To What Extent is Political Campaign Solicitation Gendered in the United States?

University of London

Birkbeck College

MSc Gender, Sexuality & Society

Andrea Dubé

Submitted on 28 September 2012

2

I certify that the work submitted herewith is my own and that I have duly

acknowledged any quotation from the published or unpublished work of other

persons.

28 September 2012

Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ............................................................................................... 5 Literature Review ...................................................................................... 8 Addressing the Gap ............................................................................... 21 What Fundraisers Say ............................................................................ 27 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 45 Works Cited ............................................................................................. 49

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Abstract

The economic status of women in the United States has risen steadily for

the last several decades. At the same time, the financial contributions they make

to federal elections has remained stagnant; women have given less than one-

third of all campaign donations for the last twenty years. Why this disparity exists

has not been answered in the existing literature. This is a striking omission given

that campaign contributions play a major role in American society and have a

foundational influence on the political landscape. Providing a definitive answer to

this puzzle is beyond the scope of this paper, but its purpose is to make a

contribution to our understanding of this problem through an analysis of gender

variations in campaign finance that focuses on the methods, techniques and

attitudes of fundraisers on U.S. political campaigns. Using semi-structured

interviews with a sample of professional campaign fundraisers, this research

analyzes how political fundraisers view women as potential campaign

contributors, and to what extent they are informed by and perpetuate gendered

assumptions and stereotypes about women and monetary participation in the

political process.

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Introduction

"There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I

can't remember the second." -Mark Hanna (Bartlett 2009)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of gender in the

solicitation of campaign finance from individual women donors in federal

elections in the United States (U.S.). Through interviews with professional

political fundraisers, this paper explores to what extent fundraisers use gendered

approaches when soliciting political funds from women. The objectives of this

research are 1) to address a gap in the campaign finance literature, which

explains little about fundraising from women; 2) to explore the extent of gender

discrimination in the solicitation process; 3) to contribute to our wider

understanding of how gendered assumptions define the political process in

American electoral politics.

Women have voted in greater numbers than men in every U.S.

presidential election since 1980 (Center for American Women and Politics

[CAWP] 2011). However, women’s participation in the political process has

faltered when it comes to writing cheques in support of political campaigns at the

same levels as men. Since 1990 – when campaign finance records became

publicly available for the first time in the U.S. – women have consistently given,

on average, between 25% and 30% of all federal campaign contributions to

political candidates, political action committees (PACs), and parties (WCF

Foundation 2009; Beckel 2011). This is puzzling because women’s share of the

economy in the U.S. has grown dramatically: they now own half of the U.S.’s

wealth, which is estimated to be $11 trillion by 2020 (Dychtawld 2010, p.5), their

spending power continues to grow, and the gender disparity in education

continues to narrow. Between 1991 and 2001 the number of women earning a

salary of at least $100,000 tripled, and between 1997 and 2010 the percentage of

women-owned businesses jumped from 26% to 40% (Dychtwald 2010, p.5).

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Additionally, women now surpass men in both undergraduate and graduate

programs (The Economist 2009). Yet despite their increasing presence in

boardrooms and classrooms, women are giving at roughly the same levels in

2012 as they did in 1992. How do we explain this stagnant behavior in political

donations when women’s economic roles in other area of life are so dynamic?

The existing literature has established that women give fewer political

contributions than their male counterparts, and scholars have theorized that

childhood socialization, socio-economic factors, and the influence of non-political

institutions have been the main cause (Anderson 1975; Brady et al. 1995; Clark

and Clark 1986; Conway 2001; Inglehard and Norris 2000; Verba et al. 1997).

However, the circumstances of donors are only one part of the equation and the

proposal of this paper is that the literature has failed to examine ways in which

professional fundraisers may contribute to the gender gap in campaign

donations. This paper argues that the failure to study this aspect of campaign

fundraising has accentuated a gap in our understanding of how gender and

gender prejudices affect the political process. Rather than focusing on the

general socio-economic circumstances of women for explaining their financial

contributions, this paper turns its focus to political fundraisers. This paper’s

findings suggest the importance of examining the extent that the institution of

electoral politics may be gendered and how this narrative perpetuates identity

politics.

As this paper will demonstrate, the existing literature and research on

gender and campaign finance is scant. There are few wide scale surveys that

focus on women donors and their similarities and differences in demographics,

their motives for giving, or attitudes towards political finance. Most importantly,

there are no existing systematic studies that address the possible link between

women’s giving patterns and the solicitation methods used by political players.

When researchers do address gender and political donations, they usually only

do so as part of more general discussions about political participation. Thus, the

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lack of political contributions by women has been largely attributed to differences

in early gender socialization, differences in men and women’s political

participation, and differences in their attitudes towards the political process

(Burns et al. 2001). Therefore, a large piece of the puzzle remains missing and

unexamined: the role of the political campaign in the creation and persistence of

the gender gap.

In order to fully understand why women are not giving to political

campaigns, it is crucial to understand the fundraising process: namely, how and

why campaigns target potential donors, and whether they view and solicit funds

differently from men and women. Because they are an increasingly powerful

force within U.S. politics, the views of professional campaign fundraisers can

provide important clues to our central questions surrounding gender and finance.

With their unlimited access to high-level elected officials, influence on campaign

strategies, and possession of a donor contact list teeming with wealth, political

fundraisers play an exceptionally influential part in political and social affairs.

Accordingly, this paper presents findings from interviews with a set of political

fundraisers and carefully analyzes their attitudes towards male and female

donors.

This paper is made up of three sections. The first section conducts a

literature review to assess the major gaps in existing studies on gender, politics,

and campaign finance. The second section explains why an examination of the

role of fundraisers in the solicitation of women is crucial to our understanding of

the gendered narrative in campaign finance, and why the implications could be

important to the political landscape. The third section presents this paper’s

original qualitative research with campaign fundraisers and analyzes their

responses. It then discusses these findings and their implications in relation to

some of the major contributors to gender theory. This paper concludes that there

is a process of internalized gender discrimination in the political solicitation

process that may contribute to the large gender gap in political contributions, with

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implications for both U.S. political campaign finance and our wider understanding

of women’s political engagement.

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Literature Review

This section provides a critical review of the existing theoretical literature

and the empirical methods that dominate the academic research relevant to this

study. This section first presents the problem posed in the empirical data

regarding the gender disparity in political donations, highlighting the fact that

traditional explanations of women’s economic disadvantages are inadequate

given the clear transformation of the economic status of women. In the review of

the potential explanations for the gender gap in political donations, this section

then assesses the central themes in the existing literature – campaign finance

and political participation – demonstrating the lack of adequate attention in the

literature on this issue. Finally, this section critiques the dominant methods used

in the existing research.

The Unchanging Face of Female Financial Contributions

The best available body of work on the demographics of campaign

contributors is provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a non-profit

that is arguably at the forefront of all campaign finance data analysis.1 CRP’s

breakdown of campaign records from 1990 until 2010 reveals that women

consistently make up only 25-30% of all individuals’ contributions of $200 or more

to federal candidates and PACs. Men make the remaining 70-75% of

contributions (Beckel 2011). During the 2010 election cycle, women gave at

least $386 million, and men gave at least $1.07 billion (Beckel 2011).2 Likewise,

other scholars have consistently found a disparity between men and women

1 The Center for Responsive Politics is “regularly cited by news organizations such as the New York Times,

Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and National Public Radio. The Center's experts

routinely appear on national news programs and in the pages of major publications providing analysis on

political influence issues” (CRP 2012).

2 The Federal Election Committee only requires identifying information for those donors who give contributions

of at least $200, so these giving totals do not reflect the contributions given by donors who contributed in

smaller amounts. There is no way of knowing the gender of smaller donors (Emily, personal interview, 20

August 2012).

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when it comes to political giving, and the gap is much bigger than other forms of

political participation (Burns et al. 2001).

A common reaction to this discrepancy in giving levels is to assume it is a

result of women’s lack of socio-economic resources (e.g. Day and Hadley 2004,

p.5). The wage gap in the U.S. is real, tangible, and indisputable. However, in

recent decades, this gap has considerably narrowed, and women’s education,

income and occupational status have steadily increased. While the political

spending of women has remained stagnant, their spending power has increased

dramatically (U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee 2010). Women make

85% of consumer buying decisions and run 40% of all companies in the United

States (Johnson and Learned 2005, p.10). These purchases, both business and

consumer, translate to roughly $5 trillion a year (Dychtwald 2010, p.5).

