-
Title
-
Women Running for Office
-
Author
-
Lawless, Jennifer L.
-
Research Area
-
Social Institutions
-
Topic
-
Government Systems
-
Abstract
-
When women run for office, they tend to fare at least as well as their male counterparts. From vote totals, to fund‐raising receipts, to media coverage, to voters' evaluations, male and female candidates have become increasingly indistinguishable from one another. This is not to suggest, however, that gender is irrelevant in US politics. It might not prevent women from winning their elections, but it substantially stunts their emergence as candidates in the first place. Women are less likely than similarly situated men to consider running for office and actually to emerge as candidates. This gender gap in political ambition can be traced to differences in the manner in which women and men perceive themselves as potential candidates, as well as how electoral gatekeepers view them. The extant scholarship, therefore, suggests that if we want to understand gender dynamics in contemporary US politics, then we must focus our efforts on the precandidacy stage of the process. More specifically, pinpointing the origins of the gender gap in political ambition and developing an understanding of how political ambition evolves are crucial next steps for the women and politics subfield.
-
Related Essays
-
Party Organizations' Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H. Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
-
The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science), Sarah F. Anzia
-
The Sexual Division of Labor (Anthropology), Rebecca Bliege Bird and Brian F. Codding
-
Rent, Rent-Seeking, and Social Inequality (Sociology), Beth Red Bird and David B. Grusky
-
Stereotype Content (Sociology), Beatrice H. Capestany and Lasana T. Harris
-
Why So Few Women in Mathematically Intensive Fields? (Psychology), Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams
-
Gender Segregation in Higher Education (Sociology), Alexandra Hendley and Maria Charles
-
Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.
-
Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping (Psychology), Susan T. Fiske and Cydney H. Dupree
-
Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation (Psychology), Vanessa K. Bohns and Francis J. Flynn
-
Controlling the Influence of Stereotypes on One's Thoughts (Psychology), Patrick S. Forscher and Patricia G. Devine
-
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
-
Changing Family Patterns (Sociology), Kathleen Gerson and Stacy Torres
-
Government Formation and Cabinets (Political Science), Sona N. Golder
-
Divorce (Sociology), Juho Härkönen
-
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality (Anthropology), Kristen Hawkes and James Coxworth
-
Exploring Opportunities in Cultural Diversity (Political Science), David D. Laitin and Sangick Jeon
-
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
-
Transformation of the Employment Relationship (Sociology), Arne L. Kalleberg and Peter V. Marsden
-
Gender Inequality in Educational Attainment (Sociology), Anne McDaniel and Claudia Buchmann
-
Implicit Attitude Measures (Psychology), Gregory Mitchell and Philip E. Tetlock
-
Feminists in Power (Sociology), Ann Orloff and Talia Schiff
-
Culture as Situated Cognition (Psychology), Daphna Oyserman
-
Cognitive Bias Modification in Mental (Psychology), Meg M. Reuland et al.
-
Sociology of Entrepreneurship (Sociology), Martin Ruef
-
Born This Way: Thinking Sociologically about Essentialism (Sociology), Kristen Schilt
-
Stereotype Threat (Psychology), Toni Schmader and William M. Hall
-
Gender and the Transition to Adulthood: A Diverse Pathways View (Sociology), Ingrid Schoon
-
Family Income Composition (Economics), Kristin E. Smith
-
Primate Allomaternal Care (Anthropology), Stacey Tecot and Andrea Baden
-
Leadership (Anthropology), Adrienne Tecza and Dominic Johnson
-
Transnational Work Careers (Sociology), Roland Verwiebe
-
Gender and Work (Sociology), Christine L. Williams and Megan Tobias Neely
-
Identifier
-
etrds0389
-
extracted text
-
Women Running for Office
JENNIFER L. LAWLESS
Abstract
When women run for office, they tend to fare at least as well as their male counterparts. From vote totals, to fund-raising receipts, to media coverage, to voters’ evaluations, male and female candidates have become increasingly indistinguishable from
one another. This is not to suggest, however, that gender is irrelevant in US politics. It might not prevent women from winning their elections, but it substantially
stunts their emergence as candidates in the first place. Women are less likely than
similarly situated men to consider running for office and actually to emerge as candidates. This gender gap in political ambition can be traced to differences in the
manner in which women and men perceive themselves as potential candidates, as
well as how electoral gatekeepers view them. The extant scholarship, therefore, suggests that if we want to understand gender dynamics in contemporary US politics,
then we must focus our efforts on the precandidacy stage of the process. More specifically, pinpointing the origins of the gender gap in political ambition and developing
an understanding of how political ambition evolves are crucial next steps for the
women and politics subfield.
Reflecting on Hillary Clinton’s ultimately unsuccessful presidential bid,
then-CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric took to the airwaves on June 11,
2008 and told viewers, “Like her or not, one of the lessons of [the Clinton]
campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life,
particularly in the media.” Two weeks later, then-Speaker of the House
of Representatives Nancy Pelosi echoed this sentiment when speaking
to a reporter from the New York Times: “Of course there is sexism. We all
know that, but it’s a given.” These perceptions of bias were not restricted
to political elites. Politics & Gender––the leading political science journal in
the women and politics subfield––devoted a section of its March 2009 issue
to the manner in which gender dynamics affected the 2008 presidential
primary. Women’s organizations, such as the Women’s Media Center and
MissRepresentation.org, produced documentaries that chronicled examples
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
of sexism in US politics. And the results of a 2011 national survey of thousands of “potential candidates”––lawyers, business leaders, educators, and
political activists––revealed widespread perceptions of gender bias. More
specifically, Richard L. Fox and I found that two-thirds of women believed
that Hillary Clinton was subjected to sexist media coverage in her campaign.
Moreover, roughly 80% contended that she faced gender bias from voters.
The irony, of course, is twofold. Foremost, Hillary Clinton received 18 million votes, nearly enough to garner the nomination. Further, and perhaps
more importantly, the 2008 Democratic presidential primary was atypical.
Not only did Clinton begin the race with levels of name recognition, public
accomplishments, and a network of donors and operatives that many candidates never achieve, but she also entered the electoral arena with 17 years
of well-publicized baggage and a media corps with whom she had previous
relationships––some for better and some for worse. In other words, although
it may be the case that the campaign environment Clinton navigated epitomized sexism and bias in the electoral arena, we must be careful not to
assume that these dynamics transcend her presidential bid.
As I demonstrate in this essay, when women run for office, they tend to fare
at least as well as their male counterparts. From vote totals, to fundraising
receipts, to media coverage, to voters’ evaluations, male and female candidates have become increasingly indistinguishable from one another. This is
not to suggest, however, that gender is irrelevant in US politics. It might not
prevent women from winning their elections, but it substantially stunts their
emergence as candidates in the first place. If we want to continue to examine gender dynamics in US politics, therefore, then we must focus our efforts
on the precandidacy stage of the process. This essay concludes with some
suggestions for how we might do so.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: A PRETTY LEVEL PLAYING
FIELD––WHEN WOMEN RUN, WOMEN WIN
When the 114th Congress convened in January 2015, 81% of its members
were men. Large gender disparities are also evident at the state and local
levels. Men occupy the governor’s mansion in 45 of the 50 states, run City
Hall in 88 of the 100 largest cities across the country, and comprise more than
three-quarters of statewide elected officials and state legislators. The low
numbers of women in politics are particularly glaring when we place them in
context. While the 1980s saw gradual, but steady increases in the percentage
of women seeking elected office, and the early 1990s experienced a sharper
surge, the last several election cycles can be characterized as a plateau.
