Is the Future Female? Lessons from a Conjoint Experiment on Voter Preferences in Six Arab Countries

Despite growing evidence of pro-female bias in the electorate elsewhere, conventional wisdom holds that voters in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) prefer male candidates, presumably due to sexism. We test this conventional wisdom using a conjoint experiment administered to over 30,000 respondents in six MENA countries. We find both male and female respondents are more likely to express support for female candidates and see them as more capable than their male counterparts, even in stereotypically male domains. We argue the increasing demand for political outsiders explains these results. In highlighting the importance of such changes, our study expands the application of gender congruity theory in the MENA and beyond by offering evidence that both changes in gender stereotypes (i.e., gender roles) and in what citizens desire in leaders (i.e., leader roles) reduce anti-female bias at the polls.