Shifting the Gendered Lens

Abstract Chapter 3 deploys a survey experiment that uses a national sample of adults in the US and presents individuals with legislative and executive institutions that vary the levels of women’s representation. The experiment presents vignettes that tell individuals that a recent election ushered in majority-women or majority-men legislative institutions varying whether the legislative institution is a city council chamber, state legislature, mayor, or governor. This chapter measures the stereotypically gendered traits and gendered issues associated with political institutions to track differences in majority-women and majority-men institutions. The experiments show that across all levels of office, people associate majority-women institutions with feminine and masculine traits, but people see majority-men institutions through the lens of masculinity. This first pivotal test of my theory of institutional stereotype change confirms that the demographic characteristics of institutions do, in fact, shift the gendered lens through which people view these institutions.