The number of Republican women elected to the US Congress nearly doubled in 2020, after taking a significant hit in 2018. Many of these gains were in the House, where Republican women proved particularly effective at flipping key seats and narrowing the Democratic majority. In spite of these recent successes, Republican women seem to face more electoral obstacles than their counterparts across the aisle. At present, Democratic women outnumber Republican women 2:1 in the Senate and about 3:1 in the House. This partisan asymmetry suggests that Republican women face distinct electoral challenges and once elected to office must navigate unique strategic contexts within their own party to govern. To gain insights into the opportunities and obstacles facing Republican women serving in the US House, Catherine Wineinger uses a mixed-method approach featuring content analysis of floor speeches and in-depth case studies of congressional organizations and women in key leadership positions within the Republican House Conference. The resulting analysis offers a fresh perspective on the ways that institutional changes have altered both the way Republican women work together in Congress and the character of the representation they provide. Wineinger also sheds light on the mechanism behind the persistent underrepresentation of women in the GOP’s congressional delegation, enabling us to better understand women’s future in the Republican Party.
Wineinger’s starting point is that Republican congresswomen face the unique challenge of crafting representational claims for women in a party culture that increasingly eschews explicit identity-based messaging. At the same time, Republican women face disadvantageous ideological stereotypes because of their gender, and thus must clear a higher hurdle when it comes to demonstrating party loyalty, particularly in a highly polarized Congress. To thread the needle, Wineinger argues that Republican women articulate a fused gender-partisan identity. In practice, this is accomplished by rejecting the stereotypical set of Democratic Party–aligned “women’s issues” and instead framing Republican-owned issues through the lens of their own gendered life experiences. By emphasizing the ways that key Republican policies impact the lives of women broadly, Republican women differentiate themselves from Democratic women leaders and challenge the idea that the Democratic Party is better situated to represent women.
To demonstrate Republican congresswomen’s adoption of a distinctly gendered rhetorical style, Wineinger presents a qualitative content analysis of floor speeches from the 103rd–104th congresses (1993–97) and 113th–114th congresses (2013–17). This analysis is supplemented with elite interviews and case studies of speeches in the most common policy areas for women-invoked rhetoric: abortion, health, and foreign policy. Wineinger finds that over time GOP women are consistent in the issues they speak to, but evolve in terms of the gendered frames they employ when speaking about them. She uncovers a shift away from broad representative claims (speaking on behalf of women generally) to more individualized claims based on women’s personal experiences as mothers. These individualized appeals emphasize traditional roles for women and family values, aligning with a white, Christian construction of womanhood that fits neatly within the Republican platform. For instance, the case study on foreign affairs speeches highlights the development of messaging aimed at “security moms” as an example of this kind of partisan woman-invoked rhetoric. In part, Wineinger argues, this rhetorical shift stems from greater ideological uniformity among Republican women in Congress (i.e., a decline in moderate congresswomen), heightened ideological polarization, and the need for the party to counter an increasingly common narrative that the GOP is engaging in a “war on women.”
While the evidence of the rhetorical shift among GOP women over time offers strong support for Wineinger’s argument, particularly when coupled with a demonstration of the changing relationship between congresswomen’s ideology and gendered frame use over time, I would have liked to see a direct comparison between Democratic and Republican congresswomen’s speeches. Wineinger acknowledges this limitation, of course, though inclusion of elite interviews from congresswomen in both parties speaking to the role of motherhood in their own political thinking and behavior in Congress serves to pique the reader’s interest in further comparisons across party lines.
Following her analysis of House floor speeches, Wineinger considers how the unique strategic context facing Republican women manifests in terms of intraparty politics in Congress. She provides case studies of Republican women’s efforts to organize within congress on behalf of women’s issues through the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues (CCWI) and the Republican Women’s Policy Committee (RWPC). Wineinger then builds on this work with case studies of Susan Molinari (R-NY), Jennifer Dunn (R-WA), and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)—three women who represent “critical actors” given their leadership positions in the House Conference. Collectively, these cases highlight a few key points about congresswomen’s role in the party. Foremost is women’s advancement in terms of party messaging. Republican congresswomen are valued as an electoral asset, particularly in an era of robust gender gaps among voters, and women have gained new opportunities for leadership in key party messaging roles. However, leadership opportunities in other areas have yet to materialize. Wineinger concludes that support for the RWPC and for women’s leadership in the conference “has largely stemmed from a desire to prevent an anti-woman image of the GOP, rather than any substantive belief in women’s distinct interests and perspectives as policymakers” (p. 119). The role of party gatekeepers, particularly the office of the speaker, in advancing or stymieing women’s efforts also features prominently in these case studies. What emerges from Wineinger’s analysis is the sense that the glass ceiling within the Republican Party remains firmly intact.
Gendering the GOP enhances our understanding of the connections between gender, representation, and party polarization. Polarization has shaped the ideological character of women elected to Congress, but it has also changed the ways they work together and the ways they work with party leadership. Wineinger’s work highlights how Republican women strategically leverage their gender identity in party messaging. It also points to the limits of such efforts beyond messaging roles. In these respects, Wineinger is successful in drawing out the distinctive context that Republican women face when serving in the US House. This book is also a useful tool for analyzing the career trajectories of current female Republican leaders—for example, Elise Stefanik, the current chair of the House Conference committee—as well as the future of women’s incorporation into leadership positions in the party more broadly.
