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He Said, She Said: The Gender Double Bind in Legislator–Constituent Communication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2020

Mia Costa Open the ORCID record for Mia Costa [Opens in a new window]
Mia Costa*
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Dartmouth College
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Abstract

Citizens hold gender-specific stereotypes about women in political office, yet scholars disagree on whether these stereotypes lead to a “double bind” in which female legislators are held to higher standards than male legislators. Two survey experiments reveal how citizen evaluations of elite responsiveness to constituent mail are conditioned by gender and sexist attitudes. The findings suggest that a double bind does exist in legislator–constituent communication, even among people who have positive views of women. For instance, although the least sexist respondents favor communication from female legislators regardless of the quality of communication, they also punish women, but not men, for taking longer to respond to constituent mail. Male legislators are also more likely to be rewarded for being friendly as respondents’ sexism increases, but female legislators do not enjoy the same advantage, likely due to gender stereotypes and expectations regarding women's behavior.

Keywords

Women in politicsgender stereotypesconstituent communicationelite responsivenesslegislator evaluationssurvey experiment
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 528 - 551
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2020

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Dan Butler, Bruce Desmarais, Ray La Raja, Tatishe Nteta, and Katelyn Stauffer for feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

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