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The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office

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in Elective Office
SARAH F. ANZIA

Abstract
Despite the inroads women have made in American politics in recent decades,
women still hold far fewer elective offices than men. This raises the question of why
women fall short in this important mode of political engagement. Early research on
this question emphasized the obstacles created by gender socialization, women’s
underrepresentation in the professions most likely to produce candidates, and
women’s family and household responsibilities. Scholars have also found that some
voters use gender stereotypes in evaluating candidates. Importantly, however, the
average female candidate wins the same percentage of the vote as the average
male candidate, and that fact has become the basis for the widespread belief that
voters are not systematically biased against female candidates—that the cause of
women’s underrepresentation must lie elsewhere. Cutting-edge political science
research has found that women are less likely than men to even consider running
for office, that recruiters prefer to recruit male candidates over female candidates,
and that primary races that feature female candidates attract larger numbers of
challengers than all-male primary races. But other cutting-edge work suggests that
the widely accepted conclusion that voters harbor no bias against female candidates
is likely incorrect. Future research will likely reevaluate this conclusion using new
approaches and methods and will also delve deeper into the question of why
women are less politically ambitious than men. These lines of inquiry will likely
borrow insights from psychology, sociology, and economics, as well as the political
science literature on race.

INTRODUCTION
Women make up 51% of the US population but, as of 2013, only 18% of the
US House of Representatives, 20% of the US Senate, and 24% of state legislatures. There are only 5 female governors, and only 18% of cities with more
than 30,000 residents are governed by female mayors (Center for American
Women and Politics [CAWP], 2013). Women’s presence in elective office has
certainly increased in the last few decades (Center for American Women and
Politics [CAWP], 2013), but the United States is still a long way from gender
parity in politics.
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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The sizeable gap between the percentage of the population that is female
and the percentage of elective offices held by females has long been a
subject of concern among political scientists. For scholars committed to
descriptive representation, which is the idea that population groups should
have representatives with traits and life experiences similar to their own, the
shortage of female elected officials is clearly troublesome. But even scholars
more concerned about the substantive representation of women view the
gender gap as problematic, since numerous researchers have demonstrated
that female elected officials tend to represent women’s interests better
than male representatives (Swers, 2002; Thomas, 1991). Thus, regardless of
whether one’s commitment is to descriptive representation or substantive
representation (Mansbridge, 1999), the relative scarcity of women in American political institutions is often interpreted as an indicator that female
citizens of the United States are less well represented by government than
male citizens.
This raises the question of why women fall short in this important mode
of political engagement: holding elective office. This essay describes some of
the foundational research that has attempted to explain the gender gap, identifies the main areas of cutting-edge research, and suggests some promising
directions for the future.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
While much of the earliest research on women in politics was primarily
descriptive, examining the characteristics, successes, and challenges of the
few women who had succeeded in winning elective office (e.g., Diamond,
1977; Kirkpatrick, 1974), most of the early theoretical work on the gender gap
in politics centered around three main hypotheses. The first, the situational
hypothesis, proposed that women’s traditional responsibilities as mothers,
housewives, and homemakers left them little time for politics and offered
them few opportunities to engage in the kinds of political discussions that
tend to get people interested in politics (Almond & Verba, 1963; Campbell,
Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960; Lipset, 1960). The second hypothesis
emphasized the role of structural factors, such as the underrepresentation
of women in the occupations that most commonly produce candidates for
public office (Darcy, Welch, & Clark, 1994; Duerst-Lahti, 1998; Welch, 1978)
and the high reelection rates of incumbents in American politics—most
of whom are men (Darcy et al., 1994). Finally, there was the socialization
hypothesis, which posited that from a young age, women are taught that
politics is a “man’s game,” effectively discouraging the average woman
from thinking about running for office (Orum, Cohen, Grasmuck, & Orum,
1977). Early empirical work trying to disentangle these hypotheses—which

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are vague and likely interrelated—yielded few clear findings, although
some researchers concluded that structural factors were important (Welch,
1978) and that socialization was not (Orum et al., 1977; Welch, 1977).
One clear finding that did emerge, however, was that in general elections,
female candidates were just as successful as male candidates in winning
vote share and getting elected (Darcy & Schramm, 1977; Karnig & Walter,
1976). In the 1990s, scholars found that this result held up in tests that
used new datasets of election returns, larger samples of female candidates,
and more sophisticated statistical methods. For example, controlling for
important differences in the type of general election race—such as whether
it is an open seat race or an incumbent-challenger race—women who run
for the US House of Representatives win as often as men (Burrell, 1994;
Duerst-Lahti, 1998; Newman, 1994; Selzer, Newman, & Leighton, 1997).
They also raise and spend the same amount of money in their campaigns
as male candidates (Burrell, 1994; Fox, 2006; Uhlaner & Schlozman, 1986).
On the basis of these findings, “when women run, women win” became a
catchphrase in the women in politics literature. Most scholars concluded
that campaign donors and voters do not discriminate against women (e.g.,
Burrell, 1994; Darcy et al., 1994; Fox, 2006)—and therefore that something
else must explain the low proportions of women in public office.
Alongside these findings, there has been an active line of research on
whether voters use gender stereotypes in evaluating candidates. Since
most voters do not have detailed knowledge of candidates, voters rely on
cues—such as party labels or candidate sex—to draw inferences about them
(Popkin, 1991). And numerous scholars have demonstrated that voters
perceive female candidates as having different traits, policy preferences,
and policy strengths than male candidates (e.g., Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993).
For example, women tend to be viewed as more compassionate, more
cooperative, more liberal, and better at handling issues such as education
than men (e.g., Kahn, 1996). Men, on the other hand, tend to be seen as
assertive, strong, and more competent in handling crime and foreign policy
than women (Lawless, 2004). Sanbonmatsu (2002) argues that these gender
stereotypes often give rise to a baseline preference for either male or female
representatives, and that voters’ baseline preferences partially explain their
choices over candidates in elections.
By itself, the foundational literature on voter stereotyping in politics does
not explain the overall shortage of women in public office. It highlights that
gender stereotypes can sometimes work against female candidates (Lawless,
2004), but it also shows that stereotyping can work in favor of female candidates, such as when so-called women’s issues are politically salient. Thus, the
foundational literature on gender stereotyping in politics does not directly
challenge the conclusion that voter sex discrimination is no longer relevant,

