Social Forces · 2004 · 916 citations · 73 references
Women EmpowermentGender IdentityFeminist AttitudesGender StudiesGendered ContextIntersectionalitySociologyFeminist OpinionFeminist PerspectiveFeminist Political TheoryGender EqualityWomen StudiesPublic HealthFeminist TheoryOpinion ChangeSocial SciencesAbortion Attitudes
Past research identifies two main explanatory clusters—interest‑based and exposure‑based—for feminist attitudes. The study investigates how feminist and gender‑equality attitudes among men and women have evolved and what factors drive them across domains such as abortion, sexual behavior, public‑sphere roles, and family responsibilities from 1974 to 1998. The authors analyze longitudinal survey data from 1974 to 1998 to assess trends and determinants of attitudes toward abortion, sexual behavior, public‑sphere gender roles, and family responsibilities. Attitudes toward feminism and gender equality have generally liberalized and converged between men and women, except for abortion, with stable but domain‑specific determinants and similar predictors across genders, highlighting the need to better understand the mechanisms shaping feminist opinions.
This article examines attitudes related to feminism and gender equality by evaluating the trends in, and determinants of, women and men's attitudes from 1974 to 1998. Past accounts suggest two clusters of explanations based on interests and exposure. Using these, we examine opinions on abortion, sexual behavior, public sphere gender roles, and family responsibilities. We find that attitudes have continued to liberalize and converge with the exception of abortion attitudes. The determinants of feminist opinion vary across domains, but have been largely stable. While not identical, the predictors of men and women's opinions are similar. The results suggest the need for more attention to the mechanisms underlying the production of feminist opinions and theoretical integration of both interests and exposure in a dynamic process.
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Bayesian Model Selection in Social Research
Adrian E. Raftery · Sociological Methodology · 1995 · 6.8K citations