" Women Are Underrepresented In Politics, But It's Not For The Reason You Think"

Huffington Post (hat tip: Terry Brennan):

It is also a matter of negative self-perception and self-doubt among women.
“Women are very likely to believe that when they run for office, they don’t do as well as men. There’s no empirical evidence to support that,” said Lawless. “When women run, they actually perform just as well on Election Day, they’re able to raise just as much money, and generally speaking, their media coverage looks very much the same. But what we found was that women who are well-situated to run for office don’t know that and don’t think that. So they believe they’re not qualified because they think women have to be twice as good to get half as far.”

Those who recruit political candidates often share this misperception, Lawless said, and are thus less likely to consider women for political races.

She understands why many people still assume that existing gender roles undermine women’s political ambitions.

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Maybe if other women would stop telling women that they are always going to be discriminated against, they would do better in politics and in life.

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