Research Translation

How do perceptions of women’s political representation affect our thinking about U.S. politics?

November 3, 2026
Kelly Dittmar

How do perceptions of women’s political representation affect our thinking about U.S. politics?

The earliest research in women and American politics began by establishing measures of women’s representation and determining the number of women officeholders in the U.S. By documenting women’s acute underrepresentation, scholars and practitioners alike could identify and address hurdles to advancing gender parity in government. But over time, during which women have increased their political representation at all levels of office, two important questions have arisen: 

  1. Are people’s perceptions of women’s political representation reflective of reality?
  2. What effects do those perceptions – whether accurate or not – have on Americans’ views on women’s political representation, political efficacy and engagement, and feelings about government?

The answers to these questions have significant implications for political practice. Research shows that both addressing misperceptions of women’s political representation and promoting women’s inclusion as candidates and officeholders in U.S. politics matters for increasing Americans’ trust in and positive evaluations of government, their beliefs that they have a say in government, and their political engagement. 

Do people in the U.S. accurately perceive the level of women’s political representation?

While findings vary by study, the most consistent finding is that a majority of Americans misestimate women’s political representation. In a national survey conducted in February 2019, Barry Burden and Yoshikuni Ono found that respondents on average overestimated women’s congressional and state legislative representation.1 Kira Sanbonmatsu’s analysis of 2018 data showed that 29.2% of Americans over-estimated, 39.6% underestimated, and 31.2% estimated correctly the percentage of women in Congress.2 In her analysis of who is most likely to misestimate women’s presence in office, Katelyn Stauffer concludes, “Nearly everyone.”3 One consistent finding across studies is that Republicans estimate higher representation of women in political office than Democrats.4

How do perceptions of women’s political representation shape beliefs and behavior?

Many scholars have investigated whether the number of women in political office affects things like citizen trust, engagement, ambition, or perceptions of efficacy — especially among women and other historically-underrepresented groups. In her new book, The Politics of Perception: How Beliefs About Women’s Inclusion Shape Democratic Legitimacy in the U.S., Katelyn Stauffer argues that beliefs of women’s representation are “politically consequential,” particularly to perceptions of democratic legitimacy.5 Other scholars have also evaluated the impact of perceived versus actual levels of women’s representation on political beliefs and behavior. 

Support for Increasing Women’s Representation

In two studies, Kira Sanbonmatsu has found that those who overestimate women’s political representation are less supportive of electing more women to office, while those who underestimate women’s political representation express support for increasing it.6 Likewise, Katelyn Stauffer finds that those who perceive the lowest levels of women’s representation are most likely to support actions that promote women’s inclusion, and those who overestimate women’s representation are least supportive of efforts to increase women’s officeholding.7

Positive Views of Government

In her book, Stauffer finds that Americans – both women and men – who estimate a higher percentage of women in Congress are more likely to trust the government in Washington “to do the right thing” and agree that “very little of the money we pay in taxes is wasted by the government.”8 Similarly, she finds that Americans who perceive Congress as more gender inclusive are more likely to approve of it. That approval may be motivated by another finding that, “when Americans believe women are included in policymaking bodies, they believe those institutions are better functioning and more capable of producing good policy outcomes.”9

When each of these findings are analyzed by party and gender, Stauffer finds that perceptions of women’s inclusion in Congress have a positive effect on trust in government, congressional approval, and procedural capacity for Democratic women, Democratic men, and Republican women. The tie between perceived inclusion of women and beliefs about the substantive capacity of Congress to address key policy issues is significant for Democrats but not Republicans.

Referencing these findings collectively, Stauffer concludes that results from her study “suggest that large swaths of Americans believe that government works better when they believe women are present.”10

Political Efficacy

Stauffer also finds that Americans who estimate a higher percentage of women are in Congress report higher levels of “external political efficacy,” meaning they are more likely to believe government officials care about what people like them think and that people like them have a say in what the government does. She finds that this boost in perceptions of efficacy occurs among Democratic women, Democratic men, and Republican women. 

