Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Recently, scholars have found that women’s underrepresentation in political office in the U.S. is in large part due to women’s unwillingness to run for public office. I hypothesize that women’s unwillingness to run is based in part on self-presentational concerns. In politics, image matters. A politician must convey competency, credibility, assertiveness, and attentiveness. The primary means by which impressions are conveyed by politicians is through the media. To the extent that women are aware of the scrutiny female politicians are subjected to by the press, they have to consider their self-presentational goals and abilities (do they feel comfortable under such scrutiny) to a greater extent than do men. I have conducted a pilot study investigating the relationship between self-presentational goals and political ambition with a survey of 268 college students (Smith 2006). The results of the pilot study are suggestive that self-presentational concerns matter for young women more than for young men in their decision to consider seeking public office. In this study, I administer a similar survey to approximately 2000 students at eight geographically-dispersed universities throughout the United States to examine how self-presentational goals and socialization interact to influence young women’s political ambition.