How Gender Stereotypes Shape MPs’ Perceptions of Ministers’ Competencies

Previous research on ministerial selection processes reveals how party gatekeepers’ gender stereotypes influence women’s chances to rise to top positions of the executive. However, existing research remains silent about the barriers female ministers face once in office. In this article, we thus shift the focus from ex-ante to ex-post screening. More precisely, we answer the question of how MPs’ perceptions of the minister’s competences is shaped by the minister’s gender. Building on literature on female leaders in industrial organizations, we argue that MPs’ definition of good ministers is gender biased in the sense that it contains characteristics that are more likely ascribed to male officeholders than to female ones. We test this argument based on survey data from representatives in six European democracies. We asked MPs to identity the qualities a competent minister should ideally display, how they assess the competencies of the current cabinet members as well as how they would describe the qualification of specific male and female ministers. Our findings provide valuable insights for executive studies, since we reveal which qualities MPs expect from government members. Additionally, our results contribute to the field of gender and politics, because we can not only show that women have to overcome additional barriers to be perceived as competent contenders, but also the causal mechanisms behind these hurdles.