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nor does it explain why, despite conditions that change from election to election, women continue to be systematically underrepresented in politics.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
A great deal has changed since the 1970s, when scholars laid the foundation
for research on women in politics. Traditional expectations for women to
work inside the home have lessened (although have not disappeared—see
Lawless & Fox, 2010). Women have secured greater presence in law, business, and other professions that regularly produce candidates for public
office. And through retirements, occasional failed reelection bids, and term
limits, the composition of American legislatures has gradually turned over
in spite of the incumbency advantage. However, women’s gains in elective
office have not kept pace with these changes. The passage of time has
therefore shown that structural and situational hypotheses cannot fully
explain women’s underrepresentation in American political institutions.
That realization, combined with the conclusion that voter discrimination
against female candidates is largely a phenomenon of the past, has led most
researchers to explore the contributing role of gender socialization as well
as women’s fortunes in early stages of the electoral process.
Research on women’s political ambition, meaning the desire to run for and
hold elective office (Fowler & McClure, 1990), has been especially fruitful.
Instead of studying actual female candidates and politicians and trying to
back out the factors important to women’s success in politics, as most existing works do, Lawless and Fox (2010) carry out a survey of men and women
in the “candidate eligibility pool,” which they define as people working in
law, business, education, or political activism. The results of their Candidate
Political Ambition Panel Study show that significantly fewer women than
men even consider running for office. Part of this gender gap can be traced to
differences in upbringing: as children, the women’s parents were less likely
to suggest to them that they run for office someday (Lawless & Fox, 2010,
p. 66). But Lawless and Fox also find that women with the same level of
qualifications as men are significantly less likely to evaluate themselves as
qualified to run (Lawless & Fox, 2010, p. 116). This last finding aligns with
findings in other disciplines, such as psychology and economics, where it
has been shown that women are more risk averse than men (Byrnes, Miller,
& Shafer, 1999) and shy away from competitive environments more so than
men (Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007, 2011). All in all, this work suggests there
are psychological differences between men and women that disproportionately inhibit the latter from running for public office.
Even if men and women were equally likely to consider running, eligible
women are less likely than men to be recruited as candidates. Sanbonmatsu

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(2006), for example, finds that party leaders are often more hesitant to recruit
female candidates for fear that women might be less “electable” than men
(see also Niven, 1998, 2006). Likewise, Fox and Lawless (2010) find that eligible women are significantly less likely to be recruited by party leaders,
political activists, or elected officials. Thus, recruiters’ tendency to encourage men to run rather than women may explain some of the gender gap in
political office.
In addition, for the relatively small group of women who do become candidates, recent research suggests that they face a more difficult path to election
than men. In a study of primary elections for the US House of Representatives, Lawless and Pearson (2008) find that races featuring a female candidate
tend to attract larger numbers of competitors. The researchers attribute this
finding to perceptions among recruiters and potential candidates that female
candidates are more vulnerable—meaning more likely to lose—than male
candidates. There is also evidence that female candidates receive less media
coverage than male candidates, and that the coverage they do receive is more
likely to emphasize their appearances and emotions than the coverage that
male candidates receive (Falk, 2008). These important lines of research not
only suggest that female candidates have a more difficult time in the electoral
process than men, but they also raise the question of whether more competitive primaries or media bias discourage women from running in the first
place.
A small number of studies even challenge the widely held belief that sex
discrimination by voters is a phenomenon of the past. As Milyo and Schosberg (2000) explain, statistically equal vote tallies of male and female candidates is insufficient evidence for concluding that the electorate does not
discriminate against the females. In fact, Milyo and Schosberg show that
female candidates are more likely to face high-quality challengers than male
candidates, and so to win the same vote share as a male, a female actually has
to be of higher quality than the male. They argue that men’s and women’s
equal vote totals are therefore evidence of voter discrimination against female
candidates, not evidence of its absence (Milyo and Schosberg (2000)).
In a similar vein, Anzia and Berry (2011) show that the women who actually succeed in the electoral process are more effective legislators than the
men who succeed, as evidenced by the amount of funding they direct to their
home districts and the number of bills they sponsor and cosponsor. This, too,
suggests that the women who successfully navigate the electoral process are
of higher quality than the men who do the same. Presenting more evidence of
this pattern, Fulton (2012) interviews activists and potential candidates about
the quality of US House incumbents and finds that on average, female incumbents are rated as higher quality than male incumbents. Once she includes
this measure of incumbent quality in her regression models of vote share,

