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“The Scarcer Sex”?

The current print edition of The Economist has an article that is substantially about women’s underrepresentation in politics.  The article can be found here..

In relevant part, the article reads as follows:

Might the politics of women change if more women were in politics? Even now, fewer than two out of ten members of Congress are female. For this, women have only themselves to blame. Plenty of research shows that women who stand for election do just as well as their male counterparts: they raise as much money, scoop up as many votes and are no less likely to win. The problem, according to a recent study and survey by Jennifer Lawless of American University and Richard Fox of Loyola Marymount University, is that so few choose to run. Even though a record number are running for the Senate, women are competing in fewer than a third of congressional races this year.

In short, what women mainly lack is political ambition. Perversely, a decade of high-profile role models has done nothing to make a political career more alluring. If anything, the experiences of the likes of Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and the former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, appear to have produced the opposite effect. If the survey of nearly 4,000 well-qualified men and women is to be believed, the treatment meted out to these women confirmed the fears of others about venturing into the snake pit of politics. Two out of three of those ...