Indeed, the 2010 congressional elections resulted in the first net decrease
in the percentage of women serving in the US House of Representatives
Women Running for Office
3
since the 1978 midterm elections. The number of women elected to state
legislatures, which act as key launching pads to higher office, also suffered
the largest single year decline in 2010. Although the 2012 and 2014 elections
did not represent a net loss, as far as women’s representation is concerned,
the gains represented only aminimal increase. In addition, while many
nations around the world make progress increasing women’s presence in
positions of political power, the United States has not kept pace. According
to data compiled by the Interparliamentary Union, 99 nations now surpass
the US in the percentage of women in the national legislature.
It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that scholars have devoted the
last few decades to gaining a better understanding of why so few women
occupy positions of political power in the United States. And, generally
speaking, they have reached a consensus. While electoral gatekeepers all but
prohibited women from running for office in the 1970s and early 1980s, and
those women who did emerge as candidates often faced sexism and a hostile
environment, such is no longer the case. At the candidate level, individual
accounts of women who face overt gender discrimination once they enter
the public arena are increasingly uncommon. Public opinion data indicate
that an overwhelming majority of Americans no longer believe that men are
better suited emotionally for politics than are women, and an even greater
proportion of citizens express a willingness to support a qualified, female
party nominee for the presidency. When we turn to campaign fund-raising
receipts and vote totals, often considered the two most important indicators
of electoral success, researchers find that women perform just as well as, if
not better than, their male counterparts. And detailed content analyses of
the media coverage candidates receive no longer reveal gender differences.
Not only do journalists devote a comparable number of stories to men
and women running for office, but those articles look the same. Thus, the
notion that overt discrimination against female candidates––be it by voters,
donors, or reporters––pervades the campaign trail and accounts for the
low number of women in politics that has fallen out of favor with political
scientists.
In light of the growing contradiction between a political system that elects
few women and a body of research that identifies the electoral environment
as increasingly unbiased against female candidates, political scientists have
turned to two institutional explanations for women’s numeric underrepresentation. First, they point to the incumbency advantage. Not only do the
overwhelming majority of incumbents seek reelection in both state legislative and congressional elections, but their reelection rates are also very high.
Under these circumstances, increasing the number of electoral opportunities for previously excluded groups, such as women, can be glacial. Second,
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
women’s historic exclusion from the professions that tend to lead to political
careers contributes to the gender disparities in office holding.
The conventional assessment that emerges from these institutional explanations is that, overall, we are on a steady course toward equity in women’s
numeric representation. When women run for office, they perform comparably to men and are treated similarly. Hence, as women’s presence in
the “pipeline professions” approaches men’s, we should see the number of
female elected officials approach the number of men as well. Yet, despite
these assessments, the rosy prospects for women’s representation they
offer, and women’s increasing presence in the professions from which most
candidates emerge, significant gains in women’s numeric representation
have not materialized in recent election cycles.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH: THE GENDER GAP IN
POLITICAL AMBITION
Over the course of the last decade, Richard L. Fox and I have argued that,
missing from conventional analyses of women running for office is an understanding of the manner in which gender affects levels of political ambition
and interacts with the likelihood that they will throw their hats into the ring
in the first place. That is, if women and men are not equally likely to express
interest in running for office, then women’s presence in the political pipeline
and open seat opportunities that arise are insufficient for bolstering women’s
candidate emergence. To investigate this proposition, we developed and conducted the Citizen Political Ambition Study, a series of mail surveys and
interviews with women and men in the pool of potential candidates. The
samples of women and men are roughly equal in terms of race, region, education, household income, profession, political participation, and interest in
politics. Our goal was to conduct a nuanced investigation of how women and
men initially decide to run for all levels and types of political office, either
now or in the future.
The original survey, carried out in 2001, served as the first national study
of the initial decision to run for office. Based on mail survey responses from
1969 men and 1796 women, we found strong evidence that gender plays a
substantial role in the candidate emergence process. More than half of the
respondents (51%) stated that the idea of running for an elective position
had at least “crossed their mind.” But men were 16 percentage points more
likely than women to have considered running for office. Notably, this gender gap persisted across political party, income level, age, race, profession,
and region. Further, women were not only less likely than men to consider
running for office; they were also less likely actually to do it. Overall, 12%
of the respondents had run for some elective position. Men, however, were
Women Running for Office
5
40% more likely than women to have done so. Although there was no statistically significant gender difference in election outcomes, women were less
likely than men to reach what is characterized as a seemingly gender-neutral
“end-stage” of the electoral process.
In 2011, we completed a survey of a new sample of 1925 male and 1843
female potential candidates. Remarkably, despite the changing political
landscape and the emergence of several high-profile female candidates
between 2001 and 2011, women remained 16 percentage points less likely
than men to have thought about running for office. Even though they have
risen to the top ranks within the often male-dominated professions, and
despite the fact that they yield from the management and leadership positions that tend to position candidates for the highest public offices, women
express far less ambition than men to enter the upper echelons of the political
arena.
Although explicating in detail the factors that underlie the gender gap in
political ambition is beyond the scope of this essay, two central barriers bear
at least brief mention. First, one of the biggest impediments keeping women
from emerging as candidates centers on self-perceptions of qualifications
to run for office. Despite comparable credentials, men are almost 60% more
likely than women to assess themselves as “very qualified” to run for office.
Women are more than twice as likely as men to rate themselves as “not at all
qualified.” Women’s self-doubts are important not only because they speak
to deeply embedded gendered perceptions, but also because they play a
much larger role than do men’s in depressing the likelihood of considering
a candidacy.
A gender gap in political recruitment serves as the second factor that keeps
women from running for office. Women, across party lines, are less likely
than men to receive the suggestion to run for any political office from a
party leader, elected official, or political activist. They are also less likely to
receive the suggestion to run for office from “nonpolitical actors,” such as
colleagues, spouses / partners, and family members. The lack of recruitment
is a particularly powerful explanation for why women are less likely than
men to consider a candidacy; more than twice as many respondents who
have been encouraged to run––compared to those who have not––have
considered throwing their hats into the ring. Importantly, women are just as
likely as men to respond favorably to the suggestion of a candidacy. They
are just less likely than men to receive it.
The findings from the Citizen Political Ambition Study cast a cloud over
future prospects for gender parity in US political institutions and provide
compelling evidence that gender remains relevant in the study of female
candidates.
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
FUTURE RESEARCH: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
For the past 30 years, one basic question has guided much of the research
on gender and elections: Why do so few women occupy elective office? The
research now seems to have converged on the premise that women running
for office are formidable competitors, able fund-raisers, and serious subjects
of media attention. In other words, once they make it onto the campaign trail,
a candidate’s sex provides little explanatory power for the circumstances
he/she will face. The enduring gender gap in political ambition, however,
suggests that rather than focusing on end-stage assessments of the electoral
playing field, our time would now be better spent addressing at least three
aspects of the precandidacy stage of the process and the reasons women are
less likely than men to emerge from the pool of eligible candidates and face
the voters, donors, and media.
