The Role of Gender Attitudes in Support for Trump

• In Event: The Political Effects of Attitudes toward Women

Abstract

The 2016 United States presidential election raised many questions for political scientists, one being the role of gender in determining support for Republican candidates, particularly Donald Trump. In recent decades, women have been more likely to support Democratic candidates than Republican candidates (Deckman 2016, Ondercin 2017), but divisions among female voters were more visible in the 2016 election. Despite Trump’s portrayal as a sexist throughout the campaign, combined with his running against the first female candidate for president from a major political party, a majority of white women voted for Trump in the 2016 election. Some preliminary studies suggest that many white women endorse sexist beliefs, which, along with education and income, were important factors in determining their vote (Cassese and Barnes 2018). In this paper, we build upon this research to assess the how gender identities, gender role attitudes, family structure, and generation interact to determine a woman’s support for Donald Trump as president. To do so, we use data from an original national survey that includes a broader number of indicators than typically used in studies on the relationship between gender and political support. In our analyses, we probe the effect that both gender roles and sexism, as well as attitudes toward sexual harassment, have on support for Donald Trump. Additionally, we examine in more detail the effect of family structure—as defined in terms of such things as marital status, the number and gender of children, and the relative income levels of the woman and her partner or spouse--have on support for Trump and other Republicans. Finally, we explore the impact of both race and generation to account for the intersectionality and evolving nature of these relationships.

References:

Cassese, E. C. and T. D. Barnes. (2018). Reconciling Sexism and Women’s Support for Republican Candidates: A Look at Gender, Class, and Whiteness in the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Races. Political Behavior. https://doi-org.ezproxy.usal.es/10.1007/s11109-018-9468-2.

Deckman, M. (2016). Tea party women: Mama grizzlies, grassroots leaders, and the changing face of the American right. New York: NYU Press.

Ondercin, H. L. (2017). Who is responsible for the gender gap? The dynamics of men’s and women’s democratic macropartisanship, 1950–2012. Political Research Quarterly, 70(4), 749–761.

Authors

• Emily B Carty, University of Salamanca

• Pamela Johnston Conover, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill