GENDER AND POWER IN AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE DISCOURSE

In a modern democracy, all citizens theoretically are guaranteed an eq ual opportunity at political representation. This paper shows that dem ocratic theory does not always hold in practice in the United States. Discourse analysis is applied to the language used in the 1990 hearing s conducted by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the nomin ation of Judge David H. Souter to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Results show that while women are noticeably present as witness es in hearings, they are not treated on an equal footing with men. Wom en's access to the political debate is limited, because they are given proportionally less time to speak than male witnesses. Further, empir ical measures indicate that the effectiveness of women's testimony is undermined by senators' responses. Although women utilize what is defi ned as masculine language to compete within a male-dominated instituti on, gendered expectations can prevent them from being treated as autho ritative witnesses.