First, research on candidate emergence identifies a substantial gender gap
in political ambition that is well-established by the time women and men
enter the professions from which political candidates tend to emerge. But
we are extremely limited in the conclusions we can draw about the origins
of the gap or the manner in which early life experiences shape interest in
running for office. For most people, choosing to run for office is not a spontaneous decision; rather, it is the culmination of a long, personal evolution
that often stretches back into early family life. So, to gain a complete understanding of the gender gap in political ambition, we must pinpoint its origins.
In assessing the cognitive and contextual processes that affect whether and
how women and men come to view themselves as candidates, early political socialization merits investigation. Examining these gender differences at
their source, as opposed to relying on retrospective assessments of events
that occurred decades earlier, is the only way to get at the source of the gender gap.
Of course, if we are to gain a fuller understanding of the roots of women’s
lower levels of political ambition, then we must also study how ambition
evolves among adults. As women gain greater exposure to women in
politics, do they become more likely to consider running for office? Are they
less likely to view the political environment as sexist and more likely to
believe they can overcome adversity in male-dominated spheres? What are
the long-term implications of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin’s candidacies?
Did these women serve as lightning rods to fuel women’s political ambition?
Or did their experiences depress levels of interest in running for office? It
may take time for the presence of women in such high levels of political
power to trickle down to the candidate eligibility pool and inspire future
candidacies. Only by tracking women and men’s political ambition over time
can we assess these dynamics. Panel data become vital for this line of inquiry.
Women Running for Office
7
Finally, gender differences in perceptions play a critical role in the candidate
emergence process; and because perceptions dictate behavior, they are just as
important as reality. Yet we have only begun to understand how women and
men’s perceptions of themselves as candidates and the electoral arena affect
the decision to run for office. Are there gender differences in how perceptions of bias, personal skills, traits, and the costs associated with running for
office affect political ambition? Are there gender differences in how women
and men view the opportunity structure associated with different levels of
office? Do women perceive an easier campaign and political environment
when they consider pursuing positions that are more typically occupied by
women? Only by answering these questions can we begin to gauge prospects
for a perceptions of a level electoral playing field.
These new avenues of research must be complemented with investigations
that continue to track women’s electoral success when they do emerge
as candidates. Future investigators, however, must be very careful when
generating broad assessments from end-stage analyses. We must withstand
the temptation to conclude that, because there are no gender differences in
vote totals, fund-raising receipts, or media coverage, the electoral process
is “gender-neutral.” When women become candidates and make it to the
Election Day, they perform as well as men. But gender exerts a fundamental
role in US campaigns and elections long before the first donors are solicited,
newspaper articles written, or ballots cast. And it is at this precandidacy
stage of the process where academics have their work cut out for them.
FURTHER READING
Dolan, K. (2004). Voting for women: How the public evaluates women candidates. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Hayes, D. (2011). When gender and party collide: Stereotyping in candidate trait attribution. Politics & Gender, 7(2), 133–165.
Kahn, K. F. (1996). The political consequences of being a woman. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press.
Kornblut, A. E. (2010). Notes from the cracked ceiling: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and
what it will take for a woman to win. New York, NY: Crown.
Lawless, J. L. (2012). Becoming a candidate: Political ambition and the decision to run for
office. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Lawless, J. L., & Fox, R. L. (2010). It still takes a candidate: Why women don’t run for
office. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Palmer, B., & Simon, D. (2008). Breaking the political glass ceiling: Women and Congressional elections (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Sanbonmatsu, K. (2006). Where women run: Gender and party in the American states.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Woods, H. (2000). Stepping up to power: The political journey of American women. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
8
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
JENNIFER L. LAWLESS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Jennifer L. Lawless received her PhD in political science from Stanford University in 2003 and her BA in political science from Union College in 1997.
She is a Professor Government at American University, where she is also the
Director of the Women & Politics Institute. Her teaching and research focus
on gender politics, electoral politics, and public opinion. She has published
numerous articles in academic journals, such as the American Political Science
Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Politics &
Gender. She is also the author of Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition and
the Decision to Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and the lead
author of It Still Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
A nationally recognized speaker on electoral politics, Dr. Lawless’ analysis
and commentary have been quoted in outlets, including the New York
Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, CNN.com,
MSNBC.com, FOXNews.com, the CBS Evening News, ABC World News
Tonight, the Today Show, and the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.
In 2006, she sought the Democratic nomination for the US House of Representatives in Rhode Island’s second congressional district. Although she
lost the race, she is very active in politics. She served on the national board
of Emerge America from 2009 to 2011 and is currently an advisory board
member.
RELATED ESSAYS
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science),
Sarah F. Anzia
The Sexual Division of Labor (Anthropology), Rebecca Bliege Bird and Brian
F. Codding
Rent, Rent-Seeking, and Social Inequality (Sociology), Beth Red Bird and
David B. Grusky
Stereotype Content (Sociology), Beatrice H. Capestany and Lasana T. Harris
Why So Few Women in Mathematically Intensive Fields? (Psychology),
Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams
Gender Segregation in Higher Education (Sociology), Alexandra Hendley
and Maria Charles
Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.
Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping (Psychology), Susan T. Fiske
and Cydney H. Dupree
Women Running for Office
9
Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation (Psychology), Vanessa K. Bohns and Francis J. Flynn
Controlling the Influence of Stereotypes on One’s Thoughts (Psychology),
Patrick S. Forscher and Patricia G. Devine
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
Changing Family Patterns (Sociology), Kathleen Gerson and Stacy Torres
Government Formation and Cabinets (Political Science), Sona N. Golder
Divorce (Sociology), Juho Härkönen
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality (Anthropology), Kristen
Hawkes and James Coxworth
Exploring Opportunities in Cultural Diversity (Political Science), David D.
Laitin and Sangick Jeon
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
Transformation of the Employment Relationship (Sociology), Arne L. Kalleberg and Peter V. Marsden
Gender Inequality in Educational Attainment (Sociology), Anne McDaniel
and Claudia Buchmann
Implicit Attitude Measures (Psychology), Gregory Mitchell and Philip E.
Tetlock
Feminists in Power (Sociology), Ann Orloff and Talia Schiff
Culture as Situated Cognition (Psychology), Daphna Oyserman
Cognitive Bias Modification in Mental (Psychology), Meg M. Reuland et al.
