Religion, Gendered Authority, and Identity in American Politics

Abstract

Religious identity serves as a central cleavage in American politics. However, little attention has been granted to how gendered views of authority conveyed in religious doctrine shape political identities and attitudes. Using a nation-wide sample of adult Americans, we demonstrate that gendered notions of divine and human authority exert considerable influence on political thinking. In particular, belief in a masculine God and preferences for traditional gender roles strongly relate to political conservatism. Adherence to gendered notions of authority influences political identity and policy preferences, even when controlling for more conventional indicators of religiosity. Accounting for gendered beliefs about authority also partially explains well-documented gender gaps in American politics, providing insight into women's apparently contradictory tendencies toward both political liberalism and religiosity. The relationships uncovered here, coupled with the continued salience of both gender and religion in contemporary political campaigns, underscore the importance of attending to the gendered dimensions of authority.

Playing the Woman Card: Ambivalent Sexism in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Race

“…Hostile and benevolent sexism are beliefs endorsed by both men and women; this is consistent with broad findings that many women endorse traditional beliefs about gender roles and gendered notions of authority (Cassese & Holman, ; Deckman, ). Across both studies, party, more so than gender, accounts for endorsement of hostile and benevolent sexism.…”

The Application of Social Role Theory to the Study of Gender in Politics

“…In the 2016 presidential contest, low‐income white women voted in favor of Trump regardless of his sexist language because these women endorsed sexist beliefs themselves (Cassese & Barnes, ) as opposed to black women, who were the least likely to support Trump (Strolovitch et al, ). At the intersection of gender and religion, Cassese and Holman () found preliminary evidence that masculine views of God in conjunction with support for traditional gender roles mediated the relationship between gender and political ideology, accounting for a substantial portion of the gender gap in ideology.…”

“…Behaviors and messages during the campaign that draw attention to a female candidate’s prescribed role as a woman should widen the incongruity between a woman and the political leadership role. For example, when negative ads attacked a female candidate on the basis that she lacked stereotypically female strengths, voters were less likely to state that they would vote for her (Cassese & Holman, ). When the campaign environment used words to describe a female candidate’s appearance in terms of her attractiveness, voters evaluated her more negatively when compared to male and female candidates who were not described based on their physical appearance (Lizotte & Meggers‐Wright, ).…”

Constructing Images of the Divine: Latent Heterogeneity in Americans’ Impressions of God

“…The first and second of these dimensions are the most frequently discussed at a theoretical level (e.g., Dickie et al 1997;Mencken et al 2009;Potvin 1977) and the ones that most consistently emerge in factor analyses (e.g., Hertel and Donahue 1995;Nelsen, Cheek, and Au 1985;Roberts 1989; see also Vergote et al 1969;Vergote, Aubert, Houard 1972). However, the third dimension-corresponding to how engaged God is-often emerges as well, both in factor analyses Cassese and Holman 2017;Bader 2008, 2010) and in terms of its theoretical and predictive significance Bader 2007, 2010).…”

“…However, the third dimension—corresponding to how engaged God is—often emerges as well, both in factor analyses (Bader et al. ; Cassese and Holman ; Froese and Bader , ) and in terms of its theoretical and predictive significance (Froese and Bader , ).…”