There is little research examining the gender gap in public opinion among Americans of African descent. Amid emerging evidence that Black men are more conservative than Black women, there is reason to believe there may be gender differences in their policy preferences. We use the 1980-2016 cumulative ANES data to observe when racial and gender considerations will be more salient for Black women in determining their policy preferences. We find no gender gap on race-based policies suggesting racial group interests may be driving similar support among Black men and women. We do find gender differences on women’s issues and social welfare policies. We attribute Black women’s support for women’s issues to their gendered interests and demonstrate the gap in social welfare attitudes is mediated by their lower economic status relative to Black men. Despite these differences, we discover that Black men and women support race-oriented and social welfare policies more than either white men or women.
BaronR. M.KennyD. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1173–1182.
3.
BerelsonB. R.LazarsfeldP. F.McPheeW. N. (1986). Voting: A study of opinion formation in a presidential campaign. University of Chicago Press.
4.
BlumerH. (1958). Race prejudice as a sense of group position. Pacific Sociological Review, 1(1), 3–7.
5.
BoboL. (1983). Whites’ opposition to busing: Symbolic racism or realistic group conflict?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(6), 1196.
6.
BoboL.KluegelJ. R. (1993). Opposition to race-targeting: Self-interest, stratification ideology, or racial attitudes?American Sociological Review, 58(4), 443–464.
7.
BolzendahlC. I.MyersD. J. (2004). Feminist attitudes and support for gender equality: Opinion change in women and men, 1974–1998. Social Forces, 83(2), 759–789.
8.
Box-SteffensmeierJ. M.De BoefS.LinT. M. (2004). The dynamics of the partisan gender gap. American Political Science Review, 98(3), 515–528.
9.
BrewsterK. L.PadavicI. (2000). Change in gender-ideology, 1977–1996: The contributions of intracohort change and population turnover. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(2), 477–487.
10.
BrownN. E. (2014). Political participation of women of color: An intersectional analysis. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 35(4), 315–348.
11.
CampbellA.ConverseP. E.MillerW. E.StokesD. E. (1980). The American voter. University of Chicago Press.
12.
CarrollS.FoxR. (2009). Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
13.
ChaneyC. K.AlvarezR. M.NaglerJ. (1998). Explaining the gender gap in US presidential elections, 1980-1992. Political Research Quarterly, 51(2), 311–339.
14.
ClarkC.ClarkJ. (1996). Whither the Gender Gap? Converging and Conflicting Attitudes Among Women. In WhitakerL. D. (Ed.), Women in Politics: Insiders or Outsiders? A Collection of Readings (pp. 78–99). Prentice-Hall.
15.
ClarkC.ClarkJ. (2009). Women at the polls: The gender gap, cultural politics, and contested constituencies in the United States. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
16.
CohenC. J. (1999). The boundaries of blackness: AIDS and the breakdown of black politics. University of Chicago Press.
17.
CookE. A.JelenT. G.WilcoxC. (1992). Between Two Absolutes: Public Opinion and the Politics of Abortion. Westview Press.
18.
CookE. A.WilcoxC. (1995). Women Voters in the Year of the Woman. In WeisbergH. (Ed.), Democracy’s Feast: Elections in America (pp. 195–219). Chatham House.
19.
CrenshawK. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, 139–167.
20.
CrenshawK. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299.
21.
DawsonM. C. (1995). Behind the mule: Race and class in African-American politics. Princeton University Press.
22.
DawsonM. C. (2003). Black visions: The roots of contemporary African-American political ideologies. University of Chicago Press.
23.
DawsonM. C. (2011). Not in our lifetimes: The future of Black politics. University of Chicago Press.
24.
DolanK. (2011). Do women and men know different things? Measuring gender differences in political knowledge. The Journal of Politics, 73(1), 97–107.
25.
FarrisE. M.HolmanM. R. (2014). Social capital and solving the puzzle of Black women’s political participation. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 2(3), 331–349.
26.
