More Women in Congress Does Not Mean Less Gridlock in Washington

Article here. Excerpt:

'Exhilarated by the record number of women elected to both the House and Senate in 2012, giddy commentators have begun suggesting that increased representation by females could cure the poisonous polarization in Washington and repair the broken institutions of our government. A more sober, comprehensive analysis, however, reveals no historical or logical basis to assume that the much heralded influx of female politicos means an automatic improvement in the dysfunctional performance of the legislative branch.
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None of these happy pronouncements cited examples of this sort of collaborative, constructive female legislative leadership in either the recent or distant past. In her short-lived speakership, for instance, Nancy Pelosi achieved a reputation for many things, but “working across the aisle” wasn’t one of them: she won not a single GOP vote for either the stimulus package or the Obamacare reforms. On the Senate side, the “Maine Girls” (Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe) won praise as moderate problem-solvers, but from the other edge of the continent the “California Girls” (Democratic stalwarts Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein) emphatically did not. (Very few colleagues in either party would croon along with the Beach Boys that “I wish they all could be California Girls.”)

Gender differences never really identify political performance or predilections: there’s as much temperamental difference between the genial Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and the pugnacious “Battling Barbara” Mikulski, as between the courtly Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and the flame-throwing Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
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In this context it’s worth remembering that one of the most polarizing and truculent of all legislators of the past 50 years, noted for frequent verbal abuse of both colleagues and staff, also happened to be a feminist icon: Bella Abzug, the big-hatted harridan from the Borough of Brooklyn.
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Around the world, some female politicians have won praise for their heroic leadership in times of danger and discord, like Britain’s Margaret Thatcher or Israel’s Golda Meir. But neither of these fierce, formidable ladies earned recognition for a collaborative, nonconfrontational style, and both found themselves forced from office by disgruntled dissidents in their own parties. Other women who have led major governments became notorious for ferocious, uncompromising, often disastrously willful leadership, like India’s Indira Gandhi or Argentina’s currently embattled President Cristina Kirchner—hardly exemplifying the collaborative, accommodating approach so lavishly praised by estrogen-is-the-answer advocates.'