The Interaction of Race and Gender: Changing Gender-Role Attitudes, 19742006 n

J. Scott Carter, University of Central Florida Mamadi Corra, East Carolina University Shannon K. Carter, University of Central Florida
Objective. The purpose of this article is to assess over-time trends in the interactive effects of gender and race on attitudes toward the changing roles of women in U.S. society. Methods. This article uses data from the 19742006 General Social Survey. Gender-role attitudes are measured using two composite indices of traditionalism. Results. We nd black females tend to hold less traditional gender-role attitudes than their black male, white male, and white female counterparts. Black and white males tend to hold similar attitudes toward women entering politics, but differ signicantly in their attitudes toward women working outside the home and its impact on children. Assessing over-time trends, we nd the difference between black females and the other social groups to be generally diminishing. This convergence is more pronounced for white and black females. The difference in attitudes toward women entering politics between black females and white males, on the other hand, appears to be maintaining over time. Conclusions. These ndings support the idea that the labor force participation for women may have provided the groundwork for the evolution of attitudes for men and women. As white women in particular increase participation in the workforce, ideologies regarding the place of women in U.S. society have shifted.

The interactive impact of race and gender on attitudes toward the changing roles of women has been of particular interest to scholars. Gender alone implies a certain fundamental ideology about the status and acceptability of varying roles for women in contemporary U.S. society. When race is gured into the discussion, the effect becomes a great deal more complicated. Scholars pose that the interaction of race and gender produces a dynamic relationship that creates exclusive social categories with unique histories and experiences (Collins, 1990; Dugger, 1988; Hunter and Sellers, 1998; Kane, 1992). With respect to black women, for instance, Dugger (1988:425) argues that racism and sexism should be viewed as combining in such a way that they create a distinct social location rather than an additive form of double disadvantage.
n Direct correspondence to J. Scott Carter, University of Central Florida, Daytona, Department of Sociology, 1200 W. International Speedway Blvd., FL 32114 h carter@mail.ucf.edu i . For those wanting to replicate the study, please contact J. Scott Carter for the data and coding information.

SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Volume 90, Number 1, March 2009 r 2009 by the Southwestern Social Science Association

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In this light, race and gender interact to produce unique experiences that shape the personal realities and attitudes of individuals about their situation and the world around them. The vestige of past and current experiences may result in varying attitudes toward the more dynamic roles of women in contemporary U.S. society. Following this logic, the life experiences of black men, black women, white men, and white women differ and produce unique observations about gender inequality and gender relations. Questions still exist regarding how the unique social locations produced by the combination of race and gender translate into attitudes toward the changing roles of women in contemporary U.S. society. Generally, distinctive gender-role attitudes have been associated with personal experiences of structural inequality (Hunter and Sellers, 1998), unequal employment practices (Wildavsky, 1994), and the gender wage gap (Davis and Robinson, 1991), among others. It has also been argued that shared experiences with others who maintain nontraditional attitudes can facilitate more liberal gender-role attitudes (Bolzendahl and Myers, 2004). In this light, recent empirical research nds women to hold more liberal gender-role attitudes than men (Bolzendahl and Myers, 2004; Brewster and Padavic, 2000; Ciabattari, 2001).1 Assessing the interactive impact of race and gender, research shows that black females hold more liberal gender-role attitudes than their white male, white female, and black male counterparts (Hunter and Sellers, 1998; Kane, 2000; Kane and Kyyro, 2001). With the passing of several decades since the naissance of the civil rights movement, however, life experiences of all groups in the United States, including white and black males and females, have changed considerably (Kane, 2000). Brooks and Bolzendahl (2003) argue that several factors can be linked to changing trends in gender-role attitudes in the contemporary United States, including the increasing labor force participation of women and changing familial and household structures. Women of all races are entering college, the workforce, and politics at higher rates than ever before (Twenge, 1997). In fact, Dugger (1988:428) observes a [g]rowing similarity in the productive and reproductive proles of Black and White women. Here, we assess the interactive impact of race and gender on gender-role attitudes by comparing responses of white and black males and females to a number of survey items from the 19722006 General Social Survey (GSS). In doing so, we explore shifts in such attitudes among white males, white females, black males, and black females over time.

