Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T08:22:15.142Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Female Empowerment and the Politics of Language: Evidence Using Gender-Neutral Amendments to Subnational Constitutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2020

Benjamin J. Newman Open the ORCID record for Benjamin J. Newman [Opens in a new window] ,
Stephanie L. DeMora Open the ORCID record for Stephanie L. DeMora [Opens in a new window]  and
Tyler T. Reny Open the ORCID record for Tyler T. Reny [Opens in a new window]
Benjamin J. Newman*
Affiliation:
School of Public Policy and Department of Political Science, University of California, Riverside, USA
Stephanie L. DeMora
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of California, Riverside
Tyler T. Reny
Affiliation:
Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, Washington University in St. Louis, MO, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This letter explores language politics as it concerns gender, and investigates the adoption of amendments that introduce gender-neutral language to subnational constitutions via popular initiative. Embracing theories of female empowerment based on resource acquisition and shrinking gender differentials in economic resources, the authors argue that popular support for these initiatives will be higher in contexts where female and male incomes are closer to parity. The study tests this expectation using city-level historical administrative data in California on Proposition 11 in 1974 – the first American state to hold a popular vote on amending its constitution to include only gender-neutral language. It finds that greater parity in income between women and men is associated with greater voter support for the initiative. This result holds after controlling for conceivable confounders, fails to emerge when analyzing gender-irrelevant ballot measures, and replicates when analyzing similar measures held in three jurisdictions in other states.

Keywords

languagegenderempowermentelectoral behavior
Type
Letter
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , October 2021 , pp. 1761 - 1772
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bartels, BL and Mutz, DC (2009) Explaining processes of institutional opinion leadership. The Journal of Politics 74(1), 249–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergeron, R (2015) ‘The Seventies’: feminism makes waves. CNN. Available from https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/22/living/the-seventies-feminism-womens-lib/index.html.Google Scholar
Blumberg, RL and Coleman, T (1989) A theoretical look at the gender balance of power in the American couple. Journal of Family Issues 10(2), 225–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brulé, R and Gaikwad, N (2018) Culture, Capital and the Political Economy Gender Gap: Evidence from Meghalaya's Matrilineal Tribes. Working Paper. Available from http://rachelbrule.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Culture-Capital-and-the-Political-Economy-Gender-Gap.pdf.Google Scholar
Burns, N, Kay, LS and Verba, S (1997) The public consequences of private inequality: family life and citizen participation. American Political Science Review 92(2), 373–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, D (2016) Sexism in language: a problem that hasn't gone away. Discover Society, 1 March. Available from https://discoversociety.org/2016/03/01/sexism-in-language-a-problem-that-hasnt-gone-away/.Google Scholar
Clawson, RA, Kegler, ER and Waltenburg, EN (2001) The legitimacy-conferring authority of the U.S. Supreme Court: an experimental design. American Politics Research 29(6), 566–591.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earle, TK (1997) How Chiefs Come to Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Fox, R and Lawless, JL (2004) Entering the arena? Gender and the decision to run for office. American Journal of Political Science 48(2), 264–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iversen, T and Rosenbluth, F (2006) The political economy of gender: explaining cross national variation in the gender division of labor and the gender voting gap. American Journal of Political Science 50(1), 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jakiela, P and Ozer, O (2018) Gendered Language. Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Kanthak, K and Woon, J (2015) Women don't run? Election aversion and candidate entry. American Journal of Political Science 59(3), 595–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larmour, C (1990) Sex Discrimination Legislation in Australia. Parliamentary Research Service, Education and Welfare Research Group. Available from https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/bp/1990/90bp28.pdf.Google Scholar
Lowes, S (2020) Kinship structure and women: evidence from economics. Daedalus 149(1), 119–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martyna, W (1980) Beyond the ‘he/man’ approach: the case for nonsexist language. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5(3), 482–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattison, SM (2011) Evolutionary contributions to solving the ‘matrilineal puzzle’: a test of Holden, Sear, and Mace's model. Human Nature 22(1–2), 64–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, GW (1980) Family power: the assessment of a decade of theory and research, 1970–1979. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 841–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutz, D (1998) Impersonal Influence: How Perceptions of Mass Collectives Affect Political Attitudes. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
New York Assembly Bill (2018) A08321C (New York Assembly).Google Scholar
Newman, BJ, DeMora, SL, Reny, TT (2020), Replication data for: Female empowerment and the politics of language: evidence using gender-neutral amendments to subnational constitutions, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RZRIK5, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:iD5xkCdA9OsTq1+fGk9Ykg== [fileUNF]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Office, NSW Parliamentary Counsel's (2000) Policy Related to Gender-Neutral Expression. Sydney. Available from https://www.pco.nsw.gov.au/corporate/Gender%20Neutral%20Language%20Policy_May%202000.pdf.Google Scholar
Onne, A (2008) The male default, and why this excludes women. The F Word, 2 June. Available from https://thefword.org.uk/2008/06/the_male_defaul/.Google Scholar
Paluck, EL and Chwe, M (2007) Confronting hate collectively. PS: Political Science and Politics 50(4), 990–992.Google Scholar
Paxton, P, Kunovich, S and Hughes, MM (2007) Gender in politics. Annual Review of Sociology 33, 263–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pérez, EO and Tavits, M (2019) Language influences public attitudes toward gender equality. The Journal of Politics 81(1), 81–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prewitt-Freilino, JL, Andrew Caswell, T and Laakso, EK (2012) The gendering of language: a comparison of gender equality in countries with gendered, natural gender, and genderless languages. Sex Roles 66, 268–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlozman, B et al. (1994) Gender and the pathways to participation: the role of resources. The Journal of Politics 56(4), 963–990.Google Scholar
Schneider, MC et al. (2016) Power, conflict, and community: how gendered view of political power influence women's political ambition. Political Psychology 37(4), 515–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stahlberg, D (2007) Representation of the sexes in language. In Fiedler, K (ed.), Frontiers of Social Psychology. Social Communication, New York: Psychology Press, pp. 163–187.Google Scholar
Starnes, T (2016) San Diego declares war on our founding fathers and men, too. Fox News, 10 February. Available from https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/san-diego-declares-war-on-our-founding-fathers-and-men-too.Google Scholar
Stevenson, B and Zlotnick, H (2018) Representation of men and women in introductory economics textbooks. AEA Papers and Proceedings 108, 180–185. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/pdf/doi/10.1257/pandp.20181102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tankard, ME and Paluck, EL (2017) The effect of a Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage on social norms and personal attitudes. Psychological Science 28(9), 1334–1344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tavits, M and Pérez, EO (2019) Language influences mass opinion toward gender and LGBT equality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(34), 16781–16786.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
The Associated Press (2003) Some state constitutions are going gender-neutral. The New York Times, 22 May.Google Scholar
The World Bank (2019) Gendered language may play a role in limiting women's opportunities, new research finds. The World Bank, 24 January. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/01/24/gendered-languages-may-play-a-role-in-limiting-womens-opportunities-new-research-finds.Google Scholar
Voter Information Guide (1974) Voter Information Guide for 1974, General Election. UC Hastings. Available from https://repository.uchastings.edu/ca_ballot_props/804/.Google Scholar
Weinland, TD (1974) Argument Against Proposition 11. California Voter's Pamphlet, General Election, 5 November 1974. Office of the Secretary of State. Available from https://repository.uchastings.edu/ca_ballot_props/804/.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Newman et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RZRIK5
Link
Supplementary material: File

Newman et al. supplementary material

Newman et al. supplementary material

Download Newman et al. supplementary material(File)
File 250.3 KB