Search

Despite a rich literature on gender stereotypes, few studies consider whether voters reward/punish women politicians differently than their men counterparts for their policy records. To study this question, we conducted a conjoint survey experiment with a quota-based nationally representative sample of 1495 American citizens. The experiment focuses on electing one of two hypothetical councillors (keeping their political experience constant) to become a mayor. We find that voters do not penalize women politicians more for breaking campaign promises. In fact, they are at least as likely to reward women politicians for keeping their promises compared to men politicians. This is true across genders and political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comic books are important sites where norms related to gender, leadership, and democratic engagement are negotiated. In this essay, we examine two comic book depictions of women’s political leadership: Diana Prince/Wonder Woman’s stint as US president, published in 1944, and Barbara Gordon/Batgirl’s tenure as a member of US Congress, published between 1972 and 1980. We contrast Wonder Woman’s tale of democratic fragility and gendered conflict with a Batgirl narrative that promotes a more complex view of women’s political agency and subordinates superheroism to the strength of democratic community. We contend that Wonder Woman #7 reflects the fascist tendencies observed in other Golden Age comics and theorize Überfrau as a counterpart to Übermensch, rooted in an ostensible ethic of protection and authoritarian white femininity. Reading Wonder Woman #7 through the lens of the Überfrau reveals the contours of an antidemocratic white women’s authoritarianism that continues to resonate in twenty-first century politics. An antidote to the reactionary Überfrau is offered by Batgirl, who eschews the role of super savior and puts the responsibility for democratic health into voters’ hands. We conclude by examining how these contrasting visions of women’s political leadership are echoed by women politicians in contemporary political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender quotas are intended to address the underrepresentation of women in government. However, their effectiveness remains controversial. This study explores the random assignment of gender quotas across villages in India, examining whether women members of local councils affect public goods allocation in their constituencies and identifying potential challenges they face when implementing policies. We conducted a field survey in 100 villages, each with a population of approximately 400, a size corresponding to only one council member for representation in the council. The findings suggest that the performance of women council members generally aligns with that of their men counterparts in terms of public goods allocation. However, women members exhibited less effectiveness in delivering water facilities. Factors potentially hindering female members include influence from nonmember actors, such as husbands; lower educational attainment; and diminished electoral incentives. Additionally, the gender and caste of the council president impacts the performance of women council members, suggesting that overall gender and caste composition of the legislature is an important aspect to consider when evaluating the performance of women politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between women's representation in political power and school closures during the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Using a cross-country dataset in Europe, we document a striking negative relationship between the share of female members in national governments and school closures. We show that a one-standard deviation increase in female members of national governments is associated with a significant reduction in the likelihood of school lockdowns by 24% relative to the average share of school closures. This result is robust to an extensive set of sensitivity checks. We attribute this pattern to a higher awareness of female politicians about the potential costs that school closures imply for families, in particular working mothers with young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research showed that the stereotype of women politicians is incongruent with the general politician stereotype, which can be disadvantageous for women seeking political office. Based on the strong influx of women politicians in US politics, and the increased familiarity of the electorate with women in political leadership positions, we expect that voters now have a clearer picture of women politicians and that their stereotype is more congruent with the traits desired in political leaders. In testing this, we make a methodological contribution to the study of stereotyping by adapting a large-N list experiment as an effective and innovative measurement of stereotype endorsement. The results show important changes in gendered political stereotypes over the last ten years. The evolution of the women politician stereotype is encouraging: the traits that people associate with women politicians are more positive than ten years ago and more congruent to desirable traits for politicians. However, the findings also underscore the continuing masculinity of the political domain, by the strong overlap between the stereotype of men politicians and politicians in general. Even more pronounced than the positive trend for women politicians is the unfavorable evolution of the stereotypes of men politicians and politicians generally, which shows a strong downfall compared to a decade ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What makes female candidates for political office persist in their quest? Using self-determination and casual agency theories, we hypothesize that female candidates for public office need to construct and maintain a political identity in their quest for office. Through interviews, we explore the narratives of 35 women who ran for public office at the state and local levels in the United States. Half of the women persisted to the end of the race, whereas the other half aborted their campaign at some point before elections. We show that those who persisted performed conscious and deliberate political identity work which neutralized threats from the external environment, leveraged opportunities, and strengthened political identities. Internalizing, identifying with, and expressing oneself as a political actor is critical to resilience as a candidate for political office. Understanding threats to fragmentation of