In this article, we compare the experiences of male and female party leaders at the provincial and federal levels in Canada between 1980 and 2005 and test several hypotheses regarding gender and party leadership. The Canadian case provides an excellent case study given the relatively large number of women (21 in total) who held the position of party leader during the time period in question. The case study reveals that major parties are less likely to elect women as their leaders, while parties on the ideological left are more likely than other parties to select women. The leadership races won by women are as competitive, if not more so, than those won by men, although the mandate secured by women leaders is less overwhelming. Not surprisingly, then, men are found to enjoy longer tenures as leaders than women, and, moreover, to enjoy greater electoral success.

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Several countries have imposed bans on the wearing of face veils, a controversial option considered in Bill 94 by the province of Quebec in 2010. This paper examines non-Muslim women's support for the acceptability of the niqab in public spaces. Analysing the 2010 Quebec Women's Political Participation Survey, we find that key feminist arguments -that wearing the niqab is a woman's free choice, a matter of freedom of religion and a visible symbol of women's oppression -are important drivers of opinion. Their role in shaping opinion, however, is complex and mirrors divisions among feminist groups in the province. Additional attitudinal drivers include generation, exposure to the practice and openness to immigration. Equally important, our findings suggest that being a member of a racial minority, feelings of cultural insecurity and religiosity are of little consequence for thinking on the issue.

ABSTRACT. The realignment thesis on gender voting in postindustrial societies argues that traditional voting patterns, where women compared to men were more supportive of center-right parties, are being replaced by a modern gender gap, where women are more likely than men to support parties of the left. Although this transformation is said to be driven by both structural and cultural factors, findings suggest value changes are the more important element. This article explores the realignment thesis in the Canadian context where realignment has been complicated by a multi-party system, brokerage politics, and differences between Quebec and the rest of Canada. Voting patterns from 1965 to 1997 suggest women's realignment from right to left has not been straightforward. However, in the 1990s we find more indication of a modern gender gap in Canada outside Quebec and findings that support the value thesis. In Quebec, gender differences did not conform to the modern gender gap model and overall, variability across elections in the pattern and correlates of gender voting illustrate the contingent character of this phenomenon.

Conventional research on the gender gap in public opinion in Canada suggests that on some issues women and men think differently. In public opinion surveys, women consistently are more dovish than men on questions of defence and the state's use of force, and more liberal 2 on questions of welfare and the state's role in the economy. These differences are seen to arise from two sources: differences in income and in support for feminism. This conventional research fails to acknowledge that women and men often hold similar views and that, on occasion, women's opinions are more conservative than men's. Gender differences in attitudes cannot properly be understood without also examining religious beliefs, a factor that is often given only limited attention. Religious beliefs help to explain the political attitudes of women and men: they directly frame political views on a number of issues, and often act as a counterweight to the liberal values inherent in feminism.Even when it appears that women and men hold similar opinions on issues, there may exist gender differences in the sources of their opinions. But such differences are hidden in research that focuses only on issues in which gender differences appear, to the exclusion of Brenda O'Neill,