Haben Männer und Frauen verschiedene Gesprächsthemen und Interessen?
The signal work of Burns, Schlozman, and Verba (2001) and related analysis by Verba, Burns, and Schlozman (1997) and Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) have demonstrated that gender differences in political participation in the population at large are ubiquitous, if not always substantial. Among their more important findings are the fact that men score significantly higher on measures of interest in politics, knowledge of politics, consumption of news media, and feelings of political efficacy (2001, 102). Not surprisingly, therefore, men are more likely to engage in a number of overtly political activities: to make a campaign contribution, contact a public official, or affiliate with a political organization (2001, 65). Women, however, are more likely to affiliate with organizations dealing with senior citizens, youth affairs, and education (2001, 78). Controlling for education shows that education is a more important determinant of political activity than gender (the more educated of both genders are more active), but it is noteworthy that gender differences remain even when controlling for education (2001, 95). 1 In summary, although Burns, Schlozman, and Verba are at pains to emphasize the complicated nature of the paths to political participation, it is clear that gender is one of the more important contours that shape those paths. The same can be said of Dow’s sophisticated study of the sources of gender differences in levels of political knowledge (2009). Dow distinguishes between the impact of a personal characteristic (such as education) and the potentially different “return” that two people—let us say a man and a woman—derive from the same quantity of that characteristic. He finds that men and women do not derive the same amount of “benefit” for equal units of education, “with men receiving significantly larger returns to political knowledge than women” (117). Following Burns, Schlozman, and Verba (1997, 1070) and perhaps Kenski and Jamieson (2000), he suggests that men acquire more knowledge about politics because they want to: “women and men do appear to have different tastes for politics” (Burns, Schlozman, and Verba (2001) and related analysis by Verba, Burns, and Schlozman (1997) and Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995), (…)
Other studies confirm that there are moderate to strong gender differences at a very young age. Three sets of findings can be identified. First, several studies show that a gender difference in political knowledge exists from an early age. For example, Niemi, Hepburn, and Chapman found that gender strongly conditioned the acquisition of political knowledge and the consumption of news media among a sample of high school students in 1