GayC.TateK. (1998). Doubly bound: The impact of gender and race on the politics of black women. Political Psychology, 19(1), 169–184.
27.
GershonS. A.MontoyaC.BejaranoC.BrownN. (2019). Intersectional linked fate and political representation. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 7(3), 642–653.
28.
GreerC. M. (2013). Black ethnics: Race, immigration, and the pursuit of the American dream. Oxford University Press.
29.
HancockA. (2004). The politics of disgust: The public identity of the welfare queen. New York University Press.
HicksR.TingleyD. (2011). Causal mediation analysis. Stata Journal, 11(4), 605.
32.
HolmanM. R. (2016). The differential effect of resources on political participation across gender and racial groups. In BrownN. E.GershonS. A. (Eds.), Distinct identities: minority women in US politics (pp.13–28). Routledge.
33.
HoogheM.QuintelierE.ReeskensT. (2007). How political is the personal? Gender differences in the level and the structure of political knowledge. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 28(2), 115–125.
34.
HuddyL.CareyT. E. (2009). Group politics redux: Race and gender in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. Politics & Gender, 5(1), 81.
35.
HuddyL.CasseseE.LizotteM. K. (2008a). Sources of political unity and disunity among women. In WhitakerL. D. (Ed.), Voting the gender gap (pp. 141–169). University of Illinois Press.
36.
HuddyL.CasseseE.LizotteM. K. (2008b). Gender, public opinion, and political reasoning. In WolbrechtC.BeckwithK.BaldezL. (Eds.), Political women and American democracy (pp. 31–49). Cambridge University Press.
37.
ImaiK.KeeleL.TingleyD.YamamotoT. (2011). Unpacking the black box of causality: Learning about causal mechanisms from experimental and observational studies. American Political Science Review, 105(4), 765–789.
JelenT. G.WilcoxC. (2003). Causes and consequences of public attitudes toward abortion: A review and research agenda. Political Research Quarterly, 56(4), 489–500.
41.
Jordan-ZacheryJ. (2003). The female bogeyman. Souls, 5(2), 42–61.
42.
Jordan-ZacheryJ. S. (2008). A declaration of war: An analysis of how the invisibility of black women makes them targets of the war on drugs. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 29(2), 231–259.
43.
KnolM. J.PestmanW. R.GrobbeeD. E. (2011). The (mis) use of overlap of confidence intervals to assess effect modification. European Journal of Epidemiology, 26(4), 253–254.
44.
LemiD. C.BrownN. E. (2020). The political implications of colorism are gendered. PS: Political Science & Politics, 53(4), 669–673.
45.
LienP. T. (1998). Does the gender gap in political attitudes and behavior vary across racial groups?Political Research Quarterly, 51(4), 869–894.
46.
LizotteM. K. (2015). The abortion attitudes paradox: Model specification and gender differences. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 36(1), 22–42.
47.
LizotteM. K. (2016). Investigating women’s greater support of the Affordable Care Act. The Social Science Journal, 53(2), 209–217.
48.
LopezM. H.TaylorP. (2009). Dissecting the 2008 electorate: Most diverse in US history. Pew Research Center.
49.
MangumM. (2008). Testing competing explanations of Black opinions on affirmative action. Policy Studies Journal, 36(3), 347–366.
50.
MansbridgeJ. J. (1985). Myth and reality: The ERA and the gender gap in the 1980 election. Public Opinion Quarterly, 49(2), 164–178.
51.
NorranderB. (2008). The history of the gender gaps. In WhitakerL. D. (Ed.), Voting the gender gap (pp. 9–32). University of Illinois Press.
52.
NorranderB.WilcoxC. (2008). The gender gap in ideology. Political Behavior, 30(4), 503–523.
53.
PascarellaE. T.TerenziniP. T. (2005). How college affects students (Vol. 2). In FeldmanK. A. (Ed.). Jossey-Bass.
PattenE. (2016) Racial, gender wage gaps persist in US despite some progress. Pew Research Center, 1.
