Pick Your Bias
Politicians are a ruthless bunch. They will do whatever they can, and pander to whomever they must, to win elections and keep their positions. Much of this pandering, unbeknownst to the majority of voters, lies in appealing to implicit biases or widespread stereotypes. Needless to say, the most salient stereotypes in play are derived from race and gender.
First, it is important to outline how the typical societal stereotypes of women are applied to female politicians. While male politicians are a fairly representative subgroup of their gender “given their overlap with male stereotypes,” “there are many characteristics of women that are absent for female politicians” (Schneider and Bos, 250 and 254). All in all, when people list the characteristics they associate with males and females, their lists include positive and negative stereotypes for both genders. However, when describing politicians, women are “defined more by their deficits than strengths” (Schneider and Bos 260). People often fail to prescribe positive traits of women in general to female politicians, and fail to prescribe positive traits of politicians in general to female politicians, while still associating negative general traits of politicians with female politicians.
Even though these stereotypes of female politicians persist, “women win as often as men, when they run” (Ditonto, et. al 355). Ditonto, et. al look at this phenomenon as a sort of indirect association between gendered assumptions and vote choice. Because people are more likely to research a female candidate and evaluate her competence, they might discover through this extra research that “she is, in fact, competent,” which makes the case that gendered assumptions rarely lead to “the automatic dismissal of the female candidate” (Ditonto, et. al 356). Though people certainly hold gender stereotypes, these stereotypes are less likely to negatively influence them to vote for female candidates. Voters simply conduct disproportionate levels of research.
Interestingly enough, though people are significantly more loath to admit or display racial prejudices than gender stereotypes (albeit sometimes because the former is often more implicit), they vote much more along racial lines. While enduring sexist tendencies seems to have little impact on actual vote choice, we see that enduring racist tendencies heavily impact vote choice.
While the American electorate undeniably holds stereotypes and prejudices in relation to both gender and race, the political parties have effectively chosen which of these biases to deftly exploit. Ian Haney-Lopez explains the practice of dog-whistle politics that capitalizes on implicit racial biases in order to win votes. Politicians invoke mentions of the welfare system, illegal immigration, and crime that instinctively, without any explicit mentions, conjure up notions of lazy minorities (Moyers). Politicians understand white voters’ reluctance to be associated with these types of people, and through coded racial appeals, influence them into voting in favor of policies that may (or more importantly, may not) benefit them.
