Political Gender Stereotypes in a List-PR System with a High Share of Women MPs: Competent Men versus Leftist Women?

On the basis of a candidate's sex, voters ascribe particular personality traits, capacities, and opinions to candidates (often to the detriment of women), which are referred to as political gender stereotypes. The prevalence of political gender stereotypes has almost exclusively been investigat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political research quarterly 2018-12, Vol.71 (4), p.788-800
Main Authors: Devroe, Robin, Wauters, Bram
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ascription
Bias
Candidates
Competence
Elections
Females
Gender
Gender differences
Gender stereotypes
Ideology
Left wing politics
Legislatures
Liberalism
Members of Parliament
Personality
Personality traits
Political campaigns
Political parties
Political representation
Politicians
Proportional representation
Public opinion
Public relations
Stereotypes
Voters
Women
Women and politics
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Summary:On the basis of a candidate's sex, voters ascribe particular personality traits, capacities, and opinions to candidates (often to the detriment of women), which are referred to as political gender stereotypes. The prevalence of political gender stereotypes has almost exclusively been investigated in the United States. As the presence of these stereotypes is highly dependent on contextual factors, we switch the context and investigate whether they are also present in a List-Proportional Representation (PR) system with a high share of women in parliament spread over different parties. The results of our experimental study, conducted in Flanders (Belgium), provide evidence for the existence of stereotypical patterns. The differences in perceived issue competence are, however, rather small and not always unequivocal, but larger differences were found in terms of ideological position. This leads us to conclude that misperceptions about women's ideological orientation might be persistent and difficult to overcome. Moreover, our results demonstrate that the argument that female politicians are perceived as more leftist because they disproportionately belong to leftist parties does not hold, as female politicians are rather equally spread over the different parties in Belgium.
ISSN:1065-9129
1938-274X
DOI:10.1177/1065912918761009