Even though most political parties are still male dominated, an increasing number of women reach the top position of party leader.
Furthermore, party leadership is increasingly regarded as an important part of party images due to the personalization of politics. Does the
gender of the party leader have an impact? On the basis of a survey among the Danish electorate, this paper analyzes to what extent men and
women differ in their party leader sympathy. First, the analysis of the degree of party leader sympathy shows that women are more sympathetic
towards woman party leaders than men are. However, men are not more sympathetic towards man party leaders than women. Second, the
analysis of the content of party leader sympathy seems to show that men and women do not differ in the characteristics correlated with party
leader sympathy. Hence, there seems to be no gender difference in the party leader characteristics appreciated by men and women. If this holds,
the gender of party leadership matters to women because they value woman party leaders higher, not because they value other characteristics
than men.