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1 Gender Roles and Political Socialization P olitics and gender roles both involve learned behavior. Nothing is predetermined at birth that unconditionally identifies one as a public official or housewife, Democrat or Republican. Such characteristics are shaped throughout one’s life and are largely dependent on socializing experiences.1 Individuals learn the importance of voting as much as they come to understand appropriate roles for men and women. The commonalities between politics and gender roles extend beyond a shared reliance on socialization, however. They also have historically relied upon patriarchy and gender discrimination to justify their structure. Politics has long been equated with matters deemed unnatural and illsuited to women. Whether the rationale for excluding women from public life was based on their inferior reasoning abilities, innate disinterest in politics, fear that the amorality of politics would compromise women’s usefulness in preparing subsequent generations of citizens, or any of a number of reasons to justify women’s subjugation, the outcome was the same: Women were routinely socialized to remain quiet politically while they tended to the private matters of the home (Jaggar 1983; Elshtain 1974). Although it is certainly less true today, patriarchy has historically ensured that women are socialized to abstain from politics and not challenge the political status quo that is characterized by their marginalization. Women’s disproportionate absence in public life has been facilitated by society’s adherence to prescribed gender roles. From a very early age, young women are often socialized to recognize the role that gender—or the learned behaviors and attitudes associated with being male or female—plays in shaping one’s life. The separation of the sexes into domains that serve the interests of the state or family communicates to girls that fulfillment in life is achieved 8 Chapter 1 through their role in the private sphere. The end result has been largely determined by a socialization process that reinforces the domination of men over women in the public sphere, a trend that has, until recently, gone largely interrupted. Indeed, gender roles are partly determined by immutable biological differences (e.g., men cannot bear children). However, the seemingly intractable grip of patriarchal dominance underlies a socialization process that favors men and encourages women to sanction their own subjugation.2 Therefore, when studying political socialization, consideration must be given to behaviors and attitudes other than those that are strictly political (e.g., voting, campaign work, party identification, ideology, etc.). Doing so requires an expansion of the definition often attributed to political socialization , because scholars generally describe it using language unrelated to the consideration of gender roles and behavior. For example, Craig A. Rimmerman (2011) defines political socialization as “the process by which citizens acquire their attitudes and beliefs about the political system in which they live and their roles within that system” (19). I contend that political socialization is something more. For the political system to function according to patriarchal norms, both sexes must learn their “natural” fit within the polity, with men dominating public life and women the private sphere. Therefore, when women are socialized to challenge traditional gender roles and behavior, they are given the tools to disrupt the bonds that have long existed between politics and patriarchy. Political Socialization and the Women’s Movement The emergence of the contemporary women’s movement has presented the most sustained and potent challenge to patriarchal dominance in both politics and gender roles. The radical transformation of women’s roles in the polity over the past half century is owed in very large measure to the women’s movement and its role as an agent of political socialization (Carroll 1989). The movement encouraged women to identify and recognize patriarchy for what it is: a system designed to exclude them from public life and marginalize them to the private sphere. Rather than continue to accept their second-class status, particularly in matters outside the home, the movement helped elevate women’s consciousness about the systematic nature of their discrimination and explain why they are disproportionately absent from positions of power. In studies of women conducted both before and after the movement became prominent, support for equal rights and a willingness to question traditionalism increased in the post-movement years (Carroll 1989; Sapiro 1990).3 As Jean M. Twenge (1997) has found, attitudes toward women’s rights have become increasingly more liberal/feminist, even after accounting for the 1980s, when a supposed “backlash” (Faludi 1991) took hold against egalitar- Gender Roles and Political Socialization 9 ian...

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