Women and Public Office

By Isaac Butler

So.  The United States is ranked 91st in the world in terms of gender diversity in our national legislature.  Part of the reason for this is what we would call in the arts low levels of participation (fewer candidates are women to begin with).  Rather than jumping to some kind of obvious and hilariously insulting conclusion about this like, oh, I don't know, that women simply are naturally better suited to not having powerful elected positions and thus just don't have much interest in it, someone actually decided to do some research.  Here's what they found (courtesy of Kevin Drum):

1. Women are substantially more likely than men to perceive the electoral environment as highly competitive and biased against female candidates.
2. Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin’s candidacies aggravated women’s perceptions of gender bias in the electoral arena.
3. Women are much less likely than men to think they are qualified to run for office.
4. Female potential candidates are less competitive, less confident, and more risk averse than their male counterparts.
5. Women react more negatively than men to many aspects of modern campaigns.
6. Women are less likely than men to receive the suggestion to run for office — from anyone.
7. Women are still responsible for the majority of childcare and household tasks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can read the rest of the study here.