Background

Scholars argue that the salience of race may preempt the impact of gender on attitudes toward the shifting roles of women in contemporary U.S.
1

Exceptions: Cherlin and Walters (1981); Kane (1992); and Kluegel and Smith (1986).

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society, resulting in greater egalitarianism among black women than white women (Bolzendahl and Myers, 2004; Kane, 1992). Attitudinal differences between women by race may result from differences in experience. Compared to white women, black women are more likely to hold year-round full-time jobs outside the home (41 percent of black women compared to 36 percent of white women) and to be the head of household (Farley, 2005). Black women aged 1519 have signicantly higher birth rates than their white counterparts (71.4 and 22.9 per 1,000, respectively) (Farley, 2005). Consequently, Kane (1992) argues that the increased participation of black women in the labor force, their prominent roles in the family, and their distinctive outsider status in society foster more liberal attitudes toward nontraditional gender roles than white women have. Dugger (1988) further notes that such nontraditional attitudes among black women began as early as the period of slavery, a historically unique time period that forced black women to adopt a nontraditional denition of womanhood that embodies self-reliance, hard work, tenacity, and sexual equality. Dugger (1988:426) observes: Two systems of social relations, that of production and that of reproduction, is primary in the formation of [the] gender-role attitudes and identity [of black and white women]. Women highly invested in reproduction are likely to have low labor force participation rates and are less likely to question economic and social inequality. The greater likelihood of black women than white or Hispanic women to be employed full time, year round (Farley, 2005), for example, suggests that black women are more invested in production and nontraditional in their viewpoints (Kane, 1992, 2000; Kane and Kyyro, 2001), and see employment as being compatible with maternal and familial responsibilities (Collins, 1990). Scholars also nd black women to be the most skeptical of gender reverse discrimination in response to afrmative action policies (Kane and Kyyro, 2001) and less receptive to collective political action (Kane, 1992). This literature, however, is not without its inconsistencies. Several studies nd no differences in gender-role attitudes between black and white women (Marshall, 1990; Rinehart, 1992). In assessing attitudes of black and white men, the effect of their social location and early socialization is a bit more difcult to gauge (Blee and Tickamyer, 1995; Hunter and Sellers, 1998). The life experiences of males vary by race (Connell, 2005) but whether that translates into differences in gender attitudes is yet to be observed. Kane (1992) posits that black men may be less traditional because they are more sensitive to oppression in general, may share resistance with black women to racial inequality, and often gain acceptance of women during their early years while being raised by single mothers. Collins (1990) adds that the interdependence of black men and women in the labor market may produce more acceptance of changing roles for women in and outside the home by black men. Empirical ndings that show more liberal gender-role attitudes for black men in relation to white men tend to be limited and inconsistent at best.

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Some scholars nd black men to be more liberal than white men, particularly in regard to women being employed outside the home (Ciabattari, 2001; Blee and Tickamyer, 1995). However, studies also nd black men to be more conservative regarding gender roles than their white male counterparts. For example, black males have been found to be more traditional than white males toward women entering into politics (Bolzendahl and Myers, 2004; Ransford and Miller, 1983) and toward gender roles in the home (Blee and Tickamyer, 1995). Survey questions that ask respondents their opinion regarding women in leadership positions in particular tend to evoke very traditional responses from black men. Kane (2000:426) suggests that this may be due to an investment in gender inequality as providing some compensation for . . . racial inequality. Other studies, however, reveal very little difference in gender-role attitudes between black and white men (Wilkie, 1993). Attitudinal Trends Existing research supports the idea that, in general, gender-role attitudes have become more egalitarian over time (Blee and Tickamyer, 1995; Bolzendahl and Myers, 2004; Brewster and Padavic, 2000; Cherlin and Walters, 1981; Mason and Lu, 1988; Peek, Lowe, and Williams, 1991; Twenge, 1997; Wilkie, 1993). For instance, Cherlin and Walters (1981) nd men and women more likely to be accepting of women obtaining employment and becoming president in 1976 and 1978 than in previous years. More recently, Twenge (1997) and Ciabattari (2001) also observe a liberal shift in attitudes for men and women regarding changing gender roles. Blee and Tickamyer (1995) nd a positive shift in attitudes toward working wives across time for blacks and whites. Wilkie poses that this apparent liberal shift in attitudes is associated with a change in gender expectations about family roles (1993:261). The United States has witnessed an increase in the number of dual-earner and femaleheaded families. Consequently, traditional views of women in the home and workplace may be discarded. The greater acceptance of women having more freedom is born out of necessity. In addition, Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman (1999) argue that the change in gender-role attitudes is due to a measurable decline in gender inequality in the marketplace. Other scholars pose that the shift may be due primarily to cohort replacement and, to a lesser extent, ideology change (Brewster and Padavic, 2000; Brooks and Bolzendahl, 2003; Mason and Lu, 1988; Seligman, 1999). Very little research has assessed differential changes in attitudes across time by race and gender. Ostensibly, the life experiences of black and white men and women have evolved over the past 30 years. Blee and Tickamyer (1995:23) argue that [t]he entry of large numbers of white married women into the labor force and rising divorce rates in the 1970s led to overall

