gender as a factor in the attribution of leadership traits

University of Utah

Gender as a Factor in the Attribution of Leadership TraitsAuthor(s): Deborah Alexander and Kristi AndersenSource: Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 527-545Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the University of UtahStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/448946 .Accessed: 08/09/2011 03:11

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Gender as a Factor in the Attribution of Leadership Traits

DEBORAH ALEXANDER, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY KRISTI ANDERSEN, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

The candidate evaluation literature has emphasized the contribution of both candidate characteristics and voter characteristics (e.g., party identification) to. candidate appraisals. But the literature on attribution and sex role stereotypes suggests that women candidates may be evaluated differently than their male counterparts. This paper presents the results of a survey of 98 voters in which we explored the relationships among gender role attitudes, voters' attribution of leadership traits, and support for male and female candidates. The surveys were conducted in Syracuse, New York, during the 1990 campaigns, which included three male-female races. Our results substantiate the hypothesis that when candidate information is sparse, gender role attitudes are consequential in the initial evaluation of lesser known women candidates. Gender attitudes are important factors in candidate favorability when the candidates are women challengers. Secondly, we found that voters had a tendency to attribute particular leadership qualities and issue skills based on sex to hypothetical candidates, if no other information was available. In addition, we found that the more egalitarian the voters' gender role attitudes, the more likely they were to evaluate favorably actual women candidates. Finally, it was the case that all incumbents, male and female, were rated more positively on both "masculine" and "feminine" traits than were challengers.

Predicting election results in the United States is a hazardous job. But there is one prediction that any election-eve analyst could offer with supreme confi- dence . . . that the newly elected official would be male. (Hershey 1980: 179).

Even during the much-touted "Year of the Woman" such a prediction would be a fairly safe one at higher levels of government: the 1992 elections, cer-

tainly a success for women, produced a House of Representatives which is

only 11 percent female. This is despite the fact that many recent studies have found that voters are generally indifferent to a candidate's sex in making their vote decision (e.g., Carroll 1985; Darcy et al. 1987).

The apparent lack of gender bias in the voting booth (at least as measured by aggregate voting statistics) should not lead us to assume that there

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Political Research Quarterly

are not differences in the way voters think about and evaluate male and female candidates and politicians. The fact that gender role stereotypes characterize and influence many decision-making domains suggests that voters

might use stereotypes to attribute different skills and capabilities to men and women candidates. Women have not been a major focus of the extensive literature on candidate evaluation, but some recent work has raised questions about voters' differential perceptions of male and female candidates. Research

designs examining voter sexual stereotyping have been both experimental (for example, Adams 1975; Gitelson and Gitelson 1981; Hedlund et at. 1979; Huddy and Terkildsen 1991; Mend et al. 1976; Sapiro 1981) and

nonexperimental (e.g., Boles and Durio 1980, 1981; Hershey 1977); but almost all of them have used students as subjects and fictitious candidates as the objects of investigation.

The research described here, in contrast, examines the attribution of traditional sex-typed leadership traits to real candidates (three female-male pairs) by a small sample of voters exposed to their campaigns. We confirm past findings that hypothetical male and female candidates are attributed different skills (based on sex roles and accompanying skills and traits), and use survey data to ask several questions. First, do voters' perceptions of male and female candidates' skills and issue strengths in actual campaigns vary in the expected ways? Second, are voters' general evaluations of male and female candidates, and the extent to which voters use gender stereotypes related to their gender role beliefs? And finally, does incumbency and/or voter familiarity with the candidate seem to affect the extent to which voters stereotype candidates

according to sex?

VOTER SEXISM OR DIFFERENTIAL EVALUATION?

Male dominance of political leadership has been challenged by the campign triumphs of women candidates in the last two decades. The 1990 campaign year saw record numbers of women candidates for political office, including 85 running for statewide executive seats, 8 for the U.S. Senate, 70 U.S. House of Representatives candidates, and 2064 women seeking state legislative offices (Center For The American Woman And Politics 1991: 1-2). At the close of the 1990 season, 31 women (including one non-voting delegate) had won election to Congress. Three states had women governors and the number of women in state legislatures is more than four times larger than it was twenty years ago.

