Political Gender Stereotypes

Additionally, in Dolan’s 2013 article she focuses on of political gender stereotypes. She suggests that “…voters ascribe to women candidates certain stereotyped policy competencies and personality characteristics. In terms of gender linked personality traits, women candidates and officeholders are viewed as more compassionate, expressive, honest, and better able to deal with constituents than men” (Dolan 2013). Like in other studies women candidates are linked with being more interested in and more effective at dealing with issues such as “child care, poverty, education, women’s issues, and the environment” (Dolan 2013). In her research she finds that women who are Democratic and in the house had little to no impact by the stereotypes. Democrats …show more content…
According to this study many perceive Woman politicians to be “warm and sensitive, and are believed to be an expert on so-called woman issues such as education and women’s issues…. Women in politics are also perceived to be more liberal than men” (Dolan Sanbonmatsu 2008). Their hypothesis is that gender stereotypes affect both major political parties, not just one singular party. They found that for both parties’ people tend to believe that women are more likely to address and try to resolve issues like education and abortion, and with issues like crime, people believe that a male would solve that issue more so than a female politician (Dolan and Sanbonmatsu …show more content…
With this study, they find that marriage does affect a woman’s political affliction, “marriage tends to make a woman more Republican, whereas a divorce tends to make her more Democratic” (Edlund and Pande 2002). Furthermore, they found that the rise in the female labor force participation makes women more likely to vote Democratic. With these three articles it seems to explain why women tend to vote for one party over another. It seems like women tend to vote for more social issues, and when women become politicians, many believe that they will primarily solve social issues (in regards to education and abortion). Additionally, with these three articles they try to pinpoint why males and females vote a certain way. The issue though is that there is a lot more variables than just if the candidate is male or female, the marital status of the individual, and if she is a part of the labor force. There are definite correlational trends with all of these results; however, it does not explain why women tend to vote for women. Dolan and Sanbonmatsu’s article touch on the idea of party influence and the public’s perception, but their results show that on both sides the stereotype that women are more in touch with social