Content area
Full Text
Introduction
Discussions of women, public opinion and voting behaviour in Canada and abroad have been dominated by the notion of a "gender gap." The term simply refers to a significant sex difference in political orientations or political behaviour. It became a staple of political commentary in the wake of the 1980 US presidential election when a gap of eight percentage points separated women and men in their vote for Ronald Reagan, with women being much less likely than men to vote for the Republican candidate. This gap encouraged quantitatively oriented feminist scholars to start focusing on gender as a factor in understanding voting behaviour and political preference.
Since then, we have learned a great deal (see, for example, Burt, 1986; Everitt, 1998a, 1998b, 2002; Gibbins and Nevitte, 1991; Gidengil, 1995, 1996; Gidengil et al., 2003; Kopinak, 1987; O'Neill, 1995, 2003; Terry, 1984; Wearing and Wearing, 1991). A series of studies have revealed that Canadian women are less likely than Canadian men to subscribe to some of the central tenets of liberal individualism, they are more reluctant than men to allow market forces to work unfettered and they are readier to support social programs to help those in need. We have also learned that Canadian women are more resistant to the use of force: they tend to be more "dovish" than men on military matters and they are more opposed to the death penalty. They are also more tolerant of new lifestyles and changing values, especially when it comes to same-sex marriage.
Similar gaps have appeared across time and across surveys, and research done in Europe and in the United States confirms that these gender gaps are a more pervasive phenomenon (see, for example, Chaney et al., 1998; Conover and Sapiro, 1993; Eichenberg, 2003; Howell and Day, 2000; Kaufmann and Petrocik, 1999; Kaufmann, 2002; Norris, 1988; Shapiro and Mahajan, 1986; Smith, 1984; Wilcox et al., 1996). The sex differences are not huge, but in Canada they often rival or exceed the differences across the country's regional fault lines (Gidengil et al., 2003). And the differences in the political preferences and vote choices of women and men do not have to be dramatic to have a significant impact on the outcome of an election, especially in tight...