Women running for president: female leaders and campaigning

The paper intends to analyze the styles of leadership of women running for the highest public offices. As the recent cases of Ségolène Royal in France and Hillary Clinton in U.S. have shown, the fact that a women stands as a candidate for the presidency raises many questions about gender stereotypes and the potential role of candidate sex in elections. First, the paper intends to offer an overview of different approaches to women as leaders in relation to political leadership and campaigning styles. The analysis will address the following questions: Do women candidates possess particular skills in communication and campaign differently from men? Does the evidence support the view of a substantial gender difference in leadership style? Second, the paper discusses the role of gender stereotypes in the way voters react to women political leaders. Stereotyping is a common psychological process by which media and voters evaluate political candidates. By combining research on media coverage and public attitudes toward female leaders, the analysis aims at identifying the specific frames that affect the representation of female political leadership in electoral campaigns.