No Place for a Woman: Evidence for Gender Bias in Evaluations of Presidential Candidates

In the 110th Congress, 16% of United State Senators are women. In contrast, the role of President of the United States of America has always been occupied by a man. As such, being a man is the one common attribute to all successful presidential candidates, rendering “male” a necessary qualification for the role. The gender-incongruency hypothesis predicts that gender bias is less likely in domains such as the Senate where women are relatively more prevalent. However, in the case of the presidency, the potential exists for gender bias against women presidential candidates. Using an experimental, single-candidate, design we tested the hypotheses that young voters would similarly evaluate a man and woman candidate for Senate (Study 1) but negatively evaluate a presidential candidate's resume ascribed to a woman, compared to the same resume ascribed to a man (Study 2). Results confirmed the gender-incongruency hypothesis and suggest that although bias may be less evident in evaluations of some Senate candidates, gender bias remains a significant obstacle for women presidential candidates.