There is much hope that a world with more women leaders would be more peaceful. But gender stereotypes give women leaders political incentives to behave like “iron ladies” in foreign affairs rather than peacemakers. 

In an interview on Fox News, Donald Trump said the following about how America’s enemies would respond to a potential Kamala Harris presidency: “I think they’ll walk all over her. She’ll be so easy for them. She’ll be like a play toy…And I don’t want to say as to why, but a lot of people understand it.” Although Trump does not explain what he is referring to, a good bet is that he is demeaning Harris because she is a woman. This statement reflects a broader gender stereotype that women are weaker than men and less competent in the realm of national security. Unfortunately, sexist beliefs like these have the potential to distort the foreign policy choices made by female commanders-in-chief around the world. To prove their toughness, our research demonstrates that women leaders have political incentives to behave like “iron ladies” rather than peacemakers, and to eschew—not pursue—peace with foreign adversaries.  

The hope and promise of greater female leadership  

Public polling has consistently demonstrated a gender gap in support for the use of force. Whether due to socialisation or bio-evolutionary factors, women members of the public are generally more likely to want peace. In fact, scholars have found compelling evidence of a “suffragist peace,” whereby countries that empower women to vote are less likely to go to war. These dynamics have fuelled hope that a world with more women leaders would also be more peaceful.  

For example, former President Barack Obama said that with more women leaders in high political offices worldwide “there would be less war.” In a prominent book about why violence has declined over time, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker said, “Over the long sweep of history, women have been and will be a pacifying force. Traditional war is a man’s game.” Former Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg boldly predicted that, “No two countries run by women would ever go to war.” Given the explosion of violent conflict in recent years—from the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars to the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan—greater female leadership offers a tantalising solution.  

The reality of sex discrimination in the realm of foreign policy 

Perhaps in part because of the aforementioned gender gap in support for the use of force, the public holds strong gender stereotypes that women are more inclined towards peace and less competent in the realm of national security than men.  

For example, Geraldine Ferraro—the only female, Democratic vice-presidential candidate before Kamala Harris—was asked at the vice-presidential debate in 1984 whether “[she thought] in any way that the Soviets might be tempted to try and take advantage of [her] simply because [she was] a woman?” Similar questions dogged her entire campaign. In a follow-up on Meet the Press, hosts questioned whether Ferraro was “strong enough to push the [nuclear] button.” While that was almost 40 years ago, polls taken in 2008, 2018, and 2020 continue to show that many Americans still believe that men are better equipped to handle national security issues than women. Furthermore, across more than 80 countries, polling reveals a preference for male leadership in times of threat.  

Consequently, even if women leaders are more likely to want peace, they face political incentives to combat gender-stereotypical expectations of weakness by adopting relatively hawkish policies. It is therefore no surprise that we observe “iron ladies” throughout history, from Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir to Indira Gandhi and Tansu Çiller. Even in the United States, high-ranking women foreign policymakers like Madeleine Albright, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton often advocated more aggressive foreign policies than their male counterparts.  

Our research points to two specific ways sexism bleeds into foreign policy.  

Women leaders are punished more than men for pursuing peace 

“Only Nixon could go to China.” The logic of this adage is that it is harder, from a domestic political perspective, for dovish leaders to pursue peace with foreign adversaries than for hawks like Nixon to do so. Since doves are perceived as predisposed toward wanting peace, their attempts at rapprochement are met with greater skepticism. The public questions whether dovish leaders are pursuing peace because it is truly in the national interest, or simply because they are ideologically inclined toward reconciliation.  

Polling we conducted on the American public indicates it would be similarly difficult for a female leader—such as Kamala Harris—to (metaphorically) “go to China.” In August 2021, we fielded a nationally-representative survey experiment on the American public. The survey introduced respondents to a hypothetical scenario set in 2027 involving heightened tensions between the US and China. We then randomly varied whether the president was a man or woman and whether the president chose to pursue rapprochement with China or not.  

The results were striking. Women leaders were punished over 11 percentage points more than male leaders for pursuing identical reconciliation policies towards China. The discrimination women leaders face for attempting rapprochement disincentivises them from pursuing peace in the first place. Despite the growing tensions between the United States and China, and the desperate humanitarian need for some kind of negotiated settlement to the Russia-Ukraine War, these dynamics might make it less likely that a President Harris would have the political leeway to seek peaceful solutions.  

Real-world evidence from confidential interviews known as the “Afghanistan Papers” also illustrates our argument. Barnett Rubin—the senior advisor to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Obama administration—noted the following of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “S[he] was very reluctant to move on [peace with the Taliban]…If you want to be the first woman president you cannot leave any hint or doubt that you’re not the toughest person on national security.”  

Women leaders are punished more than men for backing down from threats  

If a female leader makes a threat against a foreign enemy and then backs down from that threat, we expect she will activate gender stereotypes about women’s “lack of fit” for the role of commander-in-chief and confirm harmful, stereotypical misperceptions of women’s foreign policy ineptitude. We provided evidence for this dynamic in another nationally representative survey experiment we conducted in 2019. Participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario involving the invasion of a foreign country. We again randomly varied whether the US president was a man or woman, in addition to whether the president issued a military threat to push out the invaders and whether the president followed through on their threat or not.  

Disapproval among the American public is a striking 20 percentage points higher among the American public when women executives make a threat and back down than when male leaders take the same action. These costs for backing down confer both disadvantages and theoretical advantages for women leaders like Kamala Harris. On the negative side, women presidents will find it politically more difficult to back down from threats, which could make it harder to deescalate crises. On the positive side, this should theoretically make a woman president’s threats more credible to foreign enemies, since she is less likely to back down (for fear of domestic backlash at the polls). Of course, this relies on adversaries understanding these dynamics and not themselves believing in gender stereotypes that women are more likely to back down. 

Interestingly, our study also shows that the increasing presence of women in executive offices around the world also matters for men. Male leaders are punished disproportionately if they make a threat and fail to uphold it when the foreign leader they threaten is a woman. This suggests that foreign male leaders like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un may find it particularly difficult to back down from a threat directed towards a future President Harris.  

More female leaders won’t necessarily lead to more peace  

Given the political incentives female leaders have to behave more like iron ladies rather than peacemakers, greater women’s leadership may, regrettably, not have the dramatic pacifying effect that many optimists believe. However, there is hope for the future. First, as the world makes progress towards ending gender discrimination, the pressure on female leaders to prove their toughness may abate. Second, courageous female leaders can prioritise peace, even if it comes at the expense of their electoral prospects. Still, it is unfair—even if unsurprising—that women leaders continue to face gender-based discrimination in the 21st century. 

Joshua A. Schwartz is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology. You can follow him on X @JoshuaASchwartz. 

Christopher W. Blair is an Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University. You can follow him on X @Chris_W_Blair. 

This review is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.