Description
There are many theories as to why women remain severely underrepresented in democratic governments. Perhaps voters do not consider women to be capable leaders, or maybe party elites obstruct women's paths to office because they don't believe that they are electable. But if these attitudes are hurdles standing in the way of women being elected to office, where did they develop?In The Image of Gender and Political Leadership, Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson and Nehemia Geva bring together parallel experiments conducted in countries around the world to compare the ways in which young adults view gender and leadership. Together, the chapters in this book present findings from on-site experiments conducted with over 6,000 young adult students of highly diverse socio-economic backgrounds in eight countries that have varying levels of experience with women in government: Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, England, Israel, Sweden, the United States, and Uruguay. Overall, the book finds little evidence of traditional gender stereotypes that would limit young people's support for women as political leaders. Women candidates are accepted as leaders by the participants, indicating young adults' approval of women's ability to hold diverse posts, win votes, and manage stereotypically masculine policy areas. The book also finds that young adults are very responsive to political party--regardless of gender, they tend to favor candidates from their preferred parties. With an in-depth, cross-national perspective, Taylor-Robinson and Geva provide empirical evidence to dispel myths about what contributes to the low election rates of women, and importantly, investigate logical steps to achieve gender parity.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsList of ContributorsPART I: Mental Templates of Leaders and Designing an Experiment to Study Templates1. Mental Templates of LeadersMichelle M. Taylor-Robinson and Nehemia Geva2. Research ProtocolNehemia Geva and Michelle M. Taylor-RobinsonPART II: Findings in Individual Cases3. Costa Rica - Where Urban Young People View Women as LeadersGerardo Hernández Naranjo and Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson4. The Masculine Template in Perceived Competence of Women in Israeli PoliticsAyala Yarkoney-Sorek and Nehemia Geva5. Attitudes Towards Women in Government: Evidence from an Experiment in Canada's Alberta and Quebec ProvincesMelanee Thomas, Valérie-Anne Mahéo and Guillaume Bogiaris6. Young Adult's Attitudes to Women Candidates in Uruguay: No Obstacle to ChangeNiki Johnson7. England: Young People View Women as LeadersClaire Annesley, Beatriz Lacerda Ratton and Jake Watts8. Party over Gender: Young Adult's Evaluations of Political Leaders in California and TexasKostanca Dhima and Jennifer M. Piscopo9. A Generation Without Political Gender Biases? The Case of SwedenElin Bjarnegård, Josefina Erikson and Pär Zetterberg10. Chile's Shift to the Left and the Rise of WomenAlejandra Ramm, José Manuel Gaete and Milena Morales BonichPART III: Cross-National Findings and Conclusions11. Meta-Analysis Assessment of Candidate Gender as an Attribute of Young Adult Leadership TemplatesMichelle M. Taylor-Robinson and Nehemia Geva12. Do Women Fit the Leadership Image? Yes!Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson and Nehemia GevaReferencesIndex
