Voting For Women: How The Public Evaluates Women Candidates

By: Kathy Dolan

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Synopsis: Women comprise an ever-increasing percentage of the candidate pool for elective office in the United States. Public opinion surveys profess strong support for female candidates, yet many of these same candidates still encounter skepticism (at best) or hostility (at worst) from the public. The role of candidate gender in elections is a complex one. Yet, our understanding of how voters react to these women is often based on election-specific, anecdotal, or hypothetical evidence. Voting for Women is one of the first book-length treatments of both how the public evaluates female candidates and whether and when people will support them at the polls. It also provides a history of women and elections in the U.S. and analysis of contemporary data on how voting environments can influence women's success.