217262 Gender and Congressional Voting on Reproductive Health : “Only a Woman Can Know”

Wednesday, November 10, 2010 : 9:10 AM - 9:30 AM

Suzanne D. Petroni, PhD , Global Health Department, Public Health Institute, Washington, DC
Researchers have found that “women are more likely than men to pursue a woman-friendly agenda” (Saidel and Loscocco 2005), and that the relationship between women's representation in government and women-friendly policies is “very strong” (Caiazza 2002). While the research suggests strongly that women in elective office tend to support “women's issues” issues more vigorously than men, there has been scarce attention to the relationship between female legislators and reproductive health and rights issues specifically. Even less attention is paid in the literature to the language employed by male and female legislators when voting on reproductive health matters. This presentation will address the question: "How does a decision-maker's gender influence his or her support for reproductive health?" The paper will analyze a set of key votes taken by the U.S. House of Representatives related to reproductive health over the past two decades to determine the relationship between a member's gender and vote. The results will be presented first in the form of a multivariate correlation analysis, taking into account gender and party affiliation. The second and more substantive part of the presentation will be a comparative content analysis that evaluates floor debates on the same set of congressional votes to understand differences in the discourse employed by male and female legislators. This research contributes to the knowledge base around decision-makers' support for reproductive health issues, and provides a concrete example to test the theories of representative democracy and bureaucracy.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Discuss the differences in language employed by male and female members of Congress when voting on reproductive health matters. Evaluate whether a decision-maker's gender influences his or her support for reproductive health.

Keywords: Family Planning, Reproductive Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I conducted the research associated with this presentation for my PhD dissertation.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.