More Women Can Run (and should)

A few months ago, we looked at some of the hurdles that women face when running for elected office. In this week’s seminar, however, Kira Sanbonmatsu of Rutgers University discussed her new book with Susan Carroll on how, in fact, More Women Can Run.

It’s a strange paradox that on many counts, women are more politically involved than men---since 1980s, they’ve voted at a higher rate, for example---but still comprise less than ¼ of most state legislatures and less than 18% of the US Congress.

Sanbonmatsu and Carroll surveyed a number of successful female candidates for state legislature around the country for their views on electoral success. In spite of enduring impediments like male incumbency bias and the fact that women are often socialized to behave in certain ways, results from the survey provided three important reasons why and how the decision to run can be made easier for women.

First, successful female officials provided a vast array of answers on the qualifications necessary to run for office. Some said education and personability were vital, others suggested engagement with the community, still others said an enduring electoral base or fundraising ability was the key to success. The conclusion is that there are, in fact, no specific qualifications for electoral success, and successful women come from a wide diversity of backgrounds. Many more women are in fact qualified than realize it.

Second, the decision to run is often more related to a woman’s relationships and networks---certainly more so than for men. For example, a woman is more likely to run for office if a political party leader, spouse, or organization encourages her to do so, than she would be on her own volition. While this relational dependency seems like a barrier, it also means that women’s initial tendencies against running can be changed with a little encouragement; that their initial socialization can be nudged. Increasing women’s representation, then, might just be accomplished with some effective recruitment.

Lastly, some of the current gender disparity, in particular the fact that women’s representation in state legislatures has plateaued in recent years, has more to do with party composition than the role of women per se. While Democratic women hold 32.3% of their party's seats in state legislatures, Republican women hold 16.5%. Today, women are better represented as Democratic state legislators. Changes in partisan politics, then, have had consequences for overall representation of women. According to Sanbonmatsu, this should not be understood as a loss for women generally, but an opportunity for each party to include more women, both parties recruit more female candidates, particularly women of color.

Despite some of the other hurdles, more women can run with more ease than they think---and considering some of the benefits of having women represented, should.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Photo courtesy of Forbes.com

“Most of us think that we’re better drivers than the average person, and we really think we’re more honest and morally upstanding than the average person,” says Michael Norton, Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He has been studying how people can lie and yet think that they are perfectly great, honest individuals. You might think he is interested in politicians or car dealers, but actually this is about regular people like you and me. We are quite prone to engaging in questionable behavior, yet we are very good at finding excuses for problematic decisions and even tricking ourselves into believing that we did not cheat.

He described a simple experiment – college men were asked to pick between subscriptions to two sports magazines. The magazine descriptions were identical except for the fact that one offered more articles per issue and the other covered a broader array of sports. The preferences split half and half. However, when one of the magazines also offered a swimsuit edition, that magazine became the overwhelming choice. They were then asked to explain why they picked the magazine. The men in the group whose “more articles” magazine offered the swimsuit edition explained that they valued having more articles, while the men whose swimsuit issue was packaged with the “more sports” magazine were equally emphatic that they liked reading about a wider variety of sports.

Perhaps the guys just did not want the researchers to know their true motivation, but what if they were not even aware of their choice process? And what if their decision was more consequential? In a similar experiment, hypothetical managers of a cement manufacturing company (a stereotypically male field) were asked to select between two applicants – one had more education, the other more experience. Those ‘employers’ whose more experienced candidate was named Lisa, overwhelmingly chose the other candidate named Dan, citing the importance of education credentials. But those whose Lisa was more educated, hired Dan because he had more experience. When told in advance that they would be accountable for their decision, the subjects simply became more vociferous in explaining the importance of whichever non-questionable characteristic they picked, sometimes writing whole essays about their choice and how they never took gender into account.

These experiments have implications for hiring, promotions, political recruiting and college admissions, among other fields.  Are we really guided by objective criteria when we read an application, interview someone or consider them for promotion? All signs point to people making the biased choice and then justifying it with the most conveniently available “objective” information. Perhaps even more troubling is the notion that you and I might be completely unaware of our own questionable behaviors, whether they are gender-biased, race-biased or simply dishonest. After all, we are more morally upstanding and more enlightened than the average person, right?  

Anya Malkov is an MPP candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, a WAPPP Cultural Bridge Fellow, and an alumna of From Harvard Square to the Oval Office.