I am really excited that this article is finally out in the world--the outgrowth of my master's thesis finally published, six years after this project began! A brief thread on the findings and some thoughts about the review process below: https://twitter.com/CUP_PoliSci/status/1379392201650802697

First, the fun stuff: I show in this article that it is possible to manipulate perceptions of gendered traits of real candidates, even when they are nationally known and at the height of an election (the 2016 US presidential race).

On average, people liked the same candidate (e.g., HRC or Trump) more when they were described with a feminine leadership style (e.g., collaborative, listens) than a masculine style (e.g., independent, decisive). Noteworthy: this was not true for 2016 Trump voters.

I started this study because lots of other folks (e.g., @nmbauer) had found these sorts of gendered effects with hypothetical candidates (<- what my master's thesis did). But when I presented the earliest version at conferences, I always heard the same thing:

"Well, you can show *anything* with hypothetical candidates; I don't think people's attitudes would change if it were real candidates." Ugh. So I started fresh by taking the same approach using real candidates (HRC, Trump, Obama, Biden, Kaine, Pence, Warren, Sanders, and Stein).

I hope the resulting paper can help others defend themselves against criticism for using hypothetical candidates in survey experiments. Although a survey experiment estimate never = real life effect, there's no reason we can't run experiments with real OR fictional people,

and there is something to be said for fictional people--it was HARD to design gendered descriptions that were plausibly true of (e.g.) both Jill Stein and Donald Trump! And you want it to be at least plausibly true, because you don't want to deceive or piss off people.

(The one manipulation check failure was for the feminine version of Trump: in a later question, respondents who saw that version did not believe he was more collaborative than those who saw the masculine Trump. Probably unsurprising given the headlines at the time.)

So, I ran it and got results that broadly matched what others had found with hypothetical candidates. Woohoo! Now to publishing glory.

NOPE. 4 years of rejections, including lots that had three positive reviews but that the editors felt "weren't enthusiastic enough" to merit an R&R. Took 5 years from first submission to publication. I learned a lot, and am so grateful for all the referees--

including the ones where the paper was rejected. On every round I incorporated their comments before sending on. By the time I got to P&G, the paper was MUCH stronger.

So in sum: multiple rejections don't mean your paper can't find a home except at the Journal of Podunk; you may well end up publishing in a stronger journal by the end of your journey. Don't give up hope!