Gender and conservatism: political attitudes in Brazil (2018-2022)
Political attitudes; Conservatism; Gender gap; Gender relations
A growing trend of mobilizations and attacks against gender equality, sexual rights, and their activism has generated tensions around an anti-gender agenda advocated by conservative, religious, right-wing populist, and nationalist actors. Ultimately, how do the political opinions of men and women materialize during a period of alignment with a conservative agenda in the country? Is there a gender difference in the dimensions of conservatism? In what direction does this difference point? How do gender disparities persist when the statistical model encompasses other important issues for the dimensions of conservatism? The objective of this dissertation is to investigate (i) whether there is disparity in the conservative attitudes of men and women and (ii) the proportion of gender disparities in these attitudes that can be explained by religiosity, occupational status, marital status, ideology, and party affiliation when controlled for age, income, education, and race. At this juncture, the aim is to analyze the strength that gender - a social identity - holds in comparison to other attributes that also act as opinion differentiators. To achieve the results, the research utilized proportion difference tests and logistic models for multivariate analyses. The data is derived from the "A cara da democracia" project. Questions that allow the operationalization of Brazilian multidimensional conservatism were selected, aggregating thirteen survey questions into three dimensions: traditional social and moral issues, views on law and order, and social policies and economic positions. The main finding is that women are more likely to express progressive attitudes compared to men.