Jessica C. Smith

Most British young men reject the far right - UK in a changing Europe Emilia Belknap and Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte explain their analysis on the demographics of Reform UK voters in the UK. They argue that while the dominant narrative is that young men are the most likely ...

"The data shows no evidence to suggest that younger men are more inclined than other demographic groups to support the British far right"

✍️ @turnbulldugarte.com & @emiliabelknap.bsky.social analyse the demographics of Reform voters and argue the gender gap is marginal

ukandeu.ac.uk/most-british...

Are you interested in researching gender and inequalities? Join us for our Gender and Inequalities Research Collaboration Event next month, 5 Nov 2025. More details in our infographic below. If you're interested in attending, please email us at gain@soton.ac.uk so that we can get an idea of numbers!

Submit your abstracts to our ECPG Section for Newcastle 2026 👇

A must read right now by some brilliant colleagues 👇👇

Super excited (and relieved!) to see this paper finally published.
Both men and women politicians experience incivility and, overall, the more famous they are, the more abuse they receive. BUT women in Europe receive uncivil tweets even when they're not well known
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Why are working class people under-represented in legislatures?

We propose one potential mechanism: working-class individuals are *perceived* as less likely to achieve political success, and are subsequently 'pragmatically' discriminated against.

We provide an experiment in the UK to test it:

BR-UK Commissioning Fund To Launch | Behavioural Research UK (BR-UK) | Usher Institute BR-UK’S Commissioning Fund will open to applications on July 1st, 2025.

🔍 Are you an early career behavioural researcher? Our Accelerator proposals offer up to £50,000 for innovative projects! 💡 Perfect for kickstarting your research journey. Applications open July 1st—closing August 12th, 2025. Get ready to apply! #ECR #Innovation #BRUKFunding

Early start 🌅 for Day 2 of our conference with @psawomenpol.bsky.social with @sotonpolitics.bsky.social Alum 🎓 @carolineleicht.bsky.social at Uni of Glasgow on her research on the glass ceiling and glass cliff of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris in US election coverage.

Khatera Yekta of @sotonpolitics.bsky.social presents insights on her research on women’s participation in political negotiations in Afghanistan from 2001-2021.

Excited to see our conference getting under way! Even if we are in a basement when it is 25 degrees outside... ☀️

Are you interested in social class? I've two working papers which show:

1️⃣ Using actor recordings of different accents, that people derive class from accent and this causally influences trait evaluations

2️⃣ That class-based descriptive representation improves support for the political system.

🧵

Abstract: Globally, women continue to bear a disproportionate share of unpaid household labor. Recent research highlights that gender disparities in cognitive labor—the “thinking work” required to anticipate and monitor household needs—are even more pronounced than in physical household labor. Traditional theories attribute these inequalities to time availability, relative resources, and gender norms. However, it remains unclear whether these frameworks apply equally to cognitive and physical household labor. This paper introduces a new theory of gendered cognitive stickiness to explain how the domestic mental load is distributed. We argue that cognitive labor’s invisibility and lack of clear boundaries make it uniquely resistant to negotiation. Even women who successfully bargain their way out of physical chores remain disproportionately responsible for cognitive labor. Using a large-scale survey of 2,133 partnered, heterosexual U.S. parents, we find that while women’s employment and earnings have reduced their physical household labor, these factors do not alleviate their cognitive household burden. Mothers perform nearly all of this work, regardless of their time or resources. Cognitive labor remains an “unbargainable burden” for women, exposing a hidden constraint that suggests progress toward gender equality in the home is even more incomplete than previously recognized.

🚨New working paper🚨
"Take a Load Off? Not for Mothers"
Time & money help mothers offload physical household labor —but not the mental load. Cognitive labor is an “unbargainable burden.”
w/ @helenkowalewska.bsky.social @leahruppanner.bsky.social
📄 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Feedback welcome!

I AM HIRING 2 postdocs (5 years) in my @erc.europa.eu project "The Politics of the Latent Educational Cleavage" at @goetheuni.bsky.social @infer-frankfurt.bsky.social!

