Taking A Social Relational (and Developmental) Perspective on the Roots of Gender Gaps in Political Leadership
Year: 2021

As the quote from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg notes, girls and women should belong in all places where decisions are made including the political arena. Heck and colleagues argue that developmental approaches will help us understand why there continues to be gender gaps in achieving this important goal. Developmental scholars reading the Heck et al. article will agree that developmental science has much to offer for understanding the gender gap in political engagement, attitudes, and interests. As developmental scientists we are accustomed to "playing the long game" in which we try to pinpoint crucial early events that have direct or indirect and cascading effects on later outcomes. By taking a deep dive into developmental research on STEM interests, Heck and colleagues make a strong and convincing case for the value of developmental research in general, and then apply these same ideas as a starting point for deepening our understanding of why men are more likely than women to become interested and engaged in political leadership. In doing so, Heck et al remind readers that developmentalists have much to say about the early origins of these topics and they provide insight into effective early intervention (also see Patterson et al. 2019) Our intention in this commentary is to expand on the proposed framework by highlighting an area of contribution that can be made to this topic by developmental scientists who study gender development, and specifically, gender socialization. The processes and settings in which gender socialization occurs are critical to the understanding of gender gaps in general and in political leadership specifically. Given that one of us (i.e. Martin) has spent much of her career focused on understanding gender development (e.g. Martin, Andrews, England, Ruble, Zosuls, 2017) and that both of us conduct research on the development and consequences of relationships with peers, deciding how to focus this commentary was not easy. After considerable thought and even a false start or two, we decided to focus this commentary on a topic that received little attention in the Heck et al. article the social context of development specifically, the peer context. Our comments highlight what is known about the different socialization experiences of young girls and boys as a result of their differing peer contexts and speculate how these peer group experiences might relate to later gender gaps in political engagement. Although most of the work on political development and socialization focuses on older children, youth, and adults, it is essential to recognize that political and civic engagement and interest have their roots in early childhood and our commentary focuses on those early beginnings. It also is important to recognize that gender socialization involves the child as an active processor of information. Although it may be easy to assume that there is a passive transmission of information to children, the evidence is clear: children do not unquestioningly accept what they hear. Instead, they actively engage with information; they seek it out, and in doing so, they may exaggerate, distort, or minimize messages. In this way, children "self socialize" into gender roles (see Cook et al. in press) But even with much of socialization being driven by children, the social environments that surround them provides the content, that is, the information about roles, norms, interests, styles, and behaviors linked to gender and so understanding how peers contribute to children's socialization is crucial for gender development and the development of gender gaps. Gender socialization processes occurring in peer groups provide insights into why the pathways for girls and boys might begin to diverge during childhood and adolescence. In efforts to understand gender gaps in the political realm, political scientists have found evidence that in adolescents and college students, gender attitudes about running for office may result "from deeply embedded socialized norms that are conveyed long before women and men find themselves in the candidate eligibility pool" (Fox Lawless, 2014, p. 449) We believe these norms are conveyed at a very early age within children's peer groups. From the time children come together in groups, peer groups tended to be highly segregated by gender. As such, girls and boys grow up in different social relational contexts that provide differential experiences and likely contribute to the gender gaps. These peer contexts initiate, constrain, reinforce, and magnify children's self perceptions and experiences, and also contribute to the support or lack of support an individual may feel for political engagement, thus contributing in multiple ways to the gender gap in political leadership. Furthermore, this research suggests that a viable strategy for