Gender differences in whites' racial attitudes: Are women's attitudes really more favorable?

Studies of gender differences in orientation toward others have found that women are more strongly concerned than men with affective processes and are more likely to be other-focused, while men tend to be more instrumental and more self-oriented. Recent research has extended this finding to include gender differences in racial attitudes, and reports that women also are more favorable than men in their racial outlooks. In this study we examine differences between white men and white women across a broader spectrum of racial attitudes with more diverse national samples than were employed previously, including the 1988-2000 General Social Surveys and the 1988-1994 American National Election Studies. We find that gender differences in racial attitudes are small, inconsistent, and limited mostly to attitudes on racial policy. Our findings are consistent with the views that white women's and white men's racial attitudes are rooted in their shared sense of group position, and that gender-differentiated value socialization plays only a small role in racial attitude formation.