Additionally, women head 40% of households and own half the nation’s wealth,

which is estimated to be $11 trillion by 2020 (Dychtwald 2010, p.5). Women

began to outnumber men as college undergraduates in 1980, and since 2011

have outnumbered them in graduate programs as well (CBS 2012). This

translates to 2.6 million more women than men currently studying at an American

university (The Economist 2009). Although they still lag behind in many

traditionally “masculine” occupational fields like engineering, women now make

up half of the workforce in the U.S. (The Economist 2009). While women

represent only 3.8% of Fortune 500 chief executive officers (Catalyst 2012),

businesses started by women are appearing at a rate that is twice as fast as

those owned by men (The Economist 2009).

Even though women have more disposable income than ever before, they

are simply not giving large of amounts in monetary donations to political

campaigns. The voting behaviour of women indicates that they are indeed deeply

invested in the political process: women have voted in greater numbers than

men in every single presidential election since 1980 (CAWP 2011). Women own

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half the nation’s wealth, but own only, at best, one third of political donations to

campaigns, in which – as the voting record shows – they clearly have a sense of

vested interest. So, the question remains: why?

The Literature on Campaign Finance

A great deal has been written about women and campaign finance (Baker

2006; Burell 1985, 1990, 2005; Crespin and Deitz 2010; Fox 1997; Francia 2001;

Green 2004; Green et al. 1999; Stone, Rice, and Angel 1991; Uhlaner and

Schlozman 1986; Werner 1997; Werner and Mayer 2007; Wilcox et al. 1993).

This literature has made some important contributions to our understanding of

gender dynamics in campaign financing. During the 1970s it was widely believed

that women candidates were disadvantaged when it came to political fundraising

(Burell 2005, p.27). Subsequent studies have demonstrated time and time again

the contrary: when women run for federal office, they fundraise at the same

levels as their male counterparts (Burell 1994, 2005; Uhlaner and Schlozman

1986). Much has been written on the fundraising activities of female candidates

and their fundraising abilities, most notably by Barbara Burell (1985, 1990, 2005).

Additionally, some have studied the impact of female donor networks on women

candidates (Francia 2001), as well as their slight advantage of raising money

from individual donors (Deitz and Crespin 2010).

Surprisingly, however, little attention has been given in this literature to the

gender gap in campaign contributions. This appears to be driven, in part, by the

fact that the literature on campaign finance in general has usually focused on the

total money raised by candidates, rather than enquiring into the demographic

break-down of donors – let alone the gender disparities contained within the data.

There is a significant body of literature that focuses on the behaviour,

organization, and fundraising strategies of PACs (e.g. Biersack et al. 1994;

Gopoian et al. 1984; Masters and Baysinger 1985; Sabato 1984; Sorauf and

Beck 1988; Wright 1985); and there is another large sector of literature focused

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on political parties and their fundraising activities (e.g. Cotter, Gibson, Bibby, and

Huckshorn 1989; Herrnson 1988, 1989; Eismeier and Pollock 1986a, 1986b).

However, as Francia et al. (2003) have identified, while there is this “voluminous”

literature (2003, p.12) dedicated to the fundraising characteristics of political

parties and PACs, there is a striking relative dearth of “systematic research on

the motivations and strategies of individual congressional donors” (2003, p.12).3

In particular, the major work of Francia, Green, Herrnson, Powell, and

Wilcox (2003), The Financiers of Congressional Elections: Investors, Ideologues,

and Intimates, identifies and seeks to address this major gap in the campaign

finance literature, highlighting the need for profiling the demographics of

individual donors and their motivations for giving. Francia et al. (2003) examines

several issues that have been missing in past scholarly work: who contributes to

congressional campaigns, what motivates them to contribute, and how

campaigns persuade them to give. They confirm that donors fit the prevalent

stereotype: they are “overwhelmingly wealthy, white, middle-aged professionals

and businessmen who are integrated into social and political networks” (2003,

p.16). Additionally, the donor profile has remained virtually the same since the

data begins in the 1970s, even though there have been drastic changes in

society in the following decades, including increases in female elected officials

(2003, p.158). Yet, in this study, and in another major work on campaign finance

– Brown, Powell, and Wilcox’s (1995) Serious Money – women are identified only

by their differences to men. The authors confirm that women do not give at the

same levels as men, but then do not then seek to examine why, as if the

discrepancy is self-explanatory. In short, these studies view campaign finance

through a masculine lens: the norm is defined by the giving habits of men, and

women are only acknowledged by their inability to live up to the norm.

3 It should be recognized that, in response to the longstanding neglect of research on individual contributors,

some important works have emerged (Francia et al. 2003; Brown 1995). However, there is almost no enquiry in

this literature into the question of the gender gap in political donations.

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Two exceptions in the literature on campaign finance are by Day and

Hadley (2004) and Green et al. (1999). Both are rare examples of works that

closely examine a subset of specific women donors. In Women’s PACs:

Abortions and Elections (2004), Day and Hadley present the first systematic

analysis specifically examining contributors to women’s PACs. Expanding on the

authors’ earlier work (Day and Hadley 2001; Day et al. 2001) this book addresses

a significant gap in knowledge about the contributors to influential women-

focused PACs of whom 90% are women (Day and Hadley 2004, p.90). These

women’s groups are widely credited with increasing the number of female elected

officials, especially in the early 1990s (Day and Hadley 2005, p.90). After

surveying the contributors to the various committees, the authors collected and

analyzed the demographic and ideological similarities and differences between

the respondents. They then compared their findings to public data on other

female political contributors, and concluded that women do indeed have the

proven potential to be significant political donors, whilst also identifying that

women, as a whole, are more liberal in political ideology than men. However, the

utility of this research for the subject of this paper is limited by the fact that these

women’s PACs are a special case – with these PACs focusing entirely on the

single issue of abortion. We are still left with little information to explain why

women give only one third of donations to federal elections in general. If

anything, given Day and Hadley’s identification of the potential of women as

donors, their research only magnifies the puzzle.

Similarly, Green, Herrnson, Powell, and Wilcox (1999) surveyed 1,100

contributors in an attempt to understand the participants’ gendered ideological

leanings. The authors found that women identified themselves as more liberal

than men, and were more likely to make donations for ideological reasons

compared to men, who were more likely to make a donation for material

incentives (Green et al. 1999). However, while this survey is valuable in

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identifying gendered differences between male and female donors, it is unable to

offer any potential reasons for these findings.

The Literature on Political Participation

Most academics consider the act of contributing to a political campaign to

be a form of political participation (Burns et al. 2001). Therefore, it is important to

understand the theoretical underpinnings of political engagement and to critically

examine the implications for understanding the gender disparity in campaign

donations. Researchers have long been interested in the gap between men and

women’s levels of political participation and engagement (Anderson 1975; Brady

et al. 1995; Bourque and Grossholtz 1974; Clark and Clark 1986; Conway 2001;

Inglehard and Norris 2000; Lawless and Fox 2010; Leighley 1995; Verba 1997;

Verba and Nie 1987; Verba et al. 1995; Welch 1977). Explanations for this

persistent gender disparity have ranged from early socialization in childhood to

women’s disproportionate lack of socio-economic resources (Baxter and Lansing

1983; Dawson et al. 1977; Greenstein 1965; Hess and Torney 1967; Schlozman

et al. 1994; O’Connor and Yanus 2009; Welch 1977). Many explanations for

women’s participation have been absorbed as universal truths, and the resulting

discourse has long constructed women as politically passive, wholly uninterested

and too tied to their domestic responsibilities to make the time to vote. However,

several researchers (Welch 1977, p. 711; Burns et al., 2001) note that while the

literature provides many theories, it is based on little empirical evidence. Burns

et al. (2001, p.8) argue that some of the traditional explanations are “just plain

wrong” and no singular factor can be used to understand gender differences in

participation. While early socialization and socio-economic reasons are

undoubtedly major factors for women’s lower levels of participation, an uncritical

acceptance of these factors as the key cause risks ignoring the complex gender

nuances involved.

