Gendered Ambivalence: The Structure of Attitudes About Female Candidates

Abstract

ABSTRACTI argue that the gender-role incongruity between being a woman and the masculine stereotypes of political leadership roles will lead to more ambivalence about women relative to men and that gendered traits will comprise the content of these ambivalent attitudes. I analyze attitudinal ambivalence toward female candidates using ANES data. The results find that ambivalence is higher among voters who hold cross-pressured identities as strong partisans with sexist beliefs for both Democratic and Republican women. In 2016, individuals held stronger ambivalent attitudes about Hillary Clinton even among strong Democrats but there was very little ambivalence in attitudes about Trump.KEYWORDS: Gender stereotypesfemale candidatesvoter decision-makingpolitical psychologypartisanship Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Supplementary materialSupplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477X.2023.2257122Notes1. Some scholarship suggests that some of these positive effects may be due to social desirability biases (Burden, Ono, and Yamada Citation2017; Claassen and Barry Ryan Citation2016; Krupnikov, Piston, and Bauer Citation2016).2. See Appendix 1 for more information.3. This is the only question about gender attitudes the ANES consistently asked participants in each election year.Additional informationNotes on contributorsNichole M. BauerNichole M. Bauer, PhD is an Associate Professor at Louisiana State University. She studies the role that gender stereotypes play in voter decision-making and candidate strategy. Her work is published in the Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, and Political Psychology among other outlets.