"The Lady Is A Hawk": The Impact of Gender on Risk Tolerance Exhibited by U.S. Secretaries of State

Abstract

This thesis explores the hypothesis that the gender of a secretary of state will influences his or her exhibited level of risk tolerance, primarily through selection effects. I hypothesize, in keeping with the literature on women in male-dominated professions, that as XY brains are known to be more risk tolerant, women attempting to enter the national security space will need to counter this stereotype by demonstrating more masculinist risk tolerance in order to be taken seriously in the male-dominated field. The thesis presents extensive literature from evolutionary psychology and behavioral economics that indicates that XX brains have evolutionarily developed a stronger fear response mechanism, which has produced lower risk tolerance. This lower risk tolerance is causally tied to lower levels of aggression. Because of the strong correlation between XX biological sex and being identified as a woman, this biological difference manifests societally as a gender difference, where women are empirically less risk tolerant. Literature from organizational psychology suggests that the women who succeed most at stereotypically male tasks in male dominated professions must showcase strong masculinist traits, including being agentic, aggressive, and confident. However, it also indicates that women who express traits that are not stereotypically feminine may receive social sanction for behaving out of their gender norm, a phenomenon termed backlash in the literature. I explore the hypotheses that female secretaries of state will be more risk tolerant than both male secretaries of state and other male national security principals, and I explore this hypothesized selection mechanism, in line with that proposed by Horowitz, Stam, and Ellis, in which women must overcome their stereotype of being risk averse to be taken seriously. I also hypothesize that women may intentionally self-regulate their showcased level of risk tolerance in order to be taken seriously, which is not inconsistent with my selection mechanism I do not have the resources at my disposal to prove these hypotheses, but instead engage in plausibility probes. I investigate accounts of the selection of all six secretaries of state under Presidents Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama, to determine what factors appear to have been significant and whether there were gender differences. The evidence supports my proposed mechanism, though it cannot prove that gender is causal. I also use two in-depth case studies, one on Albright’s decision making on Kosovo and one on Clinton’s proposal to arm moderate Syrian rebels, to probe my hypothesis that female secretaries of state will be more risk tolerant than their contemporary male national security principals. I find support in both cases. I also use these cases to investigate the hypothesis that these women self-regulate their expressed risk tolerance in light of the stereotype, to avoid appearing weak. I find weak evidence for this claim. I end by placing some important scope conditions on my original selection mechanism hypothesis. Namely, it appears as though some paths to this position are less likely to be subject to this selection mechanism, specifically where the candidate has a pre-existing close personal relationship with the president, or where she has entered and gained legitimacy and credibility through a path that did not run through the foreign policy establishment, academia and electoral politics being two relevant alternative paths. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the research design that would be required to conclusively test these hypotheses, and some suggestions for future research.