Scholars of gender and politics have long discussed the various manifestations of the “double-bind” for women who seek political leadership. Using a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample, this article examines whether this double-bind exists for female judges. The study reveals that while gender stereotypes are not uniformly applied to female judges, women on the bench are assessed differently in terms of their empathy and knowledge under certain circumstances. The article then discusses the potential implications of these gendered assessments for perceptions of the court, its actions, and women who aspire to judicial roles.

The executive branch of government constitutes the pinnacle of political power. In principle, presidents and prime ministers, along with their cabinets, set the policy agenda, debate, and deliberate policy initiatives; introduce legislation; and oversee the implementation of public policies. Executives are the most visible political actors, representing the public “face” of government. Until very recently, executives were also the most masculinized of political institutions, with women absent entirely from the position of prime minister or president until the 1960s, and, at least until the last decade, holding only a small number of posts in cabinet. Yet one of the most striking global trends in recent years is the growing number of women elected to the post of prime minister or president: at the time of writing there are 12 countries where a woman occupies the top political office. A growing number of women are also being appointed cabinet ministers and, in some cases, to some of the most traditionally masculine posts. It is common today to define “parity” cabinets as those where women hold between 40% and 60% of ministerial portfolios. With that definition, countries as different as Spain, Bolivia, Sweden, and South Africa have had gender parity in cabinet. What is more, women's presence in cabinet is now a firmly established norm. Among the first questions raised by commentators after a newly elected president or prime minister announces her cabinet are, how many women were appointed? To which portfolios were they assigned?

Family law is an essential dimension of women's citizenship in the modern state. The rights established in family law shape women's agency and autonomy; they also regulate access to basic resources—such as land, income, and education—that determine a citizen's ability to earn a living independently, among other life chances (Agarwal 1994; Deere and León 2001; Kabeer 1994; Okin 1989; World Bank 2012). Yet family law is a notorious site of sex inequality, historically and in the present. Equal rights enjoyed by women in national constitutions are often contradicted by family and civil codes that subordinate women to the decisions of their husbands and fathers. In the early 21st century, family law in a significant number of countries discriminated against women, denying them the rights held by men and contributing to their disadvantaged social positions.

Efforts to understand the political implications of categorical prejudices—like racism and sexism—are complicated by the intersectional nature of social groups. Evaluating attitudes toward members of a single social category (e.g., African-Americans) in isolation can produce misleading conclusions, as racial cues commonly coincide with gender cues and create meaningful subgroups (McConnaughy and White 2014). The idea that different subgroups of women experience distinctive forms of discrimination is reflected in the concept of “double jeopardy.” Double jeopardy suggests that black and Hispanic women experience discrimination differently from white women or men of color because they simultaneously belong to a low-status gender group and a low-status racial/ethnic group (King 1988; Levin et al. 2002; cf. Sidanius and Veniegas 2000). As a result, women who are racial or ethnic minorities face a cumulative discrimination that extends beyond racism or sexism alone (King 1988; Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach 2008).

Extensive public opinion research on gender-related attitudes has focused on identifying and understanding the dynamics of individual gender role attitudes, as well as attitudes toward more explicitly policy-related and political issues broadly related to gender. One stream of research considers egalitarianism in a generic sense as in inquiries about whether men and women should have equal roles in public affairs (e.g., Jennings 2006; Sanbonmatsu 2002, chapter 3) and evaluations of the women's movement (e.g., Huddy, Neely, and Lafay 2000). Another line of research has solicited opinions about specific gender-related policies and issues, including support for the ERA (Mansbridge 1986; Plutzer 1991), abortion (e.g., Bolzendahl and Myers 2004; Wilcox and Carr 2010), gender-based affirmative action (Kane and Whipkey 2009), the suitability of women for political life (Sanbonmatsu 2002, chapter 3), and a variety of other issues and policies often noted as being especially relevant for women (Sapiro and Shames 2010).

Ministerial office represents the pinnacle of political power. Quite rightly, politics and gender and comparative scholarship is paying increasing attention to women's access to political executives (Claveria 2014; Davis 1997; Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005; Krook and O'Brien 2012; Reynolds 1999; Siaroff 2000; Whitford, Wilkins, and Ball 2007). These studies develop and test a range of hypotheses relating to the demographic, socioeconomic, political cultural, or political institutional factors at state or system level deemed to shape women's access to political executive office. The conclusions primarily emphasize relatively general correlations between women's ministerial representation and a nation's familiarity with women in positions of power (Reynolds 1999), the prevalence of “egalitarian societies” and “leftist values” (Siaroff 2000), or international pressure and regional contagion (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson 2005). Studies that address the importance of political institutional factors affecting the supply and demand of female government ministers highlight the different procedures for appointing ministers in presidential versus parliamentary democracies (Reynolds 1999; Whitford, Wilkins, and Ball 2007) or the generalist versus specialist recruitment traditions of ministerial recruitment in parliamentary democracies (Claveria 2014; Davis 1997; Siaroff 2000). All studies flag the significance of the numerical presence of women in parliament, and some, the way the electoral system or gender quotas influence women's access to parliament (Claveria 2014; Krook and O'Brien 2012).