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Fulton finds that female incumbents earn about 3 percentage points less than
male incumbents. Thus, in contrast to earlier conclusions that voter discrimination against female candidates is a phenomenon of the past, these studies
suggest that it may be alive and well—and likely a contributor to women’s
political underrepresentation.
If voter discrimination against female politicians does still exist, however,
it is not clear how, when, and where it operates. A natural starting point
for renewing the investigation into voter discrimination is the literature on
gender stereotyping, but new work by Brooks (2013) takes a fresh look at
stereotyping and concludes that it does not negatively affect voters’ evaluations of female candidates. Specifically, Brooks carries out a series of survey experiments on a nationally representative sample of Americans and
finds that stereotyping does not lead voters to give lower ratings to female
candidates on favorability or likely effectiveness if elected, nor do voters
apply harsher penalties to female candidates who cry, blunder, or act angry
or tough on the campaign trail. In light of her findings, Brooks concludes that
the likely causes of women’s underrepresentation are differential socialization and political ambition—not discrimination.
The cutting-edge research on this topic therefore builds on the foundational
literature by identifying gender socialization as a factor in women’s underrepresentation, but it also opens a fresh debate over one of its core conclusions: the more scholars have investigated women’s rates of advancement at
various stages of the electoral process—recruitment, primary elections, and
general elections—the more it seems that women do not actually compete on
even terrain with men. But does that imply that voters themselves discriminate against women? The answer is still not clear. Brooks’ findings show that
gender stereotyping does not negatively impact voters’ evaluations of female
candidates. However, there is also evidence that the average female candidate is of higher quality than the average male candidate but receives the
same vote share—an indicator that voters are, in some way, discriminating
against women politicians.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The puzzle of why there are so few women in elective office in the United
States is far from resolved. Recent research has made substantial headway,
but a great deal more needs to be done in order to fully understand the
nature of the problem—and to understand how the gender gap in public
office-holding might be narrowed or closed. Two lines of inquiry seem especially promising.
The first is a continued, deepened focus on the role of voters. As of today, the
women in politics literature offers conflicting conclusions about whether sex

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discrimination by voters contributes to women’s underrepresentation, and
those conclusions are drawn from two very different approaches to studying the issue. On the one hand, there is a body of work—rooted in political
psychology—that relies heavily on surveys and experiments to test theories
of how and when voters use gender stereotypes. These studies tend to offer
rich theoretical development and precise tests of the proposed theoretical
mechanisms, but they may not capture how voters make decisions about
real candidates in real elections. On the other hand, studies that compare
male and female candidates’ vote shares assess voters’ actual decisions, but
they say less about the mechanisms of any bias uncovered, and they also
struggle to control for all of the candidate and voter characteristics that could
influence voters’ choices. A research agenda dedicated to reconciling these
conflicting conclusions should be a priority if we are to advance our understanding of the causes of women’s underrepresentation in elective office.
There is a great deal of opportunity for theoretical and empirical progress in
this area. As a starting point, the more theoretically rigorous of the two bodies of work—that on gender stereotyping—should be expanded to explore
potential forms of sex bias other than stereotyping. Gender stereotypes are a
form of cognitive bias—beliefs that women are more likely to possess certain
traits, issue competencies, or ideologies. However, voters might also have
affective responses to women that negatively (or positively) impact their likelihood of voting for female politicians (e.g., Allport, 1954). The possibility
that such responses could lead to sex discrimination at the polls has not been
sufficiently studied in the literature.1
In addition, the literature focuses almost exclusively on voters’ explicit
beliefs about female politicians and gives little attention to implicit
attitudes—those that voters are not consciously aware of and cannot
control. This is a notable omission. As Glaser and Finn (2013) explain, even
though the act of voting is a deliberative process, there is still great potential
for implicit attitudes to play a role in voter decision-making. Scholars
studying the puzzle of women’s underrepresentation should make this a
focus in future research.2
Fortunately, there is a vast social psychology literature on stereotypes, prejudice, and implicit bias (e.g., Allport, 1954; Brown, 1995; Fiske, 1998; Plous,
1. Most women in politics scholars rule out the possibility of “overt” bias or discrimination by voters
(e.g., Dolan, 2010; Fox & Lawless, 2011) but do not make it clear what overt bias is. Moreover, claims
that overt bias is a phenomenon of the past are typically based on work showing that male and female
candidates win equal vote shares in general elections. As discussed above, one cannot infer the absence
of sex discrimination by examining candidates’ vote shares unless one accounts for variation in candidate
quality (Fulton, 2012, Milyo & Schosberg, 2000).
2. It is also possible that some voters are more (or less) inclined to vote for women simply because
they would like to see more (or fewer) women holding public office—not because of any beliefs or feelings about individual female candidates. Dolan (2010) considers this form of bias, but she is interested in
whether voters’ gender stereotypes explain their egalitarian views, not in whether egalitarian views make
voters more likely to vote for female candidates.

