THE POLITICS OF WOMEN STATE LEGISLATORS: A SOUTH/NON‐SOUTH COMPARISON

Abstract

As a result of the 1992 elections, women now make up 20.4 percent of the elected representatives in United States state legislatures nationwide, yet women comprise only 13 percent of southern legislators. The literature supports several theories as to why women in the South are less likely to seek and win office than women outside the South. What has yet to be examined, however; is what difference these factors make in the kind of woman that is ultimately successful in winning a legislative seat in a southern state. Based on an original survey and a representative sample of over 600 women serving during the 1991–1992 legislative session, we find that southern women legislators are in fact significantly different from non‐southern women legislators in both attitudes and behaviors; that regionalism exerts a powerful influence on women state legislators' attitudes toward themselves, their job, and their behavior once elected. These findings are important in exploring the diversity of women serving at the state level, particularly as their numbers continue to grow.