Leighley (2012) also argues that over reliance on the classic “standard

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socio-economic model” (SES) (Verba et al. 1997) – an empirical mainstay in

most participation scholarship – has produced research that focuses too heavily

on socio-economic background and not enough on mobilization efforts when

considering levels of political activity. This SES model theorizes that political

participation can be predicted by a person’s access to resources (financial, time,

and skills) as well as their civic orientations. Leighley argues that the SES model

muddles the relationship between attitudes and behavior. Accordingly, the model

presumes that participation is the consequence of attitudes, and not vice versa,

and the effect is to “overestimate” the impact of an individual’s attitude on their

behavior (2012, p.186). Leighley argues that mobilization, or the “external

motivation” is a crucial and under-researched component of an individual’s civic

orientation and participation. She points out the numerous studies that

demonstrate that voter turnout is higher in election precincts with higher levels of

campaign spending and activity (2012, p.189). With particular significance for

this study, this suggests the importance of mobilization efforts for political

participation outcomes.

Similarly, Verba, Burns, and Schlozman (1997) conclude “women’s

disadvantages with respect to such critical political resources as education,

income and civic skills does not fully explain the relatively small gender gap in

activity” (1997, p.1057). After concluding that a lack of education and income are

only part of the explanation for political inactivity, Verba et al. (1997) explored the

differences between women who “can’t participate” and those who may lack the

“taste for politics” (1997, p.1070). Accordingly, Verba et al. tested the potential

gender differences in “political interest, information, and efficacy” (1997, p.1052).

They concluded that men are more politically engaged and they are more likely

than women to be knowledgeable and interested in politics (See also O’Connor

and Yanus 2009). Interestingly, this gap in knowledge was found to be specific

only to politics. For example, the researchers found no knowledge gap with

regards to other subjects, such as AIDS, healthcare, or on vocabulary tests

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(1997, p.1063). They proposed that further research is needed to explore

whether this lesser political engagement is by personal choice or is a

”constructed preference” that is a consequence of a world traditionally dominated

by men (1997, p.1053).

To that end, in The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and

Political Participation (2001), Burns, Schlozman, and Verba turned their attention

to the social origins of the disparity between men and women in civic political

participation. Improving on several past models for participation, including the

well-known SES model (Verba et al. 1997) and the Civic Voluntarism Model

(Brady et al. 1995), the authors offered a comprehensive empirical framework

that engages with a large and rich data set. They focused on the root influence

of what they define as “non-political institutions” – the home, school, workplaces,

voluntary associations and religious institutions – and how these institutions work

as multiple factors that jointly affect political participation. The study confirmed

that while women are more likely than men to vote, they continue to fall behind

when it comes to other types of participation, such as volunteering on political

campaigns. The disparity is especially apparent when it comes to campaign

contributions and the authors note that, “gender differences in participation seem

to have less to do with whether an activity is conventional or unconventional,

formal or informal, electoral or direct than with whether the form of participatory

capital is dollars or hours” (2001, p.68). Women give less frequently and smaller

contributions when compared with men, yet the authors are unable to offer an

explanation and suggest “men and women have somewhat different orientations

to money –with potential implications for making contributions. These issues

deserve further study” (2001, p.265). They conclude that one of the factors that

plays the biggest role when it comes to gender differences in political

participation is what they call “recruitment,” meaning the manner in which one is

asked to engage.

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One of Burns et al.’s most surprising findings is that a lack of “leisure time”

had little impact on women’s political participation (2001, p.359). Debunking old

theories, they found that, for a busy stay-at-home mother or a woman working

full-time, a lack of free time did not hinder their capacity for civic engagement.

Although Burns et al. were unable to explain the reasons for this, they also found

that when women are more visible in public office as elected officials, the overall

participation of women increases. While they suggest that an increased gender

balance among the political elite would have positive consequences on women’s

political engagement (2001, p.342), they largely omit consideration of the impact

of the political institutions on participation levels. The Private Roots of Public

Action is a crucial work on the relationship between gender and political

participation, but it also reflects a major gap in the existing literature on women’s

political participation: there is no comprehensive examination of the roles that

political institutions (namely, parties, candidates, and elites) play in mobilizing

women into political activity. As Brown et al. (1995) identify in Serious Money,

“surprisingly little research has been done on the methods of soliciting individual

contributors ... especially on the interrelated decisions of contributors and

campaigns” (Brown et al. 1995, p.7).

Dominant Methods in the Literature

It is important to highlight the methods typically used in this field of study.

While the participation literature has progressed, from using an empirical model

that ignored women as a variable (Brady et al. 1995) to studies that focus

exclusively on women (Burns et al. 2001), the majority of scholarship continues

to be based on large-scale surveys that are limited in their ability to provide

context specific gender analysis (e.g. Day and Hadley 2004; Green et al. 1999).

While surveys may be useful in the identification of gender trends in political data,

these studies do not then examine the causes of these trends. We know the

names and addresses of the women who give, we may know their professions

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and incomes, but we do not know why they do or do not give money or what

stops them from giving more. Critically, these empirical studies ignore the impact

that political institutions may or may not have on these decisions.

One under-examined source of influence on political donations is the role of

political elites. For decades American political campaigns have undergone a

series of “professionalizations,” and this has led to a thriving consultant industry

that is involved in virtually every aspect of contemporary political campaigns

(Farrell et al. 2001; Herrnson and Abbe 2000; Parry 2005; Thurber 1998; Thurber

and Nelson 2000). These professionals fill the ranks of campaign managers,

pollsters, field staff, fundraisers, yet, as some observers identify, “relatively little is

known about the world of political consultants” (Thurber 1998, p.2). Despite the

influence and visibility of these campaign professionals, the impact of political

elites has remained largely unexplored by academic researchers. Medvic (2001)

notes that for years political theory has been marked by a “lack of theoretical

perspective on consultant activity and a lack of quantitative analysis of their

influence” (2001 p.xi; see also Medvic 1998). As West (1989) observes, “the

preoccupation with American voters has distracted researchers from candidates

and other political elites. Indeed, campaigners are crucial in elections. They set

the choices available to voters. They influence the rate of political change. They

establish the perimeters of the electoral arena” (West 1989 p.17). To move

beyond the dominant method of large-scale surveys and its inherent

shortcomings, one of the avenues requiring exploration is that of the role and

influence of campaign professionals.

A Note on the Gender Binary in the Literature

Campaign finance records and academic research focusing on campaign

finance generally utilize a binary classification of gender. Donors are categorized

as either “male” or “female,” with no acknowledgment of non-gender conforming

individuals. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) provides the most accurate

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source of campaign finance data on elections, and most academics and election

analysts rely heavily on this data. The Federal Election Commission does not list

or require a gender category on any individual contribution records.4 Some, but

not all, may state a gendered title before each name (“Mrs.,” “Miss, “Mr.,” etc.),

but there is no way of knowing whether this title is provided by the donor or by

the campaign. Additionally, in many cases a campaign’s finance record-keeping

software automatically generates gendered titles based on a contributor’s name

(Ashley, personal interview, 20 August 2012). For example, a donor with a

typically “male” name, such as “Tom” will be automatically classified as a “male”

by the program. These automatically generated gender assignments are

subsequently submitted to the FEC for disclosure purposes. Additionally,

analysts of FEC records, including the Center for Responsive Politics, generally

assign gender to contributors based on the presumed gender provided by a

donor’s name, as well as titles such as “Mrs.” and “Mr.” For this reason, the

Center for Responsive Politics gives the following disclaimer: “Discerning

whether a contribution comes from a man or a woman based on federal

campaign finance filings is an inexact science” (Beckel 2011). It is worth nothing

that the accepted use of a gender binary classification system has the effect of

classifying women as a monolithic bloc, denying their agency, and also rendering

non-gender conforming people as invisible.

The Gaps in the Literature

This literature review has established certain inadequacies in the available

literature. While there is a sector of the campaign finance literature that

examines the demographic dynamics of donors to political campaigns, it fails to

enquire into the reasons for the gender disparity in campaign donations.

Meanwhile, the literature on campaign finance that does deal with gender issues

typically examines only the dynamics of women candidates and the total

4 For federal records purposes individual contributors are not asked to self identify their preferred gender identity, nor their race,

ethnicity, or income level.

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donations received, not the dynamics and demographics of donors. Meanwhile,

an examination of the political participation literature reveals inadequacies in the

existing socio-economic theories for lesser levels of female participation in

politics, leaving more questions than answers as to why female participation in

politics is so different, especially in campaign finance. Most of all, this literature

review indicates the potential importance of mobilization methods, and the role of

political elites, for explaining outcomes in terms of political participation.

