The electoral process leaves a lot to be desired for many women in the United States, a new study suggested.

Two political scientists at the University of Pittsburgh recently published new research in which they suggested that American women are more politically averse than their male counterparts.

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Men and women might have similar political qualifications and aspirations, but women are dissuaded from becoming candidates just because "representatives are chosen by electoral means," said authors Kristin Kanthak and Jonathan Woon, associate professors of political science.

The authors, however, noted that the aversion isn't the only cause of the gender gap among officials elected into office. It's also one of the many factors that mentioned by other researches.

To date, 20 of the 100 legislators in the Senate are women, including Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, Maryland's Barbara Mikulski and Massachusetts' Elizabeth Warren. Still, women remain a minority not only in the legislature but in overall elected positions.

The phenomenon prompted Kanthak to experiment if women will be as likely to run in a completely level playing field. The answer is no.

In the experiment, a group of volunteers solved math problems on behalf of their group. Kanthak found that male and female members volunteered at the same rate when the problem doers were selected randomly.

Women, however, tend to put down their hands when the group was asked to elect one of its volunteers to do the problems.

The authors compared women's aversion to becoming a candidate volunteer to that of asking a pay raise. They said that "if women aren't willing to ask for raises, we shouldn't be surprised that they're not willing to ask for votes."

Previous research published by members of the American University in March 2013 revealed there won't be chances the gender gap among elected officials will shrink in the future because women have fewer political ambitions than men.

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