Feminist Ideology and the Political Attitudes and Participation of White and Minority Women

Abstract

OES THE FEMINISM of the contemporary women's movement make any real difference in how American women relate to the body politic? Historically, women's political behavior has differed all too clearly from that of men. Leadership by women in the political arena has been neither common nor obviously desired by society. Participation by women has been consistently lower than that of men, although differences have become increasingly small in recent years, in some cases even nonexistent or slightly reversed.' As an illustration, in 1979 there was one elected woman senator at the national level, only two state governors and eighteen congressional representatives. Yet, men virtually monopolize the U.S. political decision-making arena whether we look to the past or to the present. Thus, women's role in politics offers but another example of how gender stereotypes get translated into sex-role stereotypes which relate directly to both self-concept and behavior.2 Women persistently are taught not only to feel a certain way toward the political system (i.e., passive, nurturant, dependent, etc.), but also, and perhaps more importantly, to act in that way. If women's political behavior is undergoing change, previous research would lead us to find change occurring first in women's political attitudes. Political action on the part of individuals has been seen to flow both from beliefs that personal political activity ought to be engaged in and can be effective, and from notions that the system can and will respond to such actions. Attitudes both about the individual's relation to the political system and about that system itself influence political behavior,3 and both types of political attitudes the personal and the system-focused have clear linkages to feminist ideology.