Latin American Attitudes toward Women in Politics: The Influence of Elite Cues, Female Advancement, and Individual Characteristics

Abstract

This article outlines three theoretical arguments—socialization, status discontent, and elite cues—that generate competing predictions about the way context shapes gender attitudes. Using hierarchical analysis, we assess the power of these arguments in Latin America, a region that manifests considerable variation on our central explanatory variables and thus offers important theoretical leverage. We find men's gender attitudes to be highly contingent on elite cues and susceptible to backlash effects in response to women's economic advancement. Also, where women lack national representation, distrust of government promotes support for female leadership as an alternative to the discredited (male) establishment. The analysis supports existing individual-level explanations of gender attitudes and demonstrates a connection between diffuse democratic values and gender egalitarianism. The findings suggest that recent advances for female politicians in Latin America may be susceptible to reversal, and they illuminate strategies for strengthening women's equality in the region.

The Increasing Effectiveness of National Gender Quotas, 1990–2010

“…Cross‐national models of women's political representation also often include economic development, typically measured as GDP per capita. Although economic development has been shown to affect gender attitudes (e.g., Morgan and Buice ), measures are often not statistically significant in models predicting women's legislative representation across countries (Paxton, Kunovich, and Hughes ). However, existing research has overwhelmingly tested effects of economic development on levels of, rather than growth in, women's representation.…”

Refusing to know a woman’s place: the causes and consequences of rejecting stereotypes of women politicians in the Americas

“…In presidencies, many women elected have been spouses of former presidents or had charismatic male patrons (Jalalzai 2016;Jalalzai and dos Santos 2015;Ríos-Tobar 2008). We know less about the impact of public opinion on representation; scholars present conflicting evidence on gendered leadership preferences in the Americas (Aguilar, Cunow, and Desposato 2015;Batista Pereira 2015;Morgan 2015;Morgan and Buice 2013;Shair-Rosenfield and Hinojosa 2014). We have yet to understand the role of stereotypes.…”

“…Education may reduce both positive and negative stereotypes, as stereotyping can be considered a heuristic employed more frequently by those with limited cognitive and attentional resources (Bauer 2015a;Sherman, Macrae, and Bodenhausen 2000). Also, education can socialize citizens into changing gendered leadership norms (Hietanen andPick 2015 Inglehart andNorris 2003;Morgan and Buice 2013). In addition, age might matter, as younger people are also more likely to have been socialized in a world with non-traditional gender roles (Fullerton and Stern 2010).…”

“…Those rejecting traditional gender roles in the workforce may also reject pro-male leadership stereotypes (Alexander and Andersen 1993, 541;Paxton and Kunovich 2003). Finally, those dissatisfied with the political system may support women political leaders, perceiving them as outsiders (Brown, Diekman, and Schneider 2011;Morgan and Buice 2013).…”

“…There are reasons to expect differences. For instance, the Americas contain a great range in levels of development, and development is associated feminist attitudes more generally (e.g., Banaszak and Plutzer 1993;Inglehart and Norris 2003;Morgan and Buice 2013;Paxton and Hughes 2007). Second, we distinguish theoretically and empirically between rejecting stereotypes and holding both pro-female and pro-male stereotypes.…”