Political Engagement

In their recent book, See Jane Run: How Women Politicians Matter for Young People, David Campbell and Christina Wolbrecht evaluate the impact of both real and perceived representation of women candidates on the political engagement of adolescents specifically. Instead of evaluating the impact of perceptions of women’s collective representation (e.g. in Congress overall) as Stauffer does, they measure the effects of women’s presence as political candidates – as recalled by respondents – within adolescents’ own districts or states. 

They find that when young people perceive that women candidates are present, they are more likely to report expecting to vote in the future and to envision themselves running for office one day. These positive effects are concentrated among Democratic girls and Republican boys, which the authors suggest is due to contrasting forces of inspiration versus threat or backlash to women’s representation. While much of their text focuses on the positive effects of women’s actual representation, Campbell and Wolbrecht conclude, “It is the perception of women candidates that has a consistent effect on political engagement, not merely their presence.”11 

Implications

If we want all Americans to have greater trust in and positive evaluations of government, to believe they have a say in government, and to engage more in politics and government, the research presented here suggests that we need to address people’s beliefs about gender inclusivity in government as well as continue efforts to increase women’s political representation. 

Women fall far short of parity with men at every level of office in the United States. The research outline above shows that the overestimation of women’s political presence can dampen support for increasing women’s political representation, including targeted efforts to promote women’s political inclusion. Stauffer finds, however, that overestimation can be corrected through education and awareness-raising of the underrepresentation of women in political office. 

The underestimation of women’s political presence is likely to motivate support for increasing women’s representation. Correcting misperceptions among underestimators might reduce this support but should increase trust in government in ways that might promote greater political engagement among those for whom women’s inclusion yields greater institutional trust and efficacy. 

If correcting misperceptions of women’s representation occurs alongside efforts to increase women’s candidacies and officeholding, both perceptions and realities of women’s political inclusion will increase Americans’ beliefs that government: cares about and will listen to people like them; is trustworthy; and is capable of functioning effectively and producing good policy outcomes. For some, believing in women’s inclusion will also motivate greater political engagement. As Stauffer concludes, “Simply adding women will do little if the public does not know that these women are there. Thus, in order for women’s representation to truly transform citizen-government relations, institutions must also do the work of making these women visible in an effort to correct public knowledge and perceptions of women’s inclusion.”12

To test your own knowledge about women’s current levels of political representation, see CAWP’s real-time data for each level of office in the U.S. 

 

Endnotes

1 Burden, Barry C., and Yoshikuni Ono. 2020. “Ignorance is Bliss? Age, Misinformation, and Support for Women’s Representation.” Public Opinion Quarterly 84 (4): 838–59.

2 Sanbonmatsu, Kira. 2021. "Public Support for ‘More’ Women in Congress." Politics, Groups, and Identities 9 (3): 646–56.

3 Stauffer, Katelyn E. 2025. The Politics of Perception: How Beliefs about Women’s Inclusion Shape Democratic Legitimacy in the U.S. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

4 Burden and Ono 2020; PerryUndem. 2021. “Understanding the 2020 Election, the Electorate, and the Trump Years.”  https://perryundem.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/PerryUndem-Post-Election-Survey-Report.pdf; Niebler, Sarah, and A. Lanathea Mathews-Schultz. 2021. “What Do Pennsylvania Voters Think About Gender and Women’s Representation? What We Learned From 2016 and 2018 Exit Polls.” Commonwealth 21 (1): 7–29; Stauffer 2025

5 Stauffer 2025

6 Sanbonmatsu, Kira. 2003. “Gender-Related Political Knowledge and the Descriptive Representation of Women.” Political Behavior 25 (4): 367–88; Sanbonmatsu 2021

7 Stauffer, Katelyn E. 2018. “The Sum of its Parts? Women’s Collective Representation and American Evaluations of Political Institutions.” PhD Dissertation, Indiana University.

8 Stauffer 2025

9 Stauffer 2025, 113

10 Stauffer 2025, 142

11 Campbell, David E., and Christina Wolbrectht. See Jane Run: How Women Politicians Matter for Young People. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 120.

12 Stauffer 2025, 186

 

Authors

Kelly Dittmar

Associate Professor of Political Science, Rutgers-Camden; Director of Research and CAWP Scholar, Center for American Women in Politics