On the basis of gender, voters stereotype political candidates in terms of personality traits and areas of policy competencies. Women are perceived by voters as higher in communal traits (e.g., warmth) and lower in agentic traits (e.g. assertiveness) and as less competent to handle policy areas like national security, and the economy but more competent in areas like education and healthcare. The bulk of this work takes place in the U.S. context or a select few other Western countries. In this paper, we first provide a cross-cultural take on the existence and content of political gender stereotypes based on an original dataset spanning 20 democracies from all inhabited continents in the world. Second, we also utilize this dataset to address whether these stereotypes predict support for male and female political candidates and which stereotype constitutes the stronger predictor. Third, we test if trait and policy competence stereotypes exert stronger effects in countries with lower representation of women in politics. Results show that women uniformly have an advantage in communal traits (i.e., warmth and morality). When agency traits are broken into the sub-dimensions of competence and assertiveness, we find that men are generally advantaged on assertiveness traits, but women have an edge in competence-related traits. With respect to predictive power of support for women/men candidates, no stereotype emerges as the stronger predictor. Rather all stereotypes are substantially and significantly related to preferences for candidate gender. Finally, we find that stereotypes about traits (i.e., assertiveness and competence) and issues (national security) historically “owned” by men are significantly stronger predictors of gendered candidate preferences in countries with low representation of women in politics. This could suggest, that countering exactly these stereotypes is the most influential strategy for improving women’s political representation. Practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.

Dr Lasse Laustsen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.