ABSTRACT
The words of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and former Representative Margaret Heckler are infused with both the excitement of long-pursued historical achievement and the acknowledgment that, despite its magnitude and import, comparatively few women serve in state or federal legislatures. Indeed, parity for women is still a relatively distant dream. As such, the purpose of this chapter is to assess women's status in legislative life. Its first focus is to illuminate the richness of the results of more than thirty years of scholarly investigation of women in legislatures, including analyses of their preparation, motivation, ascent, impact, and obstacles. The second focus of the chapter is to address the meaning of the following juxtaposition of events: at the same time that Representative Pelosi became the first woman to hold a high-level leadership position in the U.S. Congress, women's legislative gains at the state and federal levels have become stagnant. The context or environment producing these results is the perspective through which this analysis is shaped.