How did the interplay of intellectual overconfidence, gender, and professional socialization limit economic policy debate over the subprime boom and global financial crisis? In this article, I integrate historical institutionalist and feminist institutionalist insights to make sense of the interplay of gender and professional socialization in limiting the scope for precrisis regulation and postcrisis reform. First, drawing on historical institutionalist perspectives, I highlight the scope for inefficiency in the use of information, arguing that policy success over time can engender tendencies to misplace confidence and intellectual closure. Secondly, drawing on feminist institutionalist perspectives, I stress the role of professional and gender socialization in enabling agents to resist such inefficiencies and so limit the scope for intellectual closure. In empirical terms, I then advance three case studies addressing the roles of Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Brooksley Born, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chair Sheila Bair, and Troubled Asset Relief Program Congressional Oversight Panel Chair Elizabeth Warren in challenging the precrisis deregulatory consensus. In the conclusion, I address theoretical and policy implications, stressing the social dynamics that may spur women toward increased professional and intellectual risk taking.

Domestic violence or Intimate partner violence (IPV) is the form of violence against women (VAW) that is most reported to the police in Liberia. This violence cuts across class, ethnic, religious, and age lines (Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services, et al. 2008) and results in psychological trauma, physical injuries, and, in some cases, death. Societal beliefs that frame domestic violence as a regular part of life serve to legitimize and foster the problem in Liberia (Allen and Devitt 2012; LISGIS et al. 2008) and pose a challenge to the state and to international organizations (IOs) and women's nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have introduced measures to combat domestic violence since the end of the country's 14-year civil war in 2003. One such effort is the Women and Children Protection Section (WACPS) of the Liberian National Police (LNP), established by the government in collaboration with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and other international partners in 2005. Although the section was established primarily to address rape, its officers are mandated to investigate all forms of VAW, including domestic violence.

Former Australian Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard was accused of unfairly playing the gender card against then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott in her accusations of sexism and misogyny. It was also claimed that she had thereby initiated the first “gender war” in Australian politics. Analyzing Australian politicians’ discursive mobilizations of gender during the Gillard period provides useful insights that are relevant to the broader international literature on gender and politics, particularly given that Gillard's experiences have similarities with those of prominent female politicians in other countries, including Hillary Clinton. The article argues for a much broader understanding of playing the gender card that includes both issues of femininity and masculinity and that also emphasizes the close relationship between issues of playing the gender card and issues of gender performativity.

Independence movements are today present in several stateless territorially concentrated nations, irrespective of their level of self-government. Among advanced industrial democracies, the stronger secessionist movements are found in Belgium, Canada, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom (Keating 1996; Sorens 2005). In the absence of a secession clause in their respective constitutions, a broad array of political parties and civil society groups have mobilized to demand a self-determination referendum as a means to let the citizenry of their territories express their will (Muñoz and Guinjoan 2013). Canada held a referendum on the secession of Quebec in 1980 and 1995. The United Kingdom called a popular vote on Scotland's independence in September 2014. In the Spanish case, Catalonia convoked a consultation in November 2014, although the central government did not recognize its legality.

When the 113th Congress convened in January 2013, women occupied only 17.9% of the 435 seats in the U.S. House, ranking the United States 80th globally in terms of the percentage of women serving in the lower legislative assembly. The underrepresentation of women is particularly puzzling, as political scientists since the 1990s have consistently shown that women candidates are not of demonstrably less quality than men on average (see Fulton 2012, 2014; Fulton et al. 2006; Lawless and Fox 2010), do not suffer from a gender-related funding disadvantage (Berch 1996; Burrell 2008; Gaddie and Bullock 1995; Fox 2010; Herrick 1995, 1996), and do about as well as men at the polls, accounting for differences in incumbency status (Fox 2010; Smith and Fox 2001).

Presidents and prime ministers possess vast powers of appointment. These powers can be used to appoint cabinets with an equal number of male and female ministers. Parity cabinets make dramatic statements about gender, representation, and political power. They imply that gender balance—rather than just adding some women—is needed to overcome women's political marginalization. Cabinets with just a few token women are insufficient and undemocratic. Yet appointing women in the same proportions as men challenges a status quo in which men occupy most of the positions of power. Even when leaders possess the formal authority to appoint ministers, forming a parity cabinet means that some existing practices and norms, particularly the norm of male dominance, have been broken. Parity cabinets thus create the possibility of backlash from those who fear reduced opportunities for men to access powerful posts.

