310 PS • April 2020 ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... P r o f e s s i o n S p o t l i g h t : I n t e r v i e w s , R e f l e c t i o n s , a n d A d v i c e f r o m W o m e n i n L e g i s l a t i v e S t u d i e s as associate dean of liberal arts. This is not to say there is no gen- der bias at that institution but, in my experience, it was limited (and, oddly, more pronounced when I had more senior rank). The worst was from students exhibiting inappropriate behaviors. Yet, I rarely felt disadvantaged in my subfield of legislative studies because of my sex. There were not many women in the subfield, but when I was just starting out, there were scholars senior to me (e.g., Barbara Sinclair) to consider as role models. It also is the case that the entire field was smaller at that time, and there were fewer graduate students vying for the limited space to present papers on panels. Conferences have expanded to meet the demand for participation, but this means that not all panels are composed of equally prominent scholars. In the 1980s and 1990s, the odds of being placed on a panel with top scholars were much higher than today. Being on panels with top scholars meant that I was able to meet them, and the folks who came to a panel to hear them also had to hear me. It was easier for any young scholar in the field—and, therefore, for a young female scholar—to get bene- ficial exposure in the 1980s than it is today. And exposure leads to opportunities that lead to more exposure. I served a term on the editorial board of Legislative Studies Quarterly, twice organized panels for the Legislative Politics Section of the Midwest Polit- ical Science Association, did the same for the Southern Political Science Association once, and served as a member of the advi- sory panel for political science at the National Science Founda- tion. Whereas some might see this as thankless service work, it also is an opportunity for professional networking and getting one’s name in front of people. I also participated in several spe- cialized conferences on various aspects of the legislative process, sometimes through an application process and sometimes by invitation. These conferences provide good opportunities for net- working and making people aware of one’s work. Yet, at one such conference, I had the only seriously negative experience that I can remember that I attribute to gender bias. The paper I presented (with a male coauthor) critiqued on methodological grounds an earlier work on the same topic that was coauthored by a very sen- ior scholar who also was at the conference. During a break, he cornered me to question that critique and take me to task for it. It was notable to me that he did not question my coauthor alone or the two of us together. My subsequent relations with that individual (who I encountered at panels and events) were rather chilly. However, if this is the only unpleasant experience I had related to gender, it is not so bad. It is entirely possible that I was successful at being integrated into the field precisely because I am a woman. This is simply the serendipity of timing. In the 1980s and 1990s, universities and professional associations were making an effort to afford women more opportunities. If there was a demand to include women (e.g., on the program committee of a professional association) and there were not many women available, then the odds of being included were greatly increased. At its worst, this was tokenism. However, even tokenism gives one a seat at the table. The challenge is to take advantage of that seat. The most significant change to the field since I was an assistant professor is that it is larger. There are more women, but there are more men too. Therefore, the competition is stiffer than it used to be. It is more difficult to have work accepted in top journals, and the proliferation of panels and the sheer size of conferences dilute the opportunities for networking. Ironically, women also may be currently disadvantaged by an increase in their numbers in the field, which makes them a visible minority but does not give them parity with men. Despite this situation, many aspects of the route to success today are no different than the ones I took: show up, speak up, be competent, and be responsible. Attend the important confer- ences, go to panels other than your own, join the relevant subfield sections, and attend their business meetings and social events. Present papers that are essentially finished products rather than works in progress. Be willing to serve as a panel chair or discus- sant and then do a good job. I have observed a remarkable decline in professionalism during the course of my career: people pres- ent papers that are too rough for prime time, panel chairs who do nothing more than keep time, and discussants who offer no useful comments to an author. They are joined by those who refuse to review for journals, write sloppy reviews, or send them in late. One simple step toward success is to counter this trend by cultivating a strong sense of professionalism. No matter the role, do your best work and always—and only—put your best work for- ward. Set high expectations for your career and recognize that, at least to a degree, you can control your achievements through your own efforts and abilities. Some readers will conclude that I remain naïve about gen- der bias in the profession or lament that I have not addressed the repercussions of the #MeToo movement in the discipline. I acknowledge that both sexism and sexual harassment are prob- lems in some departments and in parts of the discipline. But they are barriers that can be overcome by persistence and profession- alism. Withdrawal in the face of bias is not an option. Success is the best revenge. n ADVICE FOR WOMEN AND FOR THEIR COLLEAGUES AND MENTORS: AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANCES E. LEE SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor, University of Maryland Frances E. Lee, Princeton University DOI: 10.1017/S1049096519002129 SoRelle Gaynor (SG): When you first started graduate school or as a new professor, were you aware of a gender disparity in the field of legislative studies? Frances Lee (FL): I wasn’t. And, in fact, when I first started out, there were particular women scholars who were very visible in the legislative politics field. Obviously, there was Barbara Sinclair. There was Linda Fowler and Diana Evans as well. When I started my first job—a one-year research fellowship at Brookings right after grad school—Sarah Binder was on staff there and Wendy Schiller was a visiting scholar. I was well aware of work by all of these scholars as I studied for comps and worked on my dissertation. So, there seemed to be quite a few women in the field. It was only later, over time, that I began to see that women are a distinct minority in legislative studies. It’s not unusual today to go to panels where most—if not all—of the panelists are men and most everyone in the audience is a man, too. But I wasn’t cognizant of this at the start. That impression evolved over time. SG: Do you see any reason for this gender imbalance? And what approach could legislative scholars take in addressing this gap? FL: It seems to be true of the study of American institutions over- all. The presidency subfield also is very male dominated, just like PS • April 2020 311 ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... legislative studies. I can’t say I have a good explanation of why this would be the case. