The Effects of Women Candidates on Adolescents’ Attitudes about Women Leaders

• In Event: Public Identities and Policy Effects

Abstract

Are women good political leaders? In the US historically, the common response was no—politics was men’s domain, and women lacked the requisite qualities for effective political leadership. Many of these stereotypes persist to the present day. Both advocates and scholars expect that when women are visible political leaders, they challenge gender stereotypes and thus change beliefs about women’s competency for politics. While this relationship has been investigated comparatively, there are surprisingly few analyses of this impact of women politicians on beliefs about women leaders in the US. Using both a survey experiment and an observational survey, this paper examines whether young people who observe women politicians become more likely to see women as possessing leadership traits, less anti-sexist, and more likely to think that there should be more women in office.

Authors

• David E. Campbell, University of Notre Dame

• Christina Wolbrecht, University of Notre Dame