It's All Relative: Understanding “Women Friendliness” Between and Within States

Objective: In this article, we reexamine how the entry and success of women state legislative candidates is affected by local political context. Methods: We use evidence from state legislative elections from 2001 to 2010 to test our hypotheses. Results: We find that female candidates’ emergence and success are affected by the district's context relative to both all districts nationally and all districts within that state. Intrastate comparisons are particularly influential in districts that are less women friendly using a national comparison. Conclusions: Our findings underscore the importance of considering multiple dimensions of political context as scholars attempt to understand the variation in political representation of women state legislators.