However, no studies have attempted to examine mobilization methods as a way

of better understanding the gender disparity in political donations.

For the subject of this paper, this begs a question: do political elites and

their efforts to solicit the mobilization of women in the political process have an

important role to play in explaining the gender disparity in political donations?

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Addressing the Gap: Why We Should Examine the Role of Campaign Fundraisers

The gaps in the literature identified in the previous section are too large to

be addressed in a single paper such as this. However, and as is made clear in

the previous section, new measures need to be devised that enable at least an

exploration of the mechanisms by which women are mobilized to give money for

political campaigns, as this is an area that is as of yet unexamined. The proposal

of this paper is that one method that has the potential to be particularly

productive is the examination of one particular sector of the political elite:

campaign fundraisers.

Fundraising is an indispensable component of modern elections in the U.S.

As political campaigns have become increasingly expensive, candidates have

become increasingly dependent on the assistance provided by professional

fundraisers. Fundraisers play a vital role in American elections, and they

subsequently occupy a powerful place within the political community. Their

indisputable status as Washington insiders also position them as compelling

sources of information for research purposes. Their proximity to powerful

politicians, their sweeping access to political elites, and their active role in

shaping every aspect of a political campaign gives them an exceptional view into

the inner workings of the political machine. In a world where handshakes come

with cheques, fundraisers can offer an invaluable glimpse into the back rooms of

U.S. politics.5

Money, as famously described by a politician in the 1960s, is “the mother’s

milk of politics” (Time 1968). Campaign contributions are the chief lifeline for U.S.

5 It should be noted that Brown et al. (1995) in Serious Money are an exception in the literature because they do take an

interest in fundraisers, interviewing a dozen fundraisers in their research. But the focus of their enquiry is into already active

and prominent donors – namely the white, middle-aged men that dominate political financial giving. They do not examine the

role of fundraisers in soliciting funds specifically from women.

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elected officials: they need it to win office and they need it to keep office. The

fundraising campaign is inherent to the day-to-day work of all elected officials in

the U.S. This is due to the fact that running for office in the United States is

exceptionally expensive. To illustrate: the total amount of money spent in all

federal elections during 2010 was over $5.2 billion, an amount that is larger than

the annual GDP of 57 individual countries (CRP 2012). In 2008, Barack Obama

spent $745 million dollars during his successful bid for the White House, and the

2012 presidential election is expected to be the most expensive race in the U.S.’s

history with a projected total of $6 billion spent (CRP 2012). The average cost of

a winning Senate race in 2010 was $9.7 million, while the average cost of a

losing race was $6.5 million (CRP 2012). Indeed, to even have a chance of

winning a seat in the House of Representatives, a potential candidate must raise

at least half a million dollars to be considered a viable choice (Clawson 1998,

p.2).

Under the pressure of these demands, more and more candidates have

been forced to look to professional fundraisers to help raise money for their

campaigns. Consequently, “an entire industry sprouts from candidates' voracious

need for campaign cash,” writes election expert Audie Cornish (NPR 2012a).

The professionals in this industry are well educated in the strategies of financial

solicitation, including how and who to target for funds (Cho and Gimpel 2007).

Because a finance director plays one of the most important roles on a campaign,

he or she is usually one of the first staff members that a candidate hires when

mobilizing for a political race (Faucheux 2003). Typically the finance director

spends hours with the candidate each day, assisting with “dialing for dollars,” or

the process of phoning potential donors and asking for contributions (Kate,

personal interview, 20 August 2012). Senator Durbin, a Democratic senator,

explains, “We sit at these desks with stacks of names in front of us, and short

bios and histories of giving...and ask them to give, and this goes on and on and

on” (NPR 2012b).

23

The finance director is usually tasked with compiling the list of these

potential donors, along with any other biographical information that may be

helpful to the candidate when asking for money. “I would go as far to find out a

donor’s dog’s name if it will help get a cheque out of him,” said one participant in

this study (Ashley, personal interview, 20 August 2012). Additionally, the finance

director drafts and implements the overall campaign fundraising strategy,

including all forms of solicitation, which often takes the form of phone, event, and

mail solicitation. This is often a complicated process:

Donors constitute one side of the fundraising equation; candidates

constitute another.... Many of these potential donors can imagine spending

their money in more enjoyable ways, and thus the task facing candidates,

and their fundraising teams, is not an easy one. Although there exists a

ready pool of habitual donors, and another group that gives in some

elections, these donors do not usually press themselves upon the

candidate to offer contributions. As a result, candidates must wage a

campaign to raise money that is just as complicated as the campaigns they

wage to win votes. The campaign for resources, like the campaign for

votes, involves strategic targeting, message development, personal and

impersonal communications, and mobilizing the support of diverse groups

of supporters (Francia et al. 2003, p.16).

As races become more and more expensive, the roles of fundraisers are

only becoming more crucial to the political process, and essential to the viability

of a candidate. Indeed, Herrnson and Faucheux (2000, p.1) found that the

candidates who hired professional fundraisers raised an estimated $475,882

more than those who did not.

A fundraiser’s job does not end when the race is over. When a politician

wins an election on Election Day, the next fundraising cycle for the next election

starts the very next day. Consequently, an incumbent’s need to fundraise year

24

round is extremely time consuming. Herrnson and Faucheux (2000 p.1) found

that almost half of all U.S. House candidates devoted at least a quarter of their

time to fundraising, and almost a quarter of candidates reported spending at least

half their time fundraising. For the majority of congressional incumbents, days

are broken up by votes in the chambers and hours dedicated to fundraising

solicitation (Lawrence, personal interview, 20 August 2012.) “Most of our

lawmakers are moonlighting as telemarketers,” journalist Alex Blumberg (NPR

2012b) wryly notes. U.S. Senator Dick Durbin says, “I think most Americans

would be shocked — not surprised, but shocked — if they knew how much time a

United States senator spends raising money, and how much time we spend

talking about raising money, and thinking about raising money, and planning to

raise money” (NPR 2012b). He adds that raising money is largely a “second job”

for most elected officials (NPR 2012b).

Candidates and their fundraisers must persuade hundreds, if not

thousands, of individuals to contribute to their campaigns. Americans who give

to political campaigns represent an elite sector. For example: only 0.26 percent

of the population in the United States gave $200 or more to a federal candidate in

2008 (CRP 2012). These donors do not reflect the diverse demographics of the

nation’s voting population. They are, as Brown et al. describe, “primarily wealthy,

white, male, business executives who are middle-aged or older” (Brown et al.

1995, p.801). This is important to note, Brown et al. (1995, p.789) argue,

because, “When members of Congress wander among the tables at fundraising

events, they do not hear the voices of average Americans. Significant donors do

not live paycheck to paycheck, or worry about where they will get the money for

car repairs or for their children’s educations.” Because of the large amounts of

time that they must dedicate to fundraising, candidates spend a good deal of time

communicating with potential donors, and as we have seen above, as much as

half of their time is spent wooing this elite and largely homogenous group of

contributors.

25

Academics cannot conclusively say to what extent donors have a

substantive influence on politicians, and the empirical evidence remains

inconsistent (Bronars and Lott 1997; Peoples 2012; Potters and Sloof 1996;

Statmann 1991). U.S. Congressman Barney Frank says that despite politicians’

claims to the contrary, political contributions do have some effect on their

behaviour. "People say, 'Oh, it doesn't have any effect on me,'" he states, "Well

if that were the case, we'd be the only human beings in the history of the world

who on a regular basis took significant amounts of money from perfect strangers

and made sure that it had no effect on our behaviour” (NPR 2012c). Even if

money does not directly influence a vote, it certainly gives a donor special access

to an elected official, access that he or she may not have had without making a

contribution. “Fundraisers and campaign contributions don't buy votes, for the

most part,” Andrea Seabrook, election expert, says, “But they buy access — they

get contributors in the door to make their case in front of the lawmaker or his

staff. And that can make all the difference” (NPR 2012a). A fundraiser who

participated in the paper’s research also said that, “If one of my top donors wants

to talk to my boss [a Senator], you can bet that it will happen, and it will happen

immediately. Would that donor otherwise have a direct line to a sitting U.S.

