ABSTRACT
Chapter 8, “Women’s Candidacies for Elected Office,” explores women’s quests for political leadership, particularly elective office. It presents historical trends in women’s election to public office, compares their quests for political leadership with that of men, and explores the role of gender in contemporary political campaigns. It highlights the organizational efforts of women to elect women to public office. A distinction of recent elections has been the formation of groups to recruit, train, and support female candidates and to stimulate the interest of younger women in political leadership. The chapter shows how female candidates in contemporary elections have become as sophisticated and strategic as male candidates. They organize professional campaigns and raise money to finance those campaigns to the same extent as men do. Yet men still vastly outnumber women as political candidates and elective office holders. Women do not seem to be as politically ambitious as men and do not appear to be recruited to run for public office as often as men.
