Abstract
Research on gender and issue competency stereotypes frequently deems security affairs a “stereotypically masculine” domain. Traditionally, men are seen as more credible authorities in arenas such as crime and the military, while women are assumed to be more credible in “stereotypically feminine” ones like childcare and health. But women’s roles in politics, media, and other influential sectors are rapidly changing in the Mediterranean and MENA region. To test the conventional wisdom, we conducted an original, nationally representative survey in Jordan (n=885) focused on the media sector, using an embedded experiment assessing beliefs about the suitability of men versus women to report and offer commentary on national security affairs—specifically, an internal security threat (a high-profile bank robbery). Strong patriarchal norms suggest that the country should be an “easy case” for theories positing bias against women as experts in stereotypically masculine issue areas. Our results, however, do not support this conventional wisdom, instead suggesting egalitarianism and even a modest credibility advantage for women on assumptions about expertise. Theoretically, we contribute by proposing three novel explanations for why and when women in patriarchal contexts may evade classic sexist backlash, and perhaps achieve greater credibility than men, as authorities in traditionally masculine domains.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 434-462 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | Mediterranean Politics |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2023 |
Funding
This work was supported by a grant (NPRP 7-1757-5-261) from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). Support for this research was provided by a grant (NPRP 7-1757-5-261) from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The authors thank this institution for its support and note that all statements made herein are solely the authors’ responsibility. The authors thank Everette Dennis, Justin Martin, Robb Wood, and Marium Saeed for including our vignette experiment in the 2017 Media Use in the Middle East survey, and Kerry Hill for her polling operations expertise and kind guidance. For letting us pick their brains, the authors also thank Russell Lucas, Sean Yom, Shibley Telhami, Annelle Sheline, and participants at the Comparative Politics Workshop at the University of Maryland. The authors also thank the Mediterranean Politics editorial team, in particular Matt Buehler and Frederic Volpi, and the anonymous reviewers for excellent feedback that helped strengthen this article.
Keywords
- Gender
- MENA
- Mediterranean
- national security
- surveys
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Political Science and International Relations