Political Gender Stereotypes and Women's Descriptive Representation: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Subtyping and Subgrouping in the United States and Germany

Role Congruity Theory posits that the stereotype of (political) leaders, i.e., ideas about what ideal and actual leaders are like, tends to be congruous with the male, but not with the female stereotype and gender role. Research shows, indeed, that the stereotypes of men, politicians and men politicians strongly overlap, while women, politicians and women politicians are seen as different social groups with different traits. However, as stereotypes are dynamic in nature and are formed based on the social roles groups fulfill in society, one would expect cross-cultural differences in the characteristics voters associate with these groups. More specifically, we expect that more familiarity with women in political leadership roles among voters, ensures a stronger overlap between the stereotypes of politicians and women politicians, i.e., the traits voters associate with politicians and with women politicians. Put differently, we expect that women politicians become a subgroup (sharing many characteristics) instead of a subtype (sharing few characteristics) with the larger social group of politicians when they are less of a novelty. We test this comparing Germany and the US, the former having considerable better descriptive representation of women in politics and more prominent women political role models, such as Angela Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen. We test our expectations by applying a novel implementation of a large-N list experiment to measure stereotype endorsement, while avoiding social desirability bias. Our results indicate that, as expected, women politicians are a subtype of women and of politicians in the US, while only a subtype of women in Germany, where they show to be a subgroup with the stereotype of politicians. Thus, there is stronger overlap between the characteristics voters link to politicians and women politicians in Germany than in the US, making women less incongruent with leadership roles there. Our findings emphasize the need for comparative work on (political and gender) stereotypes and contribute to the debate about the relevance of gender stereotypes to the political realm.