Gender and Politics in the 2016 U.S. Election and Beyond.

We are delighted to introduce the Gender and Politics Special Collection. The need for a special collection on gender and politics has never been timelier, evidenced both by gains in women's political participation and leadership around the world and the 2016 presidential election in the United States. Here, we introduce the timeliness of the topic with a review of the remarkable progress women have made in political representation over the past 150 years, a reiteration of the importance of women's political representation to democracy, and a brief discussion of the 2016 U.S. election cycle. We then introduce the eight papers that make up the special collection, emphasizing their contributions to ongoing debates in the field.