PLAYING THE WOMAN CARD IN AMERICAN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

Recent work indicates that political consultants believe that citizens stereotype candidates based on gender. This belief leads them to shape campaign strategies around gender stereotypes, either by attempting to neutralize these stereotypes or to make them work to the candidates’ advantage (Dittmar Reference Dittmar2015). ^{Footnote 3} Playing the woman card by drawing attention to the historical nature of a candidacy, as Secretary Clinton has done, likely reflects an attempt to make a candidate’s gender work to her advantage. The belief that “playing the woman card” benefits female candidates rests on the assumption that this strategy is a tactical choice to appeal to voters in some unique way (Falk Reference Falk2013). The media uses the “woman card” metaphor to describe female candidates using tactics to (1) highlight gender as a component of their candidacy, (2) appeal to woman voters, (3) imply that women provide fairer representation, and (4) argue that politics remains gendered and/or women experience sexist attacks (Falk Reference Falk2013). Despite media claims that the woman card acts as a “trump card” in American political campaigns, we lack empirical evidence that playing the woman card or covering the novelty of female candidacies “confers any advantage to women candidates” (Falk Reference Falk2013, 201). On the contrary, emphasizing a female candidate’s gender may reinforce existing differences in how the media covers female candidates, negatively affecting voters’ perceptions of female candidates and their qualifications.

The media covers candidates of different genders in different ways, which in turn influences the knowledge and attitudes of voters. For instance, the media dedicates more time to discussing the political viability of female candidates relative to similarly situated male candidates (Falk Reference Falk2008; Heldman, Caroll, and Olson Reference Heldman, Carroll and Olson2005; Lawrence and Rose Reference Lawrence and Rose2009). Female candidates running for offices not yet held by a woman, like the presidency, also receive coverage focusing on the historic achievement that comes with a potential win (Falk Reference Falk2008; Heldman, Caroll, and Olson Reference Heldman, Carroll and Olson2005; Meeks Reference Meeks2012). Novelty frames in news coverage, sometimes explicitly but more often implicitly, present women in government as abnormal or atypical. Thus, calling attention to the novelty of female candidates may encourage voters to view women as “bench warmers rather than as an integral part of government” (Braden Reference Braden1996, 2). In addition, coverage of women candidates as novelties displaces issue coverage (Dunaway et al. Reference Dunaway, Lawrence, Rose and Weber2013; Falk Reference Falk2008) and affects voter knowledge and attitudes. For instance, Senator Elizabeth Dole received more trait-based coverage than issue-based coverage of her presidential campaign in 2000 (Heldman, Caroll, and Olson Reference Heldman, Carroll and Olson2005). Unsurprisingly, voters knew more about her appearance and character than her political positions (Aday and Devitt Reference Aday and Devitt2001).

Those interested in the political realities of playing the woman card remain unsure of how voter perceptions of female candidates may change when coverage of female candidates, or even the campaigns themselves, emphasize the novelty of their candidacies. To gauge the effects of “playing the woman card” in this way, I conducted an Amazon Mechanical Turk experiment with American subjects (N = 593). Each subject received $1.50 to participate in a 15-minute experiment. ^{Footnote 4} Participants provided basic sociodemographic information and answered questions about their political predisposition. ^{Footnote 5} These questions assessed the participants’ partisanship as well as their level of sexism as measured by the Modern Sexism Scale, which assesses more subtle forms of sexism, such as resentment toward policies designed to help women correct practices and institutions that are perceived to be discriminatory (Swim et al. Reference Swim, Aikin, Hall and Hunter1995). ^{Footnote 6} Higher scores on the Modern Sexism Scale reflect more support for conventional gender roles and a greater acceptance of sexist attitudes (Russell and Oswald Reference Russell and Oswald2015; Young and Nauta Reference Young and Nauta2013). While the resulting sample was younger and more likely to be male than the American population, the subject pool provided a representative sample in other pertinent aspects (table 1).