Senator? No way” (Kate, personal interview, 20 August 2012). If this is the case,

if financial contributions play a crucial role in obtaining intimate access to an

elected official, and if women are only giving one third of campaign contributions,

this has powerful implications for the place of women in the policy-making

process in the U.S.

Fundraisers act as the emissary between donors and elected officials.

When a politician asks a potential donor for a campaign contribution, that

potential donor and his or her perceived capacity to give has most certainly been

vetted by the fundraiser (Ashley, personal interview, 20 August 2012). The

fundraiser provides the stacks of solicitation phone calls, the donors who attend

events are invited by the fundraiser, and in many cases, the fundraiser even

26

scripts what the politician should say to the potential donors (Lawrence, personal

interview, 22 August 2012). This is significant because it means that the

fundraiser plays a critical role in determining whom a candidate should solicit for

funds, and therefore fundraisers play a critical role in determining who ultimately

makes political contributions. This, in turn, means that fundraisers have an active

role in positioning the specific interests of a small subset of people within the

consideration of the most powerful people in the country. In this light, the dearth

of scholarship on political fundraisers is especially puzzling. Fundraisers are well

positioned to have an extraordinary amount of influence on the solicitation of

political elites, and this influence could have major implications on the political

process. It is also clear from the above that fundraisers have the potential to play

an important role in shaping the place of women in the financial solicitation

process.

27

What Fundraisers Say About Women and Campaign Finance

Research Design

Because this study is an attempt to understand the process of fundraising

and how the process may be influenced by the gendered assumptions of the

political elite, a qualitative analysis of a sample of professional fundraisers was

used. The hope was that interviews with the individuals who are tasked with

soliciting political contributions from women would provide some insight on why

women do not give to political campaigns at the same levels as men. Their

responses were compelling in their content, and several surprising patterns

emerged. All of the participants had strong opinions on fundraising from women,

and the many similarities in their views were striking. All of the participants

seemed aware that they needed to apologize for their “generalizations” and

“stereotypes” about gender, yet it is apparent that their fundraising methods are

influenced by specific beliefs about the perceived differences between women

and men.

This original research is based on semi-structured interviews with nine

campaign staffers. All of the participants have had significant experience working

as professional fundraisers for both male and female candidates for the Senate

and the House of Representatives. Additionally, several have had experience

fundraising for presidential candidates, and the majority of them have experience

working on statewide campaigns. One participant is now working for a

fundraising firm in Washington, D.C., that focuses exclusively on fundraising for

Democratic candidates. The interviews were held over the telephone and lasted

approximately 30 minutes each. Some provided additional responses by email.

Additionally, a focus group was held via telephone with three participants. All of

the participants were informed that their interviews would be recorded and they

could request to stop at any point. They were also assured of their anonymity,

28

which was important for their willingness to give fuller and more detailed

answers.

Findings

Women as Targets

The participants spoke about how campaigns often target women

specifically with “lady friendly” solicitation efforts, which may include one-time

events, or in many cases, the formation of groups of women donors who then

assist the campaign in fundraising from women. Lawrence (personal interview,

22 August 2012) says that while “obviously, there are not any events out there

that we would exclude women from,” he acknowledges that “yes, there is

definitely a concerted effort on the part of campaigns to do women-centric

events. For instance, we just got done with one where we brought in Madeline

Albright as a featured guest. So, yeah, definitely campaigns will target women

specifically rather than just assuming that they would be part of the national fold.”

He adds that “there is this kind of ‘this is a specialized class,’ I guess, in terms of

taking a look at potential fundraising targets.”

Events that target this “specialized class” tend to be loaded with perceived

symbols of femininity. Amanda (personal interview, 17 August 2012) says, “at

any events that were planned for women we had particular handbills and buttons

for women with specific ‘female friendly colors.’ Which of course were purple and

pink.” Ashley (personal interview, 20 August 2012) agrees, “Oh yes, pink and

lots of flowery font. And sometimes I’ve had to provide gifts as well. In one case,

it was a specially designed piece of jewelry that we gave to women once they

raised a certain level of money.” While both fundraisers were dismissive at the

mention of color-coded women’s events, they admitted that the use of “female

friendly” contraband was a common occurrence. Considering this issue further,

Ashley (personal interview, 20 August 2012) said, “Well, it’s what a lot of our

female hosts want. I’ve spent a lot of time drafting and re-working invitations for

29

them because that’s important to them, and they tend to be more of the

traditional, rich, stay-at-home types, so it’s a big deal for them.” She added:

I think that most campaigns don’t take women seriously as donors. When

you want to raise a lot of money in the most efficient way

possible…campaigns usually look to their male donors. Women donors are

often used symbolically by the campaign. We reach out to them and ask

them to put on a fundraising event that we know won’t raise much money,

but it will bring women to our table and increase our visibility with them as a

constituency. I’ve seen a lot of campaigns that have a women specific

aspect of the campaign, like ‘Women for Smith’ or something along those

lines. And campaigns will recruit one or two really rock star women, usually

ones who have established themselves as major funders, and ask them to

chair the women’s group. It’s almost like passing the buck. Giving them

the women donors and the events to plan. Like ‘hey, great, you deal with

the women.’

Many political campaigns have similar women’s groups. An examination of

the websites of several U.S. Senators running for office revealed affiliated groups

called, for example, “Women for Brown Coalition” (Senator Scott Brown website

2012), “Women for Sherrod Brown” (Senator Sherrod Brown website 2012) and

“Women for Cardin” (Senator Cardin website 2012). The slogan for Senator

Scott Brown’s women’s group is, “Women for Brown: He’s For Us,” written in

pink, echoing the methods mentioned by the fundraisers above. While it is not

immediately clear whether all of these specific groups are intended for

fundraising activities, many of them are, including Senator Mary Landrieu’s

“Louisiana Leadership Network,” a group of 100 women who have been recruited

by the campaign to each raise $10,000 (Kate, personal interview, 19 August

2012). Likewise, Senator Reid of Nevada has “Women for Reid,” a group that

recently held a fundraising event called “Women for Reid Tea Event.” The

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event’s co-chair is quoted in the invitation saying, “All Nevadans, but especially

women in Nevada, need Harry Reid fighting for them in the U.S. Senate”

(Senator Reid website 2012).

The participants all spoke of similar topics that they emphasize when

fundraising from women. Lawrence (personal interview, August 22 2012) says, “I

do think that in some ways we will cater some solicitations, whether they are

emails or written solicitations, you know, for what the campaign perceives as

‘women’s issues.’” For him, women’s issues are, “pro-choice, work place

equality, and education – which I think gets fairly lumped in with women’s

issues.” Bethany (personal interview, 20 August 2012) listed, “education,

healthcare, women’s issues such as equal pay, women’s retirement, pro-choice.

Children’s issues such as public school funding, teen pregnancy, affordable

healthcare for families. Unions specific to teachers and healthcare

professionals.” Ashley (personal interview, 20 August 2012) gives a similar

answer, “we tend to highlight a lot of so-called ‘women’s issues’ when doing a

fundraiser that targets women. So abortion rights, maternity leave, equal pay,

healthcare.” While these issues do reflect numerous studies and polls that

highlight these issues – family, education, healthcare- as being the most

important issues to women voters, they also may have the effect (much like polls

do) of homogenizing all women into one monolithic bloc.

Business v. Personal

“I hate women funders,” Kate (personal interview, 20 August 2012) says.

She then sought to correct herself: “I should clarify that. I hate the production of

events”: luncheons with invitations, receptions with balloons, dinners with

celebrities. When asked what solicitation methods were most successful with

women, all the participants again mentioned events. Why don’t these fundraisers

like events? “It’s easier to go to a man if you want to cut through the bullshit, get

your cheque, and be done,” says Stephanie (personal interview, 17 August

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2012). A common refrain from the participants was the belief that the motives for

giving are different for men and women, with men treating a contribution more

like a business transaction, and women treating it more as a chance for social

interaction.

Ashley (personal interview, 20 August 2012) says, “Women like to be part

of the planning of fundraising events, and it always ends up being a long drawn

out process. Male donors just get it. They know how the system works. The

best of them ask for five minutes of your time, if that, and then they drop off a

cheque and go. Women need to be coddled a bit more.” Elizabeth (personal

interview, 19 August 2012) says that with women “you have to pull on their

heartstrings, and men, you need to…they’re more number, more results

oriented.” Emilie (personal interview, 15 August 2012) adds, “Women are more

likely to give for an event and I think men want to be part of a business deal, and

women want to put together an event, they want to be with their friends and do

the social thing. I haven’t met many women donors who just want to hand over a

cheque and have a lunch and be done. They want to be part of the process.”