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2003), and scholars can borrow its insights and apply them to the question
of why there are so few women in elective office. The literature on race in
American politics has done this extensively. For example, race in politics
scholars have dedicated considerable attention to questions of how prevalent racism is, how racism can and should be measured, and how racism
manifests itself in politics (e.g., Carmines, Sniderman, & Easter, 2011; Sniderman & Carmines, 1997). There is also some discussion in this literature about
whether racial stereotyping is, itself, a form of racism or something different
(see Bullock, 1984; Citrin, Green, & Sears, 1990; Sigelman, Sigelman, Walkosz,
& Nitz, 1995; Williams, 1990). Most importantly, race in politics scholars do
not dismiss questions of whether, how, and why voters discriminate against
minority candidates but rather study them intensively. Scholars of women in
politics should take a similar approach going forward.
Researchers should also explore how sex bias among certain subgroups
of voters might translate into fewer women holding public office. To take
one example, the women in politics literature finds that the use of gender
stereotypes does put female candidates at a disadvantage with Republican
voters (Dolan, 2010; King & Matland, 2003, Sanbonmatsu & Dolan, 2009).3
These findings are not currently a focus of the literature, but they stand to
be consequential for women’s political representation. Consider the fact
that more than 200 seats in the US House of Representatives are thought to
be “safe” seats for Republicans in the 2014 elections (Rothenberg Political
Report, 2014). Presumably, “safe” Republican districts are composed of
mostly Republican and Republican-leaning voters. And if Republican voters
are less likely to vote for a female candidate than a male candidate, then in
nearly half of US House districts, it may be harder for women to get elected
than men. Thus, even if the American electorate on average is not biased
against female candidates, bias among particular subgroups of voters could
make it difficult for women to reach parity in public office-holding.
Beyond the study of sex discrimination by voters, there is a second line of
inquiry that holds great promise for the future: research on gender socialization and its impact on women’s political ambition. The cutting-edge research
discussed above has made major advances in this area, documenting clear
differences in the political ambition of eligible men and women, long before
they actually emerge (or do not emerge) as candidates. More difficult, however, is pinning down the causes of that differential ambition. Yet, if gender
socialization is one of the main contributors to women’s lesser political ambition, it is important to continue the investigation of how socialization creates
barriers for greater representation of women in government. This area of
research will continue to intersect with psychology, sociology, and economics
3. Republican voters might also be less likely to support female candidates for reasons other than
gender stereotypes, but those possible avenues of bias have not yet been studied.

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9

and will likely rely increasingly on panel survey datasets that track individual respondents from childhood to adulthood.
It may be that these two lines of inquiry—the study of voter bias against
(or in favor of) female candidates and the study of political ambition—will
overlap more in the future than they have in the past. For example, one of
Lawless and Fox’s (2010, pp. 122–126) most striking findings is that 77% of
men and 91% of women in the eligibility pool believe that there is sex bias
in the electoral arena. Is this a misperception or an accurate assessment? If
there is some truth to this belief, then sex bias in the electorate may well be
a factor in lessening women’s ambition to run for office. It might also be a
factor in explaining recruiters’ preference for male candidates: perhaps, they
are simply anticipating women’s greater vulnerability with voters. Likewise,
while it could be that prospective primary challengers overestimate women’s
vulnerability when they disproportionately flock to races in which women
are running, it may also be that those women are actually more vulnerable.
A focused study of voters’ treatment of female candidates could therefore
cast new light on these existing findings.
Ultimately, decision-making authority in American politics rests with voters. Thus, in continuing the investigation of why there are disproportionately
few women in elective office, it makes sense to widen the lens of inquiry
to once again consider whether and how voters play a direct role—and to
consider the multiple ways in which voters’ views could affect observable
political outcomes.

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Rothenberg Political Report (2014). House Ratings. (Rothenberg Political Report, January 8, 2014.) http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/ratings/house/2014-houseratings-january-8-2014 (accessed 23 November 2014).

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Sanbonmatsu, K. (2002). Gender stereotypes and vote choice. American Journal of
Political Science, 46, 20–34.
Sanbonmatsu, K. (2006). Where women run: Gender and party in the American states.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Sanbonmatsu, K., & Dolan, K. (2009). Do gender stereotypes transcend party? Political Research Quarterly, 62, 485–494. doi:10.1177/1065912908322416
Selzer, R. A., Newman, J., & Leighton, M. V. (1997). Sex as a political variable. Boulder,
CO: Lynne Reinner.
Sigelman, C. K., Sigelman, L., Walkosz, B. J., & Nitz, M. (1995). Black candidates,
white voters: Understanding racial bias in political perceptions. American Journal
of Political Science, 39, 243–265.
Sniderman, P. M., & Carmines, E. G. (1997). Reaching beyond race. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Swers, M. L. (2002). The difference women make. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Thomas, S. (1991). The impact of women on state legislative policies. The Journal of
Politics, 53, 958–976. doi:10.2307/2131862
Uhlaner, C. J., & Schlozman, K. L. (1986). Candidate gender and congressional campaign receipts. Journal of Politics, 52, 391–409. doi:10.2307/2130923
Welch, S. (1977). Women as political animals? A test of some explanations for
male–female political participation differences. American Journal of Political Science,
21, 711–730.
Welch, S. (1978). Recruitment of women to office. Western Political Quarterly, 31,
372–380.
Williams, L. F. (1990). White/black perceptions of the electability of black political
candidates. In L. J. Barker (Ed.), Black electoral politics (pp. 45–64). New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction.

