This One’s for the Boys: How Gendered Political Socialization Limits Girls’ Political Ambition and Interest

Abstract

This article develops and tests a new theoretical framework, gendered political socialization, which offers important insights into how children perceive gender in politics and the consequences of these perceptions on sex differences in political interest and ambition. Based on data from 1,604 children who live in four different regions across the United States, we find that children not only perceive politics to be a male-dominated space, but with age, girls increasingly see political leadership as a “man’s world.” Simultaneously, as children grow older, they internalize gendered expectations, which direct their interests toward professions that embody the gendered traits that fit with their own sex. One result of this mismatch between women and politics is that girls express lower levels of interest and ambition in politics than do boys.

Political Ideology in Early Childhood: Making the Case for Studying Young Children in Political Psychology

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Asking the Right Questions: A Framework for Developing Gender-Balanced Political Knowledge Batteries

“…At the same time, women's resource gaps continue to shrink and there is relatively little evidence to suggest that these life and family influences play a major role in political knowledge gaps (Dow 2009;Fortin-Rittberger 2016;Verba, Burns, and Scholzman 1997). Other works find support for the notion that children are still subjected to gendered socialization to politics, resulting in differences in political knowledge and interest among both adolescents and adults (Bos et al 2021;Lawless and Fox 2015;Pereira, Fraile, and Rubal 2015;Simon 2017;Wolak and McDevitt 2011). Key here in reversing these socialization disadvantages appears to be the presence of female role models in the political world (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006;Dassonneville and McAllister 2018;Wolbrecht and Campbell 2007).…”

Race, Gender, and the Politics of Incivility: How Identity Moderates Perceptions of Uncivil Discourse

“…One consequence of the stereotype that women are weaker and more sensitive than men is that women are often perceived as needing protection from harm (Glick and Fiske 1996). This stereotype, and subsequent bias, is often internalized during childhood when gender norms are typically instilled in children, even from parents who consciously try to raise their children in counter-stereotypical ways (Bos et al 2021;Endendijk et al 2014Endendijk et al , 2017. In fact, even adult women can express these sort of sexist attitudes in response to perceived hostility toward women (Fischer 2006).…”