political identity is a critical implication for women running for office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how, in the years following the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), Jiang Qing 江青 (1914–91) became a negative icon of a liberated woman in high office in the People's Republic of China (PRC). During the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing transformed herself into a model female political leader. After her arrest in 1976, however, political caricatures systematically deconstructed her curated image by transforming her into the antithesis of the ideal powerful woman in a socialist society. Since a model liberated female politician was not yet available, Jiang Qing served as an "iconic anti-iconic" of women in politics under state socialism. Acknowledging the importance of Jiang Qing as a historical figure in Maoist China, this article analyzes how post–Cultural Revolution caricatures of her provide us with an understanding of the Chinese Communist Party's anxieties about women in power, and it raises questions about the absence of an iconic woman-leader in the PRC' s political visual culture despite years of campaigning to achieve women's liberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does political experience affect the issues that men and women politicians prioritize? Gender stereotypical expectations dictate that women focus more on traditionally "feminine" policy areas. While past findings broadly support this, they do not examine how policy priorities shift with increased experience. Focusing on the United Kingdom, I argue that gender differences in the extent to which politicians raise issues traditionally associated with women will be most pronounced among junior politicians who lack experience in the eyes of the public and their colleagues, but will decline with increased political experience. To test this, I study parliamentary debates between 1997 and 2019 and leverage novel quantitative text approaches to measure politicians' issue priorities. I show that, among junior politicians, women talk significantly more about "feminine" issues, however this gap decreases markedly with increased seniority. These findings have important implications for the representation of women's voices and perspectives within the policymaking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive research investigates the impact of descriptive representation on women's political participation; yet, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This article develops a novel theory of descriptive representation, arguing that women politicians mobilize women's political participation by recruiting women as grassroots party activists. Evidence from a citizen survey and the natural experiment of gender quotas in India confirm that women politicians are more likely to recruit women party activists, and citizens report greater contact with them in reserved constituencies during elections. Furthermore, with women party activists at the helm, electoral campaigns are more likely to contact women, and activist contact is positively associated with political knowledge and participation. Evidence from representative surveys of politicians and party activists and fieldwork in campaigns, further support the theory. The findings highlight the pivotal role of women's party activism in shaping women's political behavior, especially in contexts with pervasive clientelism and persistent gender unequal norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Studies (Routledge) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Anuario Electrónico de Estudios en Comunicación Social 'Disertaciones' is the property of Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Senora del Rosario and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The June 2023 elections in Sierra Leone occurred against the backdrop of amendments to the Public Elections Act (PEA), the enactment of the Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Act (GEWE), and a switch from the First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system to the Proportional Representation (PR) electoral system. For the first time in Sierra Leone's history, law reforms, among other things, introduced a 30% gender quota rule for parliamentary and councillorship seats. After the 2023 elections, women won 41 out of the 135 elected parliamentary seats, increasing the percentage of women parliamentarians from 12.32% in the 2018 elections to 30.37%. Despite the increase, there have been concerns about the overall effectiveness of the gender quota rule in facilitating women's access to parliamentary seats. The gender quota rule is set below 50%, is not accompanied by the candidates' ranking order, does not apply in the election of 14 paramount chiefs, and operates within poor data desegregation of the candidates. This article highlights the required reforms to address the identified legal challenges to facilitate women's equal access to representation in Sierra Leone's Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates users' gendered attitudes towards Muslim Canadian politicians on Twitter with regard to intersectionality. Its purpose is to understand the tone and intersectional dimensions of Twitter users' responses to Muslim Canadian politicians and the gendered responses to them. Therefore, we extracted all the available Twitter replies to 11 Muslim men and women politicians. Using a mixed method approach, we investigated how the public engages with Muslim politicians by focusing on intersectional characteristics. Results show that Muslim politicians are not directly under attack because of their religion unless they engage in public discussion of Islamic issues. Overall, both men and women politicians received higher numbers of negative replies than positive ones. Women received more personal replies while men received more professional ones. For both men and women politicians, personal attributes such as nationality, gender, and religion were used as a means for discriminating against them. However, we found that replies to women were more likely to be stereotypical and refer to characteristics of their identity and their appearance. The digital analysis shows, however, that men politicians were more trolled than their women counterparts and that the quality of attacks differed as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explain the political responsibility that Polish right-wing female politicians directly associated with the 2015–2023 Polish government and the then-ruling Law and Justice Party bear in the