SARAH F. ANZIA SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Sarah F. Anzia is an assistant professor of public policy at the University of
California, Berkeley. She studies American politics with a focus on state and
local government, elections, interest groups, political parties, women in politics, and public policy. Her recent book, Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle
Elections Favor Organized Groups, examines how the timing of elections can
be manipulated to affect both voter turnout and the composition of the electorate, which, in turn, affects election outcomes and public policy. She has
also written about the role of public sector unions in American politics, the
historical development of electoral institutions, the politics of public sector
pensions, and the power of political party leaders in state legislatures. Her
work has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and American Studies in
Political Development. She has a PhD in political science from Stanford University and an MPP from the University of Chicago.

The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office

13

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

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in Elective Office
SARAH F. ANZIA

Abstract
Despite the inroads women have made in American politics in recent decades,
women still hold far fewer elective offices than men. This raises the question of why
women fall short in this important mode of political engagement. Early research on
this question emphasized the obstacles created by gender socialization, women’s
underrepresentation in the professions most likely to produce candidates, and
women’s family and household responsibilities. Scholars have also found that some
voters use gender stereotypes in evaluating candidates. Importantly, however, the
average female candidate wins the same percentage of the vote as the average
male candidate, and that fact has become the basis for the widespread belief that
voters are not systematically biased against female candidates—that the cause of
women’s underrepresentation must lie elsewhere. Cutting-edge political science
research has found that women are less likely than men to even consider running
for office, that recruiters prefer to recruit male candidates over female candidates,
and that primary races that feature female candidates attract larger numbers of
challengers than all-male primary races. But other cutting-edge work suggests that
the widely accepted conclusion that voters harbor no bias against female candidates
is likely incorrect. Future research will likely reevaluate this conclusion using new
approaches and methods and will also delve deeper into the question of why
women are less politically ambitious than men. These lines of inquiry will likely
borrow insights from psychology, sociology, and economics, as well as the political
science literature on race.

INTRODUCTION
Women make up 51% of the US population but, as of 2013, only 18% of the
US House of Representatives, 20% of the US Senate, and 24% of state legislatures. There are only 5 female governors, and only 18% of cities with more
than 30,000 residents are governed by female mayors (Center for American
Women and Politics [CAWP], 2013). Women’s presence in elective office has
certainly increased in the last few decades (Center for American Women and
Politics [CAWP], 2013), but the United States is still a long way from gender
parity in politics.
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

The sizeable gap between the percentage of the population that is female
and the percentage of elective offices held by females has long been a
subject of concern among political scientists. For scholars committed to
descriptive representation, which is the idea that population groups should
have representatives with traits and life experiences similar to their own, the
shortage of female elected officials is clearly troublesome. But even scholars
more concerned about the substantive representation of women view the
gender gap as problematic, since numerous researchers have demonstrated
that female elected officials tend to represent women’s interests better
than male representatives (Swers, 2002; Thomas, 1991). Thus, regardless of
whether one’s commitment is to descriptive representation or substantive
representation (Mansbridge, 1999), the relative scarcity of women in American political institutions is often interpreted as an indicator that female
citizens of the United States are less well represented by government than
male citizens.
This raises the question of why women fall short in this important mode
of political engagement: holding elective office. This essay describes some of
the foundational research that has attempted to explain the gender gap, identifies the main areas of cutting-edge research, and suggests some promising
directions for the future.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
While much of the earliest research on women in politics was primarily
descriptive, examining the characteristics, successes, and challenges of the
few women who had succeeded in winning elective office (e.g., Diamond,
1977; Kirkpatrick, 1974), most of the early theoretical work on the gender gap
in politics centered around three main hypotheses. The first, the situational
hypothesis, proposed that women’s traditional responsibilities as mothers,
housewives, and homemakers left them little time for politics and offered
them few opportunities to engage in the kinds of political discussions that
tend to get people interested in politics (Almond & Verba, 1963; Campbell,
Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960; Lipset, 1960). The second hypothesis
emphasized the role of structural factors, such as the underrepresentation
of women in the occupations that most commonly produce candidates for
public office (Darcy, Welch, & Clark, 1994; Duerst-Lahti, 1998; Welch, 1978)
and the high reelection rates of incumbents in American politics—most
of whom are men (Darcy et al., 1994). Finally, there was the socialization
hypothesis, which posited that from a young age, women are taught that
politics is a “man’s game,” effectively discouraging the average woman
from thinking about running for office (Orum, Cohen, Grasmuck, & Orum,
1977). Early empirical work trying to disentangle these hypotheses—which

