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Gender as a Factor in the Attribution of Leadership Traits Author(s): Deborah Alexander and Kristi Andersen Source: Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 527-545 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the University of Utah Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/448946 . Accessed: 08/09/2011 03:11
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Gender as a Factor in the Attribution of Leadership Traits

DEBORAH ALEXANDER,SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY KRISTIANDERSEN, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

The candidateevaluationliteraturehas emphasized the contributionof both candidate characteristicsand voter characteristics(e.g., party to. But on and identification) candidateappraisals. the literature attribution sex role stereotypessuggests that women candidatesmay be evaluated than theirmale counterparts. This paperpresentsthe resultsof differently a survey of 98 voters in which we explored the relationshipsamong of gender role attitudes,voters'attribution leadershiptraits,and support for male and femalecandidates.The surveyswere conductedin Syracuse, New York,duringthe 1990 campaigns, which includedthreemale-female races. Our results substantiate the hypothesis that when candidate information sparse,genderrole attitudesare consequential the initial is in evaluation of lesser known women candidates. Gender attitudes are important factors in candidate favorabilitywhen the candidates are women challengers.Secondly, we found that voters had a tendency to attributeparticular leadershipqualitiesand issue skills based on sex to if was In candidates, no otherinformation available. addition, hypothetical we found that the more egalitarian voters'gender role attitudes,the the more likely they were to evaluate favorablyactual women candidates. Finally,it was the case that all incumbents,male and female,were rated more positively on both "masculine" and "feminine" traits than were challengers. job. But there is Predictingelectionresults in the UnitedStates is a hazardous one predictionthat any election-eveanalyst could offer with supreme confidence . . . that the newly elected official would be male. (Hershey 1980: 179). Even during the much-touted "Year of the Woman" such a prediction would be a fairly safe one at higher levels of government: the 1992 elections, certainly a success for women, produced a House of Representatives which is only 11 percent female. This is despite the fact that many recent studies have found that voters are generally indifferent to a candidate's sex in making their vote decision (e.g., Carroll 1985; Darcy et al. 1987). The apparent lack of gender bias in the voting booth (at least as measured by aggregate voting statistics) should not lead us to assume that there 527

Research Political Quarterly are not differences in the way voters think about and evaluate male and female candidates and politicians. The fact that gender role stereotypes characterize and influence many decision-making domains suggests that voters might use stereotypes to attributedifferentskills and capabilitiesto men and women candidates. Women have not been a major focus of the extensive literatureon candidate evaluation,but some recent work has raised questions about voters'differentialperceptions of male and female candidates. Research designs examining voter sexual stereotyping have been both experimental (for example, Adams 1975; Gitelson and Gitelson 1981; Hedlund et at. 1979; Huddy and Terkildsen 1991; Mend et al. 1976; Sapiro 1981) and nonexperimental (e.g., Boles and Durio 1980, 1981; Hershey 1977); but almost all of them have used students as subjects and fictitious candidates as the objects of investigation. The research described here, in contrast,examines the attributionof traditional sex-typed leadershiptraitsto real candidates(three female-malepairs) by a small sample of voters exposed to their campaigns. We confirm past findings that hypotheticalmale and female candidates are attributeddifferent skills (based on sex roles and accompanyingskills and traits),and use survey data to ask several questions. First, do voters'perceptions of male and female candidates'skills and issue strengthsin actualcampaignsvary in the expected ways? Second, are voters'general evaluationsof male and female candidates, and the extent to which voters use gender stereotypes related to their gender role beliefs? And finally, does incumbency and/or voter familiaritywith the candidate seem to affect the extent to which voters stereotype candidates according to sex?
OR EVALUATION? VOTERSEXISM DIFFERENTIAL

Male dominance of political leadership has been challenged by the campign triumphs of women candidates in the last two decades. The 1990 campaign year saw record numbers of women candidates for political office, including 85 running for statewide executive seats, 8 for the U.S. Senate, 70 U.S. House of Representatives candidates,and 2064 women seeking state legislativeoffices For The American Woman And Politics 1991: 1-2). At the close of (Center the 1990 season, 31 women (including one non-voting delegate) had won election to Congress. Three states had women governors and the number of women in state legislaturesis more than four times largerthan it was twenty years ago. The numerical increase in women in public office has made possible research which has attempted to discredit one of the major theses about is that such underrepresentation due to voter women's underrepresentation: sexism. Darcy and his colleagues concluded that "in general elections the 528

