A Multi-Country Study of Women’s Political Representation and Gendered Political Leadership Stereotypes

Political leadership positions are dominated by men. Arguably the most visible of a society’s positions of power, these positions may be important symbols of women’s ability to lead. If so, levels of female political representation within a society should shape its stereotypes of women’s suitability for political leadership. This project (lifecycle plan DOI:10.71240/lcyc.322400) tested this possibility by conducting a secondary analysis of a dataset that measured the stereotypes of women, men and political leaders in 42 countries covering six continents (Nsample = 22,996). Specifically, we tested whether, as a country’s representation of women in political leadership increases, there is a greater increase in the congruence of that country’s stereotypes of political leaders and women than in the congruence of that country’s stereotypes of political leaders and men. We also conducted exploratory analyses to identity whether other socio-ecological and cultural variables correlated with cross-national heterogeneity in the content and congruence of these stereotypes. Surprisingly, we did not find any evidence that the representation of women in politics affected the congruence of the stereotypes between political leaders and women or men. There was, however, (weak) evidence that political populism and conservatism may play a role in the congruence between political leader and gender stereotypes. These findings question the role of macro-level variables in micro-level gendered leadership beliefs.