German call: www.fb03.uni-frankfurt.de/170856927.pdf
English call: www.goethe-university-frankfurt.de/170858269.pdf

Please share

Our final panel of the conference kicking off now with @carolineleicht.bsky.social on feminist humour in political comedy

Kicking off our panel on Gender and the Elections of 2024 sponsored by @politicsjournal.bsky.social with @jennpiscopo.bsky.social on gendered ambition penalties

❗ FREE Summer School on 'Declining democratic health: Methods for diagnosis, treatment, and recovery' with us!

🗓️ June 23-24

📍 Southampton

More details: www.southampton.ac.uk/socsci/news/...

A reminder if you are enjoying the Women and Politics panels at #PSA25 we have our own conference in June in partnership with Southampton Uni's @gain-centre.bsky.social

⭐ Now with EXTENDED DEADLINE for abstracts of Fri 25th April ⭐

Get your papers in now!

Whoop whoop all around for @edinburghpir.bsky.social & pals at #PSA25 - starting with @psawomenpol.bsky.social co-winning specialist group of the year (co-convened by Leah McCabe & @jess-smith.bsky.social)

two prize certificates and pint of beer

Woman in pub holding pint and a prize

two women receiving a prize at a ceremony

Pints and prizes last night 🍻 ⭐

Honoured to receive the Joni Lovenduski Prize for outstanding professional achievement as an early career scholar at the @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social AGM last night

AND thrilled that @psawomenpol.bsky.social won Specialist Group of the Year! 💥 💫

Kicking off the last panel of the day is Alyssa Martin on the Carers Parliament from the QualRep project (www.qualrep.org)

Reminder to our members at #PSA25 today. Our AGM will be at 12:45pm in Hall 8B (The International Convention Centre). Feel free to bring your lunch with you 👍

FAO: ECRs at #PSA25.

Do you research democratic attitudes? Are you looking for a job? Then this might be of interest.

Happy to have co-authored the chapter in this book on ‘Women in the House of Commons’. Thanks to eds @ameakin.bsky.social @estrangeirada.bsky.social @louisevthompson.bsky.social and co-authors Rosie Campbell @jess-smith.bsky.social @profsarahchilds.bsky.social

🚨CFP🚨 Troubled Times: Gender & Politics in the 21st Century
Join the GAIN Centre’s Women & Politics Annual Conf. exploring backlash, resistance & feminist futures.
📅 Abstracts due: 11 April 2025
💻 Submit: psa.women.politics@googlemail.com
Spread the word! www.southampton.ac.uk/politics/new...

Supporting Mid-Career Academics: Reflecting on Our First Mentoring Workshop | The Political Studies Association (PSA) In January this year, the PSA Women and Politics Specialist Group hosted its first-ever Mid-Career Mentoring (MCR) workshop funded by the PSA. We welcomed ten brilliant academics from across the UK…

*NEW BLOG*

@jess-smith.bsky.social, co-convenor of @psawomenpol.bsky.social, reflects on their recent Mid-Career Workshop with @profsarahchilds.bsky.social and @profrosiecamp.bsky.social in this new blog.

Read now: buff.ly/T7uU14J

#womenshistorymonth

Join us! This one’s going to be good. Feminist scholars, activists, thinkers—come through! Abstracts due 11 April. 🌍💜 #genderpolitics A much-needed space to reckon with backlash, resist, and reimagine gender politics. Send us your work! 💥#polisky

In the continued causal sexism.. I have just been told by the plumber me not knowing what is causing a leak was what he calls 'a woman problem'...

In Memoriam

Mala Htun (1969-2025)

Mala Htun made a major impact on the study of women, gender, and politics as a scholar, teacher, mentor, and advocate. To honor her contributions, we have ungated access to her articles until the end of February 2025.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Why you decided to study gender? "it is really important that we think about the material realities of those who suffer inequalities around the world" addition to intellectual curiosity that drives our research! @elizabethjevans.bsky.social opens the roundtable discussions @gain-centre.bsky.social

So excited for our first event today! Already some brilliant discussions on why people chose to study gender and inequality from the personal 'to change the world' to the intersectional 'you cannot understand social class without gender'