Who Likes Women's Liberation—and Why: The Case of the Unliberated Liberals

Abstract

This survey explored a variety of background factors that are related to a person's support of or opposition to the women's liberation movement (WLM), including religion and political preference, perception of sex differences in personality (usually called “stereotyping”) and belief as to whether these are due to biology or culture, and style of marriage (traditional or egalitarian). Also for men, a dimension of sexual threat was related to hostility toward the WLM; for women, experiences with discrimination and to a lesser extent “sexism” contributed to their support of the WLM. The survey found that only a small proportion of men are truly threatened by the movement, but only a small proportion are truly in favor of it; most are caught in the easy middle ground, where attitudes are liberal and behavior is traditional.