The Image of Gender and Political Leadership: A Multinational View of Women and Leadership

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.


Author: Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 04/28/2023
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.96lbs
Size: 9.25h x 6.22w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9780197642733
ISBN10: 019764273X
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Anthropology | Cultural & Social
- Political Science | Comparative Politics

About the Author

Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson is Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on how the design of democratic institutions affects representation and the consequences for consolidating democracy.

Nehemia Geva is Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. His research highlights experimental methodology in the assessment of the public's preferences and choices of political policies and actions.