The Latina Advantage: Gender, Race, and Political Success

1. Gender and Racial Attitudes in Politics

CHAPTER 1 Gender and Racial Attitudes in Politics Voter bias is an influential dynamic that has the potential to impede the electoral success of both women and minorities in the United States. Previous researchers have focused their analysis of voter bias and political disadvantages on either women or, separately, racial/ethnic minorities. Bias can also have an interactive influence, with gender influencing pro-social (or progressive) racial attitudes and race influencing progressive gender-role attitudes. Racial/ethnic minorities and women are politically influenced by their shared experiences of discrimination in society at large. This chapter includes an examination of racial/ethnicminority female and white female racial and gender attitudes, as a means of assessing whether these groups are more likely than white males to support racial/ethnic minorities and females in political office. Impact of Gender on Progressive Racial Attitudes Some early studies conducted mainly by sociologists and psychologists examined the impact of gender on social tolerance. Additional studies considered the influence of gender on support for progressive government racial policies (Poole and Ziegler 1985; Steeh and Schuman 1992; Bobo and Kluegel 1993; Tuch and Hughes 1996; Kane and Kyyro 2001). Gender has also been linked to social distance questions (Schuman et al. 1997; Johnson and Marini 1998). A predominant strand in this literature derives from social structural theories (Blumer 1958), which combine race and class to explain the social positions or attitudes of a racial group (Hughes and Tuch 2003). So- 16 Attitudinal Advantages for Latinas cial structural theories focus on the group members’ perceived relationship to other groups, which influences their racial attitudes. White men and women should have the same racial attitudes since they share the same racial position (2003:385). For example, a white woman’s position in the white racial group should be more important than her experience as a woman in determining her racial attitudes (386). Contrary to this social structural hypothesis, another strand in the literature highlights a significant gender difference in whites’ progressive racial attitudes (Johnson and Marini 1998; Schnittker 2000; Hughes and Tuch 2003): white women expressed more favorable racial attitudes than white males (Johnson and Marini 1998:247). This key difference has been attributed to women’s generally more pro-social attitudes, which include their views on race (1998). Women showed a greater concern for others and focused on relationships, which fostered more favorable racial attitudes (1998:247). Further, this group of researchers (Baxter and Lansing 1983; Shapiro and Mahajan 1986; Steeh and Schuman 1992) found that women are also generally more liberal on “racial policy aimed at achieving equality” (Johnson and Marini 1998:248). Gender has been shown to have a significant impact on progressive racial attitudes relating to politics. However, previous research focused primarily on the impact of gender on whites’ racial attitudes, and should be expanded to include racial/ethnic-minority groups in this examination. Impact of Race on Progressive Gender Attitudes Next, I turn to another key dynamic: the impact of a person’s race or ethnicity on her or his gender-related attitudes. An analysis of gender attitudes typically includes questions that assess a person’s attitude toward set gender roles in society. Gender-role attitudes range from very strict and traditional ideas about the “proper place” for men and women up to nontraditional, or egalitarian, attitudes. “Traditional sex-role socialization ” refers to women being taught to be passive individuals who should focus on family responsibilities and building a strong home life, while men are taught to be assertive, independent, and goal-oriented. Enacting these distinct roles can cause women to have lower levels of political interest and aspiration because they are taught by society to view their roles differently. From this perspective politics can be considered to be a man’s world and inappropriate for women. Gender and Racial Attitudes in Politics 17 Many previous findings on gender-role attitudes among racial/ethnic minorities are often contradictory (Kane 2000). The first group of research includes authors that argue that Latino men (Wilkie 1993) and women (Harris and Firestone 1998), as well as black men (Sigelman and Welch 1984; Wilcox 1992), all demonstrate more traditional genderrole attitudes than other racial groups. Ransford and Miller analyzed the General Social Survey data on gender-role attitudes, as well as race and gender differences in sex-role outlooks (1983). They found no difference between black and white women’s feminist outlooks. However, they did find that...