Sociology of Entrepreneurship (Sociology), Martin Ruef
Born This Way: Thinking Sociologically about Essentialism (Sociology),
Kristen Schilt
Stereotype Threat (Psychology), Toni Schmader and William M. Hall
Gender and the Transition to Adulthood: A Diverse Pathways View (Sociology), Ingrid Schoon
Family Income Composition (Economics), Kristin E. Smith
Primate Allomaternal Care (Anthropology), Stacey Tecot and Andrea Baden
Leadership (Anthropology), Adrienne Tecza and Dominic Johnson
Transnational Work Careers (Sociology), Roland Verwiebe
Gender and Work (Sociology), Christine L. Williams and Megan Tobias Neely
-
Women Running for Office
JENNIFER L. LAWLESS
Abstract
When women run for office, they tend to fare at least as well as their male counterparts. From vote totals, to fund-raising receipts, to media coverage, to voters’ evaluations, male and female candidates have become increasingly indistinguishable from
one another. This is not to suggest, however, that gender is irrelevant in US politics. It might not prevent women from winning their elections, but it substantially
stunts their emergence as candidates in the first place. Women are less likely than
similarly situated men to consider running for office and actually to emerge as candidates. This gender gap in political ambition can be traced to differences in the
manner in which women and men perceive themselves as potential candidates, as
well as how electoral gatekeepers view them. The extant scholarship, therefore, suggests that if we want to understand gender dynamics in contemporary US politics,
then we must focus our efforts on the precandidacy stage of the process. More specifically, pinpointing the origins of the gender gap in political ambition and developing
an understanding of how political ambition evolves are crucial next steps for the
women and politics subfield.
Reflecting on Hillary Clinton’s ultimately unsuccessful presidential bid,
then-CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric took to the airwaves on June 11,
2008 and told viewers, “Like her or not, one of the lessons of [the Clinton]
campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life,
particularly in the media.” Two weeks later, then-Speaker of the House
of Representatives Nancy Pelosi echoed this sentiment when speaking
to a reporter from the New York Times: “Of course there is sexism. We all
know that, but it’s a given.” These perceptions of bias were not restricted
to political elites. Politics & Gender––the leading political science journal in
the women and politics subfield––devoted a section of its March 2009 issue
to the manner in which gender dynamics affected the 2008 presidential
primary. Women’s organizations, such as the Women’s Media Center and
MissRepresentation.org, produced documentaries that chronicled examples
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
of sexism in US politics. And the results of a 2011 national survey of thousands of “potential candidates”––lawyers, business leaders, educators, and
political activists––revealed widespread perceptions of gender bias. More
specifically, Richard L. Fox and I found that two-thirds of women believed
that Hillary Clinton was subjected to sexist media coverage in her campaign.
Moreover, roughly 80% contended that she faced gender bias from voters.
The irony, of course, is twofold. Foremost, Hillary Clinton received 18 million votes, nearly enough to garner the nomination. Further, and perhaps
more importantly, the 2008 Democratic presidential primary was atypical.
Not only did Clinton begin the race with levels of name recognition, public
accomplishments, and a network of donors and operatives that many candidates never achieve, but she also entered the electoral arena with 17 years
of well-publicized baggage and a media corps with whom she had previous
relationships––some for better and some for worse. In other words, although
it may be the case that the campaign environment Clinton navigated epitomized sexism and bias in the electoral arena, we must be careful not to
assume that these dynamics transcend her presidential bid.
As I demonstrate in this essay, when women run for office, they tend to fare
at least as well as their male counterparts. From vote totals, to fundraising
receipts, to media coverage, to voters’ evaluations, male and female candidates have become increasingly indistinguishable from one another. This is
not to suggest, however, that gender is irrelevant in US politics. It might not
prevent women from winning their elections, but it substantially stunts their
emergence as candidates in the first place. If we want to continue to examine gender dynamics in US politics, therefore, then we must focus our efforts
on the precandidacy stage of the process. This essay concludes with some
suggestions for how we might do so.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: A PRETTY LEVEL PLAYING
FIELD––WHEN WOMEN RUN, WOMEN WIN
When the 114th Congress convened in January 2015, 81% of its members
were men. Large gender disparities are also evident at the state and local
levels. Men occupy the governor’s mansion in 45 of the 50 states, run City
Hall in 88 of the 100 largest cities across the country, and comprise more than
three-quarters of statewide elected officials and state legislators. The low
numbers of women in politics are particularly glaring when we place them in
context. While the 1980s saw gradual, but steady increases in the percentage
of women seeking elected office, and the early 1990s experienced a sharper
surge, the last several election cycles can be characterized as a plateau.
Indeed, the 2010 congressional elections resulted in the first net decrease
in the percentage of women serving in the US House of Representatives
Women Running for Office
3
since the 1978 midterm elections. The number of women elected to state
legislatures, which act as key launching pads to higher office, also suffered
the largest single year decline in 2010. Although the 2012 and 2014 elections
did not represent a net loss, as far as women’s representation is concerned,
the gains represented only aminimal increase. In addition, while many
nations around the world make progress increasing women’s presence in
positions of political power, the United States has not kept pace. According
to data compiled by the Interparliamentary Union, 99 nations now surpass
the US in the percentage of women in the national legislature.
It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that scholars have devoted the
last few decades to gaining a better understanding of why so few women
occupy positions of political power in the United States. And, generally
speaking, they have reached a consensus. While electoral gatekeepers all but
prohibited women from running for office in the 1970s and early 1980s, and
those women who did emerge as candidates often faced sexism and a hostile
environment, such is no longer the case. At the candidate level, individual
accounts of women who face overt gender discrimination once they enter
the public arena are increasingly uncommon. Public opinion data indicate
that an overwhelming majority of Americans no longer believe that men are
better suited emotionally for politics than are women, and an even greater
proportion of citizens express a willingness to support a qualified, female
party nominee for the presidency. When we turn to campaign fund-raising
receipts and vote totals, often considered the two most important indicators
of electoral success, researchers find that women perform just as well as, if
not better than, their male counterparts. And detailed content analyses of
the media coverage candidates receive no longer reveal gender differences.
Not only do journalists devote a comparable number of stories to men
and women running for office, but those articles look the same. Thus, the
notion that overt discrimination against female candidates––be it by voters,
donors, or reporters––pervades the campaign trail and accounts for the
low number of women in politics that has fallen out of favor with political
scientists.
In light of the growing contradiction between a political system that elects
few women and a body of research that identifies the electoral environment
as increasingly unbiased against female candidates, political scientists have
turned to two institutional explanations for women’s numeric underrepresentation. First, they point to the incumbency advantage. Not only do the
overwhelming majority of incumbents seek reelection in both state legislative and congressional elections, but their reelection rates are also very high.
Under these circumstances, increasing the number of electoral opportunities for previously excluded groups, such as women, can be glacial. Second,
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
women’s historic exclusion from the professions that tend to lead to political
careers contributes to the gender disparities in office holding.
The conventional assessment that emerges from these institutional explanations is that, overall, we are on a steady course toward equity in women’s
numeric representation. When women run for office, they perform comparably to men and are treated similarly. Hence, as women’s presence in
the “pipeline professions” approaches men’s, we should see the number of
female elected officials approach the number of men as well. Yet, despite
these assessments, the rosy prospects for women’s representation they
offer, and women’s increasing presence in the professions from which most
candidates emerge, significant gains in women’s numeric representation
have not materialized in recent election cycles.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH: THE GENDER GAP IN
POLITICAL AMBITION
Over the course of the last decade, Richard L. Fox and I have argued that,
missing from conventional analyses of women running for office is an understanding of the manner in which gender affects levels of political ambition
and interacts with the likelihood that they will throw their hats into the ring
in the first place. That is, if women and men are not equally likely to express
interest in running for office, then women’s presence in the political pipeline
and open seat opportunities that arise are insufficient for bolstering women’s
candidate emergence. To investigate this proposition, we developed and conducted the Citizen Political Ambition Study, a series of mail surveys and
interviews with women and men in the pool of potential candidates. The
samples of women and men are roughly equal in terms of race, region, education, household income, profession, political participation, and interest in
politics. Our goal was to conduct a nuanced investigation of how women and
men initially decide to run for all levels and types of political office, either
now or in the future.
