Year of research: 2017
This research demonstrates that attitudes to gender equality, not biological sex, explain attitudes towards other nationalities and religious groups.
The gender gap in attitudes to foreign policy is well established in public opinion literature. Studies have repeatedly reported that women tend to be more peaceful and less militaristic than men. This article reexamines attitudes of individuals in relation to foreign policy and pits the gender gap against the largely forgotten feminist gap.
We argue that the individual-level relationship between gender equality attitudes on the one hand, and tolerance and benevolence on the other, is under-researched, but also that key contributions about the effects of feminism have been mostly ignored in research on the gender gap in public opinion. It is important to focus in research and in practical actions on the role of masculinity
We return to the notion of a causal relationship between gender equality attitudes, and peaceful attitudes, and of a feminist gap that also exists among men. In a series of novel empirical tests, we demonstrate that attitudes to gender equality, not biological sex, explain attitudes towards other nationalities and religious groups.
Using individual-level survey data from five countries around the Pacific: China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States of America, we show that both men and women who reject gender equality are much more hostile both to other nations and to minorities in their own country.
This research was conducted by an individual level survey data from five countries around the Pacific: China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States of America. Data sets were from the Pew Global Attitudes Project (PGAP), a series of worldwide public opinion surveys which began in 2001.
This research relied on pre-existing data, and of course the factors examined will certainly change over country, context and time.
Concept | Definition |
---|---|
Masculine Honor Culture | is an aspect of gender relations, and studies have found that individuals who endorse masculine honor ideology tend to hold more misogynist views. |
Bjarnegard, Elin and Melander, Erik. (2017). Pacific Men: how the feminist gap explains hostility. The Pacific Review. 30. 1-16.
Registered in England & Wales No. 12888487