state-sanctioned violence against minors in the context of LGBT- and immigration-related issues. Its main assumption is that, in times of the nationalist surge that has been sweeping Poland, women using anti-LGBT and anti-immigration discourses helped to legitimize discriminatory state practices and, consequently, made a significant contribution to the enactment of white, Christian, and heteronormative identity on Polish children. Drawing upon Critical Discourse Analysis, this work examines the anti-LGBT and anti-immigration political talk by female politicians who, in their narrative strategies, adopt the position of a "Polish mother" on a mission to save a "child in danger". Through my analysis, I aim to demonstrate that anti-LGBT and anti-immigration discourses are equally significant areas of women's political engagement. Despite the prevalent cultural norms of caring motherhood, women do exercise their agency in political struggles as supporters of discriminatory state policies directed against minors by re-politicizing a symbolic figure of the "Polish mother". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores self-visual presentation practices by female political candidates on Facebook during Kenya's political campaigns that culminated in the national elections of 2022. The unit of analysis is the Facebook profile image of the women leaders. Image-centrism is operationalized as the extent to which 'the image' becomes the primary mode of self-presentation in political communication discourse. The study adopts a social semiotic approach to image interpretation postulated by Roland Barthes (1972. Mythologies. (A. Lavers. Trans) (Original work published 1957), 1977. Rhetoric of the image. In Image, music, text (pp. 32–51). Hill and Wang) and Kress and van Leeuwen (1996. Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge, 2006. Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2nd ed.). Routledge). Using Kress and van Leeuwen's approach, images are studied as 'linguistic codes' that have their own 'grammatical' structure. Barthes's approach explores the cultural dimension of the images. The argument here is that visual communication is context-bound, and the theoretical premise laid is that politics is given direction, shape, and impetus by the culture of a people. In order to understand visual political communication in Kenya, therefore, the study analyses and interprets images from the lens of the wider African cultural contexts within which this communication takes place. The overarching questions in this study include: How did female politicians in Kenya strategically use Facebook images for self-representation during the political campaigns in 2022? How have women politicians in Kenya interwoven cultural ideology with visual political communication on their Facebook pages? The ultimate conclusion is that political images not only serve as discourses for communicating political ideas and making political statements, but they also serve as self-representation modes as well as cultural manifestation codes that illuminate specific societal concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do women have to work harder in office to be evaluated the same as men? When running for office, studies show that women are, on average, more qualified than men candidates. Once in office, women outperform their men colleagues in sponsoring legislation, securing funding, and in their constituency responsiveness. However, we do not know whether women need to outperform men in their political roles to receive equivalent evaluations. We report on a novel conjoint experiment where we present British voters with paired profiles describing Members of Parliament at the end of their first parliamentary term. Through manipulating the legislative outputs, gender, and party of MPs, we find that voters overall prefer politicians who are productive to politicians who are unproductive, and reward productive politicians in job performance and electability evaluations. However, we find no evidence that productive women are unjustly rewarded, nor do unproductive women face greater punishment than men. Our results suggest that, at least for productivity as measured in parliamentary-based activities, women politicians do not need to work harder than their men colleagues to satisfy voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender-based evaluation of corruption tends to conclude the negative relationship between women politicians and the level of corruption. However, the research admits the opposite nature of this relationship, too. In this paper, the expectation of a negative linear relationship between women in politics and corruption is replaced by the non-linear assumption based on different initial economic and political conditions among EU members. The research covers the sample of 27 EU countries in 2001-2021 with further division of the sample into sub-samples of new and old EU members. The results show that the share of women in politics should reach a certain level to achieve their potential impacts on the level of corruption. This result is emulated in the sample of new EU member states, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractWomen’s presence in the Indonesian parliament is an opportunity to be involved in the democratic processes. Their political skills and leadership styles can be studied through the gender equality, disability and social inclusion (GEDSI) approach. This research aims to investigate the effect of political skills and leadership styles of women politicians who implement the GEDSI on public satisfaction. This study based on a quantitative, the quantitative stage held a survey of 188 respondents which were then analyzed using PLS-SEM. To strength information, we derived from interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders and women politicians. The research shows that social astuteness, especially political skills, directly and indirectly, influenced public satisfaction with the partial mediating role of achievement leadership. Political skills through apparent sincerity had interactions with public satisfaction, where the directive leadership could be a partial mediation role. Finally, cognitive social capital as political skills influenced public satisfaction with the partial mediating roles of supportive leadership, participative leadership and achievement leadership. This study also found that network ability and interpersonal influence had no significant effect on public satisfaction. Women politicians who apply the GEDSI approach become their political skills that benefit a leadership style as well as encourage more accommodative and substantial political decision-making.

