Cindy West and Dr. Jessica Preece, Department of Political Science
Currently in the U.S., twenty women (20%) are members of the Senate and seventy-seven women (17.7%) are members of the House of Representatives,1 ranking the U.S. at 77th in the world for its percentage of women in the lower or single House.2 Despite being over half the population,3 the percentage of women holding executive offices is not representative of the country’s composition. Why are women less likely to engage in politics and be ambitious enough to run for political office? Our purpose is to understand the gender gap within the political field. Research attempts to explain this phenomenon through a number of factors, such as being held back by social and economic factors. We conduct two survey experiments which provide more understanding to the reasons why women do not run for office as much as men. We hypothesize that women are less likely to run for political office for two reasons: 1) women perceive that “politics” has a masculine connotation leading to perceptions of a male exclusive field, and 2) women feel less knowledgeable and therefore under-qualified to run for political office.4
Our first experiment tested the hypothesis that women perceive “politics” as a masculine connotation. We used subtle word changes in a survey to measure the masculine connotation of “politics.” Subjects were then randomly assigned to either the control or treatment conditions. The control condition asked subjects about their “political” interests, such as the level of interest in political affairs and their consideration to run for political office. The treatment condition, on the other hand, asked the same questions but substitutes the word “politics” and its various forms to “public,” e.g. political affairs changed to public affairs. Subjects were then thanked for their participation and presented with multiple external websites offering information on a variety of subjects (voter registration, volunteering, becoming a candidate, etc.). We measured which website (if any) the subjects clicked on.
The second experiment tested whether women feel less knowledgeable and under-qualified to run for political office. We asked the same demographic and political questions as the first experiment. Then subjects took a nineteen-question quiz to test their political knowledge. Sixteen questions were multiple-choice and three were open-ended. We used one open-ended question to determine whether subjects were cheating, e.g. using an online search engine to obtain the answer. We also timed the questions to measure how long subjects took to answer each question and randomized the question and response order to avoid confounding variables. After subjects took the quiz, they were randomly assigned to either a control or one of two treatment conditions. The control condition simply thanked subjects for their participation. The first treatment group praised subjects for doing well on the quiz regardless of their actual score. The second treatment condition told subjects their real score compared to the average score. All subjects were then asked if they had run for office in the past, if they would consider running in the future, and how qualified they feel for a political office position.
In the first experiment, we find that there is no significant difference between women who received the public treatment and women who received the control. We also find that there is no significant difference between men who received the public treatment and men who received the control. Our findings suggest that the word change from “political” to “public” has no effect on women’s perception of politics.
In the second experiment, we find that women who received the “praise” treatment were more likely to report higher levels of political interest than women in the control group. We find no significant difference in political interest between women who received their actual quiz score and women in the control group. Our results suggest that women are influenced by positive feedback, which increases their level of political interest.
We find that there was no difference between men who received the “praise” treatment and men who received the control. We find, however, that the men who received their quiz score and scored average or below were less likely to be politically interested than men in the control group. Our findings suggest that when men receive realistic feedback, they are less likely to be politically interested.
Our findings for experiment 1 suggest that word change has no observable effect on women’s political ambition. Priming women to consider public office, rather than political office, does not encourage them to engage in the field as anticipated. Our findings for experiment 2 support our original hypothesis that women feel less knowledgeable about and less qualified for political office than men.5 Additionally, we find that men who received realistic feedback concerning their level of political knowledge became less likely to express political ambition. Therefore, our data suggest that men may be overconfident in their ability, while women may be less confident or place greater concern on lack of political knowledge. By encouraging women with evidence that their political knowledge is relatively high, and by confronting men with evidence of their actual level of relative political knowledge, the gender gap in political ambition may be reduced.
References
- Rutgers. Center for American Women and Politics. Facts on Women in Congress 2013. Summary.
- Inter-Parliamentary Union. Women in National Parliaments. 1 July 2013.
- Census. State & Country Quickfacts. USA. 18 September 2012.
- Fox, Richard L. and Jennifer L. Lawless. 2010. If Only They’d Ask: Gender, Recruitment, and Political Ambition. Cambridge University Press. The Journal of Politics, 72(2): 310-326.
- Fox, Richard L and Jennifer L. Lawless. Entering the Arena? Gender and the Decision to Run for Office, American Journal of Political Science 48(2): 264-80.