Progress, Opportunity, and Backlash: Explaining Attitudes toward Gender-Based Affirmative Action

Abstract

A wealth of research attests to the importance of interest, prejudice, and stratification beliefs in the explanation of race-based affirmative action attitudes. Little research, however, has been done on the importance of interest, prejudice, and stratification beliefs in the explanation of gender-based affirmative action attitudes. This study examines whether these three well-documented explanations are as effective in explaining attitudes toward gender-based affirmative action as they are in explaining attitudes towards race-based affirmative action. Logistic regression analysis of 1996 General Social Survey data reveals that explanations of attitudes toward gender-based affirmative action are related to but distinct from attitudes toward race-based affirmative action. Whereas race, a component of interest explanations, is a strong predictor of race-based affirmative action attitudes, gender is not a strong predictor of gender-based affirmative action attitudes. All three explanations work less well in the determination of gender-based affirmative action attitudes than they do for race-based affirmative action attitudes. Additional research is necessary before the origins of support for and opposition to gender-based affirmative action are truly understood.