56.
PinkneyA. (1984). The myth of black progress. Cambridge University.
57.
PriceM. T. (2009). Dreaming blackness: Black nationalism and African American public opinion. NYU Press.
58.
SanbonmatsuK. (2003). Gender-related political knowledge and the descriptive representation of women. Political Behavior, 25(4), 367–388.
59.
SanchezG. R.MasuokaN. (2010). Brown-utility heuristic? The presence and contributing factors of Latino linked fate. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 32(4), 519–531.
60.
SanchezG. R.VargasE. D. (2016). Taking a closer look at group identity: The link between theory and measurement of group consciousness and linked fate. Political Research Quarterly, 69(1), 160–174.
61.
SapiroV. (2003). Theorizing gender in political psychology research. In SearsD. O.HuddyL.JarvisR. (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology (pp. 601–634). Oxford University Press.
62.
ScottJ. (1989). Conflicting beliefs about abortion: Legal approval and moral doubts. Social Psychology Quarterly, 52(4), 319–326.
63.
Scott CarterJ.CorraM.CarterS. K. (2009). The interaction of race and gender: Changing gender-role attitudes, 1974–2006. Social Science Quarterly, 90(1), 196–211.
64.
SearsD. O.FunkC. L. (1991). The role of self-interest in social and political attitudes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 24, 1–91.
65.
ShapiroR. Y.MahajanH. (1986). Gender Differences in Policy Preferences: A Summary of Trends from the 1960s to the 1980s. Public Opinion Quarterly, 50(1), 42–61.
66.
SigelmanL.WelchS. (1984). Race, gender, and opinion toward black and female presidential candidates. Public Opinion Quarterly, 48(2), 467–475.
67.
SimienE. M. (2004). Gender differences in attitudes toward black feminism among African Americans. Political Science Quarterly, 119(2), 315–338.
68.
SimienE. M. (2005). Race, gender, and linked fate. Journal of Black Studies, 35(5), 529–550.
69.
SimienE. M. (2013). African American public opinion: Past, present, and future research. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 1(2), 263–274.
70.
SimienE. M.ClawsonR. A. (2004). The intersection of race and gender: An examination of Black feminist consciousness, race consciousness, and policy attitudes. Social Science Quarterly, 85(3), 793–810.
71.
SmithC. W. (2013). Ethnicity and the role of group consciousness: a comparison between African Americans and Black immigrants. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 1(2), 199–220.
72.
SmithC. W. (2014). Black mosaic: The politics of Black pan-ethnic diversity. NYU Press.
73.
SmithT. W. (1984). The polls: Gender and attitudes toward violence. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 48(1), 384–396.
74.
StoperE.JohnsonR. A. (1977). The weaker sex & the better half: The idea of women’s moral superiority in the American feminist movement. Polity, 10(2), 192–217.
75.
StricklerJ.DanigelisN. L. (2002). Changing frameworks in attitudes toward abortion. Sociological Forum, 17(2), 187–201.
76.
TateK. (1994). From protest to politics: The new Black voters in American elections. Harvard University Press.
VerbaS.SchlozmanK. L.BradyH. E. (1995) Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Harvard University Press.
79.
WaltonH. (1985). Invisible politics. State University of New York Press.
80.
WelchS.FosterL. (1987). Class and conservatism in the black community. American Politics Quarterly, 15(4), 445–470.
81.
WhiteI. K. (2007). When race matters and when it doesn’t: Racial group differences in response to racial cues. American Political Science Review, 101(2), 339–354.
82.
WhiteI. K.LairdC. N. (2020). Steadfast democrats: How social forces shape Black political behavior (Vol. 19). Princeton University Press.
83.
WhiteI. K.LairdC. N.AllenT. D. (2014). Selling out? The politics of navigating conflicts between racial group interest and self-interest. American Political Science Review, 108(4), 783–800.
84.
WilsonG. (2001). Support for redistributive policies among the African American middle class: Race and class effects. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 18, 97–115.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
