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Sexism and Gender Bias in Election 2008: A More Complex Path for Women in Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2009

Jennifer L. Lawless
Jennifer L. Lawless
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

When Hillary Clinton announced her presidential candidacy, questions about the role of gender in presidential politics immediately surfaced. Would gender stereotyping and sexism pervade the electoral environment? Would the media treat Clinton differently than her competitors in the Democratic primary field? Would Clinton's candidacy mobilize women of all types, simply by virtue of its historic nature? And when Clinton lost the Democratic nomination, new questions quickly arose. Was America just not ready to elect a female president? To what extent did Bill Clinton account for Senator Clinton's successes and failures? How would the 18 million women and men who cast their ballots for Clinton vote in the general election? With so many interesting unknowns, political scientists will likely spend the next several years examining Hillary Clinton's campaign and assessing the extent to which her sex affected her experiences and contributed to her primary loss.

Type
Critical Perspectives on Gender and Politics
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 70 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2009

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