The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office

3

are vague and likely interrelated—yielded few clear findings, although
some researchers concluded that structural factors were important (Welch,
1978) and that socialization was not (Orum et al., 1977; Welch, 1977).
One clear finding that did emerge, however, was that in general elections,
female candidates were just as successful as male candidates in winning
vote share and getting elected (Darcy & Schramm, 1977; Karnig & Walter,
1976). In the 1990s, scholars found that this result held up in tests that
used new datasets of election returns, larger samples of female candidates,
and more sophisticated statistical methods. For example, controlling for
important differences in the type of general election race—such as whether
it is an open seat race or an incumbent-challenger race—women who run
for the US House of Representatives win as often as men (Burrell, 1994;
Duerst-Lahti, 1998; Newman, 1994; Selzer, Newman, & Leighton, 1997).
They also raise and spend the same amount of money in their campaigns
as male candidates (Burrell, 1994; Fox, 2006; Uhlaner & Schlozman, 1986).
On the basis of these findings, “when women run, women win” became a
catchphrase in the women in politics literature. Most scholars concluded
that campaign donors and voters do not discriminate against women (e.g.,
Burrell, 1994; Darcy et al., 1994; Fox, 2006)—and therefore that something
else must explain the low proportions of women in public office.
Alongside these findings, there has been an active line of research on
whether voters use gender stereotypes in evaluating candidates. Since
most voters do not have detailed knowledge of candidates, voters rely on
cues—such as party labels or candidate sex—to draw inferences about them
(Popkin, 1991). And numerous scholars have demonstrated that voters
perceive female candidates as having different traits, policy preferences,
and policy strengths than male candidates (e.g., Huddy & Terkildsen, 1993).
For example, women tend to be viewed as more compassionate, more
cooperative, more liberal, and better at handling issues such as education
than men (e.g., Kahn, 1996). Men, on the other hand, tend to be seen as
assertive, strong, and more competent in handling crime and foreign policy
than women (Lawless, 2004). Sanbonmatsu (2002) argues that these gender
stereotypes often give rise to a baseline preference for either male or female
representatives, and that voters’ baseline preferences partially explain their
choices over candidates in elections.
By itself, the foundational literature on voter stereotyping in politics does
not explain the overall shortage of women in public office. It highlights that
gender stereotypes can sometimes work against female candidates (Lawless,
2004), but it also shows that stereotyping can work in favor of female candidates, such as when so-called women’s issues are politically salient. Thus, the
foundational literature on gender stereotyping in politics does not directly
challenge the conclusion that voter sex discrimination is no longer relevant,

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

nor does it explain why, despite conditions that change from election to election, women continue to be systematically underrepresented in politics.
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
A great deal has changed since the 1970s, when scholars laid the foundation
for research on women in politics. Traditional expectations for women to
work inside the home have lessened (although have not disappeared—see
Lawless & Fox, 2010). Women have secured greater presence in law, business, and other professions that regularly produce candidates for public
office. And through retirements, occasional failed reelection bids, and term
limits, the composition of American legislatures has gradually turned over
in spite of the incumbency advantage. However, women’s gains in elective
office have not kept pace with these changes. The passage of time has
therefore shown that structural and situational hypotheses cannot fully
explain women’s underrepresentation in American political institutions.
That realization, combined with the conclusion that voter discrimination
against female candidates is largely a phenomenon of the past, has led most
researchers to explore the contributing role of gender socialization as well
as women’s fortunes in early stages of the electoral process.
Research on women’s political ambition, meaning the desire to run for and
hold elective office (Fowler & McClure, 1990), has been especially fruitful.
Instead of studying actual female candidates and politicians and trying to
back out the factors important to women’s success in politics, as most existing works do, Lawless and Fox (2010) carry out a survey of men and women
in the “candidate eligibility pool,” which they define as people working in
law, business, education, or political activism. The results of their Candidate
Political Ambition Panel Study show that significantly fewer women than
men even consider running for office. Part of this gender gap can be traced to
differences in upbringing: as children, the women’s parents were less likely
to suggest to them that they run for office someday (Lawless & Fox, 2010,
p. 66). But Lawless and Fox also find that women with the same level of
qualifications as men are significantly less likely to evaluate themselves as
qualified to run (Lawless & Fox, 2010, p. 116). This last finding aligns with
findings in other disciplines, such as psychology and economics, where it
has been shown that women are more risk averse than men (Byrnes, Miller,
& Shafer, 1999) and shy away from competitive environments more so than
men (Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007, 2011). All in all, this work suggests there
are psychological differences between men and women that disproportionately inhibit the latter from running for public office.
Even if men and women were equally likely to consider running, eligible
women are less likely than men to be recruited as candidates. Sanbonmatsu

