538: Thinking They’re ‘Unqualified’ Is A Big Reason More Women Don’t Run For Office

Is the reason why there are not more women in politics because of sexism, i.e., that people don't vote for them because they are women, or because of a pipeline issue of women deciding not to run? Whatever the reason, the U.S. Congress is still very white and still very male.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-calling-hillary-clinton-unqualified-smacks-of-sexism/

In his Philadelphia remarks, Sanders was attempting to make the basic argument of this election — that “outsiders” are more qualified than “insiders” to run the country at this particular moment. But calling Clinton, a former U.S. senator and secretary of state, “unqualified” is raising ire as a gendered attack, although that didn’t appear to be Sanders’ intention.

While 2016 campaign discussions of sexism have largely been preoccupied with Donald Trump’s blunt force assaults on modern notions of manners, let alone gender equity, Sanders’ remarks and their interpretation play into discussions of the subtle, pernicious forms of sexism that women in positions of power must deal with.

At the core of Clinton’s candidate packaging is the idea that she has for decades been the competent woman behind the scenes — a workhorse, not a show pony.

Clinton is not alone among her cohort in having highly burnished credentials; most female politicians are more qualified than their male counterparts, according to a 2013 paper by political scientists Kathryn Pearson and Eric McGhee. Looking at non-incumbent congressional races from 1984 to 2010, and which candidates had held elected office at a lower level — their metric for qualification — the researchers found that “women candidates in both parties are indeed more qualified than men.”