Objectives: Given the distinct political landscape of Japan, this study aims to explore the impact of gender on the parliamentary behavior of Japanese legislators. Methods: Utilizing a self‐constructed data set covering the 44th–48th Diets (2005–2021), this study examines the individual‐level parliamentary activities of male and female legislators in Japan. Key metrics analyzed include the frequency of speeches delivered in both plenary and committee sessions, alongside the submission of memorandums to the Diet. Results: The findings indicate that on the whole, gender exerts only a minimal effect on parliamentary activities. However, upon closer examination of members belonging to opposition parties during specific time periods, female legislators emerge as more active in terms of questioning and memorandum submission compared to their male counterparts. Conclusion: This study unveils a noteworthy trend wherein women legislators in Japan demonstrate equal or greater engagement in parliamentary activities than their male counterparts. These findings underscore the importance of exploring gender dynamics within political systems beyond the Western sphere. Moreover, they emphasize the necessity for ongoing research into gender representation and participation within Japan's political arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though governments historically have been a men's club, women are increasingly gaining access. We argue that democratic institutions are important drivers of women's inclusion in government. This stems from the rationales of autocratic versus democratic leaders when selecting ministers. Autocrats fear a coup by inner-circle elites, who are mostly men, incentivizing them to assign ministerial positions as co-optation. In contrast, democratic leaders are accountable to the citizenry through elections and must satisfy increasing demands for gender equality. Furthermore, we argue that it is historical experience with democracy that matters, rather than the level, as it takes time to create an even playing field, change attitudes, and generate trust in democracy. To support this, we contribute with the first study using the most comprehensive dataset, WhoGov, on women's access to cabinets. Overall, we show that democracy is a process that gradually enables women to enter the highest echelons of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do newspapers frame female politicians, and does this framing change after a female politician's death during an election campaign? Benazir Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister of Pakistan, was assassinated in 2007 by a terrorist group. South Asian newspapers framed her as corrupt, inefficient, and a threat to national security before her death; however, the elite press characterized her as a martyr and sage posthumously. Using qualitative content analysis, this study examines the editorial coverage of two newspapers (The Hindu and The Times of India) in India and two newspapers (The News and The Dawn) in Pakistan to examine how these elite newspapers framed Benazir Bhutto before and after her tragic death. We found that the framing of the slain leader changed from negative to positive after her assassination. The study concludes that her assassination influenced the media coverage and produced a eulogy effect that helped her party stay in power after her assassination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although political discourse is essentially expected to be fact-based and objective, both practice and research show that literal language in political discourse is very often compounded with figurative language. The paper at hand tackles figurative language use in political interviews. For the purposes of this research, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of a corpus of political interviews given by a former Macedonian female politician – Radmila Shekerinska. The corpus consists of six interviews (with a total duration of about 3 h) in which she answers questions about the political climate and the challenges of North Macedonia in the last couple of decades. The selected interviews are all conducted in English as they are aimed at international audiences and they all fit into the time frame from 2017 to 2021, which practically overlaps with the final years of Shekerinska's long-standing political career. This study uses a descriptive qualitative research design and focuses, first, on ascertaining the presence of different types of figures of speech in her answers (e.g. metaphors, simile, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, rhetorical questions, idiomatic expressions, proverbs, etc.); then, on identifying the pragmatic functions they perform in the context in which they are used, and finally, on establishing an interface between the figurative language use and the political ideology propagated by this politician. The results point to an extraordinarily resourceful use of a wide spectrum of figurative devices, skillfully intertwined with fact-based political discourse, primarily for addressing highly sensitive political issues, but also for driving important political points home; also, for gaining support from both the domestic and international community regarding the political ideology of this political figure as well as for enhancing the criticism addressed to political adversaries with an additional layer of creative flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are women congressional candidates on Facebook disproportionately punished for using negative emotions? Scholars suggest the success of negative language used by campaigns is patterned by gender, but it is less clear whether women politicians are able to grow support on a digital platform where negativity spurs engagement. In this research note, we consider the relationship between candidate gender, negative appeals, and user engagement on Facebook. We argue that women candidates are not shying away from negative voter appeals on Facebook, posting more on average with anger, disgust, and sadness than male candidates, and those posts are likely to get increased engagement, but that interaction is conditional. Women candidates, while reinforcing connections by getting more likes and comments than their male counterparts, are not advantaged or disadvantaged in the number of times these types of posts are shared – even when the posts contain more negatively valenced language. Our research suggests that there are some limits to the benefits of using negative