The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office

5

(2006), for example, finds that party leaders are often more hesitant to recruit
female candidates for fear that women might be less “electable” than men
(see also Niven, 1998, 2006). Likewise, Fox and Lawless (2010) find that eligible women are significantly less likely to be recruited by party leaders,
political activists, or elected officials. Thus, recruiters’ tendency to encourage men to run rather than women may explain some of the gender gap in
political office.
In addition, for the relatively small group of women who do become candidates, recent research suggests that they face a more difficult path to election
than men. In a study of primary elections for the US House of Representatives, Lawless and Pearson (2008) find that races featuring a female candidate
tend to attract larger numbers of competitors. The researchers attribute this
finding to perceptions among recruiters and potential candidates that female
candidates are more vulnerable—meaning more likely to lose—than male
candidates. There is also evidence that female candidates receive less media
coverage than male candidates, and that the coverage they do receive is more
likely to emphasize their appearances and emotions than the coverage that
male candidates receive (Falk, 2008). These important lines of research not
only suggest that female candidates have a more difficult time in the electoral
process than men, but they also raise the question of whether more competitive primaries or media bias discourage women from running in the first
place.
A small number of studies even challenge the widely held belief that sex
discrimination by voters is a phenomenon of the past. As Milyo and Schosberg (2000) explain, statistically equal vote tallies of male and female candidates is insufficient evidence for concluding that the electorate does not
discriminate against the females. In fact, Milyo and Schosberg show that
female candidates are more likely to face high-quality challengers than male
candidates, and so to win the same vote share as a male, a female actually has
to be of higher quality than the male. They argue that men’s and women’s
equal vote totals are therefore evidence of voter discrimination against female
candidates, not evidence of its absence (Milyo and Schosberg (2000)).
In a similar vein, Anzia and Berry (2011) show that the women who actually succeed in the electoral process are more effective legislators than the
men who succeed, as evidenced by the amount of funding they direct to their
home districts and the number of bills they sponsor and cosponsor. This, too,
suggests that the women who successfully navigate the electoral process are
of higher quality than the men who do the same. Presenting more evidence of
this pattern, Fulton (2012) interviews activists and potential candidates about
the quality of US House incumbents and finds that on average, female incumbents are rated as higher quality than male incumbents. Once she includes
this measure of incumbent quality in her regression models of vote share,

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Fulton finds that female incumbents earn about 3 percentage points less than
male incumbents. Thus, in contrast to earlier conclusions that voter discrimination against female candidates is a phenomenon of the past, these studies
suggest that it may be alive and well—and likely a contributor to women’s
political underrepresentation.
If voter discrimination against female politicians does still exist, however,
it is not clear how, when, and where it operates. A natural starting point
for renewing the investigation into voter discrimination is the literature on
gender stereotyping, but new work by Brooks (2013) takes a fresh look at
stereotyping and concludes that it does not negatively affect voters’ evaluations of female candidates. Specifically, Brooks carries out a series of survey experiments on a nationally representative sample of Americans and
finds that stereotyping does not lead voters to give lower ratings to female
candidates on favorability or likely effectiveness if elected, nor do voters
apply harsher penalties to female candidates who cry, blunder, or act angry
or tough on the campaign trail. In light of her findings, Brooks concludes that
the likely causes of women’s underrepresentation are differential socialization and political ambition—not discrimination.
The cutting-edge research on this topic therefore builds on the foundational
literature by identifying gender socialization as a factor in women’s underrepresentation, but it also opens a fresh debate over one of its core conclusions: the more scholars have investigated women’s rates of advancement at
various stages of the electoral process—recruitment, primary elections, and
general elections—the more it seems that women do not actually compete on
even terrain with men. But does that imply that voters themselves discriminate against women? The answer is still not clear. Brooks’ findings show that
gender stereotyping does not negatively impact voters’ evaluations of female
candidates. However, there is also evidence that the average female candidate is of higher quality than the average male candidate but receives the
same vote share—an indicator that voters are, in some way, discriminating
against women politicians.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The puzzle of why there are so few women in elective office in the United
States is far from resolved. Recent research has made substantial headway,
but a great deal more needs to be done in order to fully understand the
nature of the problem—and to understand how the gender gap in public
office-holding might be narrowed or closed. Two lines of inquiry seem especially promising.
The first is a continued, deepened focus on the role of voters. As of today, the
women in politics literature offers conflicting conclusions about whether sex

The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office

7

discrimination by voters contributes to women’s underrepresentation, and
those conclusions are drawn from two very different approaches to studying the issue. On the one hand, there is a body of work—rooted in political
psychology—that relies heavily on surveys and experiments to test theories
of how and when voters use gender stereotypes. These studies tend to offer
rich theoretical development and precise tests of the proposed theoretical
mechanisms, but they may not capture how voters make decisions about
real candidates in real elections. On the other hand, studies that compare
male and female candidates’ vote shares assess voters’ actual decisions, but
they say less about the mechanisms of any bias uncovered, and they also
struggle to control for all of the candidate and voter characteristics that could
influence voters’ choices. A research agenda dedicated to reconciling these
conflicting conclusions should be a priority if we are to advance our understanding of the causes of women’s underrepresentation in elective office.
There is a great deal of opportunity for theoretical and empirical progress in
this area. As a starting point, the more theoretically rigorous of the two bodies of work—that on gender stereotyping—should be expanded to explore
potential forms of sex bias other than stereotyping. Gender stereotypes are a
form of cognitive bias—beliefs that women are more likely to possess certain
traits, issue competencies, or ideologies. However, voters might also have
affective responses to women that negatively (or positively) impact their likelihood of voting for female politicians (e.g., Allport, 1954). The possibility
that such responses could lead to sex discrimination at the polls has not been
sufficiently studied in the literature.1
In addition, the literature focuses almost exclusively on voters’ explicit
beliefs about female politicians and gives little attention to implicit
attitudes—those that voters are not consciously aware of and cannot
control. This is a notable omission. As Glaser and Finn (2013) explain, even
though the act of voting is a deliberative process, there is still great potential
for implicit attitudes to play a role in voter decision-making. Scholars
studying the puzzle of women’s underrepresentation should make this a
focus in future research.2
Fortunately, there is a vast social psychology literature on stereotypes, prejudice, and implicit bias (e.g., Allport, 1954; Brown, 1995; Fiske, 1998; Plous,
1. Most women in politics scholars rule out the possibility of “overt” bias or discrimination by voters
(e.g., Dolan, 2010; Fox & Lawless, 2011) but do not make it clear what overt bias is. Moreover, claims
that overt bias is a phenomenon of the past are typically based on work showing that male and female
candidates win equal vote shares in general elections. As discussed above, one cannot infer the absence
of sex discrimination by examining candidates’ vote shares unless one accounts for variation in candidate
quality (Fulton, 2012, Milyo & Schosberg, 2000).
2. It is also possible that some voters are more (or less) inclined to vote for women simply because
they would like to see more (or fewer) women holding public office—not because of any beliefs or feelings about individual female candidates. Dolan (2010) considers this form of bias, but she is interested in
whether voters’ gender stereotypes explain their egalitarian views, not in whether egalitarian views make
voters more likely to vote for female candidates.