Gender Leadership and Traits voter reluctanceto support female candidates, as observed in the 1950s and 1960s, had all but disappeared by the the mid-1970s" (Darcy et al. s1987: 55). However, researchalso exists which supports the argumentthat women and men are still perceived in stereotyped ways (Boles and Durio 1981, 1980; Brovermanet al. 1972; NationalWomen's PoliticalCaucus 1987) and that women in political roles still must deal with stereotypicalexpectations (Diamond 1977; Mandel 1981; Deber 1982; Sapiro 1983; and Sigelman, Sigelman,and Fowler 1987). Can it be the case that voters stereotype female candidates but simultaneously act to produce election outcomes which do not favor male candidates? Both claims could be true if within individuals, aspects of feminine stereotypes which are considered positive in terms of suitability for elective office and those which are considered negative "canceleach other out,"so to speak, so that vote decisions are made which look as if they are sex-blind. Or this "cancellingout"process may work across offices or structuralsituations, so that women are seen as more supportablefor particularoffices, or so that female incumbents are stereotyped positively as compared to female challengers, or so that the issues which characterizeparticularlocal races help produce negative stereotypes of women candidates which in turn limit their support. In the past, voter sexism has been conceptualized as hostility toward women as political candidates and consequent reluctanceto vote for women candidates. The existence of voter sexism has been measured by looking at electionoutcomes,e.g. by pooling many electionresults,controllingforvariables such as incumbency and party,and then testing the null hypothesis that male candidates have no advantageover female candidates. But if the possibilities described above are to be investigated, a closer look at voters' reactions to female and male candidates is critical. Experimentalresearch certainly supports the notion that voters may designate particularoffices as appropriatefor women or define certain political climates as more suitable for a woman's particular political skills. Gender role stereotypes may no longer relegate women to the domestic domain or block their entrance into elective office, but may constrain public expectations about women's areas of expertise and appropriatelevel of public office. In the present research,these questions are approached through the use of survey data collected in a particularpolitical context and measuringattitudes toward real candidates.
EVIDENCE FORDIFFERENTIAL EVALUATION

In recent years, various studies have assessed the effect of gender in evaluation and decision-making processes. These studies reveal that gender has been associated with differentialratings of elected officials'job performance 529

Research Political Quarterly of identical tasks at identical levels of achievement (Mend et al. 1976). Sex role stereotypes have been shown to affect perceptions of academic competence (Fidell 1970; Simpson 1970); perceptions of emotional maturity and social competence (Brovermanet al. 1972); attributionof success (Deaux and Emswiller 1974); ratings of artistic and authorship performance (Goldberg 1968; Phetersonet al. 1971); attributionof different issue expertise for male and female candidates (Sapiro 1981); and finally, differentialperceptions of candidate strength and power across gender (Gitelson and Gitelson 1981). Boles and Durio (1980, 1981), measuring perceptions about male and female politicians, found distinct differences in gender and political labels. Generally,the "electedwoman"label was evaluated more positively than the "elected man" on traditionallyfemale traits and women were perceived as equal or superior to male politicians in terms of the masculine characteristics of efficiency, stability, and vitality (Boles and Durio 1981: 4-12). This suggests that gender stereotypes may not necessarily slow the progressof women candidates in winning public office; nevertheless,it confirms suspicions that women candidates have to present themsleves as both "male" and "female" to satisfy voters'expectations. Evidence for differentialevaluationalso comes from public opinion polls. Polls confirm that women candidates tend to be seen as more compassionate and honest while men are seen to be better suited emotionally for politics. Women are also attributedan expertise in health care, education, and other "social" "domestic" or issues that male candidates don't have (Toner 1990). A Lou Harrispoll in 1972 revealeddistinctly differentappraisalsof the abilities of men and women in office. The public judged men better at directing the military, managing business and labor issues, strengthening the economy, and dealing with demonstrationsand internationaldiplomacy, while women were thought to be better on issues about children and family, education, the arts, health, poverty, and consumer issues (Sapiro 1983). Fifteen years later, voters in a national survey thought that women running for office were more compassionate, more caring, more honest and would do a betterjob handling social issues and holding down government spending, while male candidates were perceived to be more effective at dealing with militaryand trade issues (NationalWomen's PoliticalCaucus 1987). Women political leaders, candidates, and political consultants believe that their experiences confirm the endurance of voter stereotypes (Kirkpatrick 1974; Lake 1989; Mandel 1981).
AND OF ATTRIBUTIONSKILLS TRAITS VOTER

