Wearing the Pants(suit)? Gendered Leadership Styles, Partisanship, and Candidate Evaluation in the 2016 U.S. Election

Abstract

Abstract Do messages that evoke a gendered leadership style affect attitudes toward well-known candidates? If so, among what sorts of voters? I show that voters’ evaluations of national politicians, including Hillary Clinton, can be influenced by presenting candidates as stereotypically masculine or feminine leaders. In two survey experiments of California registered voters (n = 1,800 each) conducted at the height of the 2016 presidential election campaign, I find that, on average, voters seemed to prefer both male and female politicians more when they were described as having feminine leadership styles. However, clear heterogeneous treatment effects occurred: Democrats, liberals, and women from all parties evaluated politicians more favorably when they were described as feminine; Republicans, conservatives, and voters for Donald Trump evaluated the same candidates less favorably when described as feminine. The findings have implications for scholarship that links gender stereotyping, partisanship, and ideology to voter behavior.