Ambivalent Sexism and Election

I argue that sexism shaped voters’ reactions not only toward Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but also played an important role further down the ballot. I draw on the concept of ambivalent sexism to explore the impact of both traditional “hostile” sexism as well as “benevolent” sexism—subjectively positive yet disempowering reactions to traditional women. Drawing on a nationally representative survey that included measures of Americans’ views of actual candidates and members of Congress, as well as a conjoint experiment with fictitious candidates, I show that both faces of sexism matter for electoral politics, albeit in systematically different ways. I conclude that sexism played a broad and nuanced role in 2016, and urge that we move beyond arguments over the relative roles of racism, sexism, and economic concerns in the election to explore the longer-term trends by which gender considerations structure contemporary American politics.