Financial Support for Women in Arkansas State Legislative Campaigns

Authors

  • Deb Hilliard

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.1983.4.0.56-64

Abstract

Following the 1982 elections women held 13 percent of the state legislative seats nationwide, and the figure for Arkansas stood at 5.2 percent. In fact, only four states currently have a lower percentage of women serving in their state legislatures. The question, "Why so few?" opens a Pandora's Box of possible explanations for the markedly low percentage of female members of the Arkansas Legislature. However, recent studies exploring the entrance of women into elective office tend to focus either on the self-perceptions of the involved elites of this group, on societal and political support or opposition arising from traditional sociopolitical constraints, or on sheer numbers of female candidates and their success rates relative to their male counterparts. Because political scientists have only recently begun to devote serious attention to the area, there exists only a modest literature exploring campaign strategy and voter choice where a female candidate enters competition. To date, discussions of mass public attitudes toward political women, as well as the candidates' own self-images, have neglected the relationship of the electorate, and the candidates themselves, to the level of financial support given female candidates. Yet, it is generally accepted that female aspirants find it difficult to raise campaign chests which equal or outweigh those of their male opponents, with an additional variation in the sources of financial support (Mandel, 1981: 184-5). This paper is addressed to the gender-based levels of campaign contribution receipts reported in 1982 by candidates for the Arkansas General Assembly, with the intent of ascertaining what pattern, if any, exists in the amounts and sources of legislative campaign contributions received by candidates according to gender.

References

Diamond, Irene (1977). Sex Roles in the State House. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Mandel, Ruth B. (1981). In the Running. New York: Ticknor and Fields.

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Rule, Wilma (1981). "Why Women Don't Run: The Critical Contextual Factors in Women's Legislative Recruitment," The Western Political Quarterly, 34.

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Tolchin, Susan and Martin (1974). Clout: Womenpower and Politics . New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan.

Welch, Susan (1978). "Recruitment of Women to Public Office: A Discriminant Analysis," The Western Political Quarterly, 31.

__________ (1977). "Women as Political Animals? A Test of Some Explanations for Male-Female Participation Differences," American Journal of Political Science, 21.

Whistler, Donald E. (In-press). The Arkansas General Assembly: A Descriptive and Behavioral Analysis.

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Published

1984-01-01

Issue

Vol. 4: Winter 1983

Section

Articles

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