Strong and Caring? The Stereotypic Traits of Women of Color in Politics

• In Event: Modes of Representation

Abstract

In the newly seated US Congress, 52 of the record 144 women elected to serve in either chamber are women of color. And, it was a woman of color, Kamala Harris, who broke the glass ceiling to the executive office with her election to the Vice Presidency. Indeed, women of color appear to be leading women’s success into electoral office. Despite these recent successes, women of color, along with women more generally, women's political under-representation persists. Women of color make-up less 10% of the U.S. Congress, and about 13% of state legislators, on average (CAWP 2020). The current literature debates the extent to which women of color are at a “double-disadvantage” due to the combined effects of gender and race stereotypes (Philpot and Walton 2007), or if women of color have a unique “double-advantage” because of the unique intersectional nature of gender and race stereotypes (Smooth 2006, Ford Dowe 2020). This paper will shed light on this question by measuring the stereotypic trait content voters hold about women of color. We build on the subtyping theory used by Schneider and Bos (2014) to detail how stereotypes about female leaders differ from stereotypes about women and stereotypes about male leaders to form a new stereotypic category. We argue that women of color belong to a subtype category, this means the stereotypes of women of color combine qualities of race and gender stereotypes in such a way that they create a new stereotype category. This new intersectional stereotype category differs from stereotypes about female leaders and from the general stereotypes about women, racial minorities, and broad stereotypes about women of color. The women of color leader stereotype includes positive masculine qualities and positive feminine qualities. Our project also theorizes how women of color who belong to different racial and ethnic groups fit into different subgroups of the women of color leader stereotype. Subgroups are smaller categories within a larger stereotype category (Richards and Hewstone 2001). We argue that Black women, Latinas, Asian American women, and other racial and ethnic minority women belong to subgroups of the women of color leader stereotype.

We test these predictions with multiple survey experiments. Our first set of experiments measures the stereotypic trait content that individuals attribute to women of color leaders. We ask experimental participants to rate the extent to which nearly 150 traits aptly describe Black women, Asian American women, Latina, Muslim, and Native American women political leaders. We use these traits to create a women of color leadership scale, and we test how these trait ascriptions differ from those of women leaders more generally, and across the different women of color groups. We then conduct a set of experiments to test how women of color candidates can use these traits to their electoral advantage in campaign appeals. Our findings show that women of color do, indeed, belong to a unique stereotype category that differs from the stereotypes of women leaders and the more general stereotypes of women of color. We also show that the stereotypes of women of color have a more positive valence relative to the stereotypes of women leaders more generally--adding credence to the argument that stereotypes about women of color can be a double advantage. Our study confirms previous findings of higher levels of support for women of color among minority women compared to other groups (Gershon, Montoya, Bejarano, and Brown 2019). Our work shows that the best potential for growing women’s political representation may very well rest with recruiting and supporting women of color candidates.

Authors

• Nichole Bauer, Louisiana State University

• Sylvia Gonzalez, Louisiana State University