Spectrum of Gender Self-Presentations among Women Candidates

Abstract

In the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, Democratic women, especially those from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, were elected in record numbers. Drawing on qualitative website and Twitter bio data, this paper examines twenty key races at varying levels that had women candidates. We extend our previously-developed typology of gender self-presentations by classifying these approaches on a spectrum, ranging from gender traditional on one side to feminist on the other (with gender neutral and gender nontraditional in the middle). Illustrating the utility of this typology by applying it to a variety of races in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, we extend prior work and suggest that gender nontraditional and feminist self-presentations highlight women candidates’ power and agency.