Finding Intersection: Race, Class, and Gender in the 2003 California Recall Vote

Abstract

Although the idea of intersectionality has been widely accepted by social, political, and feminist theorists, little work on intersection has made its way into empirical studies within the social sciences. Because of the diversity of the California electorate, the 2003 California recall election provides a unique opportunity to explore differences in vote choice among women and men from different racial groups. In addition, the context of the recall, including the existence of allegations of sexual misconduct against one of the front-runners in the race for a replacement candidate, makes it an excellent case for testing the existence of intersection. We find that despite the unique nature of this election, partisanship was a significant predictor of vote choice. Additionally, we find that voting on the recall was racially polarized, and that gender affected vote choice more among whites than among other racial groups. These findings have important implications for theoretical models within the subfields of gender and politics and race and politics. At a minimum, our findings suggest that models testing for the effects of race, class, and gender in American society need to treat these factors as mutually constitutive categories of marginalization and privilege, rather than as simple, discrete categories.

Building a Theory, Measuring a Concept: Exploring Intersectionality and Latina Activism at the Individual Level

“…Many have documented the appropriateness along with difficulties in measuring intersectionality (García Bedolla and Scola 2006;Manuel 2006;McCall 2005). To capture the intersection of gender and ethnic identity, I utilize a research design for theory development by narrowing the scope of the study and drawing on multiple methods for capturing identity and activism (Strauss and Corbin 1998).…”

“…Rather, they are "more than a sum of their parts" (Hancock 2007, 251) and function as interacting or interlocking effects (Baca Zinn and Thornton Dill 1996; García Bedolla and Scola 2006;Segura 1992). That is, a Latina is not solely a woman and a member of an ethnic group, but that one identity heightens the effects of the other identity on political participation.…”

The Gender Gap in Political Discussion Group Attendance

“…With respect to political behavior, there is evidence that gender has a larger effect on vote choice among White voters than among people of color (among Black, Latinx, and Asian voters) in the United States (Bedolla and Scola 2006). With respect to a gender gap among Indigenous peoples in Canada, Harell and Panagos (2013) find that although there are gender gaps in vote choice among Indigenous peoples, there is a much larger gap between Indigenous peoples and settler Canadians—suggesting that while gender is important, the experience of colonialism has a bigger impact than gender in shaping Indigenous peoples’ political attitudes and practices.…”

Envisioning the Possibilities for a Good Life: Exploring the Public Policy Implications of Intersectionality Theory

“…There is no explicit hierarchical ordering of these characteristics in intersectionality theory (the range of identity markers that could be examined in scholarly work on intersectionality is literally endless), but the categories of race, gender, and class show up in intersectionality most often (García Bedolla and Scola 2006). As a result, these categories have come to be seen as the "fundamental traits that determine the core identity of the individual" in the United States and Canada (Hum and Simpson 2003).…”