Women And Running For Office

[BainsBane]

On a night when Hillary Clinton is likely to win four-of-five contests and extend her delegate lead over Bernie Sanders, pundits told Clinton to smile and criticized her for shouting.

Unfortunately, this reflects all too well a bunch of discouraging findings about women and the pursuit of political office. A study of newspaper coverage in 1998 found that readers were “more likely to read about female candidates’ personal qualities,” while news coverage was more likely to emphasize male candidates’ policy positions.

Recent scholarship has also focused on the supply of women candidates who enter politics in the first place. Richard Fox and Jennifer Lawless found that among a pool of qualified candidates, women were substantially less likely to consider or run for office and link this to how women are socialized. An even more arresting finding came from Kristin Kanthak and Jonathan Woon last year. In an experimental study, they found that women were specifically averse to competing in elections, even when they would volunteer to represent their groups in a random-selection process. When we see how women candidates are treated, it’s not hard to imagine why women might think twice about running for office.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/march-15-primaries-ohio-florida-results-presidential-election-2016/