emotive language for congressional candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research addresses how gender violence against feminists on Twitter during COVID-19 is produced. Mainly focused in the Catalan cultural context, 462,281 attacks on Twitter were analysed, using virtual ethnography and content analysis. We also conducted semi-structured interviews with key agents. This enabled to (1) analyse the profiles of feminists subjected to attacks and those who attack them, (2) identify the characteristics of this violence: how it appears, to which subjects it refers and what the trigger is, (3) identify which axes of inequality intersect in the attacks. The results determine that there are specific typologies of aggressors, that there is a correlation between the political–social agenda and the attacks, essentially on female politicians and journalists and that they tend to happen collectively as personal aggressions that get worse if they intersect with racial issues, for example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent of women's representation and visibility in local government planning in South Africa has been significantly constrained. Over the years, the recurring phenomenon of insufficient participation and representation in local governance has become a prevalent issue within the country. The inclusion and participation of women in the decision-making process of local government should not be driven solely by the necessity to comply with legislative and policy frameworks and not by just a mere representation in terms of reflecting on the number of participants. Incorporating diverse individuals and groups is crucial in guaranteeing that progress within communities is accomplished acceptably. The act of prioritizing men's interests or political opportunism over women's interests in local government planning lacks justification. This study elucidates diverse factors that underlie the insufficient involvement and representation of women in local government planning. These variables encompass the prevalence of custom, culture, and tradition; socialisation, attitudes, and stereotypes; violence against women in politics; the media; finances and resources; structural deficiencies; patriarchy; and education. The research relied on existing scholarly works and documented accounts to investigate the causative elements and explicate their effect on the developmental condition. The article posits that addressing these factors requires a comprehensive approach that includes a multifaceted approach and a dosage of sustained efforts to ensure that there is gender balance and fair representation of women in local government planning. The study contributes to a better understanding of the participation and representation of women in the context of local government planning. It provides insights into strategies for creating more inclusive opportunities for women to express their views and exercise influence in local decision-making procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The underrepresentation of women politicians in the media is a persistent feature in many contemporary democracies. Gender bias in election coverage makes it harder for women to reach positions of power in politics. Drawing on the special circumstances in Austria during the 2019 election campaign which saw the first female top candidate of a major party and a caretaker government containing equal numbers of men and women and which was led by the country's first woman as chancellor, we examine the effect of these developments on women politicians' representation in campaign coverage. We draw on quantitative content analysis of Austrian newspaper articles (N = 16,125) during four national parliamentary election campaigns (2008, 2013, 2017 and 2019). We show that for women politicians the media ceiling is slowly lifting at best, but that positions of power provide the most promising ways to evade gendered media bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the globe, women are underrepresented in elected politics. The study's case countries of Australia (ranked 33), Canada (61) and the United States (66) rank poorly for women's political representation. Drawing on role strain and gender-mainstreaming theories and applying large-scale survey experiments, we examine public opinion on non-quota mechanisms to bolster women's political participation. The experimental design manipulates the politician's gender and level of government (federal/local) before asking about non-quota supports to help the politician. We find public support for policies aimed at lessening work–family role strain is higher for a woman politician; these include a pay raise, childcare subsidies and housework allowances. This support is amplified among women who are presented with a woman politician in our experiment, providing evidence of a gender-affinity effect. The study's findings contribute to scholarship on gender equality and point to gender-mainstreaming mechanisms to help mitigate the gender gap in politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being globally acknowledged as one of the more gender-equal societies, the Philippines faces persistent challenges in achieving gender parity, especially in political representation, which necessitates a deeper investigation into women's political participation at the local level. This study delves into the nuanced dynamics of local women politicians (LWPs), examining their political background, recruitment into politics, and perceived factors for electoral success. Utilizing a phenomenological research design, the study aims to articulate and comprehend the essence of LWPs' lived experiences. Grounded in Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), the methodological framework facilitates a nuanced understanding of individual and societal realms. Six LWPs from Bukidnon, Northern Mindanao, participated in the study to comprehensively explore commonalities and distinctions in their political experiences. The findings revealed five themes of LWPs' political background: apolitical origins, entry into politics during young adulthood, involvement in philanthropy, membership in political families, and substantial political experience. The political recruitment of LWPs is revealed through the support of the church and the influence of political families. Additionally, LWPs' perceived factors for winning in electoral politics encompass three key themes: membership in a political family, philanthropic endeavors, and the prevalence of money politics. The lived experiences of LWPs resonate with prior research