The Effects of Exposure to Women Candidates on Adolescents’ Attitudes Toward Women Leaders

Are women good political leaders? In the US historically, the common response was no—politics was men’s domain, and women lacked the requisite qualities for effective political leadership. Many of these stereotypes persist to the present day. Both advocates and scholars expect that when women are visible political leaders, they challenge gender stereotypes and thus change beliefs about women’s competency for politics. While this relationship has been investigated comparatively, there are surprisingly few analyses of this impact of women politicians on beliefs about women leaders in the US. Using both a survey experiment and an observational survey, this paper examines whether young people who observe women politicians become more likely to see women as possessing leadership traits, less anti-sexist, and more likely to think that there should be more women in office. The results show that it is Republican teens whose attitudes are most likely to change when exposed to women candidates—more often, Republican girls rather than boys. Furthermore, the views of Republican teens (girls and boys) are especially responsive to the presence of Republican women candidates.