In a candidate-centeredage, a good deal of attention has been paid to the factors and processes that voters utilize in evaluating candidates. Research 530

Gender Leadership and Traits shows that perceived candidate qualities have become more salient to voters than political parties (Kagay and Caldeira 1975; Miller et al. 1986); consequently political scientists have begun to assess the impact of candidate images on electability and to pinpoint the characteristics that shape the candidate'simage in the voter'seye (Abelson et al. 1982). The research done by Lodge and his associates (1989) solidly demonstrates the importance of candidate-specificimpressions as part of the candidate evaluationprocesses. have frequently been assumed such as partisanship Perceiver characteristics to be the underpinnings of candidate evaluations.Just as partisanship is an important factorin the development of candidate images, so may one's gender ideology have an effect on the formationof candidate images. That is, a or sex voter's allegianceto "traditional" "egalitarian" role norms may have an on how candidates are perceived. Although gender beliefs important impact probably have no impact on political contests between males, it is likely that gender expectation and norms become salient in races between males and females. Hershey uncovered significant sex differences in college students' willingness to support female political candidates. Young men, particularly those with masculine (as opposed to flexible or feminine) sex role orientations held more negative views of female candidates. Pursuing the relationship between gender role attitudes and attitudes toward women in politics, Hershey (1977, 1980) confirmed that supporters of women candidates are most likely to have egalitariansex-role attitudes.
NEW CAMPAIGN 1990: SYRACUSE, YORK

In Onondaga County, in Central New York, three races in the fall of 1990 matched male and female candidates: New York State Comptroller (Ned Regan,Republicanincumbent vs. Carol Bellamy,Democraticchallenger);the 48th State Senate District (Nancy LarraineHoffmann, Democraticincumbent vs. Jack Luchsinger,Republicanchallenger);and the 27th CongressionalDistrict (James Walsh, Republican incumbent vs. Peggy Murray, Democratic challenger).These races provided us with an interestingvariety of incumbent men and women, well-known and unknown names and different levels and types of elective office. In the congressionalrace, RepublicanJames Walsh (son of a formercongressman and mayor of Syracuse, and himself a past city district councilor and president of the city council) was running for re-election to his second term as congressionalrepresentativefrom the 27th District, after an impressive victory in 1988. His Democratic competitor, Peggy Murray,was a firsttime candidate for public office and formerpresident of the CentralNew York for chapterof the NationalOrganization Women. LocalDemocratshad invested heavily in the 1986 and 1988 congressionalraces. By the 1990 campaign,the 531

Political Research Quarterly party and its workers were depleted of energy and resources. Murraywas unable to rally enthusiasm for her candidacy, and Walsh easily won a second term by a margin of 63 percent to 35 percent. DemocraticStateSenatorNancy Larraine Hoffmann,three-timewinner in a predominantlyRepublicanand ruralStateSenate district,had enjoyed larger margins of victory with each race. A minority member of the New YorkState Senate, Hoffmannwas targetedfor defeat by the StateSenate Republicanleaders, and her opponent, Jack Luchsinger, attorney and first-time candidate, was heavily financed by state Republicans.With combined expenditures of nearly $600,000 this race turned out to be the most expensive State Senate race ever in CentralNew York.In the end, Hoffmann survived Luchsinger's challenge,defeatinghim with 56 percent of the vote in the OnondagaCounty portion of the State Senate District. In the New YorkStateComptroller's race, DemocratCarolBellamy,former New YorkCity Council president and unsuccessful mayoral candidate, took on a two-term Republicanincumbent, Ned Regan,in a race for an office that few voters knew or cared about. Although overshadowed by more locally based elective offices and more familiarfaces, this race was a criticalstep for women interested in diminishing barriers to executive office. A record low turnoutin Bellamy'svoter base of New YorkCity resulted in the closest statewide race of 1990. But Bellamywas unsuccessful, receiving 47 percent of the vote statewide and only 40 percent in Onondaga County.
DATA AND METHODS

Sample The researchreportedhere is part of a largerproject which monitoredvoters' responses to campaign informationand examined the ways in which gender stereotypes were affected by such information.The researchreported here is based on survey data from 98 respondents.1 The sample was randomly selected from 1990 voter files purchased from the OnondagaCounty Boardof Elections. We sampled voters who lived in areas of the county where the 48th Senate District overlapped with the 27th Congressional District, and who had voted at least once in the past four years. The overlap area included half of the City of Syracuse,and the northern,eastern, and southern suburbs of Onondaga County. Three hundred names were used to reach 98 respondents. The sampling error is approximately +.08. The refusal rate was 23
1The larger project involved less structured, more intensive interviews with a subsample of respondents and candidates' staff members and content analysis of newspaper coverage of the campaigns. Analysis of these data is not reported here.

