The making of female politicians: Why political identity matters

Abstract

What makes female candidates for political office persist in their quest? Using self-determination and casual agency theories, we hypothesize that female candidates for public office need to construct and maintain a political identity in their quest for office. Through interviews, we explore the narratives of 35 women who ran for public office at the state and local levels in the United States. Half of the women persisted to the end of the race, whereas the other half aborted their campaign at some point before elections. We show that those who persisted performed conscious and deliberate political identity work which neutralized threats from the external environment, leveraged opportunities, and strengthened political identities. Internalizing, identifying with, and expressing oneself as a political actor is critical to resilience as a candidate for political office. Understanding threats to fragmentation of political identity is a critical implication for women running for office.