Using data from the 2017 European Values Study, I analyze the link between harboring traditional gender attitudes and supporting radical right-wing parties. I theorize that the intrinsically gendered elements of the radical right's platforms and rhetoric, which mirror traditional masculinity and femininity in both explicit and implicit ways, make the ideology a comfortable home for individuals who hold traditional gender attitudes. My analyses reveal that gender traditionalists are more likely than egalitarians to express support for the radical right, even after controlling for a host of existing explanations. The same impact is not replicated for mainstream conservative parties. In addition, holding more gender-traditional attitudes raises the probability of supporting the radical right among both nativists and non-nativists. These findings provide important evidence that gender attitudes seemingly constitute a significant pathway to support for the radical right across Europe.

Scholars increasingly recognize that voters’ attitudes about gender shape their electoral preferences. Yet previous research has not captured important nuances of the relationship between gender attitudes and electoral choice. We argue that the effects of gender attitudes are not unidirectional and interact in complex ways with voters’ perceptions of candidates, depending not only on candidates’ sex but also on their gender-relevant characteristics and values. We draw on an original survey of Americans during the 2016 elections that measured three gender attitudes—hostile sexism, modern sexism, and traditional gender roles—and evaluations of primary and general election candidates. Our study design increases analytical leverage by examining actual and hypothetical candidate matchups. We find that among Democrats, hostile sexists were drawn to Bernie Sanders, but gender traditionalists preferred Hillary Clinton. Our results also suggest that if Sanders had been the Democratic nominee, gender egalitarians would have strongly supported him over Donald Trump, as they did Clinton.

The 2020 Democratic presidential primary unfolded in a context with significant attention to issues of racial and gender inequality and identity. The field began as an historically diverse one but a white male candidate received the party's endorsement. Did the race and gender attitudes of Democratic primary and caucus participants play a role in shaping the pool of candidates? Using a survey of self-identified Democrats, this study provides evidence that racial resentment, hostile sexism, and modern sexism enhanced the assessments on several evaluative criteria of the white male candidate, while depressing the assessment of the Black woman candidate. These relationships are driven primarily by white respondents. These findings add to our understanding of how race and gender attitudes affect the electoral process well before the general election, particularly by shaping the ultimate choice of candidates in that contest.

The sociocultural divide in Western Europe is increasingly focused on issues of national identity, namely immigration. It is commonly assumed that opponents of immigration also exhibit conservatism on other sociocultural issues. Yet recent research suggests that general social conservatism is declining in the region. Do immigration attitudes fit squarely into the sociocultural dimension? Using survey data from eleven West European countries, as well as a Dutch household panel from 2007–2019, this study finds that gender attitudes, a key sociocultural issue, are subject to change through both cohort and life cycle effects, while immigration attitudes are stable over the course of the panel and exhibit little variation across cohorts. Immigration attitudes also appear to be immune to period effects resulting from the 2015 refugee crisis. Further, those born during and after the ‘post-materialist revolution’ have weakened associations between these two attitudes, while older individuals' attitudes are strongly correlated. The combination of gender egalitarianism and anti-immigrant sentiment may become increasingly common as acceptance of the former spreads, while immigration remains a hotly contested issue.

A combination of factors has led to an increasing imbalance in the sex ratio of China's population. China's sex ratio at birth is 119 boys per 100 girls, far above the global norm of 106. This paper will focus on the abnormal sex ratio as a consequence of traditional Chinese gender attitudes holding women inferior and subordinate to men, which have been brought to the fore by a combination of fertility decline and technological advancement. Accordingly, any solution to the demographic problem must address these prevalent, entrenched mind-sets. The government appears to realise that existing laws prohibiting sex-selective abortion and infanticide will fail to correct the sex ratio. This paper examines the trend in government responses towards efforts to address traditional gender attitudes and argues that the demographic crisis may have turned the Chinese government into an unlikely champion of gender equality.

Gender differences in choice of studies emerge already in adolescence. Two studies with adolescents are presented, the goal of which is to explore the influence of gender by assessing males and females who choose studies related to Medicine or Engineering. Study 1, correlational (N = 330, mean age 15.9, 56.7% girls), shows that girls who choose technology are more poorly appraised than girls who choose other studies. Study 2 (N = 130; mean age 16.77, 56.2% girls), experimental, measures implicit attitudes (using the IAT) towards males and females from Medicine and Engineering. Implicit attitudes are more favorable towards women if they are studying Medicine and towards men if they study Engineering. The results are analyzed with relation to the percentages of boys and girls in the different fields of study.