532

Gender Leadership and Traits percent; 12 percent of the phone numbers were disconnected; and 32 percent of the 300 were unreachable after five callbacks. Interviewers were trained undergraduates.Respondents were told that we were conducting a study about local political candidates and that the survey was not associated with any of the candidates or parties. The relativelysmall size of the sample makes it imperativeto assess its representativeness. Comparingsample respondents with the voting population, the respondent sample contains a somewhat lower proportionof Republicans(33 percent) than does the Onondaga County portion of the 48th Senate District (41 percent), and a slightly higher proportionof Nonenrolled(29 percent) and Democrats (37 percent) than the population (23 percent and 34 percent). The sample did not vary significantly from the population in terms of sex. We conductedtwo separatesurveysto avoid the possible problemsinvolved in including questions about specific male and female candidates and about gender issues on the same instrument.Conducted August 6-9, the initial survey probed media use, candiate familiarity,gender role beliefs, gender-typed capabilities and issues, and level of office associated with male and female candidates and officeholders, in addition to questions of political ideology, race, income, and education. Partyenrollment,age, and sex were provided by the voter rolls. The second survey, conducted September4-6, asked respondents to rate all candidates on favorabilityand on seven traits, pre-tested to demonstratesex-typed attributions.
KEY VARIABLES

We constructed a Gender Role Ideology scale from six Likert-typeattitude statements about gender role attitudes. These variables are proxies for the assumed underlying theoreticalconstruct of gender role traditionalism.Four of the items were adapted from the 1988 NORC General Social Survey and two items were adaptedfromBroganand Kutner's (1976) workon the construction of a normativegender role scale. Examples of items are: "Itis more important for a wife to help her husband's careerthan to have a careerherself"; men are bettersuited emotionallyfor politics than are most women." and "Most The reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) for the scale was 0.79.2 For some of the analyses, respondents were classified into three "genderbelief' groups: Traditionals (n=20), Moderates (n=63), and Egalitarians(n=14).
2

A principal component factor analysis of the sex role variables extracted only one factor, supporting the unidimensionality of the scale. Our sample's responses to the items were fairly similar to those of the NORC sample: for example, when presented the statement "A preschool child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works," 54 percent of our sample and 51 percent of the NORC sample disagreed.

533

Research Political Quarterly Six candidates were rated on seven traits: honesty, ability to handle a crisis, emotional stability, compassion, decisiveness, ability to compromise, and competence.3 Three of the traits-honesty, compassion, and ability to "feminine" capabilities.Threeother traits compromise- measuredtraditionally emotional stability-are tradithe ability to handle a crisis, decisiveness, and tionallyassociated with men and leadership.The last trait-competence-was assumed for this research to be gender neutral. Feminine and masculine indices were constructed for each candidate by summing, respectively, their additive feminine masculine traitscores or feminine traitscores. Furthermore, and masculine indices were developed for each sex group of candidates (see Appendix for scale and alpha coefficients).4
ANALYSIS

The analyseswe performedon the data were designed to examine respondents' perceptions of male and female candidates in the abstract;to see how well known and favorablyregardedthe actual male and female candidates were; to see whether respondents'gender ideologies affected candidate favorability; and to see whether gender ideology seemed to produce candidate stereotyping. Issues and Traits Gender-Associated We were interested in seeing whether the Syracuse sample, like the experimentalsubjects and survey respondents in the researchdiscussed above, associated particulartraits, capabilities and issue with female candidates or officeholders. Table 1 presents a listing of issues and the percentages of respondents who indicated that either a woman or man candidate would do a betterjob dealing with the issue when in office. Althougha majorityreplied that there were no differences between the sexes' ability to deal with several issues, the net difference between males and females on most of the issues
3 We are gratefulto MarieMorse,ResearchDirectorat the NationalWomen'sPolitical

