Overcoming Gender Stereotypes: How Candidate Signaling Affects Voter Evaluations

33 Pages Posted: 1 Aug 2011 Last revised: 29 Aug 2012

Date Written: 2011

Abstract

Existing scholarship on the relationship between candidate gender and voter perceptions of candidate competence suggests that women candidates are perceived to be less qualified in traditionally masculine policy issues. In this paper, I question this fundamental assumption by examining whether women candidates are able to counteract gender stereotypes by embracing hawkish policy positions. I use an experimental design to explore the effect of hawkishness on voter evaluations of candidate competence. While past research implies that women candidates cannot compete on men’s policy issues, I find that hawkish women candidates are perceived to be as competent in national security and military policy as their hawkish male counterparts. Moreover, voters deem hawkish women candidates to be more competent in these issues than candidates of either sex who do not adopt hawkish positions. Yet, the utility of being a hawk is likely to vary across partisan lines, with Republican voters more supportive of hawkish candidates and Democratic voters more supportive of dovish candidates. The findings suggest that political candidates have a certain amount of agency over how they are perceived by voters. Women candidates can be deemed to be competent in men’s policy issues; which position they adopt is likely to depend on constituency preferences, personal ideals, and political ambitions.

Keywords: Gender stereotypes, Political candidates, Voter perceptions

Suggested Citation

Thomsen, Danielle M., Overcoming Gender Stereotypes: How Candidate Signaling Affects Voter Evaluations (2011). APSA 2011 Annual Meeting Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1901643

Danielle M. Thomsen (Contact Author)

Duke University ( email )

United States

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