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changes in normative gender role attitudes. Blee and Tickamyer (1995) further pose that this evolution is even more pronounced in the younger generation. This apparent change in life experience across race leads us to predict a possible attitudinal convergence between black women and white women over time. Indeed, Dugger (1988) predicted that white womens increasing participation in the labor force would eventually lead to a convergence of attitudes. Such broad social changes should produce differential shifts in attitudes for other social groups as well, including black and white males. Comparing men and women separately, Bolzendahl and Myers (2004) nd the impact of race on attitudes toward abortion, premarital sex, and family responsibilities to be declining over time.

Data and Methods

The data for the current study are taken from the General Social Survey, a randomly drawn nationally representative sample of English-speaking adults (18 years of age and older) living in noninstitutional settings in the United States (Davis and Smith, 2006). The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) conducted the survey annually from 1972 to 1994 and, since then, biennially. The analyses to follow use data from surveys conducted from 1974 to 2006 and include (1) questionnaire items regarding attitudes toward women and politics from 1974 to 1998; and (2) survey items concerning attitudes toward women, traditional roles at home, and the impact of work on children included in the GSS from 1977 to 2006. To assess change across time, we pooled the data into three time periods for each analysis (two indicessee description below) and then calculated regression models.2 Each time period represented a single decade. For instance, all years in the 1970s were combined in one analysis. Then, to help discern whether a signicant change in the regression parameter estimates occurred from one time period to another, we calculated t tests (see results section for further discussion). Pooling annual data into three time periods improves the reliability of our results by reducing the impact of undersampling of black respondents, a phenomenon that has been previously associated with GSS data (Kane and Kyyro, 2001).

Dependent Variable Several survey items regarding the roles of women in politics were included in the GSS from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. Similarly, survey
2 To assess change across time, we also calculated interaction effects with our main dependent variables and year. Similar results were found.

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items measuring attitudes toward women working at home while men work outside the home and the impact of women working on children were included in the GSS over a three-decade period, including the early 1980s through 2006. The frequency of these GSS survey items made them ideal for our trend analysis. With the foregoing caveats, our dependent measure consists of two indices. The rst index measures attitudes toward women entering politics and was used to assess change in gender-role attitudes from 1974 to 1998. The second index included survey items measuring attitudes toward womens role at home and/or their entry into the labor force and its impact on children. This index was used to assess change in gender-role attitudes from the early 1980s (including 1977) to 2006. It should be noted that we combined 1977 with the 1980s to reduce the impact of sample size on the reliability of our ndings. The rst composite index (POLITICS) assessing womens entry into politics was constructed from three GSS items. 1. If your party nominated a woman for President, would you vote for her if she were qualied for the job? [FEPRES] 2. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Women should take care of running their homes and leave running the country up to men. [FEHOME] 3. Tell me if you agree or disagree with this statement: Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than are most women. [FEPOL] Items were recoded such that the highest scores reect the most liberal responses and the lowest scores the least liberal (range: 03). The rst question provided respondents with either a yes or no response. A response of yes was coded as 1, whereas no was coded as 0 in the analysis. The second and third questions were similarly dichotomized into agree (0) and disagree (1). Responses of dont know, no answer, and not applicable to any of these questions were excluded. From 19741998, these identically worded GSS questions were asked of respondents a total of 16 times. Correlations among the annual averages of the three items ranged from 0.941 to 0.999. Although statistically signicant, the individual-level correlations among the three items were considerably lower than the correlations among annual means. They ranged from 0.034 to 0.224. Using a principal component analysis, only one component had an eigenvalue greater than 1 (1.41) and it accounted for over 40 percent of the variance. Therefore, the three-question composite index used in our analysis provides a parsimonious one-factor measure. The second composite index (HOME AND WORK) was constructed from the following three GSS items.
Now Im going to read several more statements. As I read each one, please tell me whether you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree with

