Twice as Hard, Half as Good
What are women’s pathways to political office? And what are the barriers they face along the way that can explain the continued lack of women’s representation in elected office?
To answer these questions, this ERC-funded Horizon 5-year mixed methods research project reconsiders the “gender penalty” faced by women candidates accounting for their everyday experiences on the campaign trail. We ask whether women are working “twice as hard” to achieve similar levels of electoral success.
To better understand how everyday encounters on the campaign trail – whether online, offline, or in the media - shape women’s campaign efforts and chances at electoral success, this ambitious five-year program of research captures candidate experiences and assesses their impact on electoral outcomes. We employ a mixed-methods approach, bringing together ethnographic participant-observation of candidates on the campaign trail in four countries with quantitative media analysis, candidate surveys and a battery of items administered in Round 11 of the European Social Survey to create a cross-national gender attitudes index. This rich data generates new insights into the causes of women’s continued under-representation in politics.
Research objectives
Research objectives
- Reconceptualise voter bias by understanding the dimensions of voter sexism
- To understand how and under which conditions women candidates experience sexism and violence on the campaign trail
- To understand how the media shape the “gender penalty” and the “twice as good” effect
Publications and reports
Publications and reports
Peer-reviewed journal articles
Dutta, A., Banducci, S. & Camargo, C.Q. Divided by discipline? A systematic literature review on the quantification of online sexism and misogyny using a semi-automated approach. Scientometrics 130, 4915–4971 (2025).
Book chapters
Arabaghatta Basavaraj, K. , English, P., & Banducci, S. (2025) Candidate Experience and the ‘Gender Penalty’ in the 2019 General Election, in eds, Banducci, S., Horvath, L., Kolpinskaya, E., & Stevens, D., Media and the British General Elections of 2015-2019, Edinburgh University Press
Written evidence
Banducci, S., Tyler, K., Fagin, J., Blamire, J., Tirado Castro, A., van Zijl, J., Addressing Candidate Security in Contemporary Election Campaigns, submitted to the Speaker's Conference on the security of candidates, MPs and elections
Reports
Alexander, A., Banducci, S., Coffe, H., Fortin-Rittberger, J. and Fraile Maldonado, M. BSA 42, Gender Identity, National Centre for Social Research, 16 September, 2025
Alexander, A., Banducci, S., Coffe, H., Fortin-Rittberger, J. and Fraile Maldonado, M., Gender in contemporary Europe: Rethinking equality and the backlash, Topline results from Round 11 of the European Social Survey, ESS Topline Results Series (14), 5 June 2025
Van Zijl J., Examining Women’s Experiences on the Campaign Trail: Campaign Ethnographies in the 2023 Dutch Provincial Elections - A Pilot Study for TWICEASGOOD. Examining Women’s Experiences on the Campaign Trail: Campaign Ethnographies in the 2023 Dutch Provincial Elections - Summary Report 26 July 2023
Selected Conference Papers
Banducci, S., Beyond the Binary: Advancing Cross-National Measures of Gender Identity, American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting and Exhibition, Vancouver, Canada, September 2025
Blamire, J., Exploring women candidates’ experiences on the campaign trail: campaign ethnographies in the 2024 UK general election, Associotion of Social Anthropologists UK (ASA) Conference, University of Birmingham, UK, April 2025
Ekinci, E. I., Çarkoglu, A., Banducci, S., The Gender Penalty in Turkish Politics: Social Media Campaign Efforts and Candidate Renomination, 15th Annual Conference of the European Political Science Association (EPSA), Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain, June 2025
Fagin, J. "Sometimes People Just Need Someone to Shout At": Women Political Candidates Navigating Anger and Apathy on the Campaign Trail During the 2024 UK General Election, Political Science Association (PSA) Conference, Birmingham, UK, April 2025
Senk, K., van Zijl, J. Banducci, S., Collignon, S. Is it more costly to be visible or to be viable? Violence Against Women Candidates in Subnational Elections,
Political Science Association (PSA) Conference, Birmingham, UK, April 2025
Tirado Castro, A. & Senk, K., Polarized Hearts and Minds: Gender Differences in Affective Polarization, European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG), Ghent, Belgium, July 2024
Van Zilj, J., The Campaign Heat: Navigating Violence. 28th World Conference of Political Science, International Political Association (IPSA) conference, Seoul, Korea, July 2025
