17:45 - 20:00
Thursday-Panel
Chair/s:
Maria Zuffova
Discussant/s:
Maarja Lühiste
Meeting Room B

Maria Zuffova
When gender stereotypes matter: media portrayal of Slovak presidential candidates in 2009 and 2019

Amanda Haraldsson
Untangling responses to media discrimination in Sweden and Italy: When and why might media discrimination increase women’s political ambition?

Jens Wäckerle, Bruno Castanho Silva, Danielle Pullan
Gendered Communication and Women’s Political Careers in 19 Democracies

Yesola Kweon
We see Symbols But Not Saviors: Gender Representation and the Political Attitudes of Working-class Women
We see Symbols But Not Saviors: Gender Representation and the Political Attitudes of Working-class Women
Yesola Kweon
Utah State University

How does female representation in politics affect working-class women? Despite their increasing presence and importance in the workforce, many women continue to concentrate in occupational sectors characterized by high economic vulnerability and low social status. This dynamic has important implications for the politics of representation. Previous studies have demonstrated that female politicians positively affect women's political attitudes. We argue that while class dynamics are present in any instance of political presentation, gender representation has a larger class impact among female voters. This is because there exist higher standards of accountability and relatability for female representative among women voters. Given such high expectations, there is greater room for dissatisfaction among working-class females when they constantly experience occupational segregation despite high female representation in politics. We find strong evidence for our argument using cross-national data from 31 OECD countries as well as four consecutive waves of Danish survey data. Our findings show that in countries with a higher degree of gender-based representation, there is more skepticism among women in low-skilled sectors towards voting and leadership. In these settings, female voters with high-skill jobs are more likely to believe that voting and leadership matters. In contrast, the class impact of gender representation is weak among male voters. Beyond individual perceptions, the additional analysis of voting choices suggests that gender representation increases low-status female workers’ electoral support for far-right nationalist parties. These findings have important implications for the symbolic representation of marginalized groups and democratic accountability.