This chapter summarizes the primary explanations for women’s numeric underrepresentation and sets the stage for examining the gender dynamics of the candidate emergence process. Although several factors contribute to men’s dominance in US politics, we argue that the gender gap in political ambition continues to limit women’s full political inclusion. We recognize, of course, that women’s numeric representation has increased throughout the last two decades. But electing more women to state legislative and congressional seats – while certainly an important step – should not be conflated with closing the gender gap in political ambition more broadly. Because patterns of traditional gender socialization are so deeply embedded, socialized norms and behaviors still keep millions of women from envisioning themselves as candidates and perceiving the political arena as open to them. The chapter concludes with a description of our multiwave Citizen Political Ambition Study, our central tool for shedding light on gender differences in political ambition.

This chapter employs the two-stage conception of candidate emergence we presented in Chapter 2 as a framework to examine how gender interacts with the decision to run for office. Our survey data and interviews with potential candidates reveal that women and men are quite similar when it comes to their political participation and experience with the political system. But the same can’t be said of their political ambition. Not only are women less likely than men to consider running for office, but they are also less likely to take any of the steps that precede a political campaign. And among those who have thought about running for office, women are less likely than men to enter actual political contests. Ultimately, this chapter establishes the critical finding of this book: the presence of a pronounced and enduring gender gap in political ambition.

Drawing heavily on both survey data and interviews with potential candidates, this chapter argues that men are more likely than women to look in the mirror and see a qualified candidate, someone who has what it takes to run for office. Women are more likely than men to see someone who doesn’t quite embody the credentials, skills, and traits they think a candidate should possess. Differences in potential candidates’ self-appraisals are strong evidence of a gendered psyche, whose imprint leaves women feeling far less efficacious than men to envision themselves as candidates and, consequently, far less likely to consider running for office.

In this chapter, we examine whether traditional family role orientations systematically hinder women’s emergence in the political sphere. We begin by considering how potential candidates’ early political socialization relates to their political ambition as adults. The majority of the chapter then turns to gender dynamics in respondents’ current households. Our findings reveal that even among the youngest generation of potential candidates, women are less likely than men to have grown up in politicized households, more likely to be responsible for the majority of household tasks and childcare, and less likely to be encouraged to run by those closest to them. But, somewhat surprisingly, the traditional division of labor doesn’t affect interest in running for office. Although women continue to struggle balancing family with professional responsibilities, traditional gender roles don’t impede their interest in running for office in the way many might expect.

In this concluding chapter, we turn to the persistence of the gender gap in political ambition. Why hasn’t it begun to close? How can we reconcile its intractable nature with women’s steadily increasing numeric representation? What do women and men in the candidate eligibility pool believe contributes to the static gap? After providing a brief summary of the book’s central findings, these are the questions to which this chapter turns. Ultimately, we conclude that despite women’s significantly greater – and growing – presence in politics, women continue to be less likely than men to see themselves as candidates for elective office. They also continue to be less likely than men to be seen by others as candidates for elective office. There’s no question that “it takes a candidate” to achieve gender parity in US political institutions. But when it comes to breaking down long-standing beliefs about politics and the very nature of the political domain, this book makes it clear that it takes more than a candidate.

This chapter lays out the book’s central argument and theoretical framework: The enduring gender gap in political ambition results from long-standing patterns of traditional socialization that persist in US culture. More specifically, traditional family role orientations, in which women assume the majority of household and childcare responsibilities, lead many women to conclude that entering politics would restrict their ability to fulfill existing personal and professional obligations. A masculinized ethos in political organizations and institutions that have always been controlled by men continues to promote men’s, not women’s, full participation in the political arena. And a gendered psyche imbues many women with a sense of doubt as to their ability to compete in the electoral sphere. Thus, the enduring effects of traditional gender socialization that transcend all generations pose serious obstacles for true gender equality.

