Women Experts and Gender Bias in Political Media

Bibliographic Data

ID6367160
AuthorsAdam Ozer (0000-0002-5442-5448, Research Associate, Department of Political Science, Machine-Assisted Human Decision-Making (MAHD) Lab, University of Houston , Houston, TX, US ; and Professional Affiliate, Department of Government, Electoral Psychology Observatory, London School of Economics, London, UK)
Year2023
Volume87
Issue2
Pages293-315
Publication date2023-07-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePublic Opinion Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0033-362X • E-ISSN: 1537-5331
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/poq/nfad011
PMID37559747
OpenAlexW4376128616
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited47

Widely held gender stereotypes present obstacles for women experts, who are generally evaluated less positively than equally qualified men across a range of fields. While audiences may view women as better equipped to handle certain feminine-stereotyped issues, Role Congruency Theory suggests that expert authority in politics may be incongruent with traditional feminine gender roles, leading to a subsequent backlash. Building upon the latter theory, I hypothesize that when cued to consider the expertise of a news source, the (in)congruence of gender-stereotyped roles will activate gender biases which increase the gap in evaluations and trust of women and men. Using selection experiments, I assess the relationship between domain-relevant expertise and gender biases across a range of gender-stereotyped issues. I find that women experts are rewarded less for additional expertise and punished more severely for a lack of expertise, exacerbating gender-based biases relative to the control. I find that this pattern is consistent across both masculine- and feminine-stereotyped issues, including issues that disproportionately impact women, such as women’s health care and the gender wage gap. The addition of competing partisan cues, however, overwhelms the influence of gender. The normative implications suggest women in the media often face an uphill battle to advocate for their interests on key issues that affect them even when they may have more direct relevant experience in addition to their qualifications

Affect (linguistics · Backlash · Face (sociological concept · Normative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Psychology · Social Psychology

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