Major
Political Science
Anticipated Graduation Year
2022
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
In this study, I seek an answer to the question as to whether descriptive representation matters to female onlookers of the Supreme Court on the issue of abortion rights. I gather and analyze data to determine whether female onlookers of the Court exhibit greater trust for fellow women on the bench using survey questions that offer hypothetical case narratives with varying outcomes and ask respondents to rate their trust in justices coded implicitly by gender and ideology. I find no significant difference between the reaction of male and female respondents to male and female justices and conclude that no positive relationship appears to exist between women’s reported degree of trust in justices and descriptive representation by gender
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Dr. Amanda Bryan, Associate Professor, Political Science
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Public Perception of Gender and Legitimacy on the Court: a Study of Descriptive and Substantive Representation
In this study, I seek an answer to the question as to whether descriptive representation matters to female onlookers of the Supreme Court on the issue of abortion rights. I gather and analyze data to determine whether female onlookers of the Court exhibit greater trust for fellow women on the bench using survey questions that offer hypothetical case narratives with varying outcomes and ask respondents to rate their trust in justices coded implicitly by gender and ideology. I find no significant difference between the reaction of male and female respondents to male and female justices and conclude that no positive relationship appears to exist between women’s reported degree of trust in justices and descriptive representation by gender