The numerical increase in women in public office has made possible research which has attempted to discredit one of the major theses about women's underrepresentation: that such underrepresentation is due to voter sexism. Darcy and his colleagues concluded that "in general elections the

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Gender and Leadership Traits

voter reluctance to support female candidates, as observed in the 1950s and 1960s, had all but disappeared by the the mid-1970s" (Darcy et al. s1987: 55). However, research also exists which supports the argument that women and men are still perceived in stereotyped ways (Boles and Durio 1981, 1980; Broverman et al. 1972; National Women's Political Caucus 1987) and that women in political roles still must deal with stereotypical expectations (Diamond 1977; Mandel 1981; Deber 1982; Sapiro 1983; and Sigelman, Sigelman, and Fowler 1987).

Can it be the case that voters stereotype female candidates but simulta-

neously act to produce election outcomes which do not favor male candidates? Both claims could be true if within individuals, aspects of feminine

stereotypes which are considered positive in terms of suitability for elective office and those which are considered negative "cancel each other out," so to

speak, so that vote decisions are made which look as if they are sex-blind. Or this "cancelling out" process may work across offices or structural situations, so that women are seen as more supportable for particular offices, or so that female incumbents are stereotyped positively as compared to female chal-

lengers, or so that the issues which characterize particular local races help produce negative stereotypes of women candidates which in turn limit their

support. In the past, voter sexism has been conceptualized as hostility toward

women as political candidates and consequent reluctance to vote for women candidates. The existence of voter sexism has been measured by looking at election outcomes, e.g. by pooling many election results, controlling for variables such as incumbency and party, and then testing the null hypothesis that male candidates have no advantage over female candidates. But if the possibilities described above are to be investigated, a closer look at voters' reactions to female and male candidates is critical. Experimental research certainly supports the notion that voters may designate particular offices as appropriate for women or define certain political climates as more suitable for a woman's

particular political skills. Gender role stereotypes may no longer relegate women to the domestic domain or block their entrance into elective office, but may constrain public expectations about women's areas of expertise and appropriate level of public office. In the present research, these questions are approached through the use of survey data collected in a particular political context and measuring attitudes toward real candidates.

EVIDENCE FOR DIFFERENTIAL EVALUATION

In recent years, various studies have assessed the effect of gender in evaluation and decision-making processes. These studies reveal that gender has been associated with differential ratings of elected officials' job performance

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of identical tasks at identical levels of achievement (Mend et al. 1976). Sex role stereotypes have been shown to affect perceptions of academic competence (Fidell 1970; Simpson 1970); perceptions of emotional maturity and social competence (Broverman et al. 1972); attribution of success (Deaux and Emswiller 1974); ratings of artistic and authorship performance (Goldberg 1968; Pheterson et al. 1971); attribution of different issue expertise for male and female candidates (Sapiro 1981); and finally, differential perceptions of candidate strength and power across gender (Gitelson and Gitelson 1981).

Boles and Durio (1980, 1981), measuring perceptions about male and female politicians, found distinct differences in gender and political labels.

Generally, the "elected woman" label was evaluated more positively than the "elected man" on traditionally female traits and women were perceived as

equal or superior to male politicians in terms of the masculine characteristics of efficiency, stability, and vitality (Boles and Durio 1981: 4-12). This suggests that gender stereotypes may not necessarily slow the progress of women candidates in winning public office; nevertheless, it confirms suspicions that women candidates have to present themsleves as both "male" and "female" to

satisfy voters' expectations. Evidence for differential evaluation also comes from public opinion polls.

Polls confirm that women candidates tend to be seen as more compassionate and honest while men are seen to be better suited emotionally for politics. Women are also attributed an expertise in health care, education, and other "social" or "domestic" issues that male candidates don't have (Toner 1990). A Lou Harris poll in 1972 revealed distinctly different appraisals of the abilities of men and women in office. The public judged men better at directing the

military, managing business and labor issues, strengthening the economy, and dealing with demonstrations and international diplomacy, while women were thought to be better on issues about children and family, education, the arts, health, poverty, and consumer issues (Sapiro 1983).

Fifteen years later, voters in a national survey thought that women run-

ning for office were more compassionate, more caring, more honest and would do a better job handling social issues and holding down government spending, while male candidates were perceived to be more effective at deal-

ing with military and trade issues (National Women's Political Caucus 1987). Women political leaders, candidates, and political consultants believe that their experiences confirm the endurance of voter stereotypes (Kirkpatrick 1974; Lake 1989; Mandel 1981).

