Filipino Voter’s Consideration of Gender as a Factor in Choosing Their Preferred Candidates

Election is the process by which citizens elect representatives who will constitute and enact
policies and decisions that will govern them. The Institute for Political and Electoral Reform of
the Philippines (2004) posited that there are a variety of methods to analyze voting and
elections. The heading of the Suffrage in Article V of the 1987 Philippine Constitution
corresponds to Voting Rights. Thus, others have transcribed “suffrage” as “Karapatan sa Halal.”
Moreover, every election, voters’ preferences vary based on different factors. According to
Bratton (2013), “voting preference is choosing for whom to vote.” Factors that have effect on
voting preferences are a vital subject matter in political science as well as sociology (Kurtbas,
2015).

Furthermore, gender is considered as one of the important aspects of the candidate evaluation.
Hence, there is a need to dig further into the existing research since gender has become an
important aspect of this study. Voters evaluate candidates through stereotypical thinking (e.g.,
Schneider & Bos, 2014), noting that several of these stereotypes are gender related (e.g.,
Huddy & Terkildsen, 1933; Winter, 2010). However, Schneider & Bos (2019) apply social role
theory in order to study gender in politics. According to their findings, men support policies that
fit the agentic gender role on the other hand women support policies that fit the communal
gender role. Aside from that, it shows a myriad of approaches in which entrenched gender roles
could perhaps affect political engagement and prejudice in voting. That being the case, there is
a major and static gender gap in perceptions of male and female political leaders. The gender
gap in voting as defined by Gothreau (2021), refers to the difference in the percentage of
women and men voting for a certain candidate. Thereby, it is necessary to take into
consideration that gender biases exist among voters. Such that, the voting gap between men
and women is exacerbated by many of these biases. Sanbonmatsu (2000) indicated that
several voters prefer to use gender as one of the approaches to evaluate candidates.
Additionally, it is also a way of predicting a candidate’s beliefs as well as the competency on
various issues. Such that, men and women have different strengths in the political arena as
believed by various voters. For this reason, gender as a factor affects voters’ choice to vote in
elections.

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%20the%20women%20who%20had%20a%20preference%2C%20most,professor%20of
%20political%20science%20at%20Ohio%20State%20University.