This chapter focuses on the relationships among gender, party, recruitment, and political ambition. First, we focus on potential candidates’ partisan identity. The pool of female potential candidates – like the population of female elected officials – is dominated by Democrats. Yet we find that neither party affiliation nor partisan fervor affects interest in running for office. Still, political parties – through the recruitment process – play a critical role in the candidate emergence process. Here, our analysis highlights one of the book’s central findings: Women are significantly less likely than men to receive encouragement to run for office from party leaders, elected officials, and political activists. Despite the emergence of #MeToo, heightened public discourse about the need to elect more women, and efforts by women’s organizations to push back against Donald Trump, our results are not markedly different from twenty years earlier. The masculinized ethos that continues to shroud party organizations results in a smaller proportion of women than men recruited to enter the electoral arena.

This chapter focuses on the second stage of the candidate emergence process and examines the role gender plays in determining whether a potential candidate actually runs for office. We have the opportunity to assess the role gender plays in transforming politically engaged citizens into actual candidates because 295 people in the 2021 sample ran for office at some point in their lives. Our analysis reveals that the stark gender differences evident in the first stage of the process fade considerably. But because women are far less likely than men to consider running for office, fewer women than men ever face the decision to enter an actual race. Moreover, when we turn to interest in running for office at some point in the future, gender differences persist. Female potential candidates are significantly less likely than men to express interest in a future candidacy, at least in part because of their more negative attitudes about campaigning. Whether we consider retrospective or prospective interest in entering the electoral arena, prospects for closing the gender gap in political ambition are bleak.

In this chapter, we investigate whether Fox News’ presence in districts shaped the competitive electoral landscape by influencing potential candidates’ perceptions about the partisan make-up of the constituency in the district and shaping their perceived chances of winning or losing. Specifically, in this chapter, we test whether the entry of Fox News created the perception of a rightward shift in district party composition among potential Republican candidates considering a run in the district. We find that in districts with more Fox News availability, high-quality potential Republican candidates were more likely to challenge Democratic incumbents, especially if the districts were closely competitive.

Kant and Schiller each take up one side of Rousseau so as to heal the rift between nature and freedom: Kant stressing our capacity to repress our natural passions, Schiller stressing Rousseau’s Romanticism and the harmony of freedom and sentiment in aesthetic education. Yet the free self and the natural self remained divided within each individual. Hegel healed this division through a synthesis of Kantian moral rigor and Schillerian love of beauty in which the concept of human nature was jettisoned altogether in favor of a totally historicized understanding of human existence. Hegel also resolved the Rousseauan conflict between our lost natural happiness and the alienating qualities of civilization by relocating Rousseau’s Golden Age of the remote past to the final outcome of civilizational progress, redeeming its alienating aspects as necessary for our fulfillment today. Hegel’s dialectic of Spirit includes his understanding of the ancient Greek polis, his critique of the Rousseau-inspired Jacobin Terror, his defense of passionate political ambition against Kantian moral purity, and his claim to have reconciled reason and revelation as the “self-actualization of God” as history. Hegel’s account of historical progress ignited an intense debate among his successors.

Questions concerning access to, qualifications for, and the distribution of offices were central to practical politics in Italian republics. Equality was the main principle invoked, but often equality was qualified or limited by other considerations. The principle of rotation of office-holding was cherished by many, but the principle of equality of access to office conflicted with the recognition that some were better fitted to govern than others. The proprietorial attitude to office and government characteristic of the citizens of Italian republics affected their attitude to the question of the admission of new men to the regime. The technicalities of electoral procedures were matters of vital interest to citizens because they were so influential in determining the chances of sharing in the benefits and honours, which, rather than participation in decision-making, was for many the principal reason for desiring political office.

Chapter 4 asks: What information do voters have about candidate qualifications? More specifically, this chapter hones in on whether there is a gendered information gap. I investigate the qualification information environment through content analyses of campaign websites as well as analyses of news coverage from the 2016 Senate elections. I gathered data on how female and male Senate candidates in 2016 presented their qualifications on their campaign websites. Female candidates, the results show, talk about their professional experiences much more than male candidates. I pair the campaign website analysis with an exhaustive content analysis of campaign news coverage of the 2016 Senate candidates. These results show a disjuncture in the information female candidates provide about themselves and the information presented in news coverage. Most female candidates talk about their political experience, but female candidates receive less political experience coverage relative to male candidates. The benefit of conducting content analyses in this chapter is that the method has a high level of external validity as I can draw conclusions about the actual amount of qualification information voters have about high-profile female candidates running in actual elections.