It’s 2019 – so what’s keeping women out of leadership positions?

The year 2018 saw a record-breaking number of women elected to the United States’ Congress, and yet the Pew Research Center reports that 59 percent of Americans “would like to see more women in top leadership positions.”
However, many of those same Americans are skeptical that gender parity can be obtained.Political science professor Dr. Stephen Caliendo explains, “Research has demonstrated that women are not disadvantaged at the ballot box; they tend to win at the same rate as men.”

Caliendo said the real question is, what is it that makes it less desirable for women to run for office?

Dr. Suzanne Chod, another political science professor, said there are three major concepts that impact the gap in political ambition between men and women. The first is family role-orientation, which includes gender-specific expectations, including the idea that women should remain at home in the maternal role. The second is the masculine ethos, or the patriarchy.

“Those top positions in the corporate world or politics, the type of traits and attributes that one needs to succeed in those roles are associated with men and masculinity,” Chod said.

Lastly, Chod said, is the gendered psyche, a sort of combination of the other two concepts: women internalize the ideas of the traditional family role and the masculine ethos and grow to doubt their own qualifications and abilities — as well as the qualifications of the women around them.Yet, the Pew Research Center indicates that political party affiliation also plays a vital role in determining one’s views on women and leadership.

More Democratic voters believe that there too few women in leadership, whereas fewer Republican voters believe that gender disparity is even an issue.

“Conservatives believe the system is fair and that people who take advantage of opportunities and work hard will succeed,” said Caliendo. “The corollary to that is that people who did not succeed did not take advantage of opportunities or work hard enough.”

Caliendo continued, “Liberals believe the system is sort of rigged and that for some people, they’re never going to get ahead. They point to statistics on the lack of upward mobility in the United States, and conservatives point to examples of upward mobility.”

Based on each perspective, both parties proliferate and capitalize upon their ideas through what Caliendo explains as selective exposure, or when individuals only expose themselves to ideas they agree with.

In spite of all this, Chod explains that it is possible to achieve gender parity. “These are systemic barriers that we find, but there are things we can do every day to try and crack it. One is called self-reflexivity, or those who have privilege looking at their pace in the system and thinking of what they can do with that privilege to help others. It’s about looking at how you contribute to oppression.” With the number of women elected to powerful political leadership positions, both professors believe the country will be seeing a change.

Political science major Gabrielle Gruver, ’19, agrees, expressing that with the number of women now in Congress, she’s hoping to see more legislation on health care, education and civil rights for women and members of minority communities.