Gender Role Ideology, Homophobia and Hate Crime: Linking Attitudes to Macro-Level Anti-Gay and Lesbian Hate Crimes

Abstract

ABSTRACT The relationship between traditional gender role ideology and homophobia has frequently been suggested in social science literature. Few studies, however, have empirically examined the relationship between these cultural conceptions, and far fewer studies have linked gender roles and homophobia to actual behaviors. This study fills a gap in the existing literature by incorporating attitudinal measures of gender role ideology and homophobia from the General Social Survey with macro level indicators of gender stratification when examining acts of gay and lesbian hate crime victimization. Specifically we estimate whether macro level indicators of attitudes toward gays and lesbians and gender views have direct and indirect effects on incidents of hate crime. We find that homophobia and gender stratification directly influence the incidents of hate crime victimization. Although we also find an empirical relationship between gender role ideology and homophobia, homophobia does not mediate the relationship between gender role ideology and incidents of hate crimes based on sexual orientation. Implications of our findings are discussed.