{"id":11,"date":"2021-08-27T18:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T18:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/wcps\/?page_id=11"},"modified":"2021-09-16T16:17:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T16:17:41","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/wcps\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Brief Organizational History<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Mary Hawkesworth in consultation with Jane Mansbridge, Georgia Duerst-Lahti, Susan Carroll, Jane Bayes, and Shauna Shames<\/em><\/p>\n

Chronology<\/a><\/p>\n

Major events<\/a><\/p>\n

Launched by five pioneering women in political science\u2014Katherine Klotzburger, who served as the first Chair of the Caucus, Audrey Wells, who served as first Executive Secretary, Carol Barner-Barry, Berenice Carroll, and Judith Stiehm\u2014at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in 1969 in New York City, the Caucus has grown into a vibrant professional organization. An outgrowth of the feminist movement, the Women\u2019s Caucus was created at a time when women, who constituted barely 5% of the membership of the American Political Science Association, encountered numerous obstacles to their professional advancement.\u00a0 From the outset, the Caucus sought to eliminate sex as a barrier to full participation in the discipline of political science.\u00a0 Toward that end, the Caucus conceived its mission in multidimensional terms.\u00a0 Since its creation, the Caucus has sought and continues to seek to upgrade the status of women in the profession of political science; to promote equal opportunities for women political scientists for graduate school admission, fellowships and financial assistance, and in employment, promotion, and tenure; to promote the development of non-academic professional careers for women political scientists; and to encourage application of the skills of political science to the promotion of equal opportunities for all women.<\/p>\n

Preceding the creation of the Caucus by just a few months, in spring 1969, the APSA established the Committee on the Status of Women (CSW).\u00a0 Appointed annually by the APSA president with the approval of the Executive Council, CSW members serve as \u201cthe formal voice of APSA for addressing problems and issues having to do with the status of women within the Association and the broader discipline of political science\u201d (Conover 1990, 440). Although the Caucus and the CSW seek to advance gender equity in the profession and the Caucus president serves ex officio on the CSW, the WCPS chose to organize autonomously.\u00a0 By affiliating with APSA without becoming a constituent component of the Association, the Caucus preserved its ability to address political issues and engage in political activities.\u00a0 Historically, the Caucus has worked closely with the CSW and the two groups have co-sponsored numerous panels, programs and initiatives.<\/p>\n

Choosing a universalizing rather than a minoritizing discourse (Sedgwick, 1990), Caucus members petitioned the APSA for a \u201cfair share of public goods\u201d\u2014access to convention facilities, equitable representation on panels as paper givers and as chairpersons, access to childcare during annual meetings, and access to employment information through open listings of job opportunities.\u00a0 After a review of the contributors to the APSR<\/u> from 1949-1969 revealed that only 1.5% of the articles had been written by women (15 women compared to 1000 men), the Caucus launched a campaign for fair access to the publications network and began organizing workshops at the Annual Meeting of the APSA on \u201cHow to Publish in Political Science\u201d (Mitchell, 1990).\u00a0 In an effort to gain timely information about APSA opportunities and decisions, the Caucus pressured the APSA for the appointment of an APSA staff member to serve as APSA liaison to the Caucus.\u00a0 In its early years, the Caucus also fought for the abolition of anti-nepotism rules, which not only disadvantaged academic couples but routinely operated to the detriment of women\u2019s employment in academia. During the struggle to ratify the ERA, Caucus members packed the 1976 annual business meeting to force a vote on a resolution that the APSA not hold conventions in states that failed to ratify the ERA. Although the APSA Council had refused to pass this resolution, on the floor of the business meeting it passed with 72% support.<\/p>\n

In addition to pursuing a significant issue agenda, the Women\u2019s Caucus for Political Science devoted a good deal of energy to institution building.\u00a0 Mirroring the structure of the professional organizations within political science, the Caucus developed a regional structure, creating Caucuses in the Midwest, the Northeast,[3]<\/a> the South, and the West.\u00a0 Just as the WCPS conducted its business and presented a range of programs in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, the regional caucuses convened and organized sessions at the annual meetings of the regional political science associations.\u00a0 From the founding five in the fall of 1969, Caucus membership grew to 159 six months later and to 242 by the fall of 1970.\u00a0 Two decades later, Caucus membership (individual and institutional) surpassed 900.\u00a0 The WCPS Quarterly<\/u>, the official newsletter of the Caucus, circulated widely to keep the membership informed of Caucus initiatives, recruit volunteers to staff the Caucus committees, and to provide vital information about job openings in political science.<\/p>\n

WCPS performed multiple functions in the years prior to 1986.\u00a0 It served as a membership organization for all women in political science, regardless of areas of specialization, advocating for women in the profession and pressuring APSA and college\/university departments to address problems women faced in the discipline. It also organized panels at national and regional meetings on the academic study of women and politics.\u00a0Once the APSA began to recognize Organized Research Sections, WCPS members began an intensive discussion about whether to form an Organized Section of women and politics researchers that would be responsible for organizing panels on women and politics at annual meetings.\u00a0During her presidency, Rita Mae Kelly appointed a committee, chaired by Susan Carroll, to advance the possibility of an Organized Section.\u00a0Using the APSA Directory, Sue Carroll wrote–by mail in those days–to all scholars who listed women and politics as an interest and sent them a petition to sign, supporting the formation of an Organized Section on Women and Politics Research and pledging that they would join the Section if established.\u00a0After collecting more than the requisite 100 signatures, the Caucus submitted the petitions to APSA and secured recognition of the Organized Section.<\/p>\n

Since its creation the Caucus has worked to make visible the barriers that women face in the profession of political science and to devise creative strategies to eliminate those barriers.\u00a0 Its most significant contributions include:<\/p>\n