WHAT DOES AMERICA THINK? 3139.2 Women and Politics
This is actual survey data from the General Social Survey, 2004.1.Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than are most women.In
1972, slightly more than half of respondents said they disagreed with this statement.
There was virtually no gender difference in responses. In 2004, more than three-
quarters of respondents disagreed, with females being slightly more likely to disagree
than were males.
2.If your party nominated a woman for president, would you vote for her if she
was qualified for the job?This question asks about potential voting behavior, and
the responses are very different from those above. In 1974, 80 percent of all
respondents said they would vote for a qualified female presidential candidate.
In 1998, the latest date for which statistics are available, that number had risen to
above 90 percent. In both years, there was very little gender difference.CRITICAL THINKING|DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- How would you explain the responses above? Why do you think the researchers asked about
emotional suitability for politics? Do you think if gender was not a factor in the question
that emotions would have been considered? - Why do you think there was virtually no gender difference in responses? Were you expecting
that finding? Why or why not? - More respondents said they would vote for a female president than said that women were
as emotionally suited as men for politics. What do you think explains that difference?
3 Go to this website to look further at the data. You can run your own statistics and crosstabs
here: http://sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/hsda?harcsda+gss04
REFERENCES:Davis, James A., Tom W. Smith, and Peter V. Marsden. General Social Surveys
1972–2004: [Cumulative file] [Computer file]. 2nd ICPSR version. Chicago, IL: National Opinion Research
Center [producer], 2005; Storrs, CT: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut;
Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research; Berkeley, CA: Computer-Assisted
Survey Methods Program, University of California [distributors], 2005.