Stereotypes, Who to Blame? Exploring Individual-Level Determinants of Flemish Voters’ Political Gender Stereotypes
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321720924808 |
| Published date | 01 November 2021 |
| Date | 01 November 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720924808
Political Studies
2021, Vol. 69(4) 791 –813
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321720924808
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Stereotypes, Who to Blame?
Exploring Individual-Level
Determinants of Flemish
Voters’ Political Gender
Stereotypes
Robin Devroe
Abstract
The gender of political candidates is associated with particular personality traits, capacities and
opinions. The extent to which voters apply these political gender stereotypes to their evaluation
of political candidates is influenced by both contextual- and individual-level attributes. This article,
based on an experimental study conducted among a representative sample of the Flemish (Belgian)
population, examines the individual-level determinants of voters’ political gender stereotypes. Our
results indicate that political gender stereotypes are only present to a limited extent in Flanders,
even among the most likely groups such as older and lower educated voters. Furthermore,
stereotype reliance is generally not conditioned by individual-level determinants. Most importantly,
the finding that respondents’ perceptions of female candidates is primarily based on their level
of agreement with the content of the presented policy position, demonstrates that other cues
outweigh the importance of candidate gender.
Keywords
gender, political psychology, gender stereotypes, social categorization theory, exposure theory,
survey experiments
Accepted: 14 April 2020
Introduction
The starting point of many studies on gender and politics has been that men are overrep-
resented in politics, whereas women only constitute a small minority of elected officials
(Ballington, 2005; Bjarnegård, 2013). Several explanations, both on the side of party
selectors and voters, have been provided for this political underrepresentation of women.
Previous research exploring the mechanisms behind voter biases points out that gender
stereotyping processes explain, at least, a part of the puzzle.
Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Corresponding author:
Robin Devroe, Ghent University, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences - Department of Political Sciences
9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Email: robin.devroe@ugent.be
924808PSX0010.1177/0032321720924808Political StudiesDevroe
research-article2020
Article
792 Political Studies 69(4)
Voters lack resources, time or interest to become informed about all election candi-
dates. Therefore, they rely on voting cues (McDermott, 1997), such as the gender of these
candidates, and unconsciously associate this gender with particular personality traits,
capacities and opinions (Huddy and Terkildsen, 1993), which are referred to as political
gender stereotypes (Dolan, 2014a). Following Huddy and Terkildsen (1993), our inter-
pretation given to political gender stereotypes is twofold: ideas that female and male
candidates have different (issue) competences and hold different ideological positions.
However, some studies argue that even though gender stereotypes may be widely held,
people do not necessarily apply them to their evaluations of political candidates (Brooks,
2013; Schneider and Bos, 2014). Indeed, stereotype reliance is considered as a condi-
tional process depending on both context and characteristics of the perceiver (Kunda and
Spencer, 2003). In terms of context, the present study is set in a favourable environment.
Besides working with a highly controlled experimental design, in which very little infor-
mation about the presented hypothetical candidates is given, this research takes places in
Flanders, the largest region of the federal state Belgium. It has a high share of female
representatives (42.6% of the federal Chamber of Representatives are female) and
Flemish voters have been intensively exposed in the last decades to female politicians,
both in leftist and rightist parties, taking up prominent roles in politics (such as party
leader, Minister of Finance, Minister of Justice and Minister of Home Affairs).
Consequently, Flemish voters have been more confronted with gender equal information
(such as the presence of women in top political positions) and tend to be more open to
women in politics. This results in less biased perceptions of female candidates: research
demonstrates that on the aggregate level stereotyped attitudes are less prevalent in
Flanders, compared with, among others, the United States, in which the major part of the
research on political gender stereotypes is set (see, for example, Dolan, 2014a; Holman
et al., 2016; Huddy and Terkildsen, 1993; Koch, 2002).
However, this gender-neutral context does not necessarily imply that stereotyping pat-
terns are completely absent. Put differently, it is not because the average voter does not
hold stereotypes, that there might not be specific groups of voters that do hold stereo-
types. Therefore, also within the same political context, we can expect differences to
occur among individuals. Delineating the types of individuals most likely to apply stereo-
types to evaluate female candidates is important to understand the factors impeding the
equal representation of women in politics. A recent study by Bauer (2015b) demonstrates
that, in the United States, stereotype reliance varies depending on individual attributes,
such as attention to politics, knowledge and partisanship. The aim of this article is to
explore which individual-level factors determine the prevalence of political gender ste-
reotypes among Flemish voters. The central research question unfolds as follows: Which
voter characteristics moderate the presence of political gender stereotypes in Flanders?
We base our understanding of the individual-level determinants of stereotype reliance
on social categorization and exposure theory. Social categorization theory presents an
explanation for why people prefer candidates of their same gender (Taylor-Robinson
et al., 2016). This baseline gender preference (Sanbonmatsu, 2002) is found to be even
stronger among women. This also originates from the idea that women want to show soli-
darity to candidates of their own group (Marien et al., 2017) or that female candidates will
defend women’s interests (Erzeel, 2012). Exposure theory (Jennings, 2006) posits that
differences in role conceptions about women in politics can be explained by differences
in exposure to practices of gender equality in the political sphere and to discussions about
the political underrepresentation of women. Although exposure theory is generally
applied to the contextual level (i.e. explaining variance between different countries and
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