ABSTRACT
In a 1999 survey of the political and social attitudes of Americans, 92 percent of those interviewed said they would vote for a qualified woman candidate nominated by their party for president. One of the major reasons for the lack of information on public support for women candidates is that the number of women candidates in American politics was small, so there were too few cases to study systematically. This chapter presents an overview of the current state of knowledge about how the public, and in particular, voters, respond to women candidates. Candidate sex becomes a meaningful consideration in American elections because of the central importance of information. The notion of gender stereotypes is key to the literature on the impact of candidate sex on the attitudes and behaviors of voters. Evaluations of women candidates and officeholders generally conform to stereotyped thinking about issue positions as well.
