Voters don’t have problem with ambitious women in politics: Harvard University Lecturer

Sparsha Saha, Harvard University Department of Government Lecturer joins the On the Move panel to discuss the role that gender plays in the political system based on her paper 'Ambitious Women: Gender and Voter Perceptions of Candidate Ambitions' Co-Authored by University of Bath Assistant Professor Ana Catalano Weeks.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Well, we talked to the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama, Austan Goolsbee, last hour. And he talked about how, in his mind, the representatives that we've seen at the Democratic Convention represent America. He talked about diversity, both racial and ethnic, as well as gender diversity. How is all that going to play?

Let's bring in Sparsha Saha. She is Harvard University Department of Government Lecturer. She's joining us from Chicago. And she's joining us as part of our "Women and Money" segment, sponsored by the USAA.

Now Sparsha, I know that you have done research on how female candidates are perceived among the American electorate. So given that, what do you make of Goolsbee's statement? Not just Kamala Harris, but the other speakers that we saw in the convention and how that is going to play. Oh, Sparsha, you just need to unmute yourself. Sorry. Common mistake.

SPARSHA SAHA: And my light just went off, so--

JULIE HYMAN: That's OK. It's all good.

SPARSHA SAHA: It's all good. Yeah, so my co-author, Ana Catalano Weeks, who is at the University of Bath, and I conducted this research where we surveyed around 4,000 people. And we were asking sort of are women who are perceived to be very ambitious who are running for office penalized by voters?

And what we found repeatedly, survey after survey, was actually no, that voters don't have a problem with ambitious women in politics. And this was surprising to us, but actually in line with a lot of research that finds that there isn't really voter discrimination against female candidates on the part of voters.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Is this issue just going to die off with a generation that, right now, controls political parties? That generation's actually moving aside as we speak. Because I think what you've just said is that most of us actually appreciate strong women, strong men, that that's not a negative.

SPARSHA SAHA: No, absolutely. And what we know-- some really interesting research that's been done has shown that in the last 10 years, bias against a potential female president has halved amongst-- amongst everyone in the US. This was a representative sample.

And so we know that norms are actually changing, and they're changing very quickly. One, I think credit for this really has to be given to Hillary Clinton. And I'm not the first to say this, but she kind of was the martyr, right?

But I think what's kind of missed in that framework is that there's a redemption, right? And so we all were kind of able to see the battles and the obstacles that women in politics face. And I think that really spurred this recognition and awareness of the issues that were facing women and, I think, really have sort of spurred these kinds of norms changing.

What's left to change, I think, are party gatekeepers, right? The old men who kind of like hold that door.

And I think they're very concerned that voters worry, you know, about like, oh, is this woman too ambitious? And so hopefully they are able to kind of learn about our research and find that, no, voters don't care. And in fact, they kind of like it.

RICK NEWMAN: Sparsha, hi. Rick Newman here.

SPARSHA SAHA: Hi.

RICK NEWMAN: The vice-presidential nominee doesn't usually do anything decisive for a presidential nominee. Do you think Kamala Harris could be different?

SPARSHA SAHA: Yes, I think-- I don't know if we're ever going to see a Democratic ticket that's two white men ever again maybe, right? So I think in that way, it's very historic. So there's going to be a lot of attention on it.

The primary rule of VPs is Do No Harm. I think what we saw from her speech at the convention-- it was quite tame. And this was really her effort to kind of introduce herself to everyone. But I hope that they really unleash her moving forward, because voters do want to see the Kamala the go-getter.

They want to see Kamala being the one who's going to kind of give it to the other side. And that wasn't what she was doing at the convention. I hope they change that decision.

DAN HOWLEY: Sparsha, in the study you kind of show how there's a difference between the US and the UK. And you said that US conservatives were a little less, I guess, supportive of the determined female candidates.

So I guess, does that put the US behind the UK? How does-- how do US conservatives kind of push past that?

SPARSHA SAHA: Yeah, so in our survey we did a version in the UK and the US. And we found that actually, in the UK there weren't any differences between parties-- so the conservative party and the liberals. And if anything, the conservatives were a little bit more supportive of ambitious female candidates.

And they've had two female prime ministers who were conservative, so that institutional legacy matters. In the US, we did find this difference. Our study broke down perceived ambitiousness into three different types.

And we saw that women on the right we're not penalized for having kind of a personalistic ambition, like seeming bold, seeming like a tough negotiator, nor were they penalized for wanting to change the agenda in a very ambitious way. However, when it came to office-seeking ambition-- so when you're in a position and your eye is kind of on the next position after that, like if you're a governor and you're kind of thinking about president one day-- Republicans were a little less supportive of that than Democrats were.

So our kind of takeaway was, look, women on the left can lean into all types of ambition. It might be a little trickier for women on the right, who can lean into certain kinds of ambition. But maybe be careful about the kind of presidential office-seeking ambition.

And we know that women on the right in the US really kind of struggle. Women on the left have made tremendous gains in the last decade, and that hasn't really happened for women on the right. And so I hope to see women on the right having a lot of success, hopefully, in this election cycle and in future ones.

JULIE HYMAN: And Sparsha, what you're saying also has implications for an eventual female president, right? Because that person would need to draw from presumably, at least some folks on the left and the right.

Um, when is that going to happen? I mean, I know you're not a forecaster, right? You don't have a crystal ball. But it seems like we're pretty overdue in the United States to have a female president.

SPARSHA SAHA: Yeah. I-- every time this question comes up from my students, from folk I know, my response is just to go, ugh. Because it's really long overdue. I think Kamala Harris is going to be in a really good position.

And I hope she keeps her aspirations up, because I think that would be terrific. And I really would not be surprised if the Democrats, in eight years or four years or whatever it is, have a female nominee.

JULIE HYMAN: Here's to ambitious women. Thank you so much, Sparsha. Sparsha Saha is Harvard University Department of Government Lecturer. Appreciate it. Thanks so much.