To what extent do political parties differ in their programmatic congruence with the political priorities of women and men, and how does this variation relate to gender gaps in left-right ideology? Existing research shows that women and men differ in what they consider important policy areas, yet we know less about how these differences are reflected in parties' electoral programs. I conceptualize gendered programmatic congruence as the degree to which parties' issue emphases align with the policy priorities of female and male voters. Empirically, I measure congruence by comparing the salience of issues in party manifestos with the issue priorities reported by women and men in Eurobarometer surveys conducted during the year preceding each election. Drawing on data from 61 elections in 15 Western European countries between 2002 and 2019, I find that party programmes generally correspond equally well to the issue priorities of men and women. However, there are systematic partisan differences: left parties exhibit higher congruence with women's priorities, whereas right parties align more closely with men's. Finally, these gendered asymmetries in programmatic congruence correlate with, and may help explain, cross-national and temporal variation in the gender gap in ideological positioning.