Table 1

Subject Demographics, Most Frequent Categories

The study randomly assigned each subject to one of two experimental conditions, both of which asked the subject to read a news article about a female state house representative, Representative Jennifer Adams, who has decided to enter a gubernatorial race. The control group article included information on Adams’s background but did not mention that she would be the state’s first female governor if elected. Participants in the experimental group read a version that included three additional sentences framing a potential win by the candidate as an historic first, announcing that “should [Jennifer Adams] win in November, she would be the first female governor in the state’s approximately two hundred and fifty-year history.” Neither version of the story provided voters clear cues about the candidate’s party identification, as it attributed both Republican (promotion of business friendly policies) and Democratic policies (promotion of education spending) to the candidate. ^{Footnote 7} Both versions of the article use the name Jennifer Adams and female pronouns, allowing participants to make inferences about the candidate’s gender. After reading the article, participants assessed the candidate’s favorability and reported their likelihood of voting for the candidate. ^{Footnote 8}

Results indicate that the experimental framing succeeded in increasing the appeal of the female candidate only among certain groups of voters. These findings suggest that playing the woman card provides strategic advantages, especially for Democrats trying to appeal to independent voters. This frame proves less advantageous for—and may potentially harm— candidates trying to appeal to other voting blocks.

WHEN PLAYING THE WOMAN CARD IS PLAYING TRUMP (AND WHEN IT ISN’T)

Political scientists have identified the “lay of the land” when it comes to patterns in how the media covers female candidates. The viability of female candidates receives more media coverage than does the viability of similarly situated men (Falk Reference Falk2008; Heldman, Caroll, and Olson Reference Heldman, Carroll and Olson2005), as does their novelty in politics (Falk Reference Falk2008; Heldman, Caroll, and Olson Reference Heldman, Carroll and Olson2005; Meeks Reference Meeks2012). The media also pays a disproportionate amount of attention to the appearance and familial relationships of female candidates—the “husband, hemline, hair” problem—that has been shown to displace coverage of their positions on substantive issues (Dunaway et al. Reference Dunaway, Lawrence, Rose and Weber2013; Falk Reference Falk2008). Candidates who play the woman card by emphasizing novelty also receive substantial coverage in the media, as the Clinton–Trump exchange demonstrates. Given the focus on the viability and novelty of female candidates, playing the woman card in ways that reinforce the novelty of women’s candidacies may further undermine their credibility as candidates in the minds of voters.

Despite Secretary Clinton’s invocation of the historic first of her potential presidency and the media’s general tendency to underscore the historical achievement of a potential win, scholars know little about how focusing on the novelty of a woman’s candidacy influences citizens’ attitudes toward and support for those candidates. My analysis demonstrates that the effects of playing the woman card in this way are more complex than often portrayed. While playing the woman card may be disadvantageous in some instances, such as when candidates are trying to appeal to less educated or conservative voters, such tactics may favorably sway other voters.

Playing the woman card by emphasizing the historic nature of a woman’s candidacy, as Secretary Clinton did when she claimed that being the first woman president puts her outside the political establishment during a February Democratic primary debate, appeals to some voters, particularly those traditionally under-represented in politics. The effects of framing candidates as novelties may prove particularly important in primary campaigns, where a candidate’s party identification will not negate framing effects related to candidates’ use of their gender (Dolan Reference Dolan2014). Playing the woman card also appears to have a strong effect on weak partisan (Democrats) and independent voters, something important for campaigns trying to attract new or undecided voters. As more people self-identify as independents, strategies that attract the attention and commitment of those voters will be of particular interest.

Candidates do not play the woman card in a vacuum. They have unique histories and personalities that affect how the media presents them as well as how voters respond to them (for discussion see Lawrence and Rose Reference Lawrence and Rose2009), a fact particularly true for Secretary Clinton. However, young voters, like the participants in this experiment, have a far more limited memory of Clinton’s tenure as First Lady or even her first campaign for the presidential nomination. Their relative lack of familiarity suggests that emphasizing the historic nature of her candidacy might be beneficial in helping Clinton appeal to young voters who lean Democratic or identify as independents, regardless of her more polarizing effect on older voters.

This research adds to our understanding of the scholarly and practical importance of novelty frames and appeals in influencing voter attitudes. Especially important given the increase in female candidates as well as rhetoric about or examples of them playing the woman card by presenting themselves as historic firsts, analysis of this framing may also provide campaigns with a better understanding of when and how to deploy gender frames effectively. The findings presented here suggest that playing the woman card is much more nuanced than the media and current political science research present it. Whether as a proactive campaign strategy or because the newsmedia tend to focus on the novelty of female candidates, voters are exposed to frames of female candidates as historic. The effects of these frames vary across people of different demographic groups and parties, and are influenced by levels of sexism. Playing the woman card is not always playing trump, as the efficacy of these gender frames appears more grey than black or white.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1049096516001438.Footnote *