VOTER ATTRIBUTION OF SKILLS AND TRAITS

In a candidate-centered age, a good deal of attention has been paid to the factors and processes that voters utilize in evaluating candidates. Research

530


shows that perceived candidate qualities have become more salient to voters than political parties (Kagay and Caldeira 1975; Miller et al. 1986); conse-

quently political scientists have begun to assess the impact of candidate

images on electability and to pinpoint the characteristics that shape the candidate's image in the voter's eye (Abelson et al. 1982). The research done

by Lodge and his associates (1989) solidly demonstrates the importance of

candidate-specific impressions as part of the candidate evaluation processes. Perceiver characteristics such as partisanship have frequently been assumed

to be the underpinnings of candidate evaluations. Just as partisanship is an

important factor in the development of candidate images, so may one's gender ideology have an effect on the formation of candidate images. That is, a voter's allegiance to "traditional" or "egalitarian" sex role norms may have an

important impact on how candidates are perceived. Although gender beliefs

probably have no impact on political contests between males, it is likely that

gender expectation and norms become salient in races between males and females. Hershey uncovered significant sex differences in college students'

willingness to support female political candidates. Young men, particularly those with masculine (as opposed to flexible or feminine) sex role orienta- tions held more negative views of female candidates. Pursuing the relation-

ship between gender role attitudes and attitudes toward women in politics, Hershey (1977, 1980) confirmed that supporters of women candidates are most likely to have egalitarian sex-role attitudes.

CAMPAIGN 1990: SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

In Onondaga County, in Central New York, three races in the fall of 1990 matched male and female candidates: New York State Comptroller (Ned Regan, Republican incumbent vs. Carol Bellamy, Democratic challenger); the 48th State Senate District (Nancy Larraine Hoffmann, Democratic incumbent vs. Jack Luchsinger, Republican challenger); and the 27th Congressional Dis- trict (James Walsh, Republican incumbent vs. Peggy Murray, Democratic

challenger). These races provided us with an interesting variety of incumbent men and women, well-known and unknown names and different levels and

types of elective office. In the congressional race, Republican James Walsh (son of a former con-

gressman and mayor of Syracuse, and himself a past city district councilor and president of the city council) was running for re-election to his second term as congressional representative from the 27th District, after an impres- sive victory in 1988. His Democratic competitor, Peggy Murray, was a first- time candidate for public office and former president of the Central New York

chapter of the National Organization for Women. Local Democrats had invested

heavily in the 1986 and 1988 congressional races. By the 1990 campaign, the

531


party and its workers were depleted of energy and resources. Murray was unable to rally enthusiasm for her candidacy, and Walsh easily won a second term by a margin of 63 percent to 35 percent.

Democratic State Senator Nancy Larraine Hoffmann, three-time winner in a predominantly Republican and rural State Senate district, had enjoyed larger margins of victory with each race. A minority member of the New York State Senate, Hoffmann was targeted for defeat by the State Senate Republican leaders, and her opponent, Jack Luchsinger, attorney and first-time candidate, was heavily financed by state Republicans. With combined expenditures of

nearly $600,000 this race turned out to be the most expensive State Senate race ever in Central New York. In the end, Hoffmann survived Luchsinger's challenge, defeating him with 56 percent of the vote in the Onondaga County portion of the State Senate District.

In the New York State Comptroller's race, Democrat Carol Bellamy, former New York City Council president and unsuccessful mayoral candidate, took on a two-term Republican incumbent, Ned Regan, in a race for an office that few voters knew or cared about. Although overshadowed by more locally based elective offices and more familiar faces, this race was a critical step for women interested in diminishing barriers to executive office. A record low turnout in Bellamy's voter base of New York City resulted in the closest statewide race of 1990. But Bellamy was unsuccessful, receiving 47 percent of the vote statewide and only 40 percent in Onondaga County.

