Moving Beyond Binary Measures of Gender in Political Ambition

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129241255120
• Author: Rolfe Daus Peterson,Carl L. Palmer,Elizabeth Bosanko
• Date: 01 September 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(3) 1037–1045

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129241255120

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Moving Beyond Binary Measures of Gender

in Political Ambition

Rolfe Daus Peterson

1

, Carl L. Palmer

2

, and

Elizabeth Bosanko

1,

*

Abstract

This research considers the effects of gendered personalities on political ambition. The sex gap in political ambition is a

normatively troubling empirical reality. Ambition research is often limited by binary conceptions and measurement of

gender and sex. Recent scholarship urges scholars to employ more nuanced measures, including gendered personality as

a measure beyond sex. Using original survey research incorporating the Bem Sex Roles Inventory (BSRI), we explore

how femininity and masculinity inf‌luence nascent political ambition. Respondents who score higher in masculini ty are

more likely to have higher political ambition regardless of sex. However, sex remains signif‌icant, as female respondents

are less likely to express nascent ambition. The results have implications for understanding the sex gap in political

ambition and how political behavior conceptualizes and measures gender as a variable.

Keywords

gender, masculinity, femininity, personality, gender gap, nascent political ambition

“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”–

Salvador Dali

Recent research on gender and political behavior

makes a compelling case to more fully conceptualize and

measure gender (Bittner and Goodyear-Grant 2017;

McDermott 2016). These scholars persuasively argue that

gender, measured with a dichotomous variable, is theo-

retically and empirically insuff‌icient. While this critique

applies broadly to all research using a binary measure of

gender, it should potentially be heeded most urgently by

scholars who study gender gaps in outcomes. The long-

noted imbalance in political ambition between women and

men is both empirically persistent and normatively trou-

bling (Lawless and Fox2022). The disparity is particularly

vexing when womenof equal experience, intelligence,and

candidate quality consistently express lower ambition than

their male counterparts (Fox and Lawless 2011).

In this paper, we use the logic of gendered personality

drawn from Bem (1974) to explore the relationship be-

tween gendered personality (femininity and masculinity),

as well as sex as predictors of nascent political ambition.

Using an original survey, we f‌ind that incorporating direct

measures of masculinity and femininity enriches our

understanding of factors driving political ambition.

Specif‌ically, when examining whether respondents have

thought about or feel qualif‌ied to run for political off‌ice,

masculinity and femininity have effects independent ofthe

conventional dichotomous measure of sex. While femi-

ninity has a negativeassociation with ambition,masculinity

has positive and robust effects on reported ambition. Even

incorporatingmeasures of gendered personality, sexretains

its inf‌luential effects on the expression of nascent political

ambition. The results have implications for how gender is

conceptualized and measured in political behavior.

Moving Beyond the Binary

Recent scholarship on gendered political behavior argues

convincingly that gender should be understood and de-

ployed as a variable in more granular and ref‌ined ways.

Bittner and Goodyear-Grant state that the standard

1

Political Science, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA, USA

2

Politics and Government, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA

*At the time of writing, Ms. Bosanko was an undergraduate at

Susquehanna University.

Corresponding Author:

Carl L. Palmer, Politics and Government, Illinois State University,

Campus Box 4600, Normal, IL 61790, USA.

Email: clpalme@ilstu.edu