The Senior Executive Service: Gender, Attitudes, and Representative Bureaucracy

This article draws from the theory of representative bureaucracy to examine women's contributions to policy making in the federal Senior Executive Service (SES). Since women's life experiences differ in meaningful ways from those of men, the theory posits, they will make decisions differently than their male colleagues. Although scholars commonly assume that SES members influence policy, we know very little about executive women's attitudes and behavior. By using a survey administered to federal executives across the entire federal government, this article tests the conditions under which SES women are likely to press for women's interests and provide substantive representation to American women. The results indicate that women executives are most likely to adopt female friendly attitudes when they work in an agency or department with an office devoted to women's issues and when higher percentages of elite women are positioned within the organization's leadership ranks