The idea of symbolic representation focuses on the emotions and responses that representatives invoke in constituents (Pitkin Reference Pitkin1967). One of the key questions driving the study of women’s symbolic representation is how constituents, and particularly women, react to seeing women present in politics. In their book Seeing Women, Strengthening Democracy: How Women in Politics Foster Connected Citizens, Magda Hinojosa and Miki Caul Kittilson explore whether a jump in the presence of women in politics leads to greater political connectedness among women, measured in terms of their levels of political support and political engagement.

In chapter 2, the authors locate their research on symbolic representation within two areas of study: the study of gender gaps and political engagement, and existing research on the impact of women’s symbolic representation on political participation, interest, and efficacy. They then introduce their novel theory, the visible cue theory of representation. Contrary to existing studies, which argue that women’s political connectedness relies on incremental change through socialization, cultural change, increases in resources, and the like, the authors argue that it is sudden changes in the representation of women that can impact women’s political connectedness. Thus, they move the concept of visibility front and center. The authors argue that impactful change in women’s descriptive representation must be highly visible, such that citizens cannot help but notice. This emphasis replaces previous studies’ reliance on candidacy as a sign of visibility (Atkeson and Carrillo Reference Atkeson and Carrillo2007; Campbell and Wolbrecht Reference Campbell and Wolbrecht2006; Burns, Schlozman, and Verba Reference Burns, Schlozman and Verba2001). The authors define a big jump as “women’s numbers in the legislature doubling from one election to the next to land above 20 percent” (56).

Chapter 3 provides an overview of Latin American cases that have experienced sudden changes in women’s political representation. In this discussion, Uruguay stands out as the perfect single-case study to test the authors’ visible cue theory, because of the timing of increased women’s presence in office and data availability. Chapter 4 discusses the idea of visibility, which the authors measure with multiple empirical approaches, including a panel survey, elite interviews, and a content analysis of three major Uruguayan newspapers. The panel survey gauges citizens’ awareness of women’s presence in politics as well as their awareness of the newly adopted electoral gender quota before and after the 2014 Uruguayan election. The authors find that citizens were generally not aware of the electoral gender quota, while they were aware of the significant increase of women after the 2014 election. These findings indicate that the adoption of a quota is not necessary for the visible cue theory to apply. Other scenarios, such as the Year of the Woman in the U.S. case, could produce these effects without a gender quota. Elite interviews add further depth to the Uruguayan case study, and the authors’ analyses of news media coverage nicely corroborate public discourse around the quota and women’s descriptive representation overall.

Chapter 5 outlines the impact of symbolic representation on political engagement. Before the 2014 Uruguayan election, more men than women were politically engaged. After the election, this gap in engagement disappeared. Chapter 6 reveals similar findings for political support: before the 2014 election, the authors discern little difference in political support between men and women. After the election, women showed greater support than men. These findings lend support for the link between the descriptive and symbolic representation of women via the mechanism of visibility. However, the authors find that the impact of visibility in this case was short-lived. When they ran the same survey five years later, political connectedness had returned to its pre-2014 level.

The apparently ephemeral effects of symbolic representation raise many questions that the authors expertly address in the last chapter of the book, which focuses on three potential explanations: failures of specific women representatives, which may raise doubts among the public regarding women’s political efficacy overall; skepticism among citizens that women’s descriptive representation is little more than window dressing; and novelty effects or “first woman” frames that are by their very nature short-lived. In answer to these possibilities, the authors suggest that longer lasting effects might be achieved through the establishment of formal gender parity efforts. Formal integration of women into political processes would signal that women’s presence is not only enduring but also impactful. In developing these ideas, the authors outline a rich research program for exploring how symbolic representation effects might become longer lasting.

Seeing Women, Strengthening Democracy is a must-read for scholars interested in the symbolic representation of women, yet it is also relevant well beyond the women and politics field. The book’s visible cue theory of representation provides a blueprint for how to study the link between descriptive and symbolic representation, and its impact on political connectedness beyond gender includes but is not limited to class, race/ethnicity, age, disability, and religion. Further, the book’s theory speaks to how political connectedness aids the functioning and legitimacy of democracy overall, and how groups must be integrated into government structures for democracy to be inclusive and representative.