Stereotype Crossroads: Investigating the Interplay of Gender and Religious Symbols in Shaping Political Gender Stereotypes in Flanders (Belgium),Turkey and the UK

Abstract

An extensive literature on women’s access to political power, drawing primarily from work on Western democracies, suggests a variety of conditions that lead to the disproportionate “winnowing out” of women at various stages of the political recruitment process. This study focuses on the final stage of the process, in which voters’ gender stereotypes are seen as an important hurdle creating obstacles for women in politics. The aim of this study is to present a comparative account of the prevalence of political gender stereotypes in Flanders (the largest region of Belgium), Turkey, and the UK and to investigate how the prevalence of these stereotypes intersects with, or is reinforced by, other identity markers such as visible religious symbols. This study, based on an original online survey experiment using quota-based samples representative of the population in terms of gender, age, and education, surprisingly points to a positive bias among voters for women politicians. Our results, furthermore, show that the dynamics of voters’ stereotypes, particularly related to visible religious symbols such as the hijab, do manifest differently in various sociopolitical environments, thereby highlighting the necessity of considering contextual factors when interpreting the implications of voters’ stereotypes.