Women and Political Knowledge During the 2000 Primaries

Abstract

Prior research on political knowledge has found repeatedly that women do not perform as well as men on political affairs questions. The present study analyzed survey responses collected between 14 December 1999 and 8 March 2000 on political knowledge items about the issue positions and backgrounds of candidates Bradley, Gore, and McCain. Even when several sociodemographic variables were controlled for, gender was a significant predictor of political knowledge. Not only were women more likely than men to say they did not know the answer to a question, but they were also more likely to answer incorrectly when giving a substantive response.