Underlying almost every conversation about descriptive representation are questions about whether gender does and should always matter in politics. More specifically, those conversations rest on assumptions about whether political scientists should always evaluate the performance of political actors based on their membership in historically disadvantaged groups. How one answers that question can be problematic: A “yes” suggests that democratic citizens should evaluate the performance of members of historically disadvantaged groups using criteria (burdens?) beyond those used to evaluate members of privileged groups. A “ no ” seems to challenge the theoretical arguments for why the presence of historically disadvantaged groups is necessary. Admitting that not every woman in politics is a preferable descriptive representative for women seems to implicitly support having more men in politics and, thereby, the preferences that perpetuate male dominance in politics. Faced with such a quagmire of competing assumptions, those who study descriptive representation must balance concerns about essentializing women on one hand and reinforcing male dominance in politics on the other hand.

中文翻译：

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重新评估条件“是”：关于“黑人应该代表黑人，女性应该代表女性吗？”的论文

几乎每一次关于描述性代表的谈话背后都是关于性别在政治中是否确实并且应该始终重要的问题。更具体地说，这些对话基于这样的假设：政治学家是否应该始终根据政治行为者在历史上处于弱势群体的成员身份来评估他们的表现。如何回答这个问题可能会有问题：“是”表明民主公民应该使用标准（负担？）来评估历史上处于不利地位的群体成员的表现，而不是用于评估特权群体成员的标准。一个“不”似乎挑战了为什么历史上处于不利地位的群体的存在是必要的理论论据。承认并非每个政治女性都是女性的可取描述性代表，这似乎含蓄地支持让更多男性参与政治，从而支持使男性在政治中长期占据主导地位的偏好。面对这样一个相互竞争的假设的泥潭，那些研究描述性表征的人必须平衡对一方面女性本质化和另一方面加强男性在政治中的主导地位的担忧。