CONCEPTS OF REPRESENTATION AMONG FEMALE AND MALE STATE LEGISLATORS

Are female legislators more likely than male legislators to actively represent women and women's concerns? A behavioral approach to this question might examine the legislators' roll-call votes and policy priorities. This article, instead, takes an attitudinal approach, focusing on legislators' predispositions that may or may not lead to active representation of women. Using data gathered primarily from interviews with California and Arizona state legislators, we find that female legislators are, indeed, more likely than their male counterparts to think of themselves as representatives of women and to consider women an important constituency group with particular political concerns. Evidence also suggests that female legislators tend to believe that, because of their gender, they are uniquely qualified to or responsible for representing women's concerns. More importantly, they are more likely to accept this notion than their male colleagues are to reject it. Finally, interstate differences in these attitudes suggest that the entire issue of political representation of women is more salient in the California legislature than in Arizona legislature.