Women, Sexism, and Politics: Does Psychology Help?

Authors

  • Carmen Lawrence University of Western Australia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.69970/gjlhd.v5i0.910

Abstract

When Julia Gillard replaced Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister, there was, in some quarters at least, celebration that a woman had been accepted as qualified for the job; that we had no problems with a woman in the highest office in the country. Did we? We could say, could we not, that sexism was safely relegated to the past? Similar conclusions were reached when I became Premier in Western Australia it was marked, not just as a first, but as a harbinger of further change. While Gillard’s ascension and the growing numbers of women ministers, state and territory leaders, and members of parliament might encourage the perception that men and women are equally accepted in politics in Australia, other data raise questions about whether this is true.

References

A Articles/Books/Reports

Baird, Julia, Media Tarts (Scribe, 2004)

Banaji, Mahzarin R and Anthony G Greenwald, ‘Implicit stereotyping and prejudice’ in Mark P Zanna, and James M Olson (eds), The psychology of prejudice: The Ontario symposium (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc Publishers, 7th ed, 1995)

Bongiorno, Renata, Paul Bain and Barbara David, ‘If you’re going to be a leader, at least act like it! Prejudice towards women who are tentative in leader roles’ (2014) 53(2) British Journal of Social Psychology 217

Brescoll, Victoria, Erica Dawson and Eric Uhlmann, "Hard Won and Easily Lost: The Fragile Status of Leaders in Gender-Stereotype-Incongruent Occupations’ (2010) 21(11) Psychological Science 1640

Eagly, Alice and Steven Karau, ‘Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders’ (2002) 109(3) Psychological Review 573

Glick, Peter and Susan Fiske, ‘An ambivalent alliance: Hostile and benevolent sexism as complementary justifications for gender inequality’ (2001) 56(2) American Psychologist 109

Glick, Peter and Susan Fiske, ‘The ambivalent sexism inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism’ (1996) 70(3) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 491

Mitchell, Susan, The Scent of Power (Angus & Roberson, 1996)

Moss-Racusin, CA et al, ‘Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students’ (2012) 109 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 16474

Norris, Pippa, ‘Women leaders worldwide: A splash of color in the photo op’ in Pippa Norris (ed), Women, Media and Politics (Oxford University, 1997)

Ross, Karen, ‘Women’s place in ‘male’ space: Gender and effect in parliamentary contexts’ (2002) 55(1) Parliamentary Affairs 189

Ryan, Michelle and Alexander Haslam, ‘The glass cliff: Implicit theories of leadership and gender and the precariousness of women’s leadership positions’ in Birgit Schyns, and James Meindl (eds), Implicit leadership theories: Essays and explorations (CT Information Age, 2005)

Spencer, Steven, Claude Steele and Diane Quinn, ‘Stereotype threat and women's math performance’ (1999) 35(1) Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 4

Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle and Keren Ross, ‘Women MPs and the media: Representing the body politic’ in Joni Lovenduski, and Pippa Norris (eds), Women in Politics (Oxford University Press, 1996)

Summers, Anne, ‘The misogyny factor’ (NewSouth, 2013)

Van Egmond, Marcel et al, ‘A stalled revolution? Gender role attitudes in Australia, 1986-2005’ (2010) 27(3) Journal of Population Research 147

Downloads

Published

22.04.2017

Issue

Section

Gender, Culture, and Narrative Special Issue