Goodbye, Gender Stereotypes? Trait Attributions to Politicians in 11 Years of News Coverage

Abstract

In this study, we examine gender differences in political news coverage to determine whether the media employ stereotypical traits in portrayals of 1,095 U.S. politicians. Using a sample of over 5 million U.S. news stories published from 2010 to 2020, we study the media’s attribution of gender-linked (feminine, masculine) and political (leadership, competence, integrity, empathy) traits to U.S. politicians and present new longitudinal evidence for political gender stereotyping in the news. Our findings show that certain gender differences are present in news coverage (e.g., physical traits), some of which have remained unchanged over the past decade (e.g., integrity traits).