Evidence from Belgium shows that gender quotas do not necessarily eliminate voter bias against women candidates

To what extent do electoral gender quotas change voters’ preference for male or female political candidates? Silvia Erzeel and Didier Caluwaerts examine the electoral evidence from Belgium, a country that has progressively adopted gender quota laws since the mid-1990s. They show that although the largest group of Belgian voters now vote for both male and female candidates there is still a voter bias in favour of male candidates. In particular they find that men and voters low in political sophistication still have a higher propensity to vote for men only

Het belang van feministische attituden en contacten voor de substantiële vertegenwoordiging van vrouwen

Vrouwen in de politiek zijn nodig, anders dan mannen hebben zij meer aandacht voor de situatie van de vrouw, zo blijkt uit onderzoek. Is het dan , voor het behartigen van vrouwenbelangen, voldoende om veel vrouwen in de politieke besluitvorming te hebben? Silvia Erzeel en Didier Caluwaerts deden de proef op de som en vroegen parlementsleden, mannen en vrouwen, naar hun feministische bewustzijn

Is It Gender, Ideology or Resources? Individual-Level Determinants of Preferential Voting for Male or Female Candidates

This article examines the role of gender in determining preferential votes for electoral candidates in the 2009 Belgian regional elections. Specifically, we examine how far votes for male or female candidates can be explained through explicit gender-based motives versus being based on other non-gendered grounds. Our findings show that while at least half of the voters express a gender preference and this is typically in favour of male candidates, the determinants of these preferences are not predominantly motivated by gender-based concerns. More important factors are voters’ access to political resources and party affiliation. Politically disengaged and right-wing voters display a clear preference for male candidates. The findings are important in showing that institutional factors only go part of the way to explaining gender imbalances in parliamentary representation. In particular, individuals’ political outlook, rather than explicit gender preference, plays a significant role in determining whether voters support a male or female candidate

Are Conservatism and Feminism Mutually Exclusive in Belgium?

Research on gender and politics has long supported the idea that conservatism and feminism do not abide well. But are conservatism and feminism necessarily that far apart? In our study of voters’ attitudes and behaviour at the occasion of the 2009 regional elections in Flanders, we analyze (1) to what extent citizens combine feminist and conservative attitudes, and (2) whether this combination of attitudes steers citizen’s voting behaviour. Our results indicate that although feminism and conservatism are negatively correlated, they are not mutually exclusive. Up to one fourth of the Flemish voters unites feminist with conservative attitudes. This combination furthermore steers voting behaviour and directs voters to the right end of the political spectrum. We conclude that the relatively high amount of voters combining feminist and conservative views constitutes an interesting electoral pool for parties on the right, although they do not always manage to capitalize on this potential