Sex, Stereotypes, and Security: A Study of the Effects of Terrorist Threat on Assessments of Female Leadership

Can experience overcome stereotypes in times of terror threat?

“…That we find similar effects for all three Republican leaders suggests that the party reputation is strong enough to trump characteristics that might disadvantage these particular leaders (such as gender and lack of foreign policy experience). Holman et al (2011) found a positive significant difference between a good times baseline condition and a terrorism condition for Condoleezza Rice in a past study, and the weaker effects here could be due to the diminished salience of Rice's experience in foreign policy over time. Zechmeister (2009, 2013) find that Republican incumbents benefit when terrorist threat is primed, and none of the Republican leaders in this sample is an incumbent.…”

“…4. Holman et al (2011) show that perceiving a terrorist attack as more likely leads to lower evaluations of Hillary Clinton prior to her tenure as Secretary of State. 5.…”

“…Considering normal times, Mo (2015) finds that information on candidate qualifications can decrease tendencies to devalue female leadership. 1 Holman et al (2011) argue that the positive effect of priming terrorism on evaluations of Rice may have been due not only to her partisanship, but also to her experience in national security. In fact, Swers (2007) finds that a record of military experience can mitigate negative national security-related gender stereotypes about female Senators.…”

“…Holman et al (2011Holman et al ( , 2016 argue that because of the tendency for the public to assign greater competency to the Republican party when it comes to national security issues, Republican affiliation has the potential to mitigate against the tendency for the public to devalue certain female leaders in times of security threat. In an experimental study (2011) in which terrorism is primed, they find a modest positive effect of a terror threat on evaluations of Condoleezza Rice, but a negative effect on evaluations of Hillary Clinton (prior to her experience as Secretary of State).…”

“…Yet, some scholarship suggests that certain factors could countervail against such general tendencies. One of these is partisanship: Republican women leaders may be immunized against the negative effects of terrorist threat on evaluations of female leaders (Holman et al, 2011(Holman et al, , 2016. Another is relevant leadership experience (Swers, 2007).…”