Women on the Run Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era

Claims of bias against female candidates abound in American politics. From superficial media coverage to gender stereotypes held by voters, the conventional wisdom is that women routinely encounter a formidable series of obstacles that complicate their path to elective office. Women on the Run challenges that prevailing view and argues that the declining novelty of women in politics, coupled with the polarization of the Republican and Democratic parties, has left little space for the sex of a candidate to influence modern campaigns. The book includes in-depth analyses of the 2010 and 2014 congressional elections, which reveal that male and female House candidates communicate similar messages on the campaign trail, receive similar coverage in the local press, and garner similar evaluations from voters in their districts. When they run for office, male and female candidates not only perform equally well on Election Day - they also face a very similar electoral landscape.

1. Gender, myth, and reality on the campaign trail; 2. Rethinking and reassessing gender differences on the campaign trail; 3. That's what she said, and so did he; 4. Sex is no story; 5. The party, not the person; 6. The origins and implications of perceptions of gender bias.

Danny Hayes is Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, Washington DC. A former journalist, his research focuses on how information from the media and other political actors influences citizens' attitudes and behavior. He is the co-author of Influence from Abroad: Foreign Voices, the Media, and US Public Opinion (Cambridge, 2013).
Jennifer L. Lawless is Professor of Government at American University, Washington DC, where she is also the Director of the Women and Politics Institute. She is the author of Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition and the Decision to Run for Office (Cambridge, 2012) and the co-author of Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned Off to Politics (2015) and It Still Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (Cambridge, 2010).