1. See Crewe, Ivor and Norris, Pippa. 1991. “British and American Journal Evolution: Divergence or Convergence?” PS: Political Science & Politics 24(3): 524–31Google Scholar. Crewe and Norris studied 74 journals that political scientists frequently read. Since our intent is to assess the state of research about women in political science, we examined 15 of their top 18 journals, excluding three journals whose foci lie outside the discipline: The American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, and Daedalus.

2. We have studied articles about women. Our bibliography only partially overlaps, but is distinct from the set of articles written by women.

3. Polity is more like the journals in Cluster C in its decade of first publication, patterns of article publication, time-frame when the majority of articles appeared, and journal audience, and hence was placed in that category. The content of PAR articles more closely resembles the content of articles in Cluster D, and thus was included in that cluster.

4. Compared with the top 15 journals, Women & Politics contains roughly the same total number of articles on topics commonly identified as “women's issues,” including alimony, abortion, child care, domestic violence, the Equal Rights Amendment, rape, and sexual harassment. W&P has also published 68 articles discussing feminism and feminist theory, compared with 30 such articles in the set of 15. Additionally, W&P considers topics which have been virtually ignored in the top 15 journals: women and aging; women's health care; women scientists and the treatment of women in scientific research; and lesbian literature. More importantly, W&P authors acknowledge female theorists nearly ignored in other political science journals, including Luce Irigaray, Simone de Beauvoir, and Carol Gilligan. For a more detailed analysis of the contributions of W&P, see Rita Mae Kelly, Linda M. Williams, and Kimberly Fisher, “Women & Politics, An Assessment of Its Role Within the Discipline of Political Science,” forthcoming.

5. The references cited after each of the general knowledge statements are only examples of some of the articles addressing each topic. An exhaustive list would render this article too long for publication in PS. The articles referenced from our study appear in the complete bibliography of all study articles following this article.

6. Reports of the APSA Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession represent 31 of the total 82 pieces on women in PS.