on "kinship politics" in the Philippines, illustrating how political power is bequeathed, inherited, and cycled within prominent political clans. This study contributes to the ongoing discourse on women's political participation by offering a comprehensive and nuanced exploration of the multifaceted factors influencing their engagement in local politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the effect of anti-corruption measures on female political empowerment. We exploit a measure that prescribes the dissolution of city councils for mafia infiltration, leading to an exogenous decrease in the level of corruption within local government. We find that the percentage of female councilors and aldermen elected after compulsory administrations, as well as the probability of a female mayor, sharply increases relative to the control group; the effect of the measure is decreasing over time. The evidence suggests that the most likely mechanism mediating the result relies on the reduction in the voter bias against women as policymakers rather than the (self-)selection of women (JEL D72, D78, J16, J71, I38). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes debut interviews of female Israeli politicians, in which the interviewees are faced with questions or statements that imply that their gender, ethnicity or background prevent them from fulfilling their function as politicians successfully, in accordance with the "Gendered mediation thesis" (GoodYear-Grant 2013). We focus on the interviewees' responses to these questions, and particularly on how grammatically negative utterances are deployed in the service of coping with the presuppositions directed at them. The analysis indicates that the negative utterances do not carry the full weight of rejection of implied presuppositions. Moreover, in some cases negative utterances are used by the speakers as part of a hedging strategy. By describing the role of negation in debut interviews of female Israeli politicians, the paper aims to advance a more comprehensive understanding of linguistic patterns used by women, and other silenced groups, to cope with biased representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the debate on how harmful online content translates into violent offline actions continues in the Global North, this debate should be enriched by data from the Global South. In Libya, the kidnapping of a female politician (Seham Sergiwa) in 2019 was arguably foreshadowed on social media, with some analysts warning of an imminent danger to her life when tracking social media discourse in June/July 2019. Following her abduction, the outcry was loud and reverberated outside of Libya. However, this was short lived and similar occurrences happen in Libya still. This paper contributes a systematic analysis of Facebook content in the months leading up to and after Sergiwa's disappearance. Using thematic content analysis to explore 259 posts and 4,367 comments – between January and December 2019 – this paper outlines three dominant themes: Contempt, ridicule and indifference. This study presents a refocus on the dangers of online speech while acknowledging complexities around categorising the former. The study adds nuanced understandings on online discussions in Libya and gendered dynamics in a violent, post-revolutionary environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know that women politicians are harassed by constituents to a greater extent than men, but we know less about why this difference exists. This study tests potential drivers of hostility against women politicans using an original survey experiment with 7,500 respondents in the United States and Sweden. First, I test whether constituents hold more lenient attitudes toward hostility directed at women than men, which would make hostility in messages targeting women representatives more likely. Second, I test whether constituents prefer to direct their complaints to women, which would increase the risk of hostility by generating a higher number of angry contacts. Results from both countries show a preference for directing complaints to women representatives over men, but no evidence of more leniency toward hostility directed at women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Mother, the Politician, and the Guerilla" by Nazan Üstündağ is a book that focuses on the roles and performances of Kurdish women in the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. Üstündağ explores the radical imagination and draws from various philosophical and political traditions. The book is divided into three parts, discussing the figure of the mother, the politician, and the guerilla. It offers valuable insights into the agency and contributions of Kurdish women in violent conflicts and challenges the terms of global racial patriarchal capitalist modernity. [Extracted from the article]

In the context of the current high visibility of feminist discourse, this study focuses on the media coverage of Merav Michaeli, a female Israeli politician who led a feminist campaign during the 2021 parliamentary elections. Based on a quantitative and interpretative analysis of Michaeli’s media coverage in the 2021 election, the study examines whether and how feminist ideas have become media values in political coverage. The quantitative analysis suggests that issues of feminism featured prominently in the coverage and, moreover, that the overall positive sentiment of the coverage was evident mostly in items on feminist issues. The interpretive analysis indicates that Michaeli’s newsworthiness derived from her being the only female party leader: this itself became a feminist issue. Additionally, Michaeli’s newsworthiness was based on her being a known feminist, and her feminist campaign was represented as a political asset. The media represented her as a strong female political player, showing her feminism as a main component of her political strength. However, her media representation also straddled the line between masculinity and femininity by portraying her as strong but pleasant, demonstrating the double bind that many female politicians find themselves in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online abuse and threats towards politicians have become a significant concern in the Netherlands, like in many other countries across the world. This paper analyses gender differences in abuse received by Dutch politicians on X (formerly Twitter), while taking into account the possible additional impact of ethnic minority status. All tweets directed at party leaders throughout the entire year of 2022 were collected. The