IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nas/journl/v119y2022pe2112616119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pragmatic bias impedes women’s access to political leadership

Author

Listed:
  • Christianne Corbett

    (a Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;)

  • Jan G. Voelkel

    (a Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;)

  • Marianne Cooper

    (b VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

  • Robb Willer

    (a Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;)

Abstract

Women remain underrepresented in political leadership in the United States and beyond. While abundant research has studied the possible impact of gender stereotypes on support for women candidates, our research finds that voters also withhold support for women candidates because they perceive practical barriers to women successfully attaining political leadership positions. We find that providing Democratic primary voters with evidence that women earn as much electoral support as men in US general elections increased intentions to vote for women candidates. Our results suggest that women face complex barriers that prevent gender equity in politics, and these barriers can be reduced when voters believe that Americans not only want but also will take action to support women candidates.

Suggested Citation

  • Christianne Corbett & Jan G. Voelkel & Marianne Cooper & Robb Willer, 2022. "Pragmatic bias impedes women’s access to political leadership," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 119(6), pages 2112616119-, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:119:y:2022:p:e2112616119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/119/6/e2112616119.full
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:119:y:2022:p:e2112616119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Eric Cain (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.pnas.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.