The original survey, carried out in 2001, served as the first national study
of the initial decision to run for office. Based on mail survey responses from
1969 men and 1796 women, we found strong evidence that gender plays a
substantial role in the candidate emergence process. More than half of the
respondents (51%) stated that the idea of running for an elective position
had at least “crossed their mind.” But men were 16 percentage points more
likely than women to have considered running for office. Notably, this gender gap persisted across political party, income level, age, race, profession,
and region. Further, women were not only less likely than men to consider
running for office; they were also less likely actually to do it. Overall, 12%
of the respondents had run for some elective position. Men, however, were
Women Running for Office
5
40% more likely than women to have done so. Although there was no statistically significant gender difference in election outcomes, women were less
likely than men to reach what is characterized as a seemingly gender-neutral
“end-stage” of the electoral process.
In 2011, we completed a survey of a new sample of 1925 male and 1843
female potential candidates. Remarkably, despite the changing political
landscape and the emergence of several high-profile female candidates
between 2001 and 2011, women remained 16 percentage points less likely
than men to have thought about running for office. Even though they have
risen to the top ranks within the often male-dominated professions, and
despite the fact that they yield from the management and leadership positions that tend to position candidates for the highest public offices, women
express far less ambition than men to enter the upper echelons of the political
arena.
Although explicating in detail the factors that underlie the gender gap in
political ambition is beyond the scope of this essay, two central barriers bear
at least brief mention. First, one of the biggest impediments keeping women
from emerging as candidates centers on self-perceptions of qualifications
to run for office. Despite comparable credentials, men are almost 60% more
likely than women to assess themselves as “very qualified” to run for office.
Women are more than twice as likely as men to rate themselves as “not at all
qualified.” Women’s self-doubts are important not only because they speak
to deeply embedded gendered perceptions, but also because they play a
much larger role than do men’s in depressing the likelihood of considering
a candidacy.
A gender gap in political recruitment serves as the second factor that keeps
women from running for office. Women, across party lines, are less likely
than men to receive the suggestion to run for any political office from a
party leader, elected official, or political activist. They are also less likely to
receive the suggestion to run for office from “nonpolitical actors,” such as
colleagues, spouses / partners, and family members. The lack of recruitment
is a particularly powerful explanation for why women are less likely than
men to consider a candidacy; more than twice as many respondents who
have been encouraged to run––compared to those who have not––have
considered throwing their hats into the ring. Importantly, women are just as
likely as men to respond favorably to the suggestion of a candidacy. They
are just less likely than men to receive it.
The findings from the Citizen Political Ambition Study cast a cloud over
future prospects for gender parity in US political institutions and provide
compelling evidence that gender remains relevant in the study of female
candidates.
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
FUTURE RESEARCH: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
For the past 30 years, one basic question has guided much of the research
on gender and elections: Why do so few women occupy elective office? The
research now seems to have converged on the premise that women running
for office are formidable competitors, able fund-raisers, and serious subjects
of media attention. In other words, once they make it onto the campaign trail,
a candidate’s sex provides little explanatory power for the circumstances
he/she will face. The enduring gender gap in political ambition, however,
suggests that rather than focusing on end-stage assessments of the electoral
playing field, our time would now be better spent addressing at least three
aspects of the precandidacy stage of the process and the reasons women are
less likely than men to emerge from the pool of eligible candidates and face
the voters, donors, and media.
First, research on candidate emergence identifies a substantial gender gap
in political ambition that is well-established by the time women and men
enter the professions from which political candidates tend to emerge. But
we are extremely limited in the conclusions we can draw about the origins
of the gap or the manner in which early life experiences shape interest in
running for office. For most people, choosing to run for office is not a spontaneous decision; rather, it is the culmination of a long, personal evolution
that often stretches back into early family life. So, to gain a complete understanding of the gender gap in political ambition, we must pinpoint its origins.
In assessing the cognitive and contextual processes that affect whether and
how women and men come to view themselves as candidates, early political socialization merits investigation. Examining these gender differences at
their source, as opposed to relying on retrospective assessments of events
that occurred decades earlier, is the only way to get at the source of the gender gap.
Of course, if we are to gain a fuller understanding of the roots of women’s
lower levels of political ambition, then we must also study how ambition
evolves among adults. As women gain greater exposure to women in
politics, do they become more likely to consider running for office? Are they
less likely to view the political environment as sexist and more likely to
believe they can overcome adversity in male-dominated spheres? What are
the long-term implications of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin’s candidacies?
Did these women serve as lightning rods to fuel women’s political ambition?
Or did their experiences depress levels of interest in running for office? It
may take time for the presence of women in such high levels of political
power to trickle down to the candidate eligibility pool and inspire future
candidacies. Only by tracking women and men’s political ambition over time
can we assess these dynamics. Panel data become vital for this line of inquiry.
Women Running for Office
7
Finally, gender differences in perceptions play a critical role in the candidate
emergence process; and because perceptions dictate behavior, they are just as
important as reality. Yet we have only begun to understand how women and
men’s perceptions of themselves as candidates and the electoral arena affect
the decision to run for office. Are there gender differences in how perceptions of bias, personal skills, traits, and the costs associated with running for
office affect political ambition? Are there gender differences in how women
and men view the opportunity structure associated with different levels of
office? Do women perceive an easier campaign and political environment
when they consider pursuing positions that are more typically occupied by
women? Only by answering these questions can we begin to gauge prospects
for a perceptions of a level electoral playing field.
These new avenues of research must be complemented with investigations
that continue to track women’s electoral success when they do emerge
as candidates. Future investigators, however, must be very careful when
generating broad assessments from end-stage analyses. We must withstand
the temptation to conclude that, because there are no gender differences in
vote totals, fund-raising receipts, or media coverage, the electoral process
is “gender-neutral.” When women become candidates and make it to the
Election Day, they perform as well as men. But gender exerts a fundamental
role in US campaigns and elections long before the first donors are solicited,
newspaper articles written, or ballots cast. And it is at this precandidacy
stage of the process where academics have their work cut out for them.
FURTHER READING
Dolan, K. (2004). Voting for women: How the public evaluates women candidates. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Hayes, D. (2011). When gender and party collide: Stereotyping in candidate trait attribution. Politics & Gender, 7(2), 133–165.
Kahn, K. F. (1996). The political consequences of being a woman. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press.
Kornblut, A. E. (2010). Notes from the cracked ceiling: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and
what it will take for a woman to win. New York, NY: Crown.
Lawless, J. L. (2012). Becoming a candidate: Political ambition and the decision to run for
office. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Lawless, J. L., & Fox, R. L. (2010). It still takes a candidate: Why women don’t run for
office. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Palmer, B., & Simon, D. (2008). Breaking the political glass ceiling: Women and Congressional elections (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Sanbonmatsu, K. (2006). Where women run: Gender and party in the American states.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Woods, H. (2000). Stepping up to power: The political journey of American women. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
8
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
JENNIFER L. LAWLESS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Jennifer L. Lawless received her PhD in political science from Stanford University in 2003 and her BA in political science from Union College in 1997.
