THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTITUDES TOWARD WOMENS EQUALITY - POLICY PREFERENCES AMONG SOUTHERN PARTY ELITES

Objective. Women, among both political elites and the general public, tend to be more liberal than men on a variety of issues ranging from s ocial welfare and government services to national defense and environm ental protection. We explore the reasons for this gender gap in policy preferences among southern political party activists. Methods. Drawin g on a large sample of southern county-level political parry activists and national convention delegates, we test for sex differences in att itudes through bivariate and multivariate (OLS) analyses. Results. Whe n controlling for attitudes toward women's equality with men, we find that sex differences in policy preferences are often insignificant or even reversed with nonfeminist women taking more conservative position s than men. Conclusions. The commitment to women's equality, more than sex per se, is associated with general policy liberalism among these activists.