Gender Equality for Whom?: Accounting for Women’s Social Identities in Predicting Gender Attitudes

• In Event: 3147 - Intersections of Race, Gender, and Class in School, Work, and the Home

Abstract

How do the social identities of women who stand to benefit from egalitarian gender attitudes and policies affect levels of support for egalitarian gender attitudes? Scholarship has focused primarily on demographic predictors of individuals’ attitudes, ignoring how support varies by the characteristics of those who would supposedly be affected by these attitudes. Using an original an online experiment, this study examines this question among a sample of white, middle-class men. Based on predictions from social identity theory, I test three possible mechanisms: ingroup favoritism, deservingness, and outgroup threat. Results indicate, first, that respondents are most supportive of women from their same race and class background, which suggests the presence of an ingroup favoritism mechanism. Second, while the theory of deservingness is not supported at face value, the intersection of low-status identities increases support, suggesting that a deservingness mechanism operates in cases of compounding disadvantage. Third, higher-status women are perceived as more threatening, particularly those from the racial outgroup—namely black, middle-class women. Finally, I show that respondents most often envision a white, middle-class woman when no identities are specified. I discuss implications for measuring gender inequality, as well as for survey measures of social attitudes broadly.

Author

• Katharine Khanna, Columbia University