DATA AND METHODS

Sample The research reported here is part of a larger project which monitored voters'

responses to campaign information and examined the ways in which gender stereotypes were affected by such information. The research reported here is based on survey data from 98 respondents.1 The sample was randomly selected from 1990 voter files purchased from the Onondaga County Board of Elections. We sampled voters who lived in areas of the county where the 48th Senate District overlapped with the 27th Congressional District, and who had voted at least once in the past four years. The overlap area included half of the City of Syracuse, and the northern, eastern, and southern suburbs of Onondaga County. Three hundred names were used to reach 98 respondents. The sampling error is approximately +.08. The refusal rate was 23

1The larger project involved less structured, more intensive interviews with a subsample of respondents and candidates' staff members and content analysis of newspaper cov-

erage of the campaigns. Analysis of these data is not reported here.

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percent; 12 percent of the phone numbers were disconnected; and 32 percent of the 300 were unreachable after five callbacks. Interviewers were trained undergraduates. Respondents were told that we were conducting a

study about local political candidates and that the survey was not associated with any of the candidates or parties. The relatively small size of the sample makes it imperative to assess its representativeness. Comparing sample respondents with the voting population, the respondent sample contains a somewhat lower proportion of Republicans (33 percent) than does the Onondaga County portion of the 48th Senate District (41 percent), and a slightly higher proportion of Nonenrolled (29 percent) and Democrats (37 percent) than the

population (23 percent and 34 percent). The sample did not vary significantly from the population in terms of sex.

We conducted two separate surveys to avoid the possible problems involved in including questions about specific male and female candidates and about

gender issues on the same instrument. Conducted August 6-9, the initial sur-

vey probed media use, candiate familiarity, gender role beliefs, gender-typed capabilities and issues, and level of office associated with male and female candidates and officeholders, in addition to questions of political ideology, race, income, and education. Party enrollment, age, and sex were provided by the voter rolls. The second survey, conducted September 4-6, asked respondents to rate all candidates on favorability and on seven traits, pre-tested to demonstrate sex-typed attributions.

KEY VARIABLES

We constructed a Gender Role Ideology scale from six Likert-type attitude statements about gender role attitudes. These variables are proxies for the assumed underlying theoretical construct of gender role traditionalism. Four of the items were adapted from the 1988 NORC General Social Survey and two items were adapted from Brogan and Kutner's (1976) work on the construc- tion of a normative gender role scale. Examples of items are: "It is more im-

portant for a wife to help her husband's career than to have a career herself"; and "Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than are most women." The reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) for the scale was 0.79.2 For some of the analyses, respondents were classified into three "gender belief' groups: Traditionals (n=20), Moderates (n=63), and Egalitarians (n=14).

2 A principal component factor analysis of the sex role variables extracted only one factor, supporting the unidimensionality of the scale. Our sample's responses to the items were fairly similar to those of the NORC sample: for example, when presented the statement "A preschool child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works," 54 percent of our sample and 51 percent of the NORC sample disagreed.

533


Six candidates were rated on seven traits: honesty, ability to handle a crisis, emotional stability, compassion, decisiveness, ability to compromise, and competence.3 Three of the traits-honesty, compassion, and ability to

compromise- measured traditionally "feminine" capabilities. Three other traits - the ability to handle a crisis, decisiveness, and emotional stability-are tradi-

tionally associated with men and leadership. The last trait-competence-was assumed for this research to be gender neutral. Feminine and masculine indices were constructed for each candidate by summing, respectively, their masculine trait scores or feminine trait scores. Furthermore, additive feminine and masculine indices were developed for each sex group of candidates (see Appendix for scale and alpha coefficients).4

ANALYSIS

The analyses we performed on the data were designed to examine respondents' perceptions of male and female candidates in the abstract; to see how well known and favorably regarded the actual male and female candidates were; to see whether respondents' gender ideologies affected candidate favorability; and to see whether gender ideology seemed to produce candidate stereo-

typing.

Gender-Associated Issues and Traits

We were interested in seeing whether the Syracuse sample, like the ex-

perimental subjects and survey respondents in the research discussed above, associated particular traits, capabilities and issue with female candidates or officeholders. Table 1 presents a listing of issues and the percentages of

respondents who indicated that either a woman or man candidate would do a better job dealing with the issue when in office. Although a majority replied that there were no differences between the sexes' ability to deal with several issues, the net difference between males and females on most of the issues

3 We are grateful to Marie Morse, Research Director at the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) and Harrison Hickman of the Hickman-Brown Public Opinion Research firm (both of Washington, DC) for allowing us to borrow and paraphrase some of these questions from a model questionnaire prepared for NWPC's nationwide survey, "The New Political Woman," released in 1987.

