About Breaking the Political Glass Ceiling
At the dawn of the new millennium, only twenty-five percent of elected
state legislators were female, only five states had female governors,
and a mere fourteen percent of the members of Congress were women.
Breaking the Political Glass Ceiling provides a pathbreaking
analysis of the obstacles to and opportunities for greater representation
of women in Congress. Based on the stories of women candidates and
the most comprehensive data on women and congressional elections from
1956 to 2004, Palmer and Simon explore how incumbency and entrenched
attitudes toward female candidates affect women’s decisions to
run for the House and the Senate.
About the authors
 Dennis Simon is an associate professor of
political science and the Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor
at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. His work has appeared in
the American Political Science Review, American Journal
of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Women & Politics.
He received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University.
 Barbara Palmer is assistant professor at American
University and affiliated faculty at the Women
and Politics Institute.
Her work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, Political
Research Quarterly, and Women & Politics. She also
is the political director for Women
Under Forty PAC. She received her
Ph.D. in political science in 1997 from the University of Minnesota.
Comments about the book
“For anybody wanting to run for office or wondering why more
women aren’t elected to Congress, Breaking the Political
Glass Ceiling explains the past, describes the present, and forecasts
the future. The authors identify eighteen congressional districts
out of 435 that are
‘woman-friendly,’ compared to 153 unlikely to welcome
women candidates through 2010, a reality that perpetuates the ‘achingly
slow pace’ of women taking their rightful place in Congress.”
— Eleanor Clift, contributing editor, Newsweek
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