Gender Role Violations and Voter Prejudice: The Agentic Penalty Faced by Women Politicians

Abstract

Role Congruity Theory (RCT) broadly suggests that when women step into leadership roles, they violate the expectations of their role as women. This article uses RCT to develop and directly test theories related to which types of gender stereotype role violations might cause voter bias toward women politicians. We argue and find that voter prejudice most likely results from an agentic incongruity–punishing a woman candidate who violates her gender role by displaying agentic, dominant traits such as being intimidating or arrogant. Backlash for this type of role violation is strong when the election context favors male stereotypical strengths.

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