Abstract
In recent years, a series of polls have found that majorities of voters at least claim to be willing to vote for a female presidential candidate. For example, a poll of registered voters conducted by the Siena College Research Institute found that 81 percent of voters would vote for a woman for president. And prior to Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign of 2008, polls found that about 60 percent of voters said they expected a woman to be the Democrats’ nominee for president in 2008.¹ These numbers show a significant increase in recent decades in the public’s perception of females’ ability