THE GENDER-GAP IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE - GENDER DIFFERENCES IN ABSTRACT IDEOLOGY AND CONCRETE ISSUES IN WESTERN-EUROPE

Although the 'gender gap' in Western democratic publics has received a n increasing amount of scholarly attention, one interesting anomaly ha s not been addressed. At the level of many specific issues, women appe ar to be more liberal than men. However, at the level of general ideol ogical orientations, women are either more conservative, or there are no significant gender differences. We explore this disjuncture between levels of cognitive abstraction through the 1984 Eurobarometer data a nd conclude that the left-right continuum appears to have a different meaning for men and for women. Women seem much more likely to regard t he left-right space as referring to 'preservationist' values of religi on and cultural homogeneity, and men conceptualize the left-right spac e in economic and 'New Politics' terms.