Campaign styles are changing.

Male and female campaign styles aren't as different as they were in the early 1970s, when women first began running for major political office, maintains David Procter, head of Kansas State University's Speech Department. "Political campaigning has evolved to the point where the campaign itself is more important than the candidates gender. Your seeing a merging of feminine and musculine communication styles."

Before women began to run for office, they had been involved in organization on the grass-roots level for male candidates, giving teas, stuffing envelopes, and passing out flyers. Men ran for office on such issues as economic policy, unemployment, national defense, and taxes. Their style was more logical, analytical, and dispassionate. The masculine style--tending to rely more on statistics and cold, hard facts--was successful for many years.

"About the early 1970s is when women started running for office in fairly significant numbers," Procter points out. The next challenge for women and political campaign researchers was to find a strategy that worked for female candidates, a way to combine feminine characteristics and political leadership skills. The U.S. culture stereotypes women as compassionate, nurturing, and nonassertive, while the staple characteristics of politics are combative, aggressive, abusive language, and standing for what the candidate thinks is right. "Political campaigning violates traditional stereotypes we have about women's communication and actions."

Some researchers have maintained that women should play to...