Why Women Earn High Marks: Examining the Role of Partisanship and Gender in Political Evaluations

TY - JOUR

T1 - Why Women Earn High Marks

T2 - Examining the Role of Partisanship and Gender in Political Evaluations

AU - Cormack, Lindsey

AU - Karl, Kristyn L.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association.

PY - 2022/9/1

Y1 - 2022/9/1

N2 - We present the results of a randomized survey experiment demonstrating that the public evaluates women politicians more highly than men across multiple characteristic assessments. This finding is consistent with a recent wave of research indicating greater preferences for women politicians. Which respondents rate women politicians more highly, and why? We find that women and younger voters do not account for the greater marks given to women politicians. Instead, respondent partisanship and the presumed partisanship of the politician account for a great deal of our findings, with gender playing a complicating role. Democratic and Republican respondents are apt to project their own partisanship onto politicians, and across both parties, we find higher assessments for co-partisan politicians and for women politicians. On the whole, women politicians are evaluated on par with or significantly higher than men politicians across six characteristics, scoring especially well relative to men when politicians are presumed to be members of the opposing party and when traditionally feminine characteristics are assessed.

AB - We present the results of a randomized survey experiment demonstrating that the public evaluates women politicians more highly than men across multiple characteristic assessments. This finding is consistent with a recent wave of research indicating greater preferences for women politicians. Which respondents rate women politicians more highly, and why? We find that women and younger voters do not account for the greater marks given to women politicians. Instead, respondent partisanship and the presumed partisanship of the politician account for a great deal of our findings, with gender playing a complicating role. Democratic and Republican respondents are apt to project their own partisanship onto politicians, and across both parties, we find higher assessments for co-partisan politicians and for women politicians. On the whole, women politicians are evaluated on par with or significantly higher than men politicians across six characteristics, scoring especially well relative to men when politicians are presumed to be members of the opposing party and when traditionally feminine characteristics are assessed.

KW - Women in politics

KW - public opinion

KW - survey experiment

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106151267&partnerID=8YFLogxK

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U2 - 10.1017/S1743923X2100012X

DO - 10.1017/S1743923X2100012X

M3 - Article

SN - 1743-923X

VL - 18

SP - 768

EP - 797

JO - Politics and Gender

JF - Politics and Gender

IS - 3

ER -