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RULING THE WEEK
There’s a puzzle in U.S. politics: If women win elections at the same rates as men, which they do, then why are there still so few women in political office?
In grappling with this oddity, the political science field in recent years has moved away from blaming voter bias and instead focused on why women don’t run as often as men in the first place. The thinking goes: Voters can't be biased, because women win at the same rates as men. The problem instead is that women are more “election-averse” — they either don’t care as much about politics or they underestimate their own qualifications, making them reluctant to enter a race. This reasoning has fueled a push to recruit more women to run for office — because, by this logic, if you just get more women to compete, they’ll win.