A “business versus personal” dichotomy was mentioned multiple times by

the participants. Ashley (personal interview, 20 August 2012) says, “For men, it’s

almost like a business transaction, they want to support a candidate who they

know is a good bet. Who will win? For women it seems much more like a

personal investment in the person who is running. And I feel like women are

almost more partisan. It’s more about ideology.” Kate (personal interview, 20

August 2012) agrees that for men donations are more “business-like, versus

women in support of personal connection and passion.” Lawrence (personal

interview, 22 August 2012) adds:

I do think that women tend to have a larger personal investment in their

candidates. They tend to be more loyal to their candidates. Like when

something happens, there’s a bad vote, or scandal, I do sense that

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women tend to be…hold more of a grudge, I guess. But I think that’s

because when they decide to invest in a candidate they want to make

sure they are doing the right thing, that they are backing the right person.

There is a bit more of an attachment, because I think they think it through

a bit more. Not just purely from a business standpoint, but from a

personal standpoint. Like when I talk with women lobbyists about some

of my clients, there are some guy donors, who say, “yeah, I really like

your guy.” But when they lose, it’s like “Oh, tough break.” But with women

lobbyists, it’s like “Oh I love your guy, he’s so great,” and then when

there’s a loss or something, there’s almost a mourning period. So

because of that more personal investment, I think they’re more careful

when they give. I think they just care more about it. I don’t want to

romanticize it too much but I do think that, compared to the female

lobbyists, the guys are little bit more blasé about [the candidates]. I think

the women have higher expectations, I guess.

Bethany says (personal interview, 17 Aug, 2012):

In my experience, women tend to give monetary contributions to candidates

with whom they strongly feel both personally and ideologically connected.

They are more likely to give to candidates that they have heard speak and

specifically addresses issues important to women. Men tend to give to a

party rather than a candidate, to candidates that they believe will win rather

than to a candidate who is struggling, regardless of how they feel about that

candidate’s positions. Women show stronger loyalty to a candidate once

they have made their decision.

Time versus Money

Conventional U.S. political wisdom says that “men give their money, and

women give their time” (Ashley, personal interview, 20 August 2012). All of the

33

participants said that their women donors were more likely to give both. Bethany

(personal interview, 17 August 2012) says, “Men enjoy feeling influential enough

that they can "make a few calls" and have several large cheques that they have

cultivated. Women are more willing to put in time on the smaller donations and

work in a group setting in doing so.” Ashley (personal interview, 15 August 2012)

agrees, “When we need someone to volunteer, I usually turn to women before

men.” Ally (personal interview, 24 August 2012) says:

From my experience, in general women are willing to give more time than

men. Where this intersects with fundraising is that I have found women to

be more inclined to take on fundraising tasks that require more of a time

commitment, for example, organizing tables for events and recruiting

friends. But I think women are willing to also write a cheque they can do

so. So in general, more women are willing to commit time to raise from

others than men, but I don't see a big difference in inclination to write a

cheque based on gender.

Finding Women Donors

Campaigns are typically stretched for time and in staff resources, therefore

fundraisers usually look to past donors with strong giving histories to solicit first

(Francia et al. 2001). Brown et al. (1995, p. 34) note, “In selecting which lists to

target, fundraisers being with the assumption that the untapped who have a

propensity to contribute will resemble in some demographic way those who have

revealed their propensity by actually contributing.” Could this be partly why the

female percentage share of total donations has changed little in the past two

decades? The fundraisers who participated on this project provided a useful

perspective on this issue when asked whether fundraising campaigns pay

insufficient attention to women and why. Ashley (personal interview, 20 August

2012) says:

Campaigns aren’t purposely ignoring women as potential donors, but when

34

we don’t have a lot of time on our hands, they aren’t the first ones we turn

to when looking for new sources of money. I think a lot of it also has to do

with the time-frame. Campaigns are fast moving and fundraisers have

crucial goals and deadlines. We use lists of past donors and because

women aren’t always on these lists, they don’t always get asked. A lack of

time and a lack of staff lead to this omission.

Lawrence (personal interview, 22 August 2012) adds further insight to this:

I think it’s part recycling [the donor list]. I don’t think there’s enough really

good hard research going on. Campaigns have such limited time that its

hard to devote time to do that when you have stacks of calls on stacks of

calls of donors just sitting there. So it’s like ‘oh let’s just get that done’

[implying the lists of past donors], and it gets put on the back end. As

fundraisers, we get so focused on collecting business cards and that

becomes one of our primary outlets of finding new prospects. So we’re

not really able to look at potential donors, people with disposable income

who are politically inclined, if they’re not in the business room. So I think

fundraisers are missing out on a lot of women who could be politically

active, but they don’t really push in terms of an introduction.

This reveals another obstacle fundraisers face when raising money from

women: they often make their pitches in the boardroom. While women have

made great strides in cracking the corporate glass ceiling, they still make up only

3.8% of Fortune 500 CEOs (Catalyst 2012). Says Stephanie (personal email, 23

August 2012):

In my experience working for a sitting Senator, a lot of the contributors

were donating and advocating for their companies’ interests. There is a

max the PAC could donate and once that was made, the company would

throw a fundraiser with their executives and encourage them to be

35

generous with their funds to influence the vote. Sucks, but true. These

companies and corporations were male dominated. I remember a

tobacco company in particular, and the Senator voted in favor of them,

therefore they threw a $35,000 fundraiser of all individual funds, given to

us by their executives – I think there was only one woman in the room.

Household Dynamics

Interestingly, the Center for Responsive Politics found that women “who

apparently don't earn an income (not including retirees)” have given $90.6 million

to federal candidates, committees and parties in the 2008 election cycle. This

includes women donors who have listed “homemaker,” “housewife,” “civic

activist,” “community volunteer,” “philanthropist,” or “mom” on the FEC reports

(Mayer 2008). The large number of non-working women with “surprisingly

lucrative” funds, however, has caused CRP to query the status of these non-

income women: “those who list homemaker and other similar terms often donate

along with their husbands, especially when the wage-earning spouse has maxed

out to the candidate and can legally give no more. This raises the question of

whether the contribution was the woman's decision or just a way for her husband

to get around contribution limits” (Mayer 2008).

The fundraisers in this study all approached the concept of the

“household” in different ways. When talking to spouses, Bethany (personal

interview, 20 August 2012) says:

I encourage the candidate to have two different conversations. With the

wife in a household, speak directly to their concerns, have a discussion,

listen for and to issues with which she seems to most closely identify and

about which she has concerns. [The candidate] should then clearly and

sincerely articulate his or her own position and ways of addressing that

issue. With the husband of a household, I encourage the candidate to

36

discuss his ‘win-ability’ in the race, from whom he or she has current

support, and then give an overview of position standings.

Lawrence (personal interview, 22 August 2012) says of speaking to both

wives and husbands:

Some [candidates] do a better job than others. Some members will

always make a point to, when they call a high-powered target, they’ll talk

to the husband, and then they’ll also call and talk to the wife for a

donation. A lot of times, the [candidates] who aren’t really that good

about it will just ask the husband, “Can your wife make a contribution?”

So, again, you kind of miss out on that because you are making

assumptions about the state of the marriage. Does the woman make her

own money, or does the husband say, ‘hey, do you want to do this?’ At

the same time, we are missing out on creating that personal investment.

Because there we’re not identifying and strengthening that one-on-one

relationship.

Amanda (personal interview, 17 August 2012) says, “I address both

[husbands and wives] unless a protocol presents itself, for instance older women

tend to let their husbands or sons speak for them – finishing their thoughts and

then agreeing with them. Younger couples are more likely to both interact.”

Stephanie (personal email, 20 August 2012) says, “I think there are still

reminiscences of gender roles in place depending on people’s age, location, and

in places like the South, religious affiliation. Therefore, it was/is the man’s role to

handle anything politically oriented.” Furthermore, a role is also played by the

prioritization of husband’s names on household chequebooks. Bethany

(personal email, 20 August 2012) says, “Many times donations from spouses are

made in a husband’s name because traditionally their name is first on a personal

cheque. If there is no specific name written on a donation as the donor, the first

37

name on the cheque is used.” Stephanie (personal email, 20 August 2012) also

says, “When you get a cheque and don’t know who you got it from, you go with

the last name on the cheques – and it tends to be the man, or who signs it...there

were some signatures I couldn’t read, so I went with the man.”

