Gender Stereotypes Over Time: How Voters Respond to Feminine & Masculine Messages During the Course of a Campaign

Existing research finds that campaign strategies that hew to feminine stereotypes can undercut electoral support for female candidates because such messages are incongruent with masculine stereotypes (Bauer 2015; Ditonto, et al. 2014). Yet, messages that reinforce masculine stereotypes can also be risky for female candidates because these messages buttress against general feminine norms (Krupnikov and Bauer 2014; Bauer 2017). Despite the drawbacks of gender stereotypic messages, female candidates frequently rely on both types of messages during political campaigns (Carpinella and Bauer 2021; Bauer and Santia 2021; Dittmar 2015). Current scholarship largely examines the effects of feminine or masculine messages in isolation of one another, presenting voters with either a feminine message or a masculine message (see e.g., Bauer 2015; Bauer 2017; Huddy and Terkildsen 1993). This approach does not offer insights into the combined effects of feminine and masculine stereotypes. The current project examines how voters use feminine and masculine stereotypic information to evaluate female candidates over time. I merge data on the use of feminine and masculine stereotypes in actual campaign messages and I combine these data with a unique survey experiment. The survey experiment varies whether voters receive feminine stereotype or masculine stereotypic information about a female candidate first or second, but voters always receive both feminine and masculine stereotypic information. The experiment shows that receiving masculine information after receiving feminine information can bolster support for female candidate but receiving feminine information late in a campaign can undercut support for women.