Women and political knowledge during the 2000 primaries

Prior research on political knowledge has found repeatedly that women do no t perform as well as men on political affairs questions. The present study analyzed survey responses collected between 14 December 1999 and 8 March 20 00 on political knowledge items about the issue positions and backgrounds o f candidates Bradley, Gore, and McCain. Even when several sociodemographic variables were controlled for, gender was a significant predictor of politi cal knowledge. Not only were women more likely than men to say they did not know the answer to a question, but they were also more likely to answer in correctly when giving a substantive response.