For decades, the consensus in political behaviour research was that women candidates face electoral bias rooted in gender stereotypes and social role expectations. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that this dynamic may be shifting as recent studies find voters expressing equal or even greater support for women candidates. This paper presents a systematic review of research on gender bias in candidate evaluations published over the past five years, applying PRISMA guidelines to identify and analyse over 200 studies across multiple country contexts. Initial findings reveal that while the field tends to expect a negative bias against women, empirical results increasingly point to a more complex picture. Experimental designs, particularly those using hypothetical candidates, are more likely to find a positive bias towards women, whereas observational studies continue to report neutral or mixed effects. We also find theoretical fragmentation: many scholars continue to rely on traditional stereotyping and role incongruity frameworks, while others turn to intersectionality, partisan heuristics, or system justification approaches to explain shifting patterns. We argue that the field may be at a theoretical turning point—where old assumptions about gender disadvantage persist even as empirical evidence suggests changing voter preferences. The paper calls for renewed theoretical attention to conditional and context-specific gender effects, and for methodological innovation to distinguish genuine bias reversals from experimental effects.
