{"id":227502,"date":"2026-03-25T12:14:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/25\/female-politicians-can-be-punished-at-the-polls-for-not-smiling-but-men-arent\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T12:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:55:14","slug":"female-politicians-can-be-punished-at-the-polls-for-not-smiling-but-men-arent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/25\/female-politicians-can-be-punished-at-the-polls-for-not-smiling-but-men-arent\/","title":{"rendered":"Female politicians can be punished at the polls for not smiling \u2013 but men aren\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"

Female politicians can be punished at the polls for not smiling \u2013 but men aren\u2019t<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/theconversation.com\/female-politicians-can-be-punished-at-the-polls-for-not-smiling-but-men-arent-279011<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-25 12:14:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: theconversation.com<\/a><\/p>\n

When election time comes around, campaign posters feature candidates with a determined look in their eye, their local promises, well thought-out slogans in full view, and a smile \u2013 which particularly among women politicians has become something of a quiet, political prerequisite. <\/p>\n

In 2016, during the Democrat National convention Hillary Clinton was commented more on supposedly not smiling or lacking warmth than on her electoral manifesto. Some years later \u00c9lisabeth Borne, who was then Prime Minister of France, was described several times as being \u201ccold\u201d and \u201cstiff.\u201d Recounting her twenty months spent at Matignon in a book (2024), she explains how her attitude was more harshly judged than if she had been a man. She appears on the cover of her book with a frank smile. In both cases, it was her appearance and allure that was being held against her rather than her ideas.<\/p>\n

Women often get criticised for not smiling. But does this expectation have an impact electorally speaking? In other words, does choosing not to smile cost women more votes than it does men?<\/p>\n

A \u2018smile monitor\u2019 for candidates?<\/h2>\n

A recent study carried out on 9,000 electoral manifestos from local elections in France in 2022 and 2024 subjected the phenomenon to a statistical reality test Lippmann, 2026. The promises that were examined are a precious source of analysis. In France, each elector whether male or female receives a copy before the ballot, presenting their manifesto pledges with a photo of the candidate alongside prominent politicians from the political parties they are affiliated with.<\/p>\n

The emotions and smiles that could be detected or that were missing from the photos were measured with the help of artificial intelligence. Almost 80% of women were perceived to be \u201csmiling\u201d in the photo compared with 60% of men, representing a difference of 19% percentage points. Women appear to be smiling far less than their male counterparts.<\/p>\n

What does a smile cost candidates?<\/h2>\n

The…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Female politicians can be punished at the polls for not smiling \u2013 but men aren\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":227503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/725464\/original\/file-20260320-57-yabhbh.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C100%2C1200%2C600&q=45&auto=format&w=1356&h=668&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-227502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227504,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227502\/revisions\/227504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}