The Politics of Men's and Women's Traditional Masculinity Ideology in the United States

Little is known about how men's and women's traditional masculinity ideology (TMI; patriarchal beliefs about the norms for men's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors) relates to political ideology in the United States. The present study used bifactor modeling to examine the relative contributions of seven norms of TMI, as measured by the Male Role Norms Inventory-Short Form (MRNI-SF), as predictors of conservative political ideology (CPI). Structural equation modeling in a sample of 1,136 U.S. participants (78% women) revealed that a general factor representing the shared variance among avoidance of femininity, toughness, restrictive emotionality, and importance of sex norms of TMI was positively associated with CPI. Of the two TMI norms that were relatively independent of the TMI general factor (i.e., self-reliance through mechanical skills and negativity toward sexual minorities), only the negativity toward sexual minorities norm predicted variation in CPI above and beyond the TMI general factor. The model explained 51% of the variation in CPI for men and 33% for women. Measurement and structural invariance analyses revealed that there were no significant differences between men and women in the meaning of TMI or CPI or the strength of the relationships between these variables. Consistent with prior research, men scored significantly higher than women on TMI items. Men and women reported an equal level of CPI. These results suggest that men's and women's CPI may share common variance with two core aspects of TMI: antifemininity and negative attitudes toward sexual minorities.