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the object of one’s study in these fields is mostly men. There’s clearly some kind of self-selection dynamic in which female graduate students interested in American politics tend to gravitate toward other subjects rather than legislative studies. Being cognizant of this imbalance can help legislative scholars be mindful of their choices so that they ensure that any woman who wants to study in this field feels welcome. They should ask themselves if they are equally approachable to male and female students. Certainly, they’d want to consider the syllabi they put together: Are they appropriately representative of good work by female scholars? Being self-aware about those imbalances can be helpful. But I think the cause of the gender disparity in the field owes more to patterns in graduate-student interest and self-selection rather than unfriendliness toward women. SG: You mentioned prominent legislative scholars when you started out. What impact did this have on you, and what advice do you have for young scholars looking for mentors? FL: As a young scholar, I certainly looked up to the trailblazing women who preceded me in the field. I especially admired Bar- bara Sinclair. When she spoke on panels, she always had great insights and was very clear—and she had such a fun, dynamic per- sonality too. At an early conference when I was still a graduate student and didn’t know anybody there, Linda Fowler came up to me in the exhibit hall and introduced herself. She’d heard about me from Bruce Oppenheimer, who was my mentor at Vanderbilt, and just made the contact. I never forgot that she was welcoming to me. Just the friendly hello from a scholar I looked up to meant a lot to me at that juncture. The presence of female role models does make a difference for younger people coming into a field, and they were present for me. Even though it was a field in which women were a minority, role models were not absent. As younger scholars seek mentors for themselves, I think it’s unfair to put all the burden on them to know what they need to look for. People just starting out in graduate school typically don’t know what they don’t know–and aren’t yet even in a position to know what to ask. Faculty in the field have to take responsibility for students in their program because they are in a better position to know what’s needed than the students themselves, at least ini- tially. But the key things for young scholars to ask as they look for mentors: Is the faculty member responsive? Will they read your work and give you timely feedback? Are they available to meet or have a conversation? There are great scholars who don’t take much interest in graduate students’ work. In some cases, it might still pay off to be a student of such a person because of their fame, but if you want mentorship, then you need to take stock of whether a scholar will engage with students in that way. For those in a mentorship role, it’s great to talk to female grad- uate students about the challenges that they face. To have frank conversations about practical things, like what to wear on job interviews, what sort of subjects are appropriate to bring up, and how early in the interview process to initiate conversations about various subjects. Being willing to have those conversations is an important kind of mentorship. SG: Have you ever experienced imposter syndrome? And, if so, how do you get past it and what would you encourage other women to do? FL: Yes, I have experienced it. It was a big part of my life, espe- cially early on in my career. In graduate school, I felt very lucky to have the opportunity to earn a PhD, but I often did question whether I was going to succeed. It takes years to develop the amount of expertise that you think you need to have the title Professor. It takes a long time, even after successfully defending a dissertation, to feel ready to uphold others’—and your own— expectations about what it means to be an expert in a field. It’s an ongoing challenge to live up to what you think you should be. And overcoming the imposter syndrome—which is always a work in a progress for many of us—is a matter of lots of preparation. Preparation helps you develop confidence, even if it doesn’t come naturally. SG: What are some disadvantages you see women facing in legis- lative studies? Advantages? FL: One disadvantage, I think, is that coauthoring relationships are a little harder to develop for women. Oftentimes, male schol- ars are friends with one another, and then coauthoring projects grow out of a friendship. That kind of bonding is just easier among people of the same sex. Obviously, working together with others is helpful, especially for people early in their career. Given the gender imbalance in the field, I think it’s a little harder for women to get to develop those collaborative relationships. Not to say it’s impossible, but it’s just harder. I do think that as departments try to diversify, female can- didates often get a closer look. Most departments don’t want to have an overwhelmingly male-tilted faculty distribution, and so being female can get you some scrutiny on the job market. This can open up opportunities, given that there are so few women who study legislative politics. Female scholars in the legislative field also often get extra opportunities to serve on panels or to participate in conferences as organizers try to ensure some gender balance. One piece of advice to scholars working on these fraught issues around gender balance and representation: it can be a bit demoralizing to women scholars to feel that they have only been selected to fill a quota. When you ask a woman scholar to For those in a mentorship role, it’s great to talk to female graduate students about the challenges that they face. To have frank conversations about practical things, like what to wear on job interviews, what sort of subjects are appropriate to bring up, and how early in the interview process to initiate conversations about various subjects. Being willing to have those conversations is an important kind of mentorship. 