PERSONAL-EXPERIENCE, IDEOLOGY AND SUPPORT FOR FEMINISM

Previous research has come to conflicting conclusions about the relati ve importance of personal experience versus ideology, and within the l atter about the relative significance of secular and religious beliefs and values, in creating support for feminism This paper reports a tes t of the relative significance of these variables for women and for me n. The study used data collected in 1988 from a random sample of the ' 'Middletown'' population (N = 400). Feminist support was related to so cial class, race, three indicators of personal dissatisfaction, econom ic liberalism, and moral-religious variables. As suggested by Mein (19 84), personal experience variables were more important for women. This was also true for moral-religious factors. In comparison with women, the feminist attitudes of men were mom strongly influenced by class fa ctors.