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it . . .: 1) A working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work. [FECHLD] 2) A preschool child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works. [FEPRESCH] 3) It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family. [FEFAM]

Items were recoded so that the highest scores reected the most liberal responses and the lowest scores the least liberal (range: 09). Each of the three questions provided respondents with a Likert response scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. For the rst question (FECHLD), coding was reversed so that strongly disagree was coded as 0, agree as 1, disagree as 2, and strongly agree as 3. The response order for Questions 2 and 3 (FEPRESCH and FEFAM) remained in the same order provided to respondents in the GSS, with 0 equaling strong agreement and more traditional attitudes and 3 reecting strong disagreement and more liberal attitudes. The individual-level correlations among the three questions included in the composite index reached statistical signicance and ranged from 0.208 to 0.325. Using a principal component analysis, we nd a parsimonious one-factor measure. Only one component had an eigenvalue greater than 1 (1.51) and it accounted for over 50 percent of the variance.

Independent Variables In accordance with past research on gender attitudes, several control variables were included in our analysis. If the interactive effects of race and gender are independent and not spurious, they should remain, even with these variables controlled. Along with the four social categories produced by the combination of race and gender (black men, black women, white men, and white women), the following controls are included in our analysis as independent variables: marital status, age, income, education, place of residency (urban and region), and religious fundamentalism. Marital status was treated as a dichotomous variable, with married being recoded as 1 and nonmarried recoded as 0. Assuming a linear effect of age, the age variable was treated as an ordinal variable.3 Similarly, income was treated as an ordinal variable ranging from 1 (lowest income level) to 12 (highest income level). Education was treated as a continuous variable ranging from 0 to 20 years of education. Past research also revealed a signicant impact of place of residency, with individuals living in the South and in rural areas maintaining more tradi3 In an additional analysis, assuming a nonlinear effect, age was treated as a categorical variable with age 75 and over treated as the comparison category with all younger categories (ages were collapsed into ve-year ranges).

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tional gender-role attitudes than their non-South and urban counterparts (Twenge, 1997; Wirth, [1938] 1964). Therefore, to control for place of residency, urban and region were dichotomized into two dummy variables in the analysis. Urban was recoded as 1 and nonurban recoded as 0.4 Similarly, South was treated as 1 whereas non-South was recoded as 0. The differentiation of the states into South and non-South regions followed previous studies that used the U.S. Census denition of South and nonSouth (Carter, 2005; Carter and Corra, 2005; Tuch, 1987). It has also been shown that more traditional attitudes are associated with a respondents level of religious fundamentalism (Carter and Corra, 2005). As a proxy for religious fundamentalism, we included two GSS questions often used in the literature that tap into respondents level of fundamentalism. One of these questions measured respondents church attendance (ATTEND) and was treated as a ordinal variable in our analysis, with lower scores equating to less attendance (0 5 never) and higher scores equating to greater attendance (8 5 more than once a week). The other question asked respondents to describe the nature of their religion as being fundamental, moderate, or liberal (FUND). This variable was treated as a dummy variable with the liberal category used as the comparison group in our analysis. The sex and race variables were collapsed to create four social categories: black women, black men, white women, and white men. For the original race variable, a category of other contained very few cases and, consequently, was treated as missing.

Resutls

General Trends Unadjusted mean scores for the gender-role attitudes indices by race and gender were initially assessed overall and for each year (available on request). The general trend across the decades for both indices reected growing
4 Tuch (1987) included the following states as non-South: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. South includes the following states: Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas. As delineated by Tuch (1987), urban included the following areas: within an SMSA and a large central city (over 250,000); a medium-size central city (50,000 to 250,000); a suburb of a large central city; a suburb of a medium-size central city; an unincorporated area of a large central city (division, township, etc.); an unincorporated area of a medium central city. Nonurban includes the following areas: not within an SMSA, (within a county) anda small city (10,000 to 49,999); a town or village (2,500 to 9,999); an incorporated area less than 2,500 or an unincorporated area of 1,000 to 2,499; open country within larger civil divisions, for example, township, division.