4 Most of the research about women candidates and public perception of leadership traits has been commissioned by the National Women's Political Caucus (1984a, 1984b, 1987, 1989; and Williams 1987); see also Boles and Durio (1980, 1981). The research reports that women candidates are more likely to have an advantage on the traits of honesty and compassion, and males are likely to have an advantage on the attributes of handling a crisis and emotional stability. "Working out compromises" and decisiveness produce contradictory or unclear findings.

534


testify to the continued stereotyping of men and women, e.g., the female candidate would do a better job with day care, education, helping the poor and

needy, AIDS, health care, environment and civil rights; the male candidate would do a better job with military spending, foreign trade, agriculture, and taxes. There were, however, some surprises and indications of change in

expected patterns. Voters also indicated that they thought women would do a better job with government spending and the federal deficit; and the male- female advantage on arms control was only about 10 percent. At least in the abstract, women have a comparable "playing field" for most domestic issues and, in fact, appear to have a broader and more diverse issue repertoire than their male counterparts.

Table 1 ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH FEMALE AND MALE CANDIDATES

". tell me whether you think the man or the woman [candidate] would, most of the time, do a better job dealing with the issue when in office." Figures are percent of respondents saying "man," woman," or "no difference."

Issue Man Woman No Difference

Woman's Advantage Day Care 1.0% 82.7% 16.3% Helping the poor 2.0 46.9 50.0 Health care 3.1 44.9 50.0 Education 5.1 44.9 48.0 Environment 4.1 43.9 51.0 AIDS 3.1 35.7 55.1 Civil rights 6.1 36.7 54.1 Government spending 15.3 42.9 39.8 Federal deficit 16.3 30.6 51.0 Drug abuse 15.3 23.5 54.1

Man's Advantage Military spending 53.1% 16.3% 28.6% Foreign trade 39.8 4.1 55.1 Agriculture 38.8 10.2 49.0 Arms control 39.8 29.6 24.5 Taxes 24.5 21.4 52.0

N=98

Table 2 is a similar presentation of candidate traits or capabilities. Again, respondents were asked if they associated the word or phrase more with a hypothetical male or female candidate. Even at a cursory glance, it is apparent

535


Table 2

CAPABILITIES ASSOCIATED WITH MALE AND FEMALE CANDIDATES

... tell me whether you would, most of the time, associate it [words and phrases] more with the man candidate or woman candidate." Figures are percent of respondents saying "man," "woman," or "no difference."

Trait/Capability Man Woman No Difference

Woman's Advantage Compassionate 1.0% 67.3% 29.6%

Struggled to get ahead 12.2 57.1 30.6 Handles family responsibilities 7.1 54.1 36.7

while serving in office More liberal 9.2 45.9 40.8

Speaks out honesty 8.2 44.9 45.9 Work out compromises 8.2 42.9 44.9 Moral 6.1 35.7 56.1 Gets things done 11.2 33.7 50.0 Stands up for what they believe 7.1 32.7 58.2

Hardworking 14.3 26.5 56.1

Man's Advantage More conservative 35.7% 24.5% 35.7%

Tough 28.6 15.3 54.1 Handles a crisis 27.6 22.4 45.9

Emotionally stable 25.5 17.3 55.1 Decisive 23.5 19.4 53.1

Better qualified 10.2% 10.2% 67.3%

N=98

that voters still believe that male and female candidates possess distinct skills and capabilities. By large margins, women are believed to be more compassionate, moral, hardworking, and liberal. Women, more so than their male

counterparts, are also thought to have stuggled to get ahead, be able to handle

family responsibilities while serving in office, speak out honestly. and stand

up for what they believe. Men, on the other hand, are believed to be tougher, more able to handle a crisis, more emotionally stable, more decisive, and more conservative, although the percentage margins are narrower for the "male advantaged" capabilities than the margins for "female advantaged" traits.

