislation of each of these groups.

Bratton says that once they have completed their data collection, their initial study could serve as a resource for other researchers who want to study legislative behavior in general. Issues such as how committees work and the importance of leadership and sponsorship could be better examined.
“Many studies in the past that have looked at race and gender separately have made assumptions about race and gender, but there is a huge gap in the data,” Bratton says. “We look to close that gap and challenge those assumptions.”

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from Fall 2006 Issue