She is a Professor Government at American University, where she is also the
Director of the Women & Politics Institute. Her teaching and research focus
on gender politics, electoral politics, and public opinion. She has published
numerous articles in academic journals, such as the American Political Science
Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Politics &
Gender. She is also the author of Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition and
the Decision to Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and the lead
author of It Still Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
A nationally recognized speaker on electoral politics, Dr. Lawless’ analysis
and commentary have been quoted in outlets, including the New York
Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, CNN.com,
MSNBC.com, FOXNews.com, the CBS Evening News, ABC World News
Tonight, the Today Show, and the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.
In 2006, she sought the Democratic nomination for the US House of Representatives in Rhode Island’s second congressional district. Although she
lost the race, she is very active in politics. She served on the national board
of Emerge America from 2009 to 2011 and is currently an advisory board
member.
RELATED ESSAYS
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science),
Sarah F. Anzia
The Sexual Division of Labor (Anthropology), Rebecca Bliege Bird and Brian
F. Codding
Rent, Rent-Seeking, and Social Inequality (Sociology), Beth Red Bird and
David B. Grusky
Stereotype Content (Sociology), Beatrice H. Capestany and Lasana T. Harris
Why So Few Women in Mathematically Intensive Fields? (Psychology),
Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams
Gender Segregation in Higher Education (Sociology), Alexandra Hendley
and Maria Charles
Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.
Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping (Psychology), Susan T. Fiske
and Cydney H. Dupree
Women Running for Office
9
Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation (Psychology), Vanessa K. Bohns and Francis J. Flynn
Controlling the Influence of Stereotypes on One’s Thoughts (Psychology),
Patrick S. Forscher and Patricia G. Devine
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
Changing Family Patterns (Sociology), Kathleen Gerson and Stacy Torres
Government Formation and Cabinets (Political Science), Sona N. Golder
Divorce (Sociology), Juho Härkönen
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality (Anthropology), Kristen
Hawkes and James Coxworth
Exploring Opportunities in Cultural Diversity (Political Science), David D.
Laitin and Sangick Jeon
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
Transformation of the Employment Relationship (Sociology), Arne L. Kalleberg and Peter V. Marsden
Gender Inequality in Educational Attainment (Sociology), Anne McDaniel
and Claudia Buchmann
Implicit Attitude Measures (Psychology), Gregory Mitchell and Philip E.
Tetlock
Feminists in Power (Sociology), Ann Orloff and Talia Schiff
Culture as Situated Cognition (Psychology), Daphna Oyserman
Cognitive Bias Modification in Mental (Psychology), Meg M. Reuland et al.
Sociology of Entrepreneurship (Sociology), Martin Ruef
Born This Way: Thinking Sociologically about Essentialism (Sociology),
Kristen Schilt
Stereotype Threat (Psychology), Toni Schmader and William M. Hall
Gender and the Transition to Adulthood: A Diverse Pathways View (Sociology), Ingrid Schoon
Family Income Composition (Economics), Kristin E. Smith
Primate Allomaternal Care (Anthropology), Stacey Tecot and Andrea Baden
Leadership (Anthropology), Adrienne Tecza and Dominic Johnson
Transnational Work Careers (Sociology), Roland Verwiebe
Gender and Work (Sociology), Christine L. Williams and Megan Tobias Neely
Women Running for Office
JENNIFER L. LAWLESS
Abstract
When women run for office, they tend to fare at least as well as their male counterparts. From vote totals, to fund-raising receipts, to media coverage, to voters’ evaluations, male and female candidates have become increasingly indistinguishable from
one another. This is not to suggest, however, that gender is irrelevant in US politics. It might not prevent women from winning their elections, but it substantially
stunts their emergence as candidates in the first place. Women are less likely than
similarly situated men to consider running for office and actually to emerge as candidates. This gender gap in political ambition can be traced to differences in the
manner in which women and men perceive themselves as potential candidates, as
well as how electoral gatekeepers view them. The extant scholarship, therefore, suggests that if we want to understand gender dynamics in contemporary US politics,
then we must focus our efforts on the precandidacy stage of the process. More specifically, pinpointing the origins of the gender gap in political ambition and developing
an understanding of how political ambition evolves are crucial next steps for the
women and politics subfield.
Reflecting on Hillary Clinton’s ultimately unsuccessful presidential bid,
then-CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric took to the airwaves on June 11,
2008 and told viewers, “Like her or not, one of the lessons of [the Clinton]
campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life,
particularly in the media.” Two weeks later, then-Speaker of the House
of Representatives Nancy Pelosi echoed this sentiment when speaking
to a reporter from the New York Times: “Of course there is sexism. We all
know that, but it’s a given.” These perceptions of bias were not restricted
to political elites. Politics & Gender––the leading political science journal in
the women and politics subfield––devoted a section of its March 2009 issue
to the manner in which gender dynamics affected the 2008 presidential
primary. Women’s organizations, such as the Women’s Media Center and
MissRepresentation.org, produced documentaries that chronicled examples
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
2
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
of sexism in US politics. And the results of a 2011 national survey of thousands of “potential candidates”––lawyers, business leaders, educators, and
political activists––revealed widespread perceptions of gender bias. More
specifically, Richard L. Fox and I found that two-thirds of women believed
that Hillary Clinton was subjected to sexist media coverage in her campaign.
Moreover, roughly 80% contended that she faced gender bias from voters.
The irony, of course, is twofold. Foremost, Hillary Clinton received 18 million votes, nearly enough to garner the nomination. Further, and perhaps
more importantly, the 2008 Democratic presidential primary was atypical.
Not only did Clinton begin the race with levels of name recognition, public
accomplishments, and a network of donors and operatives that many candidates never achieve, but she also entered the electoral arena with 17 years
of well-publicized baggage and a media corps with whom she had previous
relationships––some for better and some for worse. In other words, although
it may be the case that the campaign environment Clinton navigated epitomized sexism and bias in the electoral arena, we must be careful not to
assume that these dynamics transcend her presidential bid.
As I demonstrate in this essay, when women run for office, they tend to fare
at least as well as their male counterparts. From vote totals, to fundraising
receipts, to media coverage, to voters’ evaluations, male and female candidates have become increasingly indistinguishable from one another. This is
not to suggest, however, that gender is irrelevant in US politics. It might not
prevent women from winning their elections, but it substantially stunts their
emergence as candidates in the first place. If we want to continue to examine gender dynamics in US politics, therefore, then we must focus our efforts
on the precandidacy stage of the process. This essay concludes with some
suggestions for how we might do so.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH: A PRETTY LEVEL PLAYING
FIELD––WHEN WOMEN RUN, WOMEN WIN
When the 114th Congress convened in January 2015, 81% of its members
were men. Large gender disparities are also evident at the state and local
levels. Men occupy the governor’s mansion in 45 of the 50 states, run City
Hall in 88 of the 100 largest cities across the country, and comprise more than
three-quarters of statewide elected officials and state legislators. The low
numbers of women in politics are particularly glaring when we place them in
context. While the 1980s saw gradual, but steady increases in the percentage
of women seeking elected office, and the early 1990s experienced a sharper
surge, the last several election cycles can be characterized as a plateau.
