Knowing and Caring about Politics: Gender and Political Engagement
1997/11/01 by Sidney Verba, Nancy Burns, Kay Lehman Schlozman · 921 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #American political science #Biology and political orientation #Demographic economics #Economics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Gender Politics and Representation #Gender gap #Gender studies #Law #Political efficacy #Political science #Politics #Psychology #Social and Cultural Dynamics #Social psychology #Sociology
paper · doi:10.2307/2998592
published in The Journal of Politics 59(4), 1051-1072 (University of Chicago Press)
openalex publication_date 1997/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract
This paper demonstrates that women are less politically interested, informed, and efficacious than men and that this gender gap in political engagement has consequences for political participation. Only when gender differences in political interest, information, and efficacy are considered along with gender differences in resources can we explain the relatively small disparity between the sexes with respect to political activity. When we searched for the origins of the gender gap in political engagement, we found that it can be explained only partially by gender differences in factors such as education that are associated with political engagement Furthermore, these gender differences in political orientation seem to be specific to politics-rather than the manifestation of general personal attributes Investigation of the extent to which the cues received by males and females that politics is a man's world are responsible for the gender gap in political engagement yielded results that were suggestive, but mixed.
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