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

2003), and scholars can borrow its insights and apply them to the question
of why there are so few women in elective office. The literature on race in
American politics has done this extensively. For example, race in politics
scholars have dedicated considerable attention to questions of how prevalent racism is, how racism can and should be measured, and how racism
manifests itself in politics (e.g., Carmines, Sniderman, & Easter, 2011; Sniderman & Carmines, 1997). There is also some discussion in this literature about
whether racial stereotyping is, itself, a form of racism or something different
(see Bullock, 1984; Citrin, Green, & Sears, 1990; Sigelman, Sigelman, Walkosz,
& Nitz, 1995; Williams, 1990). Most importantly, race in politics scholars do
not dismiss questions of whether, how, and why voters discriminate against
minority candidates but rather study them intensively. Scholars of women in
politics should take a similar approach going forward.
Researchers should also explore how sex bias among certain subgroups
of voters might translate into fewer women holding public office. To take
one example, the women in politics literature finds that the use of gender
stereotypes does put female candidates at a disadvantage with Republican
voters (Dolan, 2010; King & Matland, 2003, Sanbonmatsu & Dolan, 2009).3
These findings are not currently a focus of the literature, but they stand to
be consequential for women’s political representation. Consider the fact
that more than 200 seats in the US House of Representatives are thought to
be “safe” seats for Republicans in the 2014 elections (Rothenberg Political
Report, 2014). Presumably, “safe” Republican districts are composed of
mostly Republican and Republican-leaning voters. And if Republican voters
are less likely to vote for a female candidate than a male candidate, then in
nearly half of US House districts, it may be harder for women to get elected
than men. Thus, even if the American electorate on average is not biased
against female candidates, bias among particular subgroups of voters could
make it difficult for women to reach parity in public office-holding.
Beyond the study of sex discrimination by voters, there is a second line of
inquiry that holds great promise for the future: research on gender socialization and its impact on women’s political ambition. The cutting-edge research
discussed above has made major advances in this area, documenting clear
differences in the political ambition of eligible men and women, long before
they actually emerge (or do not emerge) as candidates. More difficult, however, is pinning down the causes of that differential ambition. Yet, if gender
socialization is one of the main contributors to women’s lesser political ambition, it is important to continue the investigation of how socialization creates
barriers for greater representation of women in government. This area of
research will continue to intersect with psychology, sociology, and economics
3. Republican voters might also be less likely to support female candidates for reasons other than
gender stereotypes, but those possible avenues of bias have not yet been studied.

The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office

9

and will likely rely increasingly on panel survey datasets that track individual respondents from childhood to adulthood.
It may be that these two lines of inquiry—the study of voter bias against
(or in favor of) female candidates and the study of political ambition—will
overlap more in the future than they have in the past. For example, one of
Lawless and Fox’s (2010, pp. 122–126) most striking findings is that 77% of
men and 91% of women in the eligibility pool believe that there is sex bias
in the electoral arena. Is this a misperception or an accurate assessment? If
there is some truth to this belief, then sex bias in the electorate may well be
a factor in lessening women’s ambition to run for office. It might also be a
factor in explaining recruiters’ preference for male candidates: perhaps, they
are simply anticipating women’s greater vulnerability with voters. Likewise,
while it could be that prospective primary challengers overestimate women’s
vulnerability when they disproportionately flock to races in which women
are running, it may also be that those women are actually more vulnerable.
A focused study of voters’ treatment of female candidates could therefore
cast new light on these existing findings.
Ultimately, decision-making authority in American politics rests with voters. Thus, in continuing the investigation of why there are disproportionately
few women in elective office, it makes sense to widen the lens of inquiry
to once again consider whether and how voters play a direct role—and to
consider the multiple ways in which voters’ views could affect observable
political outcomes.

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SARAH F. ANZIA SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Sarah F. Anzia is an assistant professor of public policy at the University of
California, Berkeley. She studies American politics with a focus on state and
local government, elections, interest groups, political parties, women in politics, and public policy. Her recent book, Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle
Elections Favor Organized Groups, examines how the timing of elections can
be manipulated to affect both voter turnout and the composition of the electorate, which, in turn, affects election outcomes and public policy. She has
also written about the role of public sector unions in American politics, the
historical development of electoral institutions, the politics of public sector
pensions, and the power of political party leaders in state legislatures. Her
work has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and American Studies in
Political Development. She has a PhD in political science from Stanford University and an MPP from the University of Chicago.

The Underrepresentation of Women in Elective Office

13

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