Ideas or People? The Relationship between Feminist Values and Representation.

Are feminist values overpowered by party identification when evaluating female candidates for office? On the one hand, it seems intuitive that individuals holding feminist values would want to increase the absolute number of female representatives. On the other hand, if the females running for office do not represent the policy interests of those individuals it is possible that they are willing to give up increased descriptive representation for greater substantive representation. In this paper, I explore the question of whether representation has more to do with candidates' ideas or the candidates' ascriptive characteristics. To do this, I use data from the ANES to examine the extent to which party identification moderates the relationship between feminist values and female candidate evaluations. Given the limited time devoted to and interest in becoming informed about politics, individuals often rely on cues, such as stereotypes related to gender and party identification, to inform their political evaluations of candidates. Focusing on female candidate evaluations given by a group of people who are most likely to hold opposing views to traditional gender stereotypes (i.e., individuals holding feminist values) provides a unique opportunity to understand the relationship between feminist values and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]