effect of gender and ethnic minority status were estimated for six different linguistic measures of abuse, namely, toxicity, severe toxicity, identity attacks, profanity, insults, and threats. Contrary to expectations, tweets directed at male politicians scored higher on all forms of abuse. Significant interaction effects between gender and ethnic minority status were found for a number of abuse measures. Tweets directed at ethnic minority female politicians scored higher on severe toxicity, identity attacks, and profanity, compared to those directed at ethnic majority female politicians. Importantly, female ethnic minority politicians received the highest levels of threats compared to all groups. Given that online abuse and threats are reported to have a negative effect on political participation and retention, these results are particularly worrying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of insights from the literature on incivility toward women politicians on social media, this article examines the experiences of Malawian women in politics as well as the prescriptive social and cultural norms that are projected onto them by the public. Drawing on social media texts about Veronica Katanga and Joyce Banda during the era of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (2004–2012 and 2014–2020), I identify a troubling gatekeeping strategy that DPP politicians deliberately used to malign the two women for exercising their right to participate in the 2014 and 2019 general elections. Drawing on Pumla Dineo Gqola's notion of the "female fear factory," this study shows how the DPP engaged in political violence (both physically and discursively) to police and instill fear in women politicians. It also shows how DPP politicians and their followers amplified cultural stereotypes and drew on religious themes to achieve this outcome. The article concludes that Malawian women politicians have re-engaged in political participation through textual/feminist strategies that speak truth to power, thereby contributing to the enhancement of activism and agency among women engaging in politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains how the face of political leadership in contemporary Timor-Leste is predominantly male, revealing the logics behind the preference for men. While an overwhelming majority of our survey respondents and focus group participants believed that women and men are equal and that feto bele, "women can" become political leaders, reservations about women's attributes and capabilities were common. While women were generally perceived to have most of the important innate characteristics necessary for political leadership, such as intelligence and honesty, survey respondents and focus group participants consistently perceived that women do not have the skills, abilities, or experience to lead. These perceptions conformed to cultural gender stereotypes, creating an unconscious bias or "incongruent prejudice" against women leaders. Better appreciated were the structural barriers that women face, such as their substantial domestic burden, lesser access to financial resources, and cultural expectations. Women leaders face near-impossible expectations to also be the primary family caregivers and to run households, while male leaders do not. Furthermore, women leaders are expected to remain "feminine" – humble, calm, and caring – within an aggressively masculine political environment. To overcome these barriers to leadership, transformative change led by local actors is required, including increased awareness of gender stereotypes, structural and unconscious bias, and the harmful consequences for democracy of lack of diversity, along with some practical changes to electoral processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Politics is a mechanism of cooperation for the common interest of society. In this mechanism, each individual is expected to participate equally in the leadership and decision-making mechanisms. Women's participation in politics is essential for the spread of good governance and democracy. Globally, political participation is disaggregated by gender, withmen's participation greater than women's. A lower representation of women in politics is also observed in Northern Cyprus. The attitudes or views of society and politiciansmay determine the political participation of women in leadership positions. This study examines the obstacles and determining factors that make it difficult for women to reach leadership positions even though their political role is increasing. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 female participants for this research. Eleven of them are female ministers in parliament and represent the three main political parties in the country. The remaining 10 female participants are also members of the central executive body of the three parties and the National Assembly. Results and discussion: Women politicians believe that problems related to gender equality in politics prevent women fromentering active politics and rising to leadership positions. Although there was no gender discrimination in Northern Cyprus means that women have gained equal rights with men in many areas, it was concluded that the traditional political culture keeps women out of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies determinants of political actors' visibility in the news, and their stability over time, observing the press coverage received by Chilean politicians in the elite press since the beginning of the democratic transition in 1991 and until 2019. In dialogue with theories of news values, we test how political positions in a markedly presidential system, the belonging to a government coalition, gender, and the association to conflict frames behave as determinants of the presence and prominence of politicians in the news in the three decades following the recovery of democracy in Chile. We have three key findings. Firstly, the visibility of political actors in the news follows a clear institutional hierarchy led by the president and cabinet members. Secondly, female politicians are less likely to be mentioned or have speaking space in newspapers than male politicians. Lastly, although an association with conflict-framed news boosts politicians' visibility, such association is unable to disturb structural power hierarchies, and the value of conflict does not increase over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on how Chinese female political leaders are represented in media through an examination of the People's Daily 's coverage of female Politburo members since 