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An implicit assumption underlying the gender stereotyping literature is that female candidates have an advantage in local elections. Two factors motivate this assumption. First, some local issues, such as the provision of social services, fit into the stereotypic strengths of female politicians. Second, as the level of office increases, so too does the perceived masculinity of the office. Research on local policymaking, however, indicates that the tasks associated with local political offices, such as economic competition with other cites, require masculine rather than feminine qualities. I integrate research on local policymaking with the gender stereotyping literature to clarify the role of gender stereotypes in local elections. Using two national survey experiments, I find that female candidates, especially Republican female candidates, benefit from emphasizing masculine stereotypes and not feminine stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the extent to which the issues emphasized by female political candidates in American congressional elections vary based on the media platforms used to promote their messages. We develop a framework of gendered agenda-building, arguing that the pressures women face on the campaign trail are rooted in gender stereotypes and will lead women to curate more heterogeneous issue agendas compared to their male counterparts. Our framework also argues that women’s issue agendas will more likely vary across campaign communication platforms. We use an original and novel dataset of House of Representatives candidates’ communication across Twitter and television advertisements to examine the dynamics of agenda-setting for female House candidates. We find that contrary to our predictions, women are no more likely than men to have more heterogeneous agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature debates whether gender stereotypes or partisanship has a greater effect on evaluations of female candidates. Feminine stereotypes are considered incongruent with leadership roles, but partisanship is also an important cue for many voters. Complicating the influence of feminine stereotypes is that this concept overlaps with stereotypes about the Democratic Party. This manuscript examines the influence of partisanship and feminine stereotypes in how voters perceive female candidates. Using an original survey experiment, the results uncover several findings. First, partisanship and gender do not combine to activate feminine stereotypes. Second, feminine information activates feminine stereotypes for only Democratic female candidates while masculine information prevents feminine stereotyping for all candidate types. Overall, voters evaluate Democratic female candidates favorably when they have feminine or masculine information, but Republican female candidates receive evaluations that are more critical. These results suggest that feminine stereotypes and partisanship jointly affect perceptions of female candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Increasing numbers of female candidates are running for Congress in American national elections. Despite the rise in female candidates running for office, women are not significantly increasing their presence in the House and Senate. A much hypothesized influence over the electoral fates of female candidates is the role of gender stereotypes. However, political science scholars have struggled to pinpoint the effect of stereotypes on vote choice, if there is any effect. This essay compares the way social psychology and political science scholars theoretically, conceptually and empirically test for gender stereotype influence over evaluations of female candidates and politicians. Differences emerge in the theoretical assumptions made in the two disciplines, the types of measures used in research, and the empirical tests conducted to demonstrate the presence or absence of stereotypes in evaluations of women. The discussion explores how scholars studying female candidates and politicians can integrate insights from social psychology to clarify the role of stereotypes in candidate evaluation and choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the annual meeting of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (APLS) held on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington, Indiana, from October 14-16, 2010. The theme of the annual meeting was "Toward Consilience: Thirty Years of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences." The meeting included panels and presentations from scholars interested in biopolitics and related areas.