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Abstract
Through a re-examination of the women’s suffrage movement and modern female candidacy, patterns regarding conformity to specific gender expectations becomes noticeable leading to questions regarding the political viability of gender association. The purpose of this research was to develop a method of measuring ownership of the concept of gender among political candidates. Gender, much like traits and issues, is a concept that can be associated with a candidate in an attempt to connect with voters. This research sought to quantify this previously unquantified attribute and then identify trends regarding the level of ownership among candidates for elections at the gubernatorial, House, and Senatorial levels for the years 2006-2014 by coding 9,860 unique candidate advertisements.
To determine whether candidates are conforming to gender expectations, a new gender ownership index was developed. It quantifies a candidate’s willingness to be associated with gender expectations. For the purposes of this research, gender ownership was calculated using a candidate’s apparent sex, mentioning of gender-assumed issues, mentioning of gender-assumed qualities, and audio/visual associations with members of the public and gender-assumed visuals. This index provides for a more synergistic understanding of gender, rather than a sex-based value or focusing separately on individual aspects of the concept of gender.
The findings are indicative of an overall trend that candidates do associate themselves with their gender’s assumptions in campaign advertisements. Specifically, female candidates are increasingly associating themselves with their gender’s assumptions, whereas male candidates are decreasingly associating themselves with their gender’s assumptions, both meeting the levels for significance. Gender Ownership does not seem to be based purely upon electoral contest nor party, but is a combination of electoral contest, party, and perceived sex. The findings are significant in the positive direction for the sample sets: all female, specifically all female: Democratic, Republican, Democratic gubernatorial, overall House, Democratic House, overall senatorial, Democratic senatorial, Republican senatorial, overall federal, Democratic federal, Republican federal, and male Republican senatorial. The findings are significant in the negative direction for the sample sets: all male, specifically all male: Democrat, all gubernatorial, Republican gubernatorial, all House, Democratic House, and Democratic federal.
To determine whether candidates are conforming to gender expectations, a new gender ownership index was developed. It quantifies a candidate’s willingness to be associated with gender expectations. For the purposes of this research, gender ownership was calculated using a candidate’s apparent sex, mentioning of gender-assumed issues, mentioning of gender-assumed qualities, and audio/visual associations with members of the public and gender-assumed visuals. This index provides for a more synergistic understanding of gender, rather than a sex-based value or focusing separately on individual aspects of the concept of gender.
The findings are indicative of an overall trend that candidates do associate themselves with their gender’s assumptions in campaign advertisements. Specifically, female candidates are increasingly associating themselves with their gender’s assumptions, whereas male candidates are decreasingly associating themselves with their gender’s assumptions, both meeting the levels for significance. Gender Ownership does not seem to be based purely upon electoral contest nor party, but is a combination of electoral contest, party, and perceived sex. The findings are significant in the positive direction for the sample sets: all female, specifically all female: Democratic, Republican, Democratic gubernatorial, overall House, Democratic House, overall senatorial, Democratic senatorial, Republican senatorial, overall federal, Democratic federal, Republican federal, and male Republican senatorial. The findings are significant in the negative direction for the sample sets: all male, specifically all male: Democrat, all gubernatorial, Republican gubernatorial, all House, Democratic House, and Democratic federal.