1949. Scholars of gender and media in post-Mao China highlight contemporary media's stereotyping of women and attribute such gender discourse to women being refeminized in the course of reform and the marketization of the economy. This article challenges such dichotomous understandings. Instead, it argues that media representation of female politicians reflects a changing dynamic resulting from the varying agendas of the Chinese Communist Party at different times: dealing with the legitimacy crises of the 1970s, presenting a positive image to the outside world in the first decades of reform, and strengthening centralized rule under Xi Jinping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hatred is distinguished from the expression of democratic opinion by its harmful intent. Dissemination of hate speech on social media is characterised by its virulence (Zamora-Medina et al., 2021), especially when directed towards the political class, and particularly at women, who are challenged in a different way to their male counterparts (Soriano, 2019). This violence triggers an anti-feminist reaction (Wilhelm & Joeckel, 2018) characterised by extreme misogyny, reaction, and a tendency towards personal attacks. Thus, the aggression exerted by haters against this vulnerable group contaminates the public sphere and negatively affects the quality of democracies. On the basis of this state of affairs, this research seeks, through content analysis, to identify and analyse expressions of hatred directed towards the five female candidates for the presidency of the Community of Madrid (Isabel Díaz of the Partido Popular, Mónica García of Más Madrid, Rocío Monasterio of Vox, Alejandra Jacinto of Podemos, Izquierda Unida, and Alianza Verde, and Aruca Gómez of Ciudadanos) in the comments made on their official Instagram accounts during the May 2023 election campaign. In addition, it aims to examine hate discourses that may be related to both a female gender bias and other vulnerable groups through issues such as aporophobia or xenophobia, among others. The results show that hatred is directed towards female politicians with great intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the influence of speaker sex and verbal aggression on the persuasiveness of political speech. College students (n = 106) read eight examples of political speech where the sex of the speaker and the level of aggression were manipulated. Participants then completed measures assessing message agreement, speaker credibility, and communicative appropriateness. Results indicated that male and female politicians were evaluated similarly on measures of persuasiveness. In addition, aggressive messages were evaluated as being less persuasive than nonaggressive messages. Finally, results identified a significant interaction between speaker sex and level of aggression when predicting message persuasiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on women candidates in American elections uncovers four key facts: Women (i) are underrepresented among candidates, (ii) are underrepresented among office holders, (iii) perform better in office, and (iv) win open seats at equal rates to men. Scholars offer two types of explanations: Women are less willing to run than men, due to differential costs or a gap in self‐perceived qualification, or voters discriminate at the ballot box. We formally model these mechanisms. Lower willingness to run predicts the first three facts but not the fourth. Voter discrimination at the ballot box predicts the first three facts and creates competing effects with respect to the fourth. Thus, the major stylized facts cannot be explained without voter discrimination, whether overt or more subtle. We explore whether a close‐election regression discontinuity distinguishes the mechanisms; surprisingly, it does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue expands on the ongoing dialogue on the decolonial project by bringing together thought-provoking papers that examine the communication of female political leaders in the Global South. It draws on data from West Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East to elucidate how female politicians deploy language (including multimodal forms) to position themselves in the political arena and utilize linguistic resources to navigate the discursive practices associated with their political roles and responsibilities. The issue offers a critical discursive perspective on the complex interplay of gender, culture and political leadership, and holds implications for how key issues such as voice, agency, solidarity and empowerment are conceptualized and enacted in specific sociocultural contexts. It also contributes to overcoming epistemicide by decentring knowledge production and underscoring the importance of valuing and engaging with different knowledge systems, especially non-Western epistemologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how three Native women politicians were portrayed in Native newspapers. The analysis found striking differences in how national Native media cover women politicians compared with prior findings in mainstream newspapers. The data illustrate the influence of Indigenous standpoint theory on the journalistic norms of Native media and its distinct lack of gendered politics, revealing significant prioritization of policy over personal and contrasts in the coverage amount and tone for conservative women politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While prior studies have examined various factors that affect immigration policymaking across Europe, little attention has been paid to the impact of the gender structure within parliament. It has been found that female parliamentarians are more concerned with the interests of women, children, and other marginalized groups than their male colleagues. Consequently, they are more likely to prioritize the rights of immigrants who represent an important social minority in European settings. Leveraging a panel data set spanning 26 European states from 2007 to 2019, the paper shows that an increase in the share of women parliamentarians is indeed associated with the liberalization of immigration policy. The results remain significant when employing historical female enrollment as an instrumental variable. Notably, the growth of the right-wing parties (including mainstream and radical right parties) in parliament would undercut the positive impact of female parliamentarians. The paper sheds some light on European immigration policymaking and female political representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]