PublicOpinionResearch Hickmanof the Hickman-Brown Caucus(NWPC)and Harrison some of these firm(both of Washington, DC) forallowingus to borrowand paraphrase questions from a model questionnaire preparedfor NWPC'snationwidesurvey, "The New PoliticalWoman," releasedin 1987. Most of the researchabout women candidates and public perceptionof leadership Women'sPolitical Caucus(1984a, 1984b, traitshas been commissioned the National by 1987, 1989; and Williams 1987); see also Bolesand Durio(1980, 1981). The research reportsthat women candidatesare more likely to have an advantageon the traitsof of on honestyand compassion,and males are likely to have an advantage the attributes out and handlinga crisis and emotionalstability."Working compromises" decisiveness or producecontradictory unclearfindings.

534

Gender and LeadershipTraits

testify to the continued stereotypingof men and women, e.g., the female candidate would do a betterjob with day care, education, helping the poor and needy, AIDS, health care, environment and civil rights; the male candidate would do a better job with military spending, foreign trade, agriculture,and taxes. There were, however, some surprises and indications of change in expected patterns.Votersalso indicated that they thoughtwomen would do a better job with government spending and the federal deficit; and the malefemale advantageon arms control was only about 10 percent. At least in the abstract,women have a comparable"playingfield"for most domestic issues and, in fact, appear to have a broaderand more diverse issue repertoirethan their male counterparts. Table1
WITH ISSUES ASSOCIATED FEMALE MALECANDIDATES AND

". tellme whether thinkthe manor the woman[candidate] would,mostof the time,do a you
betterjob dealing with the issue when in office."Figuresare percent of respondentssaying "man," or woman," "nodifference." Issue Man Woman No Difference

Woman's Advantage Day Care Helpingthe poor Healthcare Education Environment AIDS Civil rights Government spending Federaldeficit
Drug abuse

1.0% 2.0 3.1 5.1 4.1 3.1 6.1 15.3 16.3

15.3

82.7% 46.9 44.9 44.9 43.9 35.7 36.7 42.9 30.6

23.5

16.3% 50.0 50.0 48.0 51.0 55.1 54.1 39.8 51.0

54.1

Man's Advantage Military spending Foreigntrade Agriculture Arms control Taxes N=98

53.1% 39.8 38.8 39.8 24.5

16.3% 4.1 10.2 29.6 21.4

28.6% 55.1 49.0 24.5 52.0

Table 2 is a similar presentationof candidate traits or capabilities.Again, respondents were asked if they associated the word or phrase more with a hypotheticalmale or female candidate. Even at a cursory glance, it is apparent 535

PoliticalResearchQuarterly Table 2
CAPABILITIES ASSOCIATED WITH MALE AND FEMALECANDIDATES

... tell me whetheryou would, most of the time, associateit [words and phrases]more with the man candidateor woman candidate." or "woman," Figuresare percentof respondentssaying "man," "nodifference." Trait/Capability Woman'sAdvantage Compassionate Struggled to get ahead Handles family responsibilities while serving in office More liberal Speaks out honesty Work out compromises Moral Gets things done Stands up for what they believe Hardworking Man Woman No Difference

1.0% 12.2 7.1 9.2 8.2 8.2 6.1 11.2 7.1 14.3

67.3% 57.1 54.1 45.9 44.9 42.9 35.7 33.7 32.7 26.5

29.6% 30.6 36.7 40.8 45.9 44.9 56.1 50.0 58.2 56.1

Man's Advantage
More conservative Tough Handles a crisis Emotionally stable Decisive Better qualified N=98 35.7% 28.6 27.6 25.5 23.5 10.2% 24.5% 15.3 22.4 17.3 19.4 10.2% 35.7% 54.1 45.9 55.1 53.1 67.3%

that voters still believe that male and female candidates possess distinct skills and capabilities. By large margins, women are believed to be more compassionate, moral, hardworking,and liberal. Women, more so than their male counterparts,are also thought to have stuggled to get ahead, be able to handle family responsibilities while serving in office, speak out honestly. and stand up for what they believe. Men, on the other hand, are believed to be tougher, more able to handle a crisis, more emotionally stable, more decisive, and more conservative, although the percentage margins are narrower for the traits. "maleadvantaged" capabilitiesthan the marginsfor "femaleadvantaged" Candidate Favorability To begin our assessment of the extent to which stereotypes and gender role beliefs affected voters' perceptions of these six candidates, we asked how
536

