Ever since Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee for president, commentators have been speculating as to how much being a woman will hurt her chances for election. The data suggest it won’t. In fact, if anything, what we know about American voting patterns suggests that being a woman is a slight advantage over being a man.
It’s not that there’s no sexism at all. Parents are more likely to encourage their sons to aspire to political office than their daughters. Women are more likely to be overburdened by childcare and housework when they’re married to men. Women are less likely than men to be tapped by powerful political party gatekeepers. And the media continues to produce biased news coverage.
But when women actually get on the ballot they are as likely to win an election as men. In fact, men in the United States seem rather indifferent towards a candidate’s sex, whereas women tend to prefer females.
Gender stereotypes still apply: voters tend to think that men are better at handling masculine areas of governance like foreign affairs and the economy, but they tend to think that women are better at feminized areas like health care and education. This means that being female can help or hurt a candidate, depending on which issues dominate the election. But, when looked at as an aggregate, gender stereotypes don’t hurt women more than men.
So, there’s one thing we can be reasonably sure of this November: If Clinton loses and Trump wins, it is unlikely to be because the American electorate is too sexist to elect a woman.
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Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 6
Kama — August 4, 2016
I'm wondering how true this really is - for instance, this is a very high-profile election. Does that matter, in voting for men vs women? Does percentage of time in the media's limelight play a role in whether male or female candidates are more likely to be elected? After all, we're hearing a lot of gendered negative commentary - Hillary is being called pushy, shrill, a bitch... Does increased exposure to negative commentary such as this affect how people vote? I can see two separate camps - those who rally around a female candidate in the face of this, and those who distance themselves. Perhaps these two groups balance out in the polls - I don't know.
A president is also seen as being in charge of a LOT of different areas - so if, as the article points out, men are seen as being stronger in economy and foreign affairs, do people who prioritize those issues skew toward voting for men? Would they be less likely to vote for Hillary?
There are a lot of finer points that I'd want to see addressed before I'd be willing to say that sexism won't cause Hillary to lose. I'm not saying this theory is impossible, just that we need a more in-depth analysis before drawing such a firm conclusion.
cebow — August 4, 2016
I've heard the argument that while this is true for down ticket races, where we are more used to voting for women, it's not true for the president because we haven't had a woman before. They cited the fact that Hillary had much higher favorabilify ratings as a senator and Secretary of State than she does now. The same article said that women who are in jobs that are historically male (police captain) get disproportionately blamed for mistakes they make on the job. So the idea is that women need to be perfect when they do historically male jobs.
Ann Szalda-Petree — August 6, 2016
This is absolutely ridiculous. To say if Clinton loses it won't be because of sexism, is implying it isn't part of it. In your own article you've named several sources of sexism that apply to all women, including Clinton. If she loses, sexism will most certainly be part of it. This is not only poorly argued, but a terrible use of loosely connected and badly described data. In essence - poor science. A better explanation of the voting pattern data would be that if a woman actually survives the gauntlet required to find herself on a ticket, she is probably so inarguably qualified even nay-sayers should find it difficult to vote against her. And even then, they do, (very) slightly less than half of the time.
Carrie Kube — August 6, 2016
A number people don't like Clinton as a person. They may not like her policies, her tactics or just find her shady. And even if she was a man, they still wouldn't give their support. I think we need to give people some credit that they can see beyond labels.