“Yellin’ at Yellen”: Hostile Sexism in the Federal Reserve Congressional Hearings

How prevalent is hostile sexism among US politicians? We analyze the transcripts of every congressional hearing attended by the chair of the US Federal Reserve from 2001 to 2020 using Janet Yellen as a bundled treatment to provide carefully identified evidence of sexism. We find that legislators who interacted with both Yellen and at least one other male Fed chair over this period interrupt Yellen more and interact with her using more aggressive language. Furthermore, we show that having a daughter reduces a legislator’s hostility toward Yellen. These results are not a function of differences in either the content Yellen discusses in these hearings (measured with topic models) or her tone of communication. Our results provide carefully identified evidence of hostile sexism among both male and female legislators from both sides of the aisle when confronted with a female in a novel position of power, supporting a rich literature on gender roles and forms of sexism.