Why Do Women “Not Give?” What Fundraisers Think

When asked why they think women do not give on the same political

levels as men, the participants attributed it to socio-economic reasons and also to

women’s attitudes towards the political process. Lawrence (personal interview,

22 August 2012) believes:

Income equality plays a big factor. If you’re looking at political donors

across the spectrum, a certain percentage are women who meet the

threshold income to give politically. And while there are increasing

numbers of women in executive roles, it’s nowhere near parity with males.

So you’re looking at a smaller population that can actually give. So to a

certain degree, I would expect that women are going to be more careful

with their giving.

Stephanie (personal email, 20 August 2012) says, “I think women are more

worried about caring for their families and children, and they also tend to be more

practical with their funds.” Amanda (personal interview, 17 August 2012) echoes

this sentiment, “I believe that traditionally women make less money than men

therefore have less to contribute. Especially in cases where the woman is a

working woman. She would obviously be working for a reason. Also, when I

have had contact with women who are working and also married or in a

committed relationship I found that they will discuss with their partners before

making a contribution.” Also, Emilie (personal interview, 20 August 2012) says,

”Women may want to be politically involved, but they have more on their plate

than ever before.” As Kate (personal interview, 20 August 2012) argues:

38

Women also have a lot more going on in terms of running their

households. You know, working women and they’re taking their kids to

school; they’re taking them to soccer practice. Clichés still exist in the

majority of households and…I find that for men, it’s more that they

budget, they budget that they are going to do X number of campaign

contributions. It’s part of what their personal budget is, whereas women,

don’t really include that in their budgets, you know, in their household

budgets.

But beside the lack of time and money, several of the participants think that

women approach the concept of fundraising differently than men do. Ashley

(personal interview, 20 August 2012) thinks that women “don’t give because they

don’t quite see it as a civic duty. But fundraising is the necessary evil of politics,

and if you want to be part of the process, then you need to accept this.” Kate

(personal interview, 20 August 2012) says:

[Men] think [fundraising is] part of the political process, and for women it’s

about turning out the vote, grass roots, and energetic support versus

monetarily supporting. I think women, for a very long time, never really

thought of it being part of the political process, and those who are engaged

politically on campaigns for volunteer efforts… I find that they never really

looked at fundraising as part of it. However, there are exceptions… but their

focus is more on grass roots fundraising versus the high dollar, big

cheques.

Emilie (personal interview, 20 August 2012) thinks, “women have a different

social thing about asking others for money. There’s a social, cultural barrier, and

there’s a big barrier. I think politics…it’s the good old boy’s club. Which is why

women are still, I think, turned off by politics.” Elizabeth (personal email, 20

August 2012) also believes that fundraising from men is a legacy of the “good old

boy’s club” of past elections. She says:

39

When I started working on campaigns a little over 10 years ago, fundraising

was predominately male. Most of the fundraising firms were started and

owned by males and a lot of the finance directors were males. I don't think

10 years is that long of a time, but without having any real statistics, I would

say that fundraising is predominately female now. So you had men asking

other men for money, and since they have the giving history, maybe that is

why we are still asking the men for the money.

While there is no empirical data on the gender breakdown of campaign

fundraisers, anecdotal evidence suggests that, like most sectors in political

consultancy (Thurber 1998; Thurber and Nelson 2000), fundraising has long

been a male dominated industry. A study conducted ten years ago (Thurber and

Nelson 2000, p. 30) found that the principals in campaign consulting firms were

primarily white (98 percent) and male (82 percent). They were well educated

(only 6 percent without a college degree) and well paid. Interestingly, these

demographic characteristics are identical to that of the majority of elected officials

and campaign contributors. Elizabeth’s insight above suggests that even female

fundraisers have inherited a male dominant institution, which the day-to-day

demands of the job meaning that they have perpetuated the same prejudices of

their male predecessors.

Discussion

The participant interviews reveal a candid discourse of institutional

discrimination towards women within the fundraising community. Rather than

being internalized, much of this bias is clearly acknowledged by the participants.

All of the fundraisers in this sample have engaged in some form of solicitation

that specifically targets women as donors, and by using methods that are

generally different than how they target male donors. All the fundraisers in this

sample have strikingly gendered and narrow assumptions about men and women

as donors. Additionally, the findings imply that at least some components of the

process of fundraising, a significant aspect of modern American politics, have

40

been normalized as distinctly masculine. In contrast, women have been

constructed as the “other,” as if it they were a minority group with their own

particular interests, beliefs, and socio-economic circumstances. This evidently

masculine lens of fundraising (adopted by even women fundraisers) provokes

some important questions: to what extent do the gendered assumptions that

may define the fundraising industry impact the electoral process? To what extent

do they reinforce gender binaries and impact gender performativity throughout

society?

The political discourse, discernable from this small sample of fundraisers,

carves women into a cohesive group with particular needs and, moreover,

characterizes this group as a variable that is defined by its difference to the

constant – the masculine. Campaign slogans like “Women for Brown: He’s For

Us” highlight this distinction; women are characterized as “us,” understood in

their essential opposition to men and the implied neutrality of masculinity. This

reflects the “second sex” theory posited by Beauvoir, ”for a man represents both

the positive and the neutral, as indicated by the common use of man to designate

human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined

by limiting criteria, without reciprocity" (Beauvoir 1949, p.5). Political campaigns

treat women as a distinct class, as revealed by their insistence that women

require gender specific groups, targeted slogans with pink font, and an emphasis

on “women’s issues” as incentives for participation.

Although women make up over half of the U.S. population, and over half of

the voting turnout, they continue to be marginalized by an historically masculine

discourse. In reality, they are not a minority, and they are not homogenous.

They have a multitude of identities, responsibilities, beliefs, but campaigns seem

to regard them as a single bloc that is only interested in luncheons and abortions.

Similarly, because a multitude of political issues and aspects of the solicitation

process have been defined as “feminine,” this could have the effect of alienating

41

those who do may not conform to the allocations of this gendered system.

The similarities of many of the responses from the participants in this study

suggests that in many ways, the act of fundraising is a learned performance (See

Butler’s theory of gender performativity in Gender Trouble, 1990). For decades,

the fundraising industry was made up of white, male fundraisers soliciting funds

from white, male donors on behalf of white, male politicians. Yet, evidence

implies that many more women have entered the occupation in the last several

years (Rapoport 2010). Undoubtedly, the women who enter the profession of

fundraising find themselves negotiating a traditionally male space, and the

gendered character of fundraising may be a legacy of this negotiation process.

As Elizabeth (personal email, 20 August 2012) suggests above, perhaps a

masculine style of fundraising, designed by men and for men, has been adopted

and unchanged by the current generation of fundraisers. This echoes the

observation of Issenberg (2012, p.4): “Over a generation, helping Americans

choose their leaders has grown into a $6 billion-per-year industry. But the new

profession hums along on a mixture of tradition and inertia, unable to learn from

its successes or its failures.”

From this paper’s research it seems that these learned performances have

remained inflexible to the changing dynamics of women as individuals with

increasingly influential economic power. But to what extent does the action of

gendered solicitation actually create gendered subjects?

Gender differences in motives for giving are apparent in the available

evidence. Green et al. (1999) found that women contributors typically donate for

ideological reasons, and men give for business and material incentives – a

refrain that was echoed by the participants in this study. The participants also

spoke of women’s higher preference for social events compared to men.

Likewise, Francia et al. (2001, p.115) found that 28% of women compared to

18% of men found “social gratification” to be “very important” when making a

42

campaign contribution. The interviews in this study confirm that the solicitation

process is indeed gendered. But are these gendered differences a cause or a

product of the institutionalized bias in political fundraising? Can we say that

fundraisers have directly contributed to the gender gap in political donations?

