Angie Maxwell

Untangling the gender gap in symbolic racist attitudes among white Americans

While the gender gap in voting has important political implications for understanding contemporary American politics, and continues to be a focus of a great deal of research, gender gaps in policy areas have also been identified and these gender gaps also have dramatic political implications, particularly in the context of understanding attitudes about race. Despite the advances in our understanding of the gender gap in voting, fewer investigations have explored potential gender differences in racial attitudes. The lack of research into racial attitudes among women and men is surprising in light of the election and re-election of President Obama and the continued “racialization” of many national political issues. In fact, few studies have explored contemporary differences between women and men in levels of symbolic racism. Moreover, among the existing studies of possible gender gaps in racial attitudes, the role of perceived discrimination is surprisingly absent. In this investigation, potential differences between men and women in racial attitudes, specifically symbolic racism, are explored with a focus on demographic, attitudinal, and perceptions of discrimination as possible explanations. Results from a nationally representative survey demonstrate a significant gender gap in symbolic racism with women expressing less racially resentful attitudes. Furthermore, this gender gap in racial attitudes appears to be explained largely by ideology, party identification, and differences between men and women in their perceived experiences with discrimination.

Introduction: Toward a New Understanding of Second-Wave Feminism

In this introductory chapter, Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields claim that the need to mark beginnings and endings of social movements, the over-reliance on popular, yet limited voices, the fact that feminism is not immune to white privilege, and the pain associated with lost battles for women’s rights have all contributed to obscuring the true legacy of the Second-Wave feminist movement. They contend that existing narratives have inordinately focused on the media-appointed “leaders” of the movement, who were almost exclusively white, heterosexual, well-educated women who overshadowed the multi-racial, grassroots cast of hundreds of thousands of women in America and around the globe. While Third-Wave feminists drew attention to these omissions and recovered the history of overshadowed communities, the time has come to reconcile both waves and re-examine the legacy of Second-Wave Feminism in American politics. This reassessment shows that the Second Wave was comprised of a heterogeneous army of women who, though often divided, still significantly influenced economics, theology, political activism, electoral success, attitudes toward homosexuality‚ and support for gay marriage. In fact, in many ways they were so successful that they were blind to the anti-feminist counterattack forming across the country. This introduction highlights the feminist historians, political scientists, gender studies scholars, and economists who are placing women’s activism at the center of our political landscape in their contributing chapters.