Gender Leadership and Traits favorablyrespondents viewed each of the candidates; Table 3 shows these "favorability" responses. In September, CongressmanJames Walsh and State Senator Nancy LarraineHoffmann were well known to our sample. In fact, both incumbents were known by all voters in this sample; in contrast, their opponents, Peggy Murray and Jack Luchsinger, were unknown to roughly one-half to one-third of the voters in September.Although the New YorkState Comptroller,Ned Regan, was a longtime incumbent, his name was not as familiar to the voters as the two other incumbents. The comptroller'schallenger,CarolBellamy,was unknown to almost half (46 percent) of the sample voters. Luchsinger,who began an agressive television ad campaign in early summer, was given the highest favorableand unfavorableratings of the challengers, most likely reflectiveof the very negative tone of his advertisingcampaign. On the other hand, his opponent, StateSenatorHoffmann,enjoyed the highest favorableand the lowest neutral or unfavorablepercentagesof all six candidates. We expected that high neutral and/or unknown scores would indicate a greater use of stereotypes to make judgments about less wellknown candidates. Table3
FAVORABILITY PERCENTAGES CANDIDATE an ... could you tell me on a scale of one to five how favorable impressionyou have of this person?"

September Walsh (R/M/I) (D/F/C) Murray Hoffmann(D/F/I) (R/M/C) Luchsinger Regan(R/M/I) Bellamy(D/F/C)

Favorable* 29.5% 6.3 53.7 12.7 18.9 10.6

Neutral 44.2% 26.3 29.5 26.3 45.3 25.3

Unfavorable* Unknown 26.3% 17.9 16.9 25.3 21.1 17.9 0.0% 49.5 0.0 35.8 14.7 46.3

N=98 Key: R=Republican D=Democrat M=Male F=Female

=lIncumbentC=Challenger *Combines favorable" "favorable" and "very responses **Combines unfavorable" "unfavorable" and "very responses

and GenderIdeology Candidate Favorability Is favorabilityassociated with gender beliefs? We posed this question by lookingat the associationbetween genderrole beliefs and candidatefavorability. Table 4 shows the correlationcoefficients for gender role beliefs and each candidate'sfavorabilityscores. Only in the instances of the two women chal537

PoliticalResearchQuarterly

lengers (Peggy Murray and Carol Bellamy) are gender beliefs significantly related to candidate favorability.In other words, the more egalitarian the voters' gender beliefs, the more likely they were to rate these two women positively as the campaign began. When we looked at the ratingsthemselves (rather than the correlations),for example, Peggy Murray'smean favorability ratingamong Traditionalsin Septemberwas .74; among Moderates1.26; and 2.57 (all between-groupdifferences significantat p< .05). among Egalitarians Gender role beliefs were not significantly associated with evaluation of the male challenger.This finding suggests that when other candidate information is sparse, gender role beliefs may be consequential in the initial evaluationof less-known women candidates.

Table4
RATINGS OF WITH CANDIDATEFAVORABILITY CORRELATION GENDER ROLE BELIEFS

Congress James Walsh (R/M/I) (D/F/C) PeggyMurray State Senate (R/M/C) Jack Luchsinger N. Larraine Hoffmann(D/F/I) Comptroller Ned Regan(R/M/I) CarolBellamy(D/F/I) N=94 **p<.01 Key:R=RepublicanD=Democrat M=Male F=Female I=IncumbentC=Challenger
GENDERSTEREOTYPING CANDIDATES OF

-.162 .380**

-.012 .028

.034 .295*

Our reading of the literatureon gender stereotypingled us to expect that the less well-known candidates (challengersin the State Senate and congressional race and both the comptroller candidates) would be perceived more stereotypically,but this expectation was not clearly bore out (see Table 5). The two female challengerswere not seen as "morefeminine"than the female incumbent (the opposite is true); in fact, PeggyMurray,the least-known candidate in September, has the lowest score of any candidate on the feminine Hoffmann has the highest (the traitindex while State SenatorNancy Larraine
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Gender and LeadershipTraits

and Bellamy differencebetween Hoffman'sfeminine score and those of Murray is significant at p<.10). Neither are the female challengersperceived as more feminine than masculine. It is possible to argue thatJack Luchsingerand Ned Regan,less familiar than Walsh, are perceived in stereotypical terms: their masculine index scores are significantly(p < .05) higher than their feminine index scores. But the most interestingpattern to emerge here is that all incumbents, both male and female, are rated more positively on both masculine and feminine scales than are their challengers (incumbent-challengerdifferences are significant [p<.05] in all cases except the differencebetween Reganand Bellamyon the feminine traits index). Table5
AND MASCULINE INDICES CANDIDATEMEANS ON FEMININE Race Feminine Index Masculine Index

