Female Leaders, Male Privilege: Feminist Institutional Analyses of the Executive

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel analyzes the institutional context of women’s leadership as chief executives by employing one or more forms of feminist institutional analyses (sociological, discursive, historical, and/or rational choice). Some papers focus on case studies, while others engage in cross-national analysis using larger quantitative data sets. Authors consider the gendered nature and consequences of the following: political parties, the party system, formal institutional arrangements (adversarial/consensual, presidential/parliamentary), informal rules that generate leadership norms and expectations, and the character of the leader’s followers. Papers emphasize women’s leadership as national chief executives, but they also compare and contrast female sub-national executives to national leaders in federal systems. The panel has two primary objectives: (1) to demonstrate how gendered institutions shape the nature of women’s leadership; and, (2) to use the experience of women to highlight the gendered nature of institutions that grants privilege to chief executives (both men and women) who meet specific male or “masculine” standards embedded in institutional arrangements.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 23: Presidents and Executive Politics

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 31: Women and Politics Research

Individual Presentations

• Executives in Anglo Systems: Meeting the Challenge of Multiple Masculinities? - Patricia Lee Sykes, American University

• Female National Executives in Asia: Family Ties Grant Institutional Privilege? - Farida Jalalzai, Oklahoma State University; Meg Rincker, Purdue University Northwest

• Female Presidents in Latin America: Party Incentives versus Governing Norms? - Catherine Reyes-Housholder, Universidad Diego Portales

• Female Leaders and Institutional Transformation: Lessons from the Merkel Era - Angelika von Wahl, Lafayette College

Chair

• Patricia Lee Sykes American University

Discussant

• Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson Texas A&M University