The process of selecting cabinet ministers often takes place behind closed doors, including weighing the need to balance or manage factions within the president's party and/or coalition partners; addressing demands for diversity in the cabinet, such as appointment of women or other historically underrepresented groups; sending signals about the administration's policy agenda; and enabling the president to have people he or she trusts close at hand. On the other hand, ministerial exits are usually less private affairs. In some cases they come after weeks of public or congressional scrutiny and criticism of ministers for policy failures or follow extended speculation about who will lose their seat when the president reshuffles the cabinet. Some ministers depart to pursue lucrative private-sector opportunities. Other ministers switch posts but stay in government. How ministers exit can have implications for the administration since a president who is frequently forced to shuffle the cabinet or sack ministers looks ineffective, and comparisons to rats and sinking ships are difficult to avoid in the wake of excessive changes. At the same time, an administration with zero turnover may also not be healthy, as it would suggest that presidents are staidly bound to their initial course of action and unable (or unwilling) to adapt to changing circumstances.

Western political thought, from the classical Greek era to our own time, is notorious for its relegation of bodily and family matters to the private sphere. Contemporary feminist and critical political theorists have taken measures to counter this impulse. Yet even as these discourses acknowledge the centrality of the body, vulnerability, and relationality for social and political theory, they continue to functionally disavow giving birth as an important cultural institution in which to engage political and ethical questions.

Anecdotally, it is assumed that the factors that constrain women from entering parliament spill over into the way they experience holding public office, thus limiting their influence. Drawing on in-depth biographical interviews and other publically available materials we test this supposition by investigating the experiences of women who have served in parliament in the Pacific Islands, a region famous for its low levels of women's representation. We ask if and how women see their gender as influencing their parliamentary roles. We identify two narratives. The first aligns with the orthodox assumption where prevailing patriarchal norms stymie the influence of women MPs. The second, however, is a counternarrative that defies the conventional reading and instead posits that gender matters little once inside parliament with MPs, highlighting the importance of other identities—family, community, religious, etc.—to their constituent representation and reelection campaigns. In turn, women MPs who hold to this latter perspective are often critical of what they see as the imposition of gender norms by foreign donors. Employing the concept intersectionality allows us to simultaneously acknowledge and problematize this duality, thus providing a more nuanced reading of the impact of gender on parliamentary life in the Pacific region.

It is difficult to overestimate the role candidate selection plays in determining the number of women in elected office. While an increasing amount of research has been dedicated to the impact political parties have on women's electoral representation (Caul 1999; Davidson-Schmich 2010; Kittilson 2006; Krook 2009, 2010; Matland and Studlar 1996; Murray, Krook, and Opello, 2012), the relationship between gender and candidate selection remains a relatively understudied area. Ashe and Stewart (2012) and Nieven (1998), however, provide empirical evidence that the majority of the variance in women's underrepresentation can be explained with demand-side factors.

In October 2012 the Danish Socialist People's Party chose Annette Vilhelmsen as its leader. With her ascension to power, women simultaneously headed all three of Denmark's governing parties for the first time. Though an exclusively female-led coalition government remains exceptional, in developed democracies the number of female prime ministers and party leaders has grown in recent years. Since 2000, women have governed in Denmark, Germany, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, and Australia and have commanded coalition partner parties in Austria, Ireland, and Sweden. Just as there are now more female leaders, governments are also nominating more women to cabinets than ever before. Women recently held half of all ministerial posts in Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Spain. Female ministers are also serving in high-prestige portfolios from which they were traditionally excluded, including finance and foreign affairs.

Jean Bethke Elshtain, one of the most provocative thinkers on religion, political philosophy, feminism, and ethics, died August 11, 2013. She was the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics in the Divinity School, Political Science, and the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago. The contributors to this section participated in a retrospective roundtable on her work at the 2014 American Political Science Association.

In this paper, we study the ways in which affirmative action for one political minority, gender quotas, impact on intersectional representation. In a quantitative analysis of detailed panel data from 285 Swedish municipal assemblies, the numerical impact of a zipper placement mandate in Sweden's largest political party, the Social Democratic Party, is analyzed. No evidence that this quota helped, or hindered, the intersectional representation of men or women is found in the short run, but it is found that a weak numerical impact may exist in the long run. A qualitative analysis of party records and interviews with key actors sheds further light on these results. Differences in the norms of representation for women and polyethnic minorities, coupled with weak organizational and practical constraints for formulating policies for the latter, appear to be likely explanations.

Women are making important strides as presidents in Latin America as of late. This trend became evident in 2006 when Michelle Bachelet gained the Chilean presidency. Cristina Fernández followed shortly thereafter in Argentina. In 2010, Dilma Rousseff (popularly referred to as “Dilma”) joined this small yet growing group of women when she was elected the first female president of Brazil. Dilma's victory was no surprise since she had the support of the very popular outgoing president Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. Nevertheless, the fact that Dilma is a woman is noteworthy given that Brazil's political system is overwhelmingly male dominated at all levels of government (Araújo 2010; Bohns 2007; Miguel 2008). Dilma's significance also stems from the fact that, unlike most women national leaders around the world, she occupies a relatively strong presidency, gained office through popular election, and lacked family ties to power (Jalalzai 2013).