Congress James Walsh (R/M/I) Peggy Murray (D/F/C) State Senate Jack Luchsinger (R/M/C) N. Larraine Hoffmann (D/F/I) State Comptroller Ned Regan (R/M/I) Carol Bellamy (D/F/C)

10.78 9.43

10.89 9.49

(n=92) (n=61)

9.70 11.91

10.19 11.80

(n=66) (n=93)

10.28 10.03

11.06 10.03

(n=79) (n=62)

HONEST, and Key: Feminine Traits Index = Summated index of COMPASSIONATE, COMPROMISE Masculine Traits Index = Summated index of DECISIVE, CRISIS,and EMOTIONAL STABILITY R= Republican F= Female D= Democrat I= Incumbent M=Male C= Challenger

Candidate Trait Ratings and GenderIdeology We wanted to see if (as we expected) gender beliefs were relatedto sex stereotyping: whether for example, those who endorsed more traditionalsex roles (i.e., the Traditionals,on our scale), would perceive female candidates in stereotypically"feminine" ways. Voters think about candidates not as isolated individuals but in the context of a particular electoral campaign. Thus it makes sense to see whether, in a male-femalerace, "traditional," "moderate," 539

Political Research Quarterly or "egalitarian" voters attributetraditionally"male" characteristicsto the male candidate while seeing the female candidate as, for example, more compassionate,and honest. Eachgroup'smean ratingof a candidateon the "masculine" scale was subtractedfrom its mean ratingof that candidate on the "feminine" scale. In Figure 1 these differences are presented so that if a candidate is rated more highly on the masculine attributesthan on the feminine attributes, that candidate'sbar appears to the left of the zero point. Looking at these data across the races at the same time we compare gender groups, several conclusions can be drawn. First, in the comptroller race, where the candidates were relativelyunfamiliarto CentralNew Yorkers, the candidates were perceived as having distinct gender-specific attributes. who representthe bulk of our sample, tended to stereoSecond, the Moderates, male candidates but not female candidates. Third, the Egalitananssaw type the State Senate race in stereotypical terms: a traditionally"male" candidate running against a female candidate with traditionalfeminine attributes (we have no explanation for the fact that the congressional challenger, Peggy Murray,was given such high masculine ratingsby the Egalitanans,except to suggest that an unknown woman venturinginto the male domain of congressional politics might be assumed to possess "masculine" traits). The final conclusion, evident when we examined the mean scores rather than the differences presented in Figure 1, is that in the context of a real-life campaign, the candidate may well mattermore than one's gender role beliefs. Nancy LarraineHoffmann, the familiar State Senator, was ranked high on both masculine and feminine traits by all three groups; the less well-known candidates received lower scores from all groups on both sets of traits. Another way to analyze the relationshipbetween gender role beliefs and candidate evaluationis to aggregatethe data for male and female candidates, incumbency status. The overalllowest ratingsare given to women disregarding candidates, on both masculine and feminine traits, by Traditionalists.Conversely, the highest ratingson both scales are given to women by the Egalitarmale candidates (that ians. Moderatesare the only group which "stereotype" males in the aggregate a higher masculine than feminine score). is, give are Looked at in this way, the Egalitarians perceiving the women candidates manner than the other two groups-but it may well in a more "stereotypical" be that here we are tapping into a kind of "femaleboostensm" where those who espouse egalitariansex roles at the same time view the skills and traits and of women candidates as both "different" "better."5

We are indebted for this suggestionto one of the anonymousreviewersfor Western Political Quarterly.

540

Genderand Leadership Traits Figure1

AND CANDIDATESTEREOTYPING GENDER ROLE BELIEFS

Troditionals
Congress State Senate Comptroller -1 0 Moderates Congress State Senate Comptroller -1 0 1 1 * Women Men

Women Men

Egalltarlans
Congress' -State Senate DOWomen * Men

Comptroller
-1 0 1

Bars represent the difference between a candidate's mean score on the feminine index and their mean score on the masculine index. Thus a high positive value would indicate that a group viewed a candidate as having predominantelytraditionalfeminine attributes;a negative value that the candidate was seen as having traditionalmale attributes. *Differencebetween Walsh'sscores on feminine and masculineindices was zero for Egalitarians.

