#ImWithHer, but she has to show up first.
self-doubt is driving the gender gap in political ambition
Here’s what this isn’t going to be: a women-blaming rant, ignorant of the very real barriers women must catapult themselves over to be successful. Instead, I think it’s important to counter the idea that most people don’t want to elect women just because they’re women.
In fact, women are just as likely to win a campaign as men. This may go against the pervasive narratives we adopt as fact, but the large gender division in our political institutions is not due to sex discrimination.
The problem isn’t that women don’t win enough campaigns, but rather that not enough women run, to begin with.
Girls Just Wanna Not Run is a policy report by researchers at American University and Loyola Marymount University. The 2013 publication examined the tendency for women to fall into an ambition gap when it comes to pursuing political careers.
2,100 female college students aged 18–25 were surveyed in this study. Ultimately researchers found that as women are entering their first careers there is already a noticeable gap in women positioning themselves for political futures.
The researchers went beyond these findings to identify five factors that contribute to the…
