Please join us for a Work-In-Progress lunch with Mona Morgan-Collins, APC Visiting Scholar and Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Political Science. We will be discussing Dr. Morgan-Collins' manuscript: Votes for and by Women: Re-examination of the Traditional Gender Voting Gap.

Discussant: Marc Meredith, Political Science

Discussant: Serena Mayeri , Law

Location: GSWS Conference Room, 3810 Walnut Street

When American women went to the polls for the first time, almost a century ago, politicians, newspapers and scholars often attempted to predict the effects of women's vote. A lively debate in political science centers on the accuracy of such contemporary claims. Yet we know very little about how women's early voting behaviour was shaped by the specific context of the suffrage movement and politics. Early women voters were often mobilised on progressive and maternalist agendas by the suffrage movement. Moreover, they casted their votes after a long struggle for the vote and often resented politicians that denied their political emancipation. Analysing county-level election data and Congressional voting records, I find that newly enfranchised women voted out incumbents with conservative voting records, whilst rewarding their progressive leanings. This finding contradicts the conventional wisdom in political science that women historically voted on their conservative values. It also strongly rejects the notion that women’s suffrage did not produce significant electoral swings.

Please see below for the paper

For a full schedule of the Alice Paul Center's 2016-2017 Works-in-Process Series