A recent paper published in Politics and the Life Sciences outlines how internal perceptions of masculinity and femininity strongly predict political engagement and ideological leanings. Moving beyond traditional male and female demographic categories, the authors show that a person’s continuous gender identity can explain political attitudes related to authoritarianism, gun rights, and civic participation.
Public discussions often center on a purported masculinity crisis, pointing to shifting economic prospects for men and their alignment with extreme political ideologies. Political analysts typically rely on male and female categories to explain voting gaps and policy preferences. Claire Gothreau of Lebanon Valley College and Amanda Friesen of the University of Western Ontario argue that this binary framework obscures immense variation within each group. They propose measuring masculinity and femininity as continuous, distinct identities.
Using a continuous measurement scale, a person can identify as highly masculine, highly feminine, both, or neither, regardless of their sex assigned at birth. In the past, social scientists measured masculinity by asking about stereotypically gendered personality traits or adherence to cultural norms like toughness and anti-femininity. Other frameworks treat manhood as a precarious social status that men feel pressure to defend when threatened. Gothreau and Friesen advocate for a more direct approach that asks people to rate how masculine or feminine they feel.
This method treats gender as a subjective sense of self. The researchers conducted three separate analyses to test whether this self-perceived identity holds more explanatory weight than binary categories alone. By examining intra-gender variation, they aimed to show how men differ from other men, and women from other women, in ways that shape their political realities.
In their first analysis, Gothreau and Friesen analyzed survey data from 1,017 adults in the United States collected in 2022. Participants reported their categorical gender alongside where they placed themselves on continuous scales of masculinity and femininity. They also answered questions about their political participation, which included activities like signing petitions, protesting, and donating to campaigns. The researchers controlled for factors such as age, race, education, income, and political party identification to ensure that any correlations were not simply the result of other demographic traits.
The results showed that binary gender was not a statistically significant predictor of political participation once continuous gender identity was included in the statistical models. Instead, participants who reported higher levels of either masculinity or femininity were more likely to engage in political activities. Predicted values hinted that identifying in ways that differ from traditional gender expectations, such as men reporting high femininity or women reporting high masculinity, might be especially linked to civic engagement, though in this first survey those differences were not statistically significant. The researchers suggest that individuals who view their gender in non-traditional ways might feel their identity is inherently political, motivating them to participate more frequently in the democratic process.
To see if these patterns held across different contexts, the researchers conducted a second analysis using survey data from 1,043 adults in 2020. This survey included the same demographic and gender identity measures but added questions about attitudes toward issues of force, specifically gun rights and the death penalty. They again controlled for socioeconomic and demographic variables.
The second survey replicated the participation results from the first analysis, again showing that atypical gender identification correlated with higher political involvement. Regarding policy attitudes, the results varied by topic and gender category. Among men, higher masculinity predicted stronger support for gun rights, while higher femininity predicted lower support for the death penalty.
Among women, higher masculinity was associated with lower support for the death penalty, while continuous gender identity had a more limited relationship with gun rights attitudes. The authors note that masculinity does not uniformly increase support for aggressive or conservative policies across the board. Its political consequences depend heavily on both the issue in question and the binary gender of the respondent.
In a third analysis, Gothreau and Friesen examined how continuous gender identity relates to broader worldviews that dictate how people think about social order. They surveyed 1,200 participants in 2022, measuring their alignment with Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation. Right-Wing Authoritarianism measures deference to traditional authority, obedience, and conventionalism. Social Dominance Orientation captures a preference for hierarchy and inequality among social groups.
The researchers found no strong relationship between continuous gender identity and Social Dominance Orientation. They did detect correlations regarding Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Among men, higher masculinity correlated with higher levels of authoritarian attitudes, whereas higher femininity correlated with lower authoritarianism.
Among women, the pattern reversed, with higher masculinity predicting lower authoritarianism. The findings indicate that traditional gender identification aligns more closely with authoritarian worldviews, while atypical gender identification resists those frameworks. Much like the findings on force issues, the ideological meaning of a masculine identity hinges on how it aligns with societal expectations for a person’s biological sex.
The relationships identified in the paper are correlational. The survey data cannot determine whether holding a specific gender identity causes a person to adopt certain political beliefs, or if holding certain political beliefs makes a person more comfortable reporting a non-traditional gender identity. It is possible that individuals with liberal worldviews simply feel more at ease describing themselves in ways that challenge binary norms. Additionally, self-reported measures of femininity and masculinity are subject to social desirability bias, meaning participants might answer in ways they think are viewed favorably by others.
Future research will need to untangle the order in which these identities and political preferences develop. The authors suggest that longitudinal studies tracking individuals over time, or studies utilizing genetically informed samples, could reveal whether a strong sense of masculinity leads to specific policy preferences or if the two emerge simultaneously. They also note that researchers should investigate aspirational masculinity, looking at the gap between how masculine men feel and how masculine they think they should be. This discrepancy could help explain aggressive political behaviors or feelings of grievance among voters who feel they are falling short of societal gender ideals.
The study, “Rethinking masculinity in politics: Measuring what matters,” was authored by Claire Gothreau and Amanda Friesen.