In November 2005, 32% of the German Bundestag seats were occupied by women. However, no woman had ever been the President of the unified Germany and Angela Merkel had just become the first ever female Chancellor. This paper focuses on the link between descriptive and symbolic representation and seeks to understand whether or not the election of Angela Merkel as Chancellor provoked an impact on German women’s (and men’s) interest in politics. Angela Merkel offers an interesting case for study since she personalizes some paradoxes. On the one hand, Merkel does not pay too much attention to gender-related issues and does not try to appeal particularly to women, which could lead to female citizens being indifferent to her. But on the other hand, the simple fact that she is a woman and the unquestionable importance of her political position could provoke the opposite effect. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) from 2000 to 2019, our analysis suggests that Merkel was not a catalyser of interest in politics among German women.

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