Gender, feminism, and partisanship among women's PAC contributors

Objective. We examine the political attitudes and priorities of contributor s to two prominent women's PACs for evidence of a gender gap. Methods. A su rvey of contributors to EMILYS List and to WISH List shows that contributor s to both organizations are overwhelmingly women. However, because EMILY's List is so large, there is a sufficient number of men to compare to the two groups of women using percentages and difference-of-means tests. Results. Partisanship is the overriding influence on political priorities and attitu des toward economic and social welfare policy. However, partisanship and ge nder interact to influence political attitudes in at least two areas. First , EMILY's List men are more supportive of militarism and use of force than are EMILY'S List women, but they are less supportive than WISH List women. Second, the women of EMILYS List are more staunchly feminist than either EM ILY's List men or WISH List women. Conclusions. We conclude that the source of each group's financial commitment to women's political equality and rep roductive rights is different: for EMILY'S List women, it is liberal femini sm; for WISH List women, it is libertarianism; and for EMILY's List men, it is general egalitarianism.