Gendered Candidate Evaluations

Abstract

This panel examines how gendered stereotypes shape voters' evaluations of political candidates and leaders across contemporary campaign and media environments. The papers highlight how gendered expectations about warmth, competence, and identity continue to structure judgements about women's electability and leadership - even as overt bias appears to decline in many experimental settings. Bringing together survey experiments and qualitative analyses, including expert interviews with women politicians, the panel covers evaluations of women politicians as parents, leaders in crisis, and targets of sexist attacks, as well as the effects of feminist humour on gendered perceptions of politicians. It also foregrounds women candidates’ strategic choices about when to highlight or downplay intersecting identities in their own communication.

Title	Details
The parenthood premium? A candidate evaluation study on warmth, competence, and parenthood status.	View Paper Details
Witty comeback or aggressive reply? How responses to sexist campaign attacks influence candidate evaluations	View Paper Details
Does leader gender interact with communication strategy to affect voter evaluations during tough times? Evidence from a survey experiment in England	View Paper Details
Negotiating the US Presidency through Feminist Humor: The Saturday Night Live Case	View Paper Details
Treading Carefully: Women Candidates Navigating Social Identities in the 2021 Canadian Federal Election	View Paper Details