Candidate Favorability To begin our assessment of the extent to which stereotypes and gender role beliefs affected voters' perceptions of these six candidates, we asked how

536


favorably respondents viewed each of the candidates; Table 3 shows these

"favorability" responses. In September, Congressman James Walsh and State Senator Nancy Larraine Hoffmann were well known to our sample. In fact, both incumbents were known by all voters in this sample; in contrast, their

opponents, Peggy Murray and Jack Luchsinger, were unknown to roughly one-half to one-third of the voters in September. Although the New York State

Comptroller, Ned Regan, was a longtime incumbent, his name was not as familiar to the voters as the two other incumbents. The comptroller's chal-

lenger, Carol Bellamy, was unknown to almost half (46 percent) of the sample voters. Luchsinger, who began an agressive television ad campaign in early summer, was given the highest favorable and unfavorable ratings of the chal-

lengers, most likely reflective of the very negative tone of his advertising cam-

paign. On the other hand, his opponent, State Senator Hoffmann, enjoyed the

highest favorable and the lowest neutral or unfavorable percentages of all six candidates. We expected that high neutral and/or unknown scores would indicate a greater use of stereotypes to make judgments about less well- known candidates.

Table 3 CANDIDATE FAVORABILITY PERCENTAGES

... could you tell me on a scale of one to five how favorable an impression you have of this person?"

September Favorable* Neutral Unfavorable* Unknown

Walsh (R/M/I) 29.5% 44.2% 26.3% 0.0% Murray (D/F/C) 6.3 26.3 17.9 49.5 Hoffmann (D/F/I) 53.7 29.5 16.9 0.0 Luchsinger (R/M/C) 12.7 26.3 25.3 35.8

Regan (R/M/I) 18.9 45.3 21.1 14.7 Bellamy (D/F/C) 10.6 25.3 17.9 46.3

N=98

Key: R=Republican D=Democrat M=Male F=Female =lIncumbent C=Challenger

*Combines "very favorable" and "favorable" responses **Combines "very unfavorable" and "unfavorable" responses

Candidate Favorability and Gender Ideology Is favorability associated with gender beliefs? We posed this question by looking at the association between gender role beliefs and candidate favorability. Table 4 shows the correlation coefficients for gender role beliefs and each candidate's favorability scores. Only in the instances of the two women chal-

537


lengers (Peggy Murray and Carol Bellamy) are gender beliefs significantly related to candidate favorability. In other words, the more egalitarian the voters' gender beliefs, the more likely they were to rate these two women

positively as the campaign began. When we looked at the ratings themselves (rather than the correlations), for example, Peggy Murray's mean favorability rating among Traditionals in September was .74; among Moderates 1.26; and

among Egalitarians 2.57 (all between-group differences significant at p< .05). Gender role beliefs were not significantly associated with evaluation of the male challenger. This finding suggests that when other candidate information is sparse, gender role beliefs may be consequential in the initial evaluation of less-known women candidates.

Table 4 CORRELATION OF GENDER ROLE BELIEFS WITH CANDIDATE FAVORABILITY RATINGS

Congress James Walsh (R/M/I) -.162

Peggy Murray (D/F/C) .380**

State Senate Jack Luchsinger (R/M/C) -.012 N. Larraine Hoffmann (D/F/I) .028

Comptroller Ned Regan (R/M/I) .034 Carol Bellamy (D/F/I) .295 *

N=94 **p<.01 Key: R=Republican D=Democrat

M=Male F=Female I=Incumbent C=Challenger

GENDER STEREOTYPING OF CANDIDATES

Our reading of the literature on gender stereotyping led us to expect that the less well-known candidates (challengers in the State Senate and congressional race and both the comptroller candidates) would be perceived more

stereotypically, but this expectation was not clearly bore out (see Table 5). The two female challengers were not seen as "more feminine" than the female incumbent (the opposite is true); in fact, Peggy Murray, the least-known candidate in September, has the lowest score of any candidate on the feminine trait index while State Senator Nancy Larraine Hoffmann has the highest (the

538


difference between Hoffman's feminine score and those of Murray and Bellamy is significant at p<.10).

Neither are the female challengers perceived as more feminine than masculine. It is possible to argue that Jack Luchsinger and Ned Regan, less familiar than Walsh, are perceived in stereotypical terms: their masculine index scores are significantly (p < .05) higher than their feminine index scores. But the most interesting pattern to emerge here is that all incumbents, both male and female, are rated more positively on both masculine and feminine scales than are their challengers (incumbent-challenger differences are significant [p<.05] in all cases except the difference between Regan and Bellamy on the feminine traits index).

