Does Gender Matter?

Abstract

In this article we explore gender differences in opinion regarding controversial social issues. The issues we selected are: attitudes toward African Americans, Jews, Muslims, Affirmative Action, abortion, and gays and lesbians. This selection is based on the importance of these issues in public debate and electoral politics. A number of these issues, mainly those related to opinions toward religious and racial groups, reflect the development of the American society and draw lines of possible disagreements and social cleavages. Our purpose is to draw attention to an important factor in determining public opinion toward these issues. We aim to explore issues where gender makes a clear difference, where it does not only hold an important role as other factors such as race and political affiliation, and where considerations of gender need to be combined with other personal attributes in order to understand their real impact. These highlights are intended to shed light on the role of gender in social issues as well as understanding these issues from a perspective that includes gender as a dimension in opinion making.