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acceptance of changing gender roles across all groups (white males and females and black males and females); however, there was little evidence for differential shifts for these groups across time. For the politics index in particular (index range: 03), white males surprisingly maintained the most liberal attitudes with a mean score of 2.35, while black and white females followed closely behind (mean 5 2.34 and 2.31, respectively). Black males exhibited the most traditional attitudes toward women entering politics (mean 5 2.14). For the second index assessing attitudes toward women working outside the home and its impact on children (index range: 09), black females maintained the highest overall mean score and most liberal gender-role attitudes (mean 5 5.48), with white females holding the second highest mean score (mean 5 5.22). White males and black males held the lowest mean index scores and, thus, the most traditional gender-role attitudes (means 5 4.57 and 4.83, respectively). Although the mean scores for some groups appear to be increasing faster than others over time, no concrete evidence for a convergence or divergence across time is observed. We cannot, for example, say that the data indicate a particular pattern consistently and throughout the time period under study for each group in relation to the others. Therefore, a more rigorous analysis is needed. The section to follow employs multivariate analysis to more fully investigate differences between our social groups.

Multivariate Analysis Table 1 presents unstandardized parameter estimates and standard errors for four models assessing the inuence of our independent variables on our two composite indices. These models include the control variables mentioned above and the results are available on request. Model 1 controls for the independent effects of race and sex on our rst index (attitudes toward the role of women in politics), whereas Model 3 does the same for our second index (attitudes toward women in the labor force and its inuence on children). Models 2 and 4 add controls for our four social categories (with black females treated as the reference group in each model). A t test5 is used to test whether estimates for white males, white females, and black males for Models 2 and 4 are signicantly different from one another. As indicated in Table 1, results of Models 14 collectively reveal two notable ndings. First, the results indicate that race and sex each have independent and statistically signicant effects on both indices, with whites and males exhibiting more traditional gender-role attitudes than blacks and females. Second, results of Models 2 and 4 indicate that black females
5

b1b2 . The formula for the t test is: p se 12 se 22

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TABLE 1

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Unstandardized Parameter Estimates (Standard Errors in Parentheses) Assessing the Effect of the Social Categories on the Two Gender Traditionalism Indices Measuring Attitudes Toward Women Entering Politics (Models 1 and 2) and Toward Women Staying in the Home and the Impact of Working Women on the Child (Models 3 and 4) Independent Variables White Male White males White females Black males Black females N R2 Model 1 Main Effect 0.106 (0.022) n n n 0.086 (0.014) n n n 17,430 0.180 Model 2 Main Effect 0.254 (0.028) n n n 0.194 (0.027) n n n 0.280 (0.39) n n n 17,430 0.182 Model 3 Main Effects 0.854 (0.029) n n n 0.482 (0.044) n n n 18,219 0.188 Model 4 Main Effects

1.311 (0.056) n n n 0.445 (0.055) n n 0.769 (0.080) n n n 18,219 0.188

nnn po0.001; n npo0.01. NOTE: Includes all compositional variables as described in the methods section.

exhibit less traditional attitudes toward the changing roles of women than their white female, white male, and black male counterparts. Comparing estimates for white males, white females, and black males for both indices, t tests indicate other signicant differences. First, for the politics index, black and white males exhibit similar attitudes toward the changing roles of women in politics (t 5 0.5416, p40.05). In contrast, black males exhibit less traditional attitudes toward the entry of women in the labor force and its impact on children than white males (t 5 5.550, po0.001, two-tailed test). Second, the t value for the comparison between white males and females is borderline signicant at the 0.05 level (t 5 1.620) for the POLITICS index and highly signicant for the HOME AND WORK index (t 5 11.033, po0.001, two-tailed test), suggesting a somewhat more traditional attitude toward the changing roles of women in politics for white males than for white females, and a highly traditional attitude toward the entry of women in the labor force and its impact on children for white males as compared to white females. Lastly, the comparison between black males and white females reveals signicant differences for both indices (POLITICS index: t 5 1.813, po0.05, one-tailed test; HOME AND WORK index: t 5 3.340, po0.001, two-tailed test). That is, compared to white females, black males exhibit more traditional attitudes toward the changing roles of women, and this is true for both indices.

