Entering the Arena? Gender and the Decision to Run for Office Richard L. Fox Union College Jennifer L. Lawless Brown University A critical void in the research on women’s underrepresentation in elective office is an analysis of the initial decision to run for office. Based on data from our Citizen Political Ambition Study, the first large-scale national survey of potential candidates, we examine the process by which women and men emerge as candidates for public office. We find that women who share the same personal characteristics and professional credentials as men express significantly lower levels of political ambition to hold elective office. Two factors explain this gender gap: first, women are far less likely than men to be encouraged to run for office; second, women are significantly less likely than men to view themselves as qualified to run. Our findings call into question the leading theoretical explanations for women’s numeric underrepresentation and indicate that, because of vestiges of traditional sex-role socialization, prospects for gender parity in U.S. political institutions are less promising than conventional explanations suggest. W hen the 108 th Congress convened, 86% of its members were male (CAWP 2003). This places the United States 59 th worldwide in terms of the number of women serving in the national legislature (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2003). The dearth of women in elective office is also evident at the state and local levels: 88% of state governors, 88% of big-city may- ors, and 78% of state legislators are male (CAWP 2003). Particularly striking about these large gender disparities in elective office is that neither qualitative investigations nor empirical analyses reveal a political system rife with gender bias. Rather, individual accounts of women candi- dates who face overt gender discrimination once they en- ter the public arena are increasingly rare (Schroeder 1999; Witt, Paget, and Matthews 1994; Woods 2000). Moreover, in terms of fundraising and vote totals, often considered the two most important indicators of electoral success, re- searchers find that women fare just as well as, if not better than, their male counterparts (Burrell 1998; Darcy, Welch and Clark 1994; Dolan 1998; Fox 2000; Smith and Fox 2001; Thompson and Steckenrider 1997). In fact, based Richard L. Fox is Associate Professor of Political Science, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308 (foxr@union.edu). Jennifer L. Lawless is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, Prospect House, Box 1844, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 (jennifer lawless@brown.edu). For comments on previous versions of this article, we thank David Brady, Barbara Burrell, Kathy Dolan, Mo Fiorina, Amy Gangl, Kent Jennings, Jane Mansbridge, Terry Moe, Kira Sanbonmatsu, Walt Stone, and Sean Theriault. We are grateful to the Carrie Chapman Catt Center, the Center for American Women and Politics, the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society, California State University, Fullerton, Union College, and Stanford University for providing the funding to carry out the survey on which our results are based. on a national study of voting patterns, Seltzer, Newman, and Leighton state emphatically: “A candidate’s sex does not affect his or her chances of winning an election... Winning elections has nothing to do with the sex of the candidate” (1997, 79). In light of the seeming contradiction between a po- litical system that elects few women and an electoral en- vironment that is unbiased against women candidates, political scientists focus on two theoretical explanations for women’s numeric underrepresentation. First, they point to the incumbency advantage, where reelection rates for legislative positions are consistently above 90%. Under these circumstances, increasing the number of electoral opportunities for previously excluded groups can be glacial (Carroll and Jenkins 2001; Darcy, Welch, and Clark 1994; Jacobson 2000). Second, researchers point to the “eligibility pool” to explain the low num- ber of women candidates and elected officials (Conway, Steurnagle, and Ahern 1997; Darcy, Welch, and Clark 1994; Duerst-Lahti 1998; Thomas 1998). Simply too few women occupy high-level positions in the professions American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 48, No. 2, April 2004, Pp. 264–280 C 2004 by the Midwest Political Science Association ISSN 0092-5853 264