Women against Putin: gendered security threats and female leaders

Do female candidates experience electoral advantages or disadvantages when confronted with security threats? While extant studies tend to focus on domestic factors contributing to the electoral disadvantages of female candidates, I explore how certain security threats provide distinct electoral advantages to female candidates. I specifically examine gendered security threats and their impact on female candidates vying for top offices. States occasionally weaponize gender stereotypes and employ misogynistic rhetoric for tactical advantages, bringing them to the forefront of security crises. Driven by gender-based and personal threat perceptions, female candidates targeted by such gendered assaults seek ontological security by acting against type, preferring outright confrontation to pragmatism or engagement. During times of crisis, this hawkish turn helps them garner greater public support and enhance their electoral appeal by defying gender stereotypes and showcasing their assertiveness. I draw on Russia’s aggression in the former Soviet bloc, particularly the Crimean annexation, as an illustrative case of gendered security threats to probe the plausibility of the hypothesis. The empirical analysis examines female leaders in the region elected after 2014, using difference-in-difference designs and quasi-placebo tests. Finally, I supplement the quantitative findings with within-case evidence from the 2014 Lithuanian presidential election. This study holds particular significance for foreign policy and academic discourses in light of the recent rise of hypermasculine autocrats, on one hand, and the growing number of female leaders in democracies, on the other hand.