How does an individual's gender identity affect the decision to run for office? In this dissertation, I will examine the role that gender plays in leading to a self-image among potential candidates that influence their progressive ambition and their likelihood of being recruited by others to run for high-level political office. While sex differences have been studied extensively in the context of elections, the influence of masculinity and femininity have yet to be fully explored. In addition, my work brings men further into the discussion of gender and elections than much of the previous literature on the subject. In 2012, I fielded an original survey of a nationally representative sample of city council members to test the effect of masculinity and femininity on factors related to running for high-level political office.

The primary independent variable, masculinity, is based on an existing social psychological measure of gender identity, the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ). In extending the use of the PAQ past its origins in social psychology, I tested the psychometric properties of the instrument for my sample of city council members. There were mixed results regarding sex differences in scores on individual trait scores. The underlying factor structure for the masculinity and femininity sub-scales, however, maintained enough validity to present a valid instrument for use in predictive models. Analysis of the effects of masculinity make up the bulk of the empirical findings. Results indicate that city council members who identify as more masculine are more ambitious, but femininity has no clear effect. This result is robust across multiple regression models and when controlling for other contributing factors.

Those who are more masculine, both men and women, are also more likely to be recruited to run for office by political and personal contacts. The effects of masculinity did not erase all independent effects of sex, however. Men were more ambitious than women in most multivariate analyses, but not in a bivariate analysis. In addition, women were more likely to be recruited than men by political actors, particularly by women's organizations. These findings add an important dimension to the explanations for women's underrepresentation in office. Beyond and independent of the effect of sex directly, masculinity matters in the decision to run for office. If the masculine norms do not change, then there will be a continued gap in women willing to run for office due to the barrier of masculinity.