These findings suggest that gender role beliefs may predispose people to a more or less favorableview of women politicians, and in particularthat those who profess an egaliatarian ideology see female candidates in a positive light both in traditional"feminine"terms and in their possession of more attributes.On the other hand, those who are traditionalin their "masculine" sex role beliefs simply have a less positive view of women candidates' attributes and may enter a campaign season less favorably inclined toward women candidates. Womenas Leaders:Equal but Different? Experimental researchershave the clear advantage of being able to control their independent variables;our researchis, conversely, disadvantagedby the 541

Political Research Quarterly fact that incumbency, sex, party and other characteristicsinhere in the particular candidates we studied and cannot be systematicallyvaried. Thus we must be cautious in drawing conclusions about the causal importance of sex-or incumbency or other variablesfor that matter.It is the case, however, that our conclusions are generallyconsistent with recent experimentalresearch on gender stereotyping of candidates (e.g., Huddy and Terkildsen 1991) as well as with research on candidate evaluation. Our small sample of voters, like the subjects studied by other researchers, attribute somewhat different skills, traits, and issue competencies to hypothetical male and female candidates; these distinctions, in fact, tend to advantage female candidates. We also found that all the incumbents were both better known (not surprisingly) and viewed more favorably than the challengers, regardlessof sex or party. Neither the women nor the men in these races appear to be strongly stereotyped. Gender beliefs are associated with candidate favorablilityonly for the least familiarcandidates, and traditionalism is not associated with a tendency to stereotype candidates. Egalitarians, however, do tend to show a general tendency to rate female candidates positively, while Traditionalistsgive women less positive ratings. In all the races, the incumbents are given more positive ratings than challengers on both masculine and feminine traits.And incumbents who are well known to the voters-in this case Congressman Walsh and State Senator Hoffmannactually contradict gender stereotypes by what could be called their evaluations:high scores on both kinds of traits. "androgynous" Incumbency clearly matters most, but in these contests candidates'sexif the candidates were unfamiliar-did seem to play a role in shaping voter perceptions. To the extent that popular perceptionof women leaders still partakes of traditionalstereotypes, the growing numbers of women candidates and elected officials may indicate the electorate'sendorsement of the skills and capabilities unique to their experiences as women. We are now witness to a reconstructionof leadership images which allows the entrance of women into the political arena but still maintains a differentiation based on sex. Successful women candidates feel the double bind of having to be both feminine and masculine. They are welcomed into the political fray, as long as they bring with them their traditionalskills, capabilities,and vestiges of their roles as mother and spouses. At the same time they have to demonstrate their power, toughness, and capacity to win, traits assumed by most voters to be inherent in most male candidates. The media contributeto this contingent welcome by describing women's campaigns as a "needed voice in government because of their insights on issues as education,the environment,child care and health care."Consultants and candidates, in creatingan acceptable campaign image for women candi542

Gender Leadership and Traits dates, capitalizeon the public'sstereotypicalexpectationsin developingimages that are consistent with those beliefs. Mervin Field, of the CaliforniaPoll, in discussing the political context of Califoria's gubernatorialrace, called this need for women's insights as "thewoman thing."Or as formerSan Fancisco candidateDiane Feinsteinwould tell her campaign mayorand past gubematorial audiences, "Thisstate could use a little mothering." What are the implications for the conceptualizationof women as candidates? How do we successfully run women for office without "essentializing gender"in the process? There is no easy answer. Our analysis of candidate image suggests the constructedcharacterof the woman candidate while also offering hope that in the process of running for-and winning-public office, leadership is being redefined to include the best of men and women's capabilities.
APPENDIX

The summated scales and their reliabilities(Cronbach'salpha) are: Three women's candidates'scores on HONESTY, COM(1) FEMDEXW: = 0.88). PASSIONand COMPROMISE (alpha (2) MASDEXW:Three women candidates' scores on DECISIVENESS, and EMOTIONAL STABILITY CRISIS (alpha = 0.88). Three men candidates'scores on HONESTY,COMPAS(3) FEMDEXM: SION and COMPROMISE (alpha = 0.90). (4) MASDEXM1:Three men candidates' scores on DECISIVENESS, and STABILITY COMPROMISE EMOTIONAL (alpha = 0.89).
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Received:November18, 1993 Accepted for Publication: January9, 1993 545