In 1970, Victoria Schuck reported in PS on female participation at our annual meetings from 1959 to 1969. Ever since 1972 I have written on the gender participation balance at our annual meetings, at first as a letter, later as a regularly appearing note in this publication. This fall is the thirty-seventh time I reported to the association membership about the tally. (Since I retired at the end of the 2007–08 academic year, I hope someone else will continue the number crunching.)

Table 1.

Participation by Women in the 2008 APSA Annual Meeting

NOTE

¹ Some unisex first names (e.g., Dana, Taylor, Kelly, Carol, Leslie, Jordan, Lee, Ashley, Beverly, Morgan, Shirley, Peyton, Logan, Angel, Casey, Kim, Shannon, Lauren, Jaime, Meredith, Terry, Robin, Brett, Corey, Dale, Tracy, Alison, Page, Dorian, Cary, Jan, Kristen, Andrea, Lynn, Marion, and Jean) as well as foreign names may have caused me to err slightly in determining the gender of the contributor. Where doubt exists, I've tried to look up the contributor in a directory. I've also looked for clues such as appearances elsewhere in the program (especially on a women's studies panel or presenting a paper on a gender theme).

As I've noted previously, where women head divisions or panels, there is a greater likelihood of other women being selected for program contributions. Again this year one of the two chairs of the Program Committee was female. In 2008, 23 of the 55 division persons were women (41.8%) (Cf., 1996: 30.06%; 2000: 36%; 2001: 35.4%; 2002: 39.2%; 2003: 48.1%; 2004: 45.6%; 2005: 29.4%; 2006: 31.2%; 2007: 47.2%). The divisions they headed had women as 36.9% (118 of 320) of the chairpersons, 38.3% (683 of 1790) of the papergivers, and 34.7% (148 of 426) of the discussants (Cf., 1996: 26.1%, 35.1%, 29.8%; 2000: 32.3%, 36.1%, 28.3%; 2001: 34.5%, 30.9%, 29.5%; 2002: 30.5%, 30.5%, 30.7%; 2003: 31.6%, 34.%, 31.6%; 2004: 29.7%, 32.4%, 28.4%; 2005: 33.2%, 30.1%, 37.1%; 2006: 29.7%, 32.3%, 29.7%; 2007: 35.4%, 37.0%, 34.4%).

The convention divisions led by women had 54.4% of the convention's female panel chairs, 54.8% of the papergivers, and 59.9% of its discussants (Cf., 1996: 40.4%, 48.1%, 50.7%; 2000: 49.3%, 48.8%, 52.8%; 2001: 49.1%, 42.9%, 43.7%; 2002: 52.0%, 47.9%, 47.5%; 2003: 61.0%, 46.9%, 54.8%; 2004: 59.1%, 57.7%, 57.8%; 2005: 40.6%, 35.3%, 41.8%; 2006: 54.3%, 33.6%, 34.2%; 2007: 35.4%, 37.0%, 34.4%).

Women-chaired panels had 44.9% female papergivers and 49.6% female discussants (Cf., 1996: 38.7%, 33.9%; 2000: 41.9%, 42.2%; 2001: 43.7%, 48.3%; 2002: 38.4%, 50.2%; 2003: 28.9%, 51.1%; 2004: 42.9%, 44.1%; 2005: 40.8%, 49.3%; 2006: 36.7%, 43.4%; 2007: 46.7%, 53.7%). These constituted 40.4% of the women giving papers at the 2008 convention and 53.0% of the women serving as discussants (Cf., 1996: 30.9%, 30.3%; 2000: 37.3%, 44.0%; 2001: 36.0%, 49.7%; 2002: 38.9%, 48.9%; 2003: 27.8%, 48.4%; 2004: 35.0%, 44.3%; 2005: 36.6%, 51.9%; 2006: 31.2%, 41.0%; 2007: 41.4%, 54.2%).

In recent years we've added poster session presentations to the program. At the 2008 meeting women were 34.3% of those making presentations (259 out of 756) (Cf., 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 poster sessions: women were 29.7%, 30.1%, 31.7%, 27.8%, 33.2%, 33.1%, 35.3%, and 32.4% of the presenters).

The divisions with the strongest female representation were those on Normative Political Theory;* Politics and History; Teaching and Learning in Political Science; Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries; Women and Politics Research;* Race, Ethnicity and Politics;* and Human Rights* (* = headed by women).

The divisions with the weakest female representation in 2008 were Formal Political Theory, Political Methodology, Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrial Societies, International Security and Arms Control, Conflict Processes, Legislative Studies, Public Opinion and Political Participation, and International History and Politics. ■