Getting Women in Government: A Never-Ending Struggle

Politics has long been regarded as a male profession. Even as more and more women are working outside of the home and are building successful careers, there are many societal barriers that make it hard for capable and qualified women to obtain leadership positions. This tradition is starting to break down, but not without a struggle from almost every angle.

UN Women cites that only 24.3% of all national parliamentarians were women as of February 2019. As of June 2019, 11 women are serving as Head of State and 12 are serving as Head of Government. As a beacon of light, Rwanda has the highest number of women parliamentarians worldwide, where, women have won 61.3 per cent of seats in the lower house. However, if we look worldwide, there are 27 States in which women account for less than 10 percent of parliamentarians in single or lower houses, as of February 2019, including 3 chambers with no women at all.

These observations can be studied on a smaller scale. The Funk, Hinojosa, and Piscopo article studied women's candidacy and the gendered effects of female nomination in Latin America countries. Their study shows that women are more likely to be elected when there is political discontent. This is because women are stereotyped to be more trusting, which seems to be an advantage, but the glass cliff phenomena needs to be acknowledged as a factor as well. Women like Hilary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are examples of women in America being asked to lead during a crisis (or the Trump administration). The Funk et al article says, "Conventional wisdom and past research suggest that gender quotas and party ideology are among the most important predictors of women’s nominations.” This shows that even though women are being nominated, they still have barriers to overcome to get there.

History has shown this to be true, but an interesting case study could be made of the 2020 election. Polls show that democratic voters don’t believe that a woman could beat Trump, showing that women are held to a higher standard to men when it comes to leadership and politics. Leanin.org did a study on the 2020 election using data from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. They found that a majority of voters think it will be more difficult for a woman to win the 2020 presidential election. Around 88% of voters who think this say it’s because “many Americans aren’t ready to elect a woman president” while only 16% say that most Americans are very or extremely ready. However, when asked they, personally, were ready for a female president, 53% said yes. But what contributes to this?

Stereotypes are the main contributor of sexism in any situation. Understanding them is vital to understand what the problem is and how to fix it. There are two main stereotypes described in academic literature. Descriptive gender stereotypes designate what women and men are like. This type promotes negative expectations about a women's performance by creating a perceived “lack of fit” between the attribute’s women are thought to possess and the attributes thought necessary for success in traditionally male positions. Prescriptive gender stereotypes designate what women and men should be like. This second type establishes normative expectations for men's and women's behavior, resulting in the devaluation of women who directly or indirectly violate gender norms. 

Likability effect is a theory based off of stereotypes and is another reason why women have not been elected as often. It is the attribute that most strongly predicts whether a candidate is viewed as presidential and electable. We expect women to be kind and communal and we like them less when they are assertive or forceful. However, men are expected to behave that way so they don’t receive the same pushback. The Leanin survey found that almost half of voters think the men candidates are more presidential and electable. And very few voters see it the other way—less than 15% rate the women candidates higher on these traits.

Lack of fit is another strong reason. Stemming again from stereotypes, lack of fit is when women or men do not fit the mold of their gendered stereotypes and are thus regarded as unfit for the position they seek. Because of “lack of fit”, female candidates are penalized for exhibiting power-seeking desires because they are not seen as holding leadership skills that are attributed to men, as stated in an article by Victoria Brescoll.

A counterpoint might be made that women have not gotten as far in this election because of the Trump Era that we are in. I would argue that it has been the American Era, thus far, to not elect a woman. Just ask the 45 male presidents.

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Heilman, Madeline E. “Gender Stereotypes and Workplace Bias.” Research in Organizational Behavior 32 (2012): 113–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2012.11.003.

Brescoll, Victoria L., and Tyler Okimoto. “The Price of Power: Power-Seeking and Backlash Against Female Politicians.” PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1037/e506052012-245.

“New Research on Gender and the 2020 Election.” Lean In. Accessed March 17, 2020. https://leanin.org/data-about-gender-bias-and-electability-in-the-2020-election.

Phillips, Amber. “Analysis | How Gender Bias Is Shaping the 2020 Democratic Primary.” The Washington Post. WP Company, May 6, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/06/how-gender-bias-is-shaping-democratic-primary/.

“Facts and Figures: Leadership and Political Participation.” UN Women, June 2019. https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and-political-participation/facts-and-figures.