Political Gender Stereotypes in Flanders (Belgium): Competent Men Versus Leftist Women?

Women continue to be underrepresented in parliaments across the globe. The attention of this paper is directed towards the role of voters in this phenomenon. We will, more in particular, investigate an important psychological determinant, namely voters’ political gender stereotypes. Voters lack resources, time or interest to become informed about all candidates in elections. Therefore, they rely on voting cues (McDermott, 2009), such as a candidate’s gender. Research has shown that, on the basis of gender, voters ascribe particular personality traits, capacities and opinions to candidates (Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993). These cues are called political gender stereotypes (Dolan, 2014; Fox & Smith, 1998). The prevalence of political gender stereotypes has been extensively documented in the US, a country with rather low levels of female representation which is moreover concentrated in the Democratic Party. Women are in general considered as less capable than men and are perceived as being more leftist (Sapiro, 1981; Koch, 1999; Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993; Dolan, 2014). We want to explore whether this also prevails in Flanders (the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium) which differs from the American political context on several important aspects (such as the electoral system, the share of elected women, and the party system). The method used for this project is original: we have set up a quasi-experimental design, in which respondents are confronted with hypothetical candidates. This new approach gives us the possibility to control for a number of intervening factors. In this Paper, we will present the results of this experimental research conducted among 2,500 voters. We will not only elaborate on the presence of political gender stereotypes (referring to both capabilities and opinions of candidates), but also on the direction of the differences between male and female candidates and for which policy domains they prevail. By investigating factors that influence voting behavior for (female) political leaders and by focusing on gender stereotypes, which can be clearly linked to preferences and attitudes, this paper comes to the heart of what the proposed panel on the political psychology of choosing leaders aims to do.