Gender stereotypes in political discourse : Analysing nonverbal dominance cues of female politicians

Nonverbal behaviour is a major part of everyday communication that allows other people access to additional information on our thoughts, intentions, psychological states, likings, etc. It is also an important carrier of overt and covert messages and can be used to manipulate people and deepen the gap between genders encouraging stereotypical beliefs of men as dominant, aggressive, assertive, and ambitious individuals, and women as their subordinate, emotional and docile counterparts. Women are not only seen as such but are expected to behave in such manner. This paper covers this phenomenon by analysing the nonverbal dominant cues of female politicians and their male equivalents in order to answer the questions in what way female politicians engage in these stereotypical behaviours during interactions with male politicians, and how they differ in exhibition of their nonverbal dominant displays