312 PS • April 2020 ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... P r o f e s s i o n S p o t l i g h t : I n t e r v i e w s , R e f l e c t i o n s , a n d A d v i c e f r o m W o m e n i n L e g i s l a t i v e S t u d i e s participate in a panel or conference or some other effort and they decline, it’s a little off-putting to then ask them, “Can you name some other women?” That’s not great for the self-esteem of your female colleagues. SG: On a larger scale, how do you see the current political climate and movements like MeToo potentially shaping the field? FL: MeToo presents some really thorny problems for the academy. This is not a legislative studies problem; this is just a problem of how universities are organized. Many wonderful features of universities flow from the tenure system and the independence faculty have. The system allows faculty to work on what they’re interested in, not to be subject to the fads that administrators can be very eager to embrace, to develop an expertise because they care about it and believe that it’s important, and to keep at it even if maybe not everybody sees the value at any given time—these are great features of the system. The whole decentralized structure of universities, all of that grows out of the tenure system. If you do away with that, then you introduce new accountability relationships that would have some good features in the form of being able to better police problem behavior. But it would have many downsides for academic freedom and university organiza- tion. This is a particularly troubling set of tradeoffs for the MeToo era. Bad faculty behavior is not something universities are great at policing, but growing recognition of this problem highlights that bad faculty behavior is an issue for universities as well as for the victims of inappropriate behavior. SG: What about citations? Do you cite someone with multiple, credible allegations? Obviously, there’s not a right answer to any of this. FL: That’s an interesting question I’d never considered before. My thinking would be that you cite work that influenced you or that was foundational for your work, regardless of the source. If a piece of work was important to the development of your project or your paper, then you cite where citation is due. Personnel deci- sions are another matter. If you’re trying to hire somebody for a job, then you’d absolutely want to take into account whether that person has a record of mistreating students or colleagues. But with regard to citation, that ought to be just on the basis of the academic merits of the matter. n The following discussion summarizes their conversation with Professor Brown. 1. What were your initial motivations to study Black women lawmakers? Furthermore, has your motivation to continue to study Black women changed since then? I went to Howard University for undergrad, a historically Black college and university. At Howard, it was Black politics all the time, which was a wonderful introduction to the field and provided a solid foundation of what Black politics was. But there was little scholarly attention to gender. When I went to Rutgers University for my PhD, my major field was women in politics. Although concentrating on gender politics was really illuminat- ing, it was all about white women. What stuck out to me was the limited amount of scholarship on Black women, both at the level of political elites and mass citizenship. Thus, for me, it was an obvious place to conduct research. From my own lived expe- riences of seeing Black women champion inclusive politics and policy, I knew that Black women had a distinct voice. However, this voice was often in the shadows and was not being recognized in the scholarship. Both experiences taught me that the problem was deeper than just “no one has done this before” and that there were qualitative differences that needed to be explored. 2. Has the field changed since you started as an assistant profes- sor? If so, how? I think it has changed; I am really excited and enthusiastic about the next generation of scholars who do solid racial, ethnic, and gender politics. I used to be one of only a handful of schol- ars that did this kind of work. Now I can point to a whole cohort of scholars who do women of color studies. Sarah Allen Gershon and I published an edited volume on minority women’s politics (Brown and Gershon 2016). This captures the types of research that I would never have had the opportunity to read or to think about when I was a graduate student or assistant professor, in large part because there were too few scholars that did this kind of research. Now, the field is growing. Following this conversation, Caballero and Jackson explored how prevalent this type of intersectional research has been in the legislative studies field. Demographic information on the authors, as well as the subject of publications in issues 42 and 43 of the Legislative Studies Quarterly, suggests that this research is not well represented in this journal. No Black scholars of any gender identification were published in these issues. There were three scholars of Asian descent (two women and one male), seven Latinx scholars (five male and two Latinas), and two nonwhite scholars (one male and one female). Moreover, we found that the majority of scholars published in these issues were white men (71) and that the second most-published group was white women (15). In terms of the subject of the manuscripts that were published in these two issues, only two studies mentioned race and ethnicity, one mentioned same-sex marriage, and four mentioned women. These patterns suggest that even if research in this area is grow- ing, it still may be confined to journals that focus on gender and race. 3. How was your experience trying to become a part of a field dominated by white male scholars? Was it easy? Difficult? Why? COMMUNITY AS SELF: AN INTERVIEW WITH NADIA E. BROWN Guillermo Caballero, Purdue University Jasmine C. Jackson, Purdue University Nadia E. Brown, Purdue University DOI: 10.1017/S1049096519002130 An interview between Professor Nadia E. Brown and her grad- uate students, Guillermo Caballero and Jasmine C. Jackson, was conducted on November 3, 2018, at the request of the editors of The Legislative Scholar. Given the small numbers of women in the Legislative Studies Section (LSS), the newsletter editors were interested in learning more about their experiences in the legislative studies subfield. Caballero and Jackson used the basis of the editors’ questions to guide the interview and added two more questions focused on the intersection of gender and race.