Table 5 CANDIDATE MEANS ON FEMININE AND MASCULINE INDICES

Race Feminine Index Masculine Index

Congress James Walsh (R/M/I) 10.78 10.89 (n=92)

Peggy Murray (D/F/C) 9.43 9.49 (n=61)

State Senate

Jack Luchsinger (R/M/C) 9.70 10.19 (n=66) N. Larraine Hoffmann (D/F/I) 11.91 11.80 (n=93)

State Comptroller Ned Regan (R/M/I) 10.28 11.06 (n=79) Carol Bellamy (D/F/C) 10.03 10.03 (n=62)

Key: Feminine Traits Index = Summated index of COMPASSIONATE, HONEST, and COMPROMISE Masculine Traits Index = Summated index of DECISIVE, CRISIS, and EMOTIONAL STABILITY R= Republican F= Female D= Democrat I= Incumbent M=Male C= Challenger

Candidate Trait Ratings and Gender Ideology

We wanted to see if (as we expected) gender beliefs were related to sex stereotyping: whether for example, those who endorsed more traditional sex roles (i.e., the Traditionals, on our scale), would perceive female candidates in stereotypically "feminine" ways. Voters think about candidates not as isolated individuals but in the context of a particular electoral campaign. Thus it makes sense to see whether, in a male-female race, "traditional," "moderate,"

539


or "egalitarian" voters attribute traditionally "male" characteristics to the male candidate while seeing the female candidate as, for example, more compassionate, and honest. Each group's mean rating of a candidate on the "masculine" scale was subtracted from its mean rating of that candidate on the "feminine" scale. In Figure 1 these differences are presented so that if a candidate is rated more highly on the masculine attributes than on the feminine attributes, that candidate's bar appears to the left of the zero point.

Looking at these data across the races at the same time we compare gender groups, several conclusions can be drawn. First, in the comptroller race, where the candidates were relatively unfamiliar to Central New Yorkers, the candidates were perceived as having distinct gender-specific attributes. Second, the Moderates, who represent the bulk of our sample, tended to stereo-

type male candidates but not female candidates. Third, the Egalitanans saw the State Senate race in stereotypical terms: a traditionally "male" candidate

running against a female candidate with traditional feminine attributes (we have no explanation for the fact that the congressional challenger, Peggy Murray, was given such high masculine ratings by the Egalitanans, except to

suggest that an unknown woman venturing into the male domain of congressional politics might be assumed to possess "masculine" traits).

The final conclusion, evident when we examined the mean scores rather than the differences presented in Figure 1, is that in the context of a real-life

campaign, the candidate may well matter more than one's gender role beliefs.

Nancy Larraine Hoffmann, the familiar State Senator, was ranked high on both masculine and feminine traits by all three groups; the less well-known candidates received lower scores from all groups on both sets of traits.

Another way to analyze the relationship between gender role beliefs and candidate evaluation is to aggregate the data for male and female candidates, disregarding incumbency status. The overall lowest ratings are given to women candidates, on both masculine and feminine traits, by Traditionalists. Con-

versely, the highest ratings on both scales are given to women by the Egalitar- ians. Moderates are the only group which "stereotype" male candidates (that is, give males in the aggregate a higher masculine than feminine score). Looked at in this way, the Egalitarians are perceiving the women candidates in a more "stereotypical" manner than the other two groups-but it may well be that here we are tapping into a kind of "female boostensm" where those who espouse egalitarian sex roles at the same time view the skills and traits of women candidates as both "different" and "better."5

We are indebted for this suggestion to one of the anonymous reviewers for Western Political Quarterly.

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Figure 1 GENDER ROLE BELIEFS AND CANDIDATE STEREOTYPING

Troditionals

Congress

State - Women Senate * Men

Comptroller

-1 0 1

Moderates

Congress

State O Women Senate * Men

Comptroller

-1 0 1

Egalltarlans

Congress'

-State DO Women Senate * Men

Comptroller -1 0 1

Bars represent the difference between a candidate's mean score on the feminine index and their mean score on the masculine index. Thus a high positive value would indicate that a

group viewed a candidate as having predominantely traditional feminine attributes; a negative value that the candidate was seen as having traditional male attributes.

*Difference between Walsh's scores on feminine and masculine indices was zero for Egalitarians.

