GENDER, GENDER IDEOLOGY, AND ANIMAL RIGHTS ADVOCACY

Research on women's preponderance among animal rights advocates explai ns it exclusively as a product of women's socialization, emphasizing a relational orientation of care and nurturing that extends to animals. The authors propose a more structural explanation: Women's experience s with structural oppression make them more disposed to egalitarian id eology, which creates concern for animal rights. Using data from a 199 3 national sample, the authors find that an egalitarian gender ideolog y is a key difference in women's and men's routes to animal rights adv ocacy: It differentiates those more likely to endorse animal rights am ong women but not among men. Neither this ideology nor other variables in the analysis, however account for women's greater overall support of animal rights in the combined sample. Reasons for this latter findi ng are explored.