PhD candidate Alexis Jang has published a new article in Journal of Peace Research.
The article, titled, "How portraying women's wartime victimization shapes perceptions of their leadership potential," looks at the relationship between women's portrayal as victims of war and public attitudes toward women's leadership capabilities. Jang analyzed over 15,000 Facebook posts from 17 major news outlets covering conflicts in Afghanistan, Israel–Palestine, and Ukraine–Russia and found that "women's wartime suffering is a persistent feature of conflict coverage, consistently outnumbering references to men's victimization and frequently linked to children, sexual violence, and social vulnerability."
Jang then looked at "an original preregistered survey experiment in the United States [that] provides causal evidence that exposure to narratives emphasizing women's wartime suffering increases support for women's leadership in peacebuilding, including conflict resolution and postconflict negotiations. These effects, however, do not extend to support for women's leadership in militarized security domains such as national defense or warfare, revealing an asymmetry in how victimhood shapes gendered leadership evaluations."
Read the abstract below and the full article and research on the journal's website.
Abstract:
Does portraying women as wartime victims shape citizens’ perceptions of their leadership potential? Conflict-related media coverage disproportionately frames women as victims of war, yet little is known about whether these portrayals shape public attitudes toward women's political authority in security and foreign policy—domains in which women remain significantly underrepresented. Highlighting gendered victimization may increase support for women's representation by casting women as especially attuned to humanitarian suffering and the needs of vulnerable populations. At the same time, such portrayals may activate paternalistic protectionism that undercuts confidence in women's political authority. Analysis of over 15,000 Facebook posts from 17 major news outlets covering conflicts in Afghanistan, Israel–Palestine, and Ukraine–Russia shows that women's wartime suffering is a persistent feature of conflict coverage, consistently outnumbering references to men's victimization and frequently linked to children, sexual violence, and social vulnerability. An original preregistered survey experiment in the United States (N = 995) provides causal evidence that exposure to narratives emphasizing women's wartime suffering increases support for women's leadership in peacebuilding, including conflict resolution and postconflict negotiations. These effects, however, do not extend to support for women's leadership in militarized security domains such as national defense or warfare, revealing an asymmetry in how victimhood shapes gendered leadership evaluations. Exploratory analyses further indicate that although victimization narratives heighten support for women's descriptive and substantive representation, they also strengthen benevolent sexism, which activates stereotypes that women lack the competence associated with hard security roles. Together, these findings suggest that highlighting women's wartime experiences can broaden demand for their inclusion in peacebuilding, yet expanding their authority in militarized security roles will require long-term shifts toward gender-egalitarian norms.
