In 2009, women are still dramatically underrepresented in elected office in the United States. Though the reasons for this are complex, public attitudes toward this situation are no doubt of importance. While a number of scholars have demonstrated that women candidates do not suffer at the ballot box because of their sex, we should not assume that this means that voter attitudes about gender are irrelevant to politics. Indeed, individual attitudes towards women's representation in government and a desire for greater descriptive representation of women may shape attitudes and behaviors in situations when people are faced with a woman candidate. This project provides a more complete understanding of the determinants of the public's desire (or lack thereof) to see more women in elective office and support them in different circumstances. The primary mechanism proposed to explain these attitudes is gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes about the abilities and traits of political women and men are clear and well documented and could easily serve to shape an individual's evaluations about the appropriate level and place for women in office. Drawing on an original survey of 1039 U. S. adults, and evaluating both issue and trait stereotypes, I demonstrate the ways in which sex stereotypes do and do not influence public willingness to support women in various electoral situations.
Political Behavior publishes original research in the general fields of political behavior, broadly construed to include institutions, processes, and policies as well as individual-level political behavior. As an interdisciplinary journal, Political Behavior encourages the integration of approaches across disciplinary lines and across different levels of theoretical abstraction and analysis. Political Behavior incorporates economic approaches to understanding political behavior (preference structuring, bargaining), psychological approaches (attitude formation and change, motivations, perceptions), and sociological approaches (roles, group, class), as well as those more explicitly political in orientation. Articles focus on the political behavior (conventional or unconventional) of the individual person or small group, or of large organizations that participate in the political process, such as parties, interest groups, political action committees, governmental agencies, and mass media.
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Political Behavior
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