These findings suggest that gender role beliefs may predispose people to a more or less favorable view of women politicians, and in particular that those who profess an egaliatarian ideology see female candidates in a positive light both in traditional "feminine" terms and in their possession of more "masculine" attributes. On the other hand, those who are traditional in their sex role beliefs simply have a less positive view of women candidates' attributes and may enter a campaign season less favorably inclined toward women candidates.

Women as Leaders: Equal but Different?

Experimental researchers have the clear advantage of being able to control their independent variables; our research is, conversely, disadvantaged by the

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fact that incumbency, sex, party and other characteristics inhere in the particular candidates we studied and cannot be systematically varied. Thus we must be cautious in drawing conclusions about the causal importance of sex-or incumbency or other variables for that matter. It is the case, however, that our conclusions are generally consistent with recent experimental research on gender stereotyping of candidates (e.g., Huddy and Terkildsen 1991) as well as with research on candidate evaluation.

Our small sample of voters, like the subjects studied by other researchers, attribute somewhat different skills, traits, and issue competencies to

hypothetical male and female candidates; these distinctions, in fact, tend to

advantage female candidates. We also found that all the incumbents were both better known (not surprisingly) and viewed more favorably than the

challengers, regardless of sex or party. Neither the women nor the men in these races appear to be strongly stereotyped. Gender beliefs are associated with candidate favorablility only for the least familiar candidates, and traditionalism is not associated with a tendency to stereotype candidates. Egalitar- ians, however, do tend to show a general tendency to rate female candidates

positively, while Traditionalists give women less positive ratings. In all the races, the incumbents are given more positive ratings than challengers on both masculine and feminine traits. And incumbents who are well known to the voters-in this case Congressman Walsh and State Senator Hoffmann-

actually contradict gender stereotypes by what could be called their

"androgynous" evaluations: high scores on both kinds of traits.

Incumbency clearly matters most, but in these contests candidates' sex- if the candidates were unfamiliar-did seem to play a role in shaping voter

perceptions. To the extent that popular perception of women leaders still par- takes of traditional stereotypes, the growing numbers of women candidates and elected officials may indicate the electorate's endorsement of the skills and capabilities unique to their experiences as women. We are now witness to a reconstruction of leadership images which allows the entrance of women into the political arena but still maintains a differentiation based on sex. Suc- cessful women candidates feel the double bind of having to be both feminine and masculine. They are welcomed into the political fray, as long as they bring with them their traditional skills, capabilities, and vestiges of their roles as mother and spouses. At the same time they have to demonstrate their

power, toughness, and capacity to win, traits assumed by most voters to be inherent in most male candidates.

The media contribute to this contingent welcome by describing women's

campaigns as a "needed voice in government because of their insights on issues as education, the environment, child care and health care." Consultants and candidates, in creating an acceptable campaign image for women candi-

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dates, capitalize on the public's stereotypical expectations in developing images that are consistent with those beliefs. Mervin Field, of the California Poll, in

discussing the political context of Califoria's gubernatorial race, called this need for women's insights as "the woman thing." Or as former San Fancisco

mayor and past gubematorial candidate Diane Feinstein would tell her campaign audiences, "This state could use a little mothering."

What are the implications for the conceptualization of women as candidates? How do we successfully run women for office without "essentializing gender" in the process? There is no easy answer. Our analysis of candidate

image suggests the constructed character of the woman candidate while also

offering hope that in the process of running for-and winning-public office, leadership is being redefined to include the best of men and women's

capabilities.

APPENDIX

The summated scales and their reliabilities (Cronbach's alpha) are: (1) FEMDEXW: Three women's candidates' scores on HONESTY, COM-

PASSION and COMPROMISE (alpha = 0.88). (2) MASDEXW: Three women candidates' scores on DECISIVENESS,

EMOTIONAL STABILITY and CRISIS (alpha = 0.88). (3) FEMDEXM: Three men candidates' scores on HONESTY, COMPAS-

SION and COMPROMISE (alpha = 0.90). (4) MASDEXM1: Three men candidates' scores on DECISIVENESS,

EMOTIONAL STABILITY and COMPROMISE (alpha = 0.89).

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Received: November 18, 1993 Accepted for Publication: January 9, 1993

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gender as a factor in the attribution of leadership traits

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