Sex and Gender Traditionalism Among Conservative Protestants: Does the Difference Make a Difference?

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed the resurgence of conservative Protestantism and its adherents' advocacy of gender traditionalism. Scholarship has traced conservative Protestant women's support for gender traditionalism to biblical inerrancy while linking conservative Protestant men's support for gender traditionalism to their denominational affiliation. Our study revisits this issue with more recent data, more sophisticated analytical techniques (structural equation modeling), and a refined measure of theological conservatism (accounting for beliefs pertaining to scripture, sin, and salvation). We find that theological conservatism is significantly related to gender traditionalism among conservative Protestant women but not men. For men, strength of denominational affiliation is more strongly related to traditionalist ideology. Strength of affiliation also affects gender ideology for women, but its effects, as well as those of religious attendance, are largely indirect through theological conservatism. We discuss these sex-specific patterns of religious influence in the context of conservative Protestantism exhibiting characteristics of a gendered institution. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUNDWhile much of the early research identified conservative Protestants' highly traditional attitudes toward gender (see Bartkowski 2001; Bartkowski and Xu 2010 for reviews), several other studies have uncovered some interesting nuances pertaining to conservative Protestant gender ideologies. Peek, Lowe, and Williams (1991) discovered that conservative Protestant support for a "sexist ideology" (gender traditionalism) was itself gendered. Conservative Protestant women's support for gender traditionalism was associated with their commitment to biblical inerrancy (namely, their view that the Bible is the inerrant word of God), while conservative Protestant men's support for gender traditionalism was a product of their denominational affiliation. More recent scholarship has called attention to the ways in which gender is institutionalized within conservative Protestantism (Bartkowski 2001;Hoffmann and Bartkowski 2008). For example, there is a substantial gender gap in biblical inerrancy within conservative Protestant denominations, such that women within this faith tradition are significantly more inclined to view the Bible as the actual word of God than are their male counterparts (Hoffmann and Bartkowski 2008).The present study seeks to augment and extend previous scholarship on the sex-specific determinants of gender ideologies embraced by religious conservatives. Using General Social Survey data and structural equation modeling (SEM), we explore how three religious factors-namely, strength of denominational affiliation, religious attendance, and theological conservatism-influence gender traditionalism among conservative Protestant men and women. We estimate the effects of religious factors separately for men and women to identify the sexspecific pathways responsible for traditional gender ideologies that pervade the conservative Protes...

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“…For example, those Protestants that adhere to a more conservative theology may have quite different belief systems regarding fear of crime than rather liberal Protestants [34]. Relatedly, more in depth measures of religious beliefs could help more effectively elucidate differences in fear of crime, in a similar manner to recent research which has demonstrated differences in gender beliefs rooted in religious ideology [35].…”

Religion and Gender Ideologies among Working-Age U.S. Latinas/os

“…For instance, theological conservatism and religious attendance predict gender essentialism but not beliefs related to separate spheres (Bartkowski and Xu 2010). Moreover, the social underpinnings of gender ideology sometimes work differently for religious men than for women (Bartkowski and Hempel 2009). Furthermore, qualitative research has revealed that ideological commitments to gender essentialism among religious adherents do not lead ineluctably to support for patriarchy or separate spheres (Bartkowski 2001;Mihelich and Storrs 2003).…”

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“…This does not of itself explain why women should be more literalist than men, who could equally draw on literalist interpretations to uphold views that deny women access to ordination. However, Bartkowski & Hempel (2009), in a study of conservative Protestants in the United States that built on the work of Peek, Lowe and Williamson (1991), found that women who supported gender traditionalism tended to do so for theological reasons, whereas among men This study shows the value of using a summated-rating literalism scale within a single denomination that has varying attitudes towards the ordination of women. It highlights the way that literalism can vary in a predicable fashion between traditions in the same denomination, and also between different groups in the same tradition.…”

“…This correlation is not a simple one, and there is some evidence that the relationship between biblical literalism and sexism may vary between men and women, with women's views being driven by personal convictions and men's views being linked to group membership (Bartkowski and Hempel 2009;Peek et al 1991). Women are not necessarily less literal than men, and indeed may be more literal in some cases.…”