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Taken together, the ndings thus far strongly suggest that the combination of race and gender is the overriding factor that produces more or less accepting attitudes among our four comparison groups. In particular, the social experiences of black women appear to be quite unique in producing more liberal gender-role attitudes. Moreover, the ndings related to some of the demographic variables omitted from Table 1 (available on request) are worth noting. For both indices, individuals who are younger, have higher income, are more educated, attend church less often, and describe their religion as being liberal in nature tend to hold more liberal gender-role attitudes. Note especially that the ndings related to religion are consistent regardless of how gender-role attitudes are measured. Finally, although nonsoutherners and urban residents are more likely to report positive gender-role attitudes toward women entering politics, the difference appears to be negligible when assessing attitudes toward women entering the labor force and its impact on children. Over-Time Trends Table 2 provides unstandardized parameter estimates and standard errors for three models per index across decades. The models in Table 2 include the control variables mentioned above (results available on request). By comparing parameter estimates across decades, we can assess whether attitudes of white males, white females, and black males are converging or diverging with those of black females over time. It should be noted that since black women maintained signicantly less traditional gender-role attitudes (see Table 1 above), we made them the reference group to assess change across time. Our rst analysis assesses attitudes of our four groups toward women entering politics (POLITICS index) across three decades: 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Our second analysis measures the attitudes of our four groups toward women staying at home and/or entering the labor force and the impact of work on children (HOME AND WORK index) across three decades: 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. To further assess whether gender-role attitudes are diverging or converging over time, we conducted t tests to compare the parameter estimates across each decade (see footnote 5 for t test formula). More specically, the t test allows us to compare the change (increase or decrease) in parameter estimates for each possible pair (e.g., 1970s vs. 1980s; 1970s vs. 1990s; and 1980s vs. 1990s) so as to observe the existence of signicant differences (or lack thereof) between each social category and the reference group across decades. Results of the six models (three models per index for each decade) in Table 2 are similar to those in Table 1 in that for all three decades, net of the control variables, black females exhibit more liberal gender-role attitudes than their white male, white female, and black male counterparts. Note that

TABLE 2

Unstandardized Parameter Estimates (Standard Errors in Parentheses) of Models Assessing the Effect of the Social Categories on the Two Gender Traditionalism Indices Measuring Attitudes Toward Women Entering Politics (POLITICS) and Toward Women Staying in the Home and the Impact of Working Women on the Child (HOME AND WORK) Politics 1980s 1990s 1980s Home and Work 1990s 2000s

1970s

White male

White female (156) n n n 5,780 0.209

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Black male

Black female Df R2

0.191 (0.068) n n 0.225 (0.066) n n 0.341 (0.092) n n n 4,486 0.188

0.214 (0.048) n n n 0.131 (0.047) n n 0.236 (0.065) n n n 6,225 0.179

0.211 (0.037) n n n 0.144 (0.035) n n n 0.201 (0.053) n n 6,627 0.131

1.395 (0.112) n n n 0.534 (0.108) n n n 0.829

1.271 (0.084) n n n 0.407 (0.081) n n n 0.740 (0.120) n n n 7,767 0.187

1.187 (0.104) n n n 0.341 (0.102) n n 0.713 (0.147) n n n 4,670 0.151

w For this analysis, all time periods (years) where data were collected are collapsed into a decade. POLITICS index: the 1970s decade includes the years 1974, 1975, 1977, and 1978. The 1980s decade includes 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988, and 1989. The 1990s decade includes 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1998. HOME AND WORK index: the 1980s decade includes the years 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988, and 1989. The 1990s decade includes 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1998. The 2000s decade includes 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006. nnn po0.001; n npo0.01. NOTE: Includes all compositional variables as described in the methods section.

