Research

 
Changing the Face of Power: Women in the U.S. Senate
(2005, University of Texas Press, 144 pages) by Melina Mara
Prepared in collaboration with CAWP, this book includes candid photos of women in the U.S. Senate along with interviews conducted by journalist Helen Thomas and an essay by journalist Cokie Roberts. Order here from Amazon.com and a percentage of the profits from the sale goes to CAWP.

Legislating by and for Women: A Comparison of the 103rd and 104th Congresses (2000, 51 pages)
This report examines the political work of women legislators in the 103rd and 104th congresses as they attempted to transform their commitment to represent women into law. The report highlights examples of the intensive political labor involved in any effort to legislate for women and explores how women’s needs and interests are defined in the legislative process.

Representing Women: Congresswomen's Perceptions of Their Representational Roles (2000, 12 pages)
This report assesses the extent to which women members of Congress see themselves and act as surrogate representatives for women who may live beyond the borders of their districts. (Data based on larger CAWP report on women members of the 103rd and 104th Congresses.)

Voices, Views, Votes: Women in the 103rd Congress  (1995, 32 pages)
This report examines how the women in the 103rd Congress acted to shape the content of legislation, to build support for bills, and to create a political environment in which they could effect change. The research focuses on five policy areas in which there was substantial legislative action during the 103rd Congress: women's health, reproductive rights, health care reform, the Omnibus Crime Bill, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Women in Public Office, First and Second Editions, and Profile of Women Holding Office I and Profile of Women Holding Office II (1976, 37 pages and 1978, 71 pages)
CAWP produced the first-ever directories of U.S. elected women, who were surveyed in 1975 and 1977. The directories included names, addresses and background data. Each directory included a statistical essay, also published as stand-alone documents, examining the numbers, personal characteristics, political backgrounds, issue orientations, and ambitions of women in federal, state, county, and local government as reported in the surveys. Inclusion of a comparative sample of male officials and of women former office-holders highlight the 1978 report. The directories are not reproduced here, but reference copies are available at CAWP.  

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Fact sheets about women elected to Congress available here.