Indeed, the 2010 congressional elections resulted in the first net decrease
in the percentage of women serving in the US House of Representatives
Women Running for Office
3
since the 1978 midterm elections. The number of women elected to state
legislatures, which act as key launching pads to higher office, also suffered
the largest single year decline in 2010. Although the 2012 and 2014 elections
did not represent a net loss, as far as women’s representation is concerned,
the gains represented only aminimal increase. In addition, while many
nations around the world make progress increasing women’s presence in
positions of political power, the United States has not kept pace. According
to data compiled by the Interparliamentary Union, 99 nations now surpass
the US in the percentage of women in the national legislature.
It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that scholars have devoted the
last few decades to gaining a better understanding of why so few women
occupy positions of political power in the United States. And, generally
speaking, they have reached a consensus. While electoral gatekeepers all but
prohibited women from running for office in the 1970s and early 1980s, and
those women who did emerge as candidates often faced sexism and a hostile
environment, such is no longer the case. At the candidate level, individual
accounts of women who face overt gender discrimination once they enter
the public arena are increasingly uncommon. Public opinion data indicate
that an overwhelming majority of Americans no longer believe that men are
better suited emotionally for politics than are women, and an even greater
proportion of citizens express a willingness to support a qualified, female
party nominee for the presidency. When we turn to campaign fund-raising
receipts and vote totals, often considered the two most important indicators
of electoral success, researchers find that women perform just as well as, if
not better than, their male counterparts. And detailed content analyses of
the media coverage candidates receive no longer reveal gender differences.
Not only do journalists devote a comparable number of stories to men
and women running for office, but those articles look the same. Thus, the
notion that overt discrimination against female candidates––be it by voters,
donors, or reporters––pervades the campaign trail and accounts for the
low number of women in politics that has fallen out of favor with political
scientists.
In light of the growing contradiction between a political system that elects
few women and a body of research that identifies the electoral environment
as increasingly unbiased against female candidates, political scientists have
turned to two institutional explanations for women’s numeric underrepresentation. First, they point to the incumbency advantage. Not only do the
overwhelming majority of incumbents seek reelection in both state legislative and congressional elections, but their reelection rates are also very high.
Under these circumstances, increasing the number of electoral opportunities for previously excluded groups, such as women, can be glacial. Second,
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
women’s historic exclusion from the professions that tend to lead to political
careers contributes to the gender disparities in office holding.
The conventional assessment that emerges from these institutional explanations is that, overall, we are on a steady course toward equity in women’s
numeric representation. When women run for office, they perform comparably to men and are treated similarly. Hence, as women’s presence in
the “pipeline professions” approaches men’s, we should see the number of
female elected officials approach the number of men as well. Yet, despite
these assessments, the rosy prospects for women’s representation they
offer, and women’s increasing presence in the professions from which most
candidates emerge, significant gains in women’s numeric representation
have not materialized in recent election cycles.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH: THE GENDER GAP IN
POLITICAL AMBITION
Over the course of the last decade, Richard L. Fox and I have argued that,
missing from conventional analyses of women running for office is an understanding of the manner in which gender affects levels of political ambition
and interacts with the likelihood that they will throw their hats into the ring
in the first place. That is, if women and men are not equally likely to express
interest in running for office, then women’s presence in the political pipeline
and open seat opportunities that arise are insufficient for bolstering women’s
candidate emergence. To investigate this proposition, we developed and conducted the Citizen Political Ambition Study, a series of mail surveys and
interviews with women and men in the pool of potential candidates. The
samples of women and men are roughly equal in terms of race, region, education, household income, profession, political participation, and interest in
politics. Our goal was to conduct a nuanced investigation of how women and
men initially decide to run for all levels and types of political office, either
now or in the future.
The original survey, carried out in 2001, served as the first national study
of the initial decision to run for office. Based on mail survey responses from
1969 men and 1796 women, we found strong evidence that gender plays a
substantial role in the candidate emergence process. More than half of the
respondents (51%) stated that the idea of running for an elective position
had at least “crossed their mind.” But men were 16 percentage points more
likely than women to have considered running for office. Notably, this gender gap persisted across political party, income level, age, race, profession,
and region. Further, women were not only less likely than men to consider
running for office; they were also less likely actually to do it. Overall, 12%
of the respondents had run for some elective position. Men, however, were
Women Running for Office
5
40% more likely than women to have done so. Although there was no statistically significant gender difference in election outcomes, women were less
likely than men to reach what is characterized as a seemingly gender-neutral
“end-stage” of the electoral process.
In 2011, we completed a survey of a new sample of 1925 male and 1843
female potential candidates. Remarkably, despite the changing political
landscape and the emergence of several high-profile female candidates
between 2001 and 2011, women remained 16 percentage points less likely
than men to have thought about running for office. Even though they have
risen to the top ranks within the often male-dominated professions, and
despite the fact that they yield from the management and leadership positions that tend to position candidates for the highest public offices, women
express far less ambition than men to enter the upper echelons of the political
arena.
Although explicating in detail the factors that underlie the gender gap in
political ambition is beyond the scope of this essay, two central barriers bear
at least brief mention. First, one of the biggest impediments keeping women
from emerging as candidates centers on self-perceptions of qualifications
to run for office. Despite comparable credentials, men are almost 60% more
likely than women to assess themselves as “very qualified” to run for office.
Women are more than twice as likely as men to rate themselves as “not at all
qualified.” Women’s self-doubts are important not only because they speak
to deeply embedded gendered perceptions, but also because they play a
much larger role than do men’s in depressing the likelihood of considering
a candidacy.
A gender gap in political recruitment serves as the second factor that keeps
women from running for office. Women, across party lines, are less likely
than men to receive the suggestion to run for any political office from a
party leader, elected official, or political activist. They are also less likely to
receive the suggestion to run for office from “nonpolitical actors,” such as
colleagues, spouses / partners, and family members. The lack of recruitment
is a particularly powerful explanation for why women are less likely than
men to consider a candidacy; more than twice as many respondents who
have been encouraged to run––compared to those who have not––have
considered throwing their hats into the ring. Importantly, women are just as
likely as men to respond favorably to the suggestion of a candidacy. They
are just less likely than men to receive it.
The findings from the Citizen Political Ambition Study cast a cloud over
future prospects for gender parity in US political institutions and provide
compelling evidence that gender remains relevant in the study of female
candidates.
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
FUTURE RESEARCH: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
For the past 30 years, one basic question has guided much of the research
on gender and elections: Why do so few women occupy elective office? The
research now seems to have converged on the premise that women running
for office are formidable competitors, able fund-raisers, and serious subjects
of media attention. In other words, once they make it onto the campaign trail,
a candidate’s sex provides little explanatory power for the circumstances
he/she will face. The enduring gender gap in political ambition, however,
suggests that rather than focusing on end-stage assessments of the electoral
playing field, our time would now be better spent addressing at least three
aspects of the precandidacy stage of the process and the reasons women are
less likely than men to emerge from the pool of eligible candidates and face
the voters, donors, and media.
