6 - Different Parties, Different Standards

Summary

Stereotypes about women and men influence how voters evaluate the qualifications of political candidates, but stereotypes about gender sharply intersect with stereotypes about political parties. Chapter 6 builds on Chapter 5 and investigates how stereotypes about Democrats and Republicans affects evaluations of Democratic and Republican female candidates. Voters stereotype Democrats as feminine and Republicans as masculine. These stereotypes, I contend, create a set of gendered partisan-typicality standards that affect how voters select candidates in primary elections. Republican female candidates face obstacles in primary elections where Republican voters are more likely to support a Republican male relative to a Republican female candidate. Partisan-typicality standards shaped by gender stereotypes contribute to the partisan gender gap in political representation.