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regardless of how gender-role attitudes are measured, the difference in gender-role attitudes between black females and each of the other three groups is negative and highly signicant. When assessing changing attitudes toward women entering politics, the analysis reveals that in the 1970s, black males were the most traditional of all the groups, while white males appeared to be the least traditional in comparison to black females. However, over time, the impact of being a white male appears to be increasing while the impact of being a white female and black male seems to be decreasing. For white males, the size of the parameter estimate actually increased from the 1970s to the 1980s before showing a negligible decrease from the 1980s to the 1990s. Using an independent samples t test, although the parameter estimate for white males was larger in the 1980s as compared to the 1970s, the difference does not reach statistical signicance. Conversely, for white females, the parameter estimate is signicantly lower for the 1980s than for the 1970s (t 5 1.75, po0.05, one-tailed test), and increases negligibly from the 1980s to the 1990s. The parameter estimate for black males shows a great deal more consistency as it decreases from the 1970s to the 1980s and the 1980s to the 1990s. Although decreasing across all comparisons, the difference in the parameter estimates never reaches statistical signicance.6 The degree of change in the parameter estimates across the three decades provides evidence of a differential shift for our three social groups in comparison to black females. For white males, the parameter estimate increased by 11 percent from the 1970s to the 1990s. Over this same time period, the parameter estimate for white females and black males, on the other hand, dropped 59 percent and 70 percent, respectively. These patterns suggest that at this rate the differences between white females and black males will disappear over time. The difference between white males and black females, on the other hand, appears to be more resilient and diverging across time. When assessing changing attitudes toward women staying at home and the impact of work on children, we observe some overlap in ndings. In comparison to black females, our analysis indicates a decrease in the parameter estimates for all groups across the three decades, a pattern that suggests that the attitudes of these groups in relation to black females may be converging across time. However, the observed differences in the parameter estimates from the 1980s to the 1990s to the 2000s for all groups in relation to black females never reach statistical signicance. The percentage change (degree of decrease) for the parameter estimate by group across the three-decade period did vary. From the 1980s to the 2000s, the parameter estimate for white females in relation to black females diminished by 59 percent, whereas the decrease in parameter estimates for white and black males in relation to black females was 18 percent and
6

For complete list of observed t scores, please contact the primary author.

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16 percent, respectively. These variations in change suggest that the attitudinal difference between black and white females may eventually disappear. The differences between white and black males and black females, however, appear to be more stable and less likely to converge signicantly in the near future.
Conclusion

In revisiting the topic of gender-role attitudes between blacks, whites, males, and females, the ndings of this research provide further support to the idea that blacks and women tend to maintain less traditional attitudes toward the changing roles of women in the United States. However, once race and gender are considered together, the ndings become more complicated. In reference to women entering politics, our ndings indicate that black males hold similar attitudes toward the changing roles of women as do white males. The lack of distinctiveness of black males from their white male counterparts toward women in politics was somewhat unexpected. However, Kane (2000:426) explains that such ndings are not surprising due to black males having investment in gender inequality as providing some compensation for . . . racial inequality. When assessing attitudes toward women staying at home and the impact of women working on children, black males are more likely than white males to support more nontraditional gender roles. When referencing the family and work, scholars posit that black men may be less traditional because they are more sensitive to oppression in general, may share resistance with black women to racial inequality, and often gain acceptance of women in the workforce during their early years while being raised by a single working mother (Collins, 1990; Kane, 1992). The results of our analysis show that black women generally hold less traditional attitudes toward the changing roles of women than their white male, white female, and black male counterparts regardless of how attitudes are measured. The more liberal gender-role attitudes of black women may be due to the fact that black women are more likely to participate in the labor force at the expense of reproduction, which may desensitize them to less traditional roles for women (Kane, 1992, 2000; Kane and Kyyro, 2001). Consequently, black women are more likely to question the unequal treatment of women and the lack of value placed on womens domestic responsibilities. The more traditional attitudes of white women overall toward the changing roles of women may reect white womens higher investment in reproduction. The analysis in this article also nds that the attitudinal difference between black and white females appears to be dissipating over time. This nding supports the idea that the entry of white women into the labor force may have provided the groundwork for the evolution of their attitudes

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(Blee and Tickamyer, 1995). As white women enter the workforce and their focus turns away from reproduction, so do their conservative ideologies about the place of women in U.S. society. Indeed, with women entering into the labor force at higher rates than ever before and growing changes across social categories overall, the attitudes of the four groups studied here appear to be converging over time (with the exception of white males and politics). Despite differences in life experiences that result from each groups location in the matrix of domination (Collins, 1990), individuals within these groups are increasingly drawing similar conclusions regarding the acceptance of nontraditional gender roles. The only exception is for white males in relation to black females.

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