First, research on candidate emergence identifies a substantial gender gap
in political ambition that is well-established by the time women and men
enter the professions from which political candidates tend to emerge. But
we are extremely limited in the conclusions we can draw about the origins
of the gap or the manner in which early life experiences shape interest in
running for office. For most people, choosing to run for office is not a spontaneous decision; rather, it is the culmination of a long, personal evolution
that often stretches back into early family life. So, to gain a complete understanding of the gender gap in political ambition, we must pinpoint its origins.
In assessing the cognitive and contextual processes that affect whether and
how women and men come to view themselves as candidates, early political socialization merits investigation. Examining these gender differences at
their source, as opposed to relying on retrospective assessments of events
that occurred decades earlier, is the only way to get at the source of the gender gap.
Of course, if we are to gain a fuller understanding of the roots of women’s
lower levels of political ambition, then we must also study how ambition
evolves among adults. As women gain greater exposure to women in
politics, do they become more likely to consider running for office? Are they
less likely to view the political environment as sexist and more likely to
believe they can overcome adversity in male-dominated spheres? What are
the long-term implications of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin’s candidacies?
Did these women serve as lightning rods to fuel women’s political ambition?
Or did their experiences depress levels of interest in running for office? It
may take time for the presence of women in such high levels of political
power to trickle down to the candidate eligibility pool and inspire future
candidacies. Only by tracking women and men’s political ambition over time
can we assess these dynamics. Panel data become vital for this line of inquiry.
Women Running for Office
7
Finally, gender differences in perceptions play a critical role in the candidate
emergence process; and because perceptions dictate behavior, they are just as
important as reality. Yet we have only begun to understand how women and
men’s perceptions of themselves as candidates and the electoral arena affect
the decision to run for office. Are there gender differences in how perceptions of bias, personal skills, traits, and the costs associated with running for
office affect political ambition? Are there gender differences in how women
and men view the opportunity structure associated with different levels of
office? Do women perceive an easier campaign and political environment
when they consider pursuing positions that are more typically occupied by
women? Only by answering these questions can we begin to gauge prospects
for a perceptions of a level electoral playing field.
These new avenues of research must be complemented with investigations
that continue to track women’s electoral success when they do emerge
as candidates. Future investigators, however, must be very careful when
generating broad assessments from end-stage analyses. We must withstand
the temptation to conclude that, because there are no gender differences in
vote totals, fund-raising receipts, or media coverage, the electoral process
is “gender-neutral.” When women become candidates and make it to the
Election Day, they perform as well as men. But gender exerts a fundamental
role in US campaigns and elections long before the first donors are solicited,
newspaper articles written, or ballots cast. And it is at this precandidacy
stage of the process where academics have their work cut out for them.
FURTHER READING
Dolan, K. (2004). Voting for women: How the public evaluates women candidates. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Hayes, D. (2011). When gender and party collide: Stereotyping in candidate trait attribution. Politics & Gender, 7(2), 133–165.
Kahn, K. F. (1996). The political consequences of being a woman. New York, NY: Columbia
University Press.
Kornblut, A. E. (2010). Notes from the cracked ceiling: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and
what it will take for a woman to win. New York, NY: Crown.
Lawless, J. L. (2012). Becoming a candidate: Political ambition and the decision to run for
office. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Lawless, J. L., & Fox, R. L. (2010). It still takes a candidate: Why women don’t run for
office. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Palmer, B., & Simon, D. (2008). Breaking the political glass ceiling: Women and Congressional elections (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Sanbonmatsu, K. (2006). Where women run: Gender and party in the American states.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Woods, H. (2000). Stepping up to power: The political journey of American women. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
8
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
JENNIFER L. LAWLESS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Jennifer L. Lawless received her PhD in political science from Stanford University in 2003 and her BA in political science from Union College in 1997.
She is a Professor Government at American University, where she is also the
Director of the Women & Politics Institute. Her teaching and research focus
on gender politics, electoral politics, and public opinion. She has published
numerous articles in academic journals, such as the American Political Science
Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Politics &
Gender. She is also the author of Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition and
the Decision to Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and the lead
author of It Still Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
A nationally recognized speaker on electoral politics, Dr. Lawless’ analysis
and commentary have been quoted in outlets, including the New York
Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, CNN.com,
MSNBC.com, FOXNews.com, the CBS Evening News, ABC World News
Tonight, the Today Show, and the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.
In 2006, she sought the Democratic nomination for the US House of Representatives in Rhode Island’s second congressional district. Although she
lost the race, she is very active in politics. She served on the national board
of Emerge America from 2009 to 2011 and is currently an advisory board
member.
RELATED ESSAYS
Party Organizations’ Electioneering Arms Race (Political Science), John H.
Aldrich and Jeffrey D. Grynaviski
The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office (Political Science),
Sarah F. Anzia
The Sexual Division of Labor (Anthropology), Rebecca Bliege Bird and Brian
F. Codding
Rent, Rent-Seeking, and Social Inequality (Sociology), Beth Red Bird and
David B. Grusky
Stereotype Content (Sociology), Beatrice H. Capestany and Lasana T. Harris
Why So Few Women in Mathematically Intensive Fields? (Psychology),
Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams
Gender Segregation in Higher Education (Sociology), Alexandra Hendley
and Maria Charles
Misinformation and How to Correct It (Psychology), John Cook et al.
Cognitive Processes Involved in Stereotyping (Psychology), Susan T. Fiske
and Cydney H. Dupree
Women Running for Office
9
Empathy Gaps between Helpers and Help-Seekers: Implications for Cooperation (Psychology), Vanessa K. Bohns and Francis J. Flynn
Controlling the Influence of Stereotypes on One’s Thoughts (Psychology),
Patrick S. Forscher and Patricia G. Devine
Political Advertising (Political Science), Erika Franklin Fowler
Changing Family Patterns (Sociology), Kathleen Gerson and Stacy Torres
Government Formation and Cabinets (Political Science), Sona N. Golder
Divorce (Sociology), Juho Härkönen
Grandmothers and the Evolution of Human Sociality (Anthropology), Kristen
Hawkes and James Coxworth
Exploring Opportunities in Cultural Diversity (Political Science), David D.
Laitin and Sangick Jeon
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
Transformation of the Employment Relationship (Sociology), Arne L. Kalleberg and Peter V. Marsden
Gender Inequality in Educational Attainment (Sociology), Anne McDaniel
and Claudia Buchmann
Implicit Attitude Measures (Psychology), Gregory Mitchell and Philip E.
Tetlock
Feminists in Power (Sociology), Ann Orloff and Talia Schiff
Culture as Situated Cognition (Psychology), Daphna Oyserman
Cognitive Bias Modification in Mental (Psychology), Meg M. Reuland et al.
Sociology of Entrepreneurship (Sociology), Martin Ruef
Born This Way: Thinking Sociologically about Essentialism (Sociology),
Kristen Schilt
Stereotype Threat (Psychology), Toni Schmader and William M. Hall
Gender and the Transition to Adulthood: A Diverse Pathways View (Sociology), Ingrid Schoon
Family Income Composition (Economics), Kristin E. Smith
Primate Allomaternal Care (Anthropology), Stacey Tecot and Andrea Baden
Leadership (Anthropology), Adrienne Tecza and Dominic Johnson
Transnational Work Careers (Sociology), Roland Verwiebe
Gender and Work (Sociology), Christine L. Williams and Megan Tobias Neely
Women Running for Office