American Party Women

• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Date: 01 March 2017
• Author: Tiffany D. Barnes,Erin C. Cassese
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912916675738
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

2017, Vol. 70(1) 127 –141

© 2016 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912916675738

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Article

Traditionally, women were more politically conservative

than men. Yet, in the early 1980s, women began realign-

ing, shifting to the left of men and reversing the gender

gap in developed democracies across the globe (Box-

Steffensmeier, De Boef, and Lin 2004; Inglehart and

Norris 2003). Today, women in the United States are

more likely to identify with the Democratic Party, vote

for Democratic Party candidates, and hold liberal posi-

tions on social issues. Although scholars have devoted

considerable attention to understanding the gender gap in

public opinion, existing research focuses almost exclu-

sively on average differences between men and women—

emphasizing women’s liberal tendencies and defining

women’s political identity almost entirely in liberal terms.

While women’s greater average liberalism is well estab-

lished empirically, approximately one in four women

identify with the Republican Party—a figure that trans-

lates into millions of American women who buck this lib-

eral trend (Deckman 2016). Because existing research

has focused on average differences between men and

women, we know little about sources of heterogeneity

among women.

Does the gender gap extend to the Republican Party,

with Republican women holding more liberal views

than their male counterparts? To date, most research

about Republican women has focused on the elite level,

investigating factors like party structure, activists and

donors, conservative women’s groups, and candidates for

political office (Cooperman and Crowder-Meyer 2015;

Thomsen 2015). Comparatively little research has consid-

ered the attitudes and issue preferences of Republican

women in the electorate.1 In recent years, the United

States has seen a rise in high-profile Republican women

running for office and the development of a conservative

women’s movement (Schreiber 2008, 2014). The surge in

conservative appeals to women, coupled with the increased

salience of and polarization on “women’s issues”—for

example, the Mommy Wars and the Republican War on

Women—requires that scholars revisit the conventional

wisdom about women’s political identities.

Building on the burgeoning body of research on parti-

san sorting, we develop expectations regarding the inter-

section between gender and party. Theories of partisan

sorting suggest that women and men sort themselves into

the party that best represents their views—such that the

675738PRQXXX10.1177/1065912916675738Political Research QuarterlyBarnes and Cassese

research-article2016

1University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA

2West Virginia University, Morgantown, USA

Corresponding Author:

Erin C. Cassese, Department of Political Science, West Virginia

University, 316 Woodburn Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA.

Email: Erin.Cassese@mail.wvu.edu

American Party Women: A Look

at the Gender Gap within Parties

Tiffany D. Barnes1 and Erin C. Cassese2

Abstract

Research on the gender gap in American politics has focused on average differences between male and female voters.

This has led to an underdeveloped understanding of sources of heterogeneity among women and, in particular, a poor

understanding of the political preferences of Republican women. We argue that although theories of ideological sorting

suggest gender gaps should exist primarily between political parties, gender socialization theories contend that critical

differences lie at the intersection of gender and party such that gender differences likely persist within political parties.

Using survey data from the 2012 American National Election Study, we evaluate how party and gender intersect to

shape policy attitudes. We find that gender differences in policy attitudes are more pronounced in the Republican Party

than in the Democratic Party, with Republican women reporting significantly more moderate views than their male

counterparts. Mediation analysis reveals that the gender gaps within the Republican Party are largely attributable to

gender differences in beliefs about the appropriate scope of government and attitudes toward gender-based inequality.

These results afford new insight into the joint influence of gender and partisanship on policy preferences and raise

important questions about the quality of representation Republican women receive from their own party.

Keywords

gender gap, partisanship, public opinion, policy attitudes, partisan sorting, values