2023/12/21 by Jennifer Wolak · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Gender Politics and Representation #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Judicial and Constitutional Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/21565503.2023.2291374
When people are asked to assess the job performance of their representatives in Congress, are women lawmakers evaluated differently from men? Some have argued that women lawmakers are harmed by gender biases, while others suggest that women politicians benefit from their gender. I argue that both hold true, where the direction of gender bias depends on constituents’ partisan motivations. Using responses from the 2006–2020 Cooperative Election Studies, I consider how partisan motivated reasoning conditions the relationship between lawmaker gender and approval of members of Congress. Among those who share the same party loyalties as their member of Congress, those represented by a woman express greater job approval than those represented by a man, all else equal. Among constituents represented by a lawmaker from the opposing party, women legislators are penalized, earning lower evaluations than men. Partisan motivations contribute to polarized evaluations of the job performance of women who serve in Congress.