If we abide by Butler’s theory of performativity (1990) and also subscribe to

the Foucauldian (1977; 1990) argument that gender is a product of the discursive

power of regulatory forces, then we can conclude that the gendered discourse of

fundraising in politics plays a key role in shaping gender identity in American

society. Fundraisers are an extension of the campaigns they represent, and while

their views do not necessary reflect the views of the candidates for whom they

work, they do indicate an underlying cultural bias within the political discourse

and among political elites. Their views are especially noteworthy when

considered alongside the theories of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler on

regulatory power and discursive construction. Foucault (1977; 1990) argues that

gender is a construct that is socially engineered by regulatory forces for the

purpose of being used to control and manipulate the subjects it creates. These

regulatory discourses create spaces in which gendered identities are shaped,

classified, and reinforced. Through the political construction of differences,

sexual and gender identities become a way to divide and categorize individuals

into distinct hierarchies in order to maintain a level of social control. The

activities of fundraisers could be seen as a powerful regulatory force exerted

upon the gendered structuring of campaign finance.

In some regard, fundraisers are performing and perpetuating a hegemonic

display of the political elite’s prejudices regarding gender roles in campaign

finance. This in turn becomes a dichotomous script of gender, and the roles of

“masculine” and “feminine” are performed election after election by the

candidates, the fundraisers, and the donors. This relates to the theories of

Butler, who adapted Foucault’s theoretical framework to argue that gender is a

43

learned behavioral performance, and it is the very act of performing that

constitutes identity. In Gender Trouble (1990), Butler notes “Foucault points out

that juridical systems of power produce the subjects they subsequently come to

represent. Juridical notions of power appear to regulate political life in purely

negative terms… But the subjects regulated by such structures are, by virtue of

being subjected to them, formed, defined, and reproduced in accordance with the

requirements of those structures” (1990, p.2). While Foucault is frequently

accused of having a gender-blindness in his power theories, Butler argues that

essentialist gender binaries play a significant role in the normalization of

heteronormativity. According to her theory of performativity, categories such as

male or female are not biologically determined, but are the product of repeated

performances by the body. Yet these performances are “artificially imposed” by

the “regulatory norms in order to ascertain the workings of heterosexual

hegemony in the formation of what qualifies as a viable body” (Butler 1990, p.2).

Butler recognizes that the significances assigned to bodies are a product of

“regulatory ideals,” or idealized norms that are continually being scripted by

hegemonic social conventions and ideologies. These regulatory ideals provide

approved behaviors and reward heteronormative practices. Within this

framework, fundraising, as an extension of politics, becomes a regulatory

process that generates gendered subjects.

These gendered subjects have distinct ideological and behavioral

differences, but because political fundraisers remain rigidly interested in the

perceived strengths of their masculine subjects, they are largely overlooking the

potentially transformative strengths of their feminine subjects. The attitudes of

the participants in this study reveal a pervasive masculine legacy that defines

fundraising, and to these fundraisers, the “good donor” has male traits, and the

“bad donor” has female traits. However, this binary view of potential donors

dismisses the different, yet potentially game-changing traits of women as donors,

which – given the importance of fundraising – could have a profound effect on the

44

landscape of U.S. politics.

45

Conclusion

To what extent is political campaign solicitation gendered in U.S. politics?

The answer is a great deal. The evidence presented in this paper indicates that

campaign fundraisers adhere to strikingly gendered approaches in their attitudes

towards potential donors, and this manifests itself in specifically gendered

methods of solicitation that distinctly categorize men and women by their

differences. This paper’s research suggests that fundraisers may play a powerful

role in the creation of gendered subjects within campaign finance. The

fundraisers interviewed for this paper’s research appear to have inherited some

of the gendered prejudices of their predecessors, who occupied a male

dominated profession and a male dominated solicitation process that reflected a

now outdated socio-economic context. This paper’s findings have four main

categories of implications: practical; political; theoretical; and research

implications.

First, there are the practical implications for fundraisers. Women are a

huge untapped financial resource in U.S. politics. Fundraisers have remained

inflexible to the changing dynamics of women as individuals with increasingly

influential economic power. From a purely financial standpoint, political

campaigns are missing out on a substantial amount of potential money from

women donors that could potentially be accessed if fundraisers changed their

attitudes and methods. If women gave at the same, or at even at a fraction, of

the levels of men, hundreds of millions of additional dollars could potentially be

injected into the already exceptionally expensive world of electoral politics.

This has political implications. Given the scale and potential for giving, an

increase in women’s contributions could have a lasting impact. Donors have

access to highly influential spaces within American politics, and they are active

players in a world that has a history of being run by men and marginalizing

women. While one can only speculate as to what the political landscape would

46

look like if women’s contributions increased, many analysts argue that an

increase in contributions by women would substantially change the demographic

makeup of Congress (WCF Foundation 2009). The logic goes that if women

were more prolific donors, they would have far more influence with decision-

makers. The implication of this paper’s tentative findings are that, given the

financial resources of women in the U.S., new approaches and attitudes to

fundraising could have a major impact on policy.

Thirdly, there are the theoretical implications of this paper’s research. In

Gender Trouble, Butler (1990, p.149) writes, "If identities were no longer fixed as

the premises of a political syllogism, and politics no longer understood as a set of

practices derived from the alleged interests that belong to a set of ready-made

subjects, a new configuration of politics would surely emerge from the ruins of the

old." Butler and Foucault argue that gender identities are manufactured ideals

that are constructed and enforced by regulatory systems of power. Accordingly,

this paper’s assessment of fundraisers’ attitudes and methods indicate that the

process of fundraising is a discursive force that creates gendered subjects.

These gendered subjects have distinct characteristics, but because political

fundraisers remain interested only in the perceived strengths of their masculine

subjects, they are largely overlooking the potentially politically game-changing

strengths of their feminine subjects. Influenced by the gender “performances” of

others, fundraisers repeat these performances, perpetuating a regulatory gender

system at the heart of U.S. power politics. As this paper has explained,

fundraising is deeply embedded at the centre of all election politics in the U.S. If

money is power, then political campaign fundraisers in particular, and other

political elites in general, hold much potential power over the structures and

identities of gender in the U.S.

The research implications of this paper are also extensive. As this paper

demonstrates, the existing literature has been unable to explain the disparity in

47

political contributions between men and women. The campaign finance literature

examines the demographic profile of political donors, but fails to enquire into the

reasons for the gender gap in giving. The literature on campaign finance that

does focus on gender only examines the dynamics of women candidates. The

literature on political participation does provide important insights into the role of

socio-economic resources and the influence of non-political institutions on female

participation, but it fails to examine the role of political institutions. While there

are some studies that do identify the gender gap in political giving, they do not

explore the reasons behind the disparity. There are no studies that have

examined solicitation methods as a way of better understanding why women do

not give at the same levels as men.

This study has reinformed the importance of mobilization, and it is unusual

in its examination of campaign fundraisers specifically. The role of mobilization

efforts is, as this study has shown, an acutely understudied area, and the

exploratory research of this paper into the attitudes and activities of fundraisers

regarding the solicitation of female donors indicates that it may not only be

women that are holding back money – it also may be fundraisers who are holding

back women. While no firm or definitive conclusions can be made from a small

study such as this, the initial findings from even this exploratory analysis are

striking and warrant further and concerted research on resource mobilization

methods and the attitudes of fundraisers in shaping the gender gap in political

giving – as well as the political and social implications. Political fundraising is at

the intersection of money, power, and gender, and clearly has a potentially

significant role to play. But political fundraising is an insular and murky world, at

least to outsiders, and remains understudied. This is a gap that needs rectifying.

It is important to stress that this paper’s purpose is not to downplay the

importance of the gender gap in socio-economic resources in creating gender

dynamics. This gap is an important reality for many women in the U.S. and is

indisputable. But this paper’s research suggests that we cannot revert to only the

48

well-established and general socio-economic explanations for gender disparities

in social, political, and economic life. A striking fact of political donations in the

U.S. is that when men’s earnings increase, their political contributions increase

accordingly. But when women’s earnings increase, by contrast, their political

contributions do not (Burns et al. 2001, p.264). Women evidently have not

adopted the same behaviors as men in this sphere, even when they obtain the

opportunities to do so. As with all human phenomena, there will be complex

causes for this. Socio-economic influences and socialization will play a role, as

they do in all gender dynamics. But, this paper’s findings indicate that there may

be much more to this phenomenon than that, with political elites perpetuating a

gendered architecture for political giving that is capable of holding back the

impact of female participation in U.S. politics, even in the face of their

accumulation of significant economic resources.

49

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