The role of gendered expectations on the electability of women candidates: Evidence from Latin America

Do varying levels of gendered expectations affect the degree of punishment women candidates face for wrongdoing? Despite considering political leadership as masculine, in previous research, I find that individuals in Latin America –somewhat counterintuitively– evaluate women politicians as better political leaders than men. Abstract women candidates are evaluated more favorably than abstract men candidates, while men’s evaluation levels are, on average, equal to the expected levels for political leadership. In this paper, I explore the hypothesis that this disconnect has a negative effect on women’s electability. I argue that it is the high expectations that drive voters to hold women candidates to a higher standard and penalize them more for malfeasance. According to the accountability literature, when expectations about the leader’s performance are high and not met, voters are more likely to sanction the leader (Frisell 2009; Gottlieb 2016). Yet, if voters already believe that the incumbent is malfeasant, even being exposed to cases of wrongdoing does not decrease support (Arias et al. 2018). In this paper, I use data from an original survey experiment run in seven countries in Latin America (Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru). Results so far show that, in order to have an electoral advantage, women candidates need to live up to high expectations. Yet, individuals' probability of voting for a man candidate increases when they have low expectations of men and the candidate performs well.