It has been the consensus among legacy media that ambitious women trying to move up in politics are faced with a sexist double standard by voters. This idea was one of the many that were blamed for Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016. And yet, a new study concludes that voters don’t have much of a problem with ambitious women in politics.
The study, conducted by Harvard lecturer Sparsha Saha and University of Bath professor Ana Catalano Weeks, claims to be the first study that measures voter perception of the ambition of political candidates. The study finds that Republican and Democratic voters don’t punish female candidates who are “seen as tough or determined, pushing for broad policy changes, or juggling family and public life.”
“I think it really is very reassuring, and I hope that women themselves who are thinking about politics look at this and are hopeful,” Saha said of the results. Weeks noted that observational data suggests that “when women run for office, they win.”
The study is another nail in the coffin of the idea that Clinton was punished by voters for being an ambitious woman. She was simply a bad candidate, one who ran an awful campaign and lost to an equally unpopular candidate who ran a better one.
It also meshes with previous results. In 2016, two professors began working on a project they figured would prove the sexist perception of candidates by voters. The two set out to recreate an October debate between Clinton and Donald Trump with gender-swapped actors, figuring that Clinton’s preparedness would be rated better if it were a male candidate, while Trump’s aggression would be panned from a woman.
The actors used the debate transcript and mirrored the mannerisms of their candidate counterparts. Counter to the professors’ previous assumptions, the female version of Trump was more well liked, while the male version of Clinton was seen as stiff and rehearsed.
This same narrative has begun to crop up around Sen. Kamala Harris ahead of the vice presidential debate with Mike Pence, and the media will likely continue to push it all the way until November. But this study shows once again that it is not grounded in reality. Harris, like Clinton, might just be unlikable on her own merits.
