Catherine N. Wineinger: Gendering the GOP: Intraparty Politics and Republican Women’s Representation in Congress

Catherine Wineinger’s book takes its place within growing scholarship on Republican women in American politics. Her approach is to examine at the behavior of Republican women as legislators rather than as candidates or activists. Specifically, Wineinger analyzes floor speeches and Republican women’s engagement with, and as, party leaders across two time periods: the 103rd and 104th and the 113th and 114th Congresses. This twenty-year gap also allows Wineinger to makes some comparisons across time. Wineinger uses her in-depth interviews, case studies, and content analysis to demonstrate that Republican women have crafted a unique “partisan-gender identity.”

The first part of the book is a content analysis of floor speeches – debates, special orders, and One Minutes – that use “woman-invoked rhetoric” (p. 23). GOP women used woman-invoked rhetoric in 15–19% of all floor speeches. This low percentage may be due to the Republican claim that “all issues are women’s issues” (pp. 32–36). Yet even this small percentage of floor speeches yields samples of over 100 speeches in each Congress.

The content analysis uncovers some interesting findings. First, Wineinger finds that Republican women used woman-invoked rhetoric to redefine conventionally “masculine” issues (defense, foreign policy, the economy) in feminine terms. They did so in 60–70% of the speeches with woman-invoked rhetoric in each Congress. Second, Wineinger notes that abortion is one subject in which GOP women frequently use woman-invoked rhetoric in all four Congresses. However, in the 103rd and 104th Congresses, Republican women included several moderates who were pro-choice. Twenty years later, Republican women were uniformly conservative and pro-life. Consequently, their woman-invoked rhetoric also changed, defending a woman’s right to choose to protecting women from unethical or exploitive abortion providers (pp. 43–46). Similarly, while both Democratic and Republican women use motherhood tropes in their rhetoric, Republican women used motherhood to frame those conventionally masculine issues. For instance, foreign policy was important to “security moms.” “Momma Grizzlies” are worried about federal spending and the national debt. Similarly, their status as wives, mothers, and daughters of veterans’ mothers establishes their bona fides on defense and veterans’ issues (pp. 59–90).

Wineinger notes throughout the book that the Republican women of the later Congresses are uniformly conservative, reflecting the increasing polarization of the entire institution. One manifestation of this schism is the Democratic accusation that the Republican Party is waging a “war on women.” In response, Wineinger finds that the GOP sought to refute this accusation by highlighting their women members and using them to promote the party’s agenda. Republican women often did so in gendered terms, leading Wineinger to discover a marked increase in “commemorative” One Minute speeches delivered by Republican women in the 113rd and 114th Congresses. These speeches employ woman-invoked rhetoric but are not tied to a specific piece of legislation.

A related strategy that the Republican women used to express their partisan-gender identity was through influencing the party leadership. The first organized means was the Republican Women’s Policy Committee (RWPC), which organized in the 112th Congress. While it organized 1 min to counter the “Republican war” accusation, it also sought to meet with the GOP conference leadership to craft legislation and party priorities. The RWPC’s success and access was uneven, depending upon who held the Speaker’s gavel, and the degree of interest they showed in meeting with the group. After three Congresses, the RWPC dissolved. By contrast, GOP had much greater success in getting elected to conference leadership positions, either as chair, secretary, or class representatives. From these positions, the GOP women could influence the party’s strategy and direction. However, the GOP has yet to elect a woman to one of the top posts – Speaker, Leader, or Whip.

Wineinger uses a mixed methods approach, with qualitative and quantitative analyses of floor speeches, plus very rich data derived from interviews with Republican women House members. The strategy of comparing two eras – the 1990s and the 2010s – reveals some interesting generational differences that reflect changes in the institution itself. While this is not a major theme of the book, it does document some of the challenges of using a gendered voice and approach within a party caucus that eschews “identity politics,” denies that there are “women’s issues,” struggles to attract women voters, and in which women are a small minority of the caucus. Wineinger’s term “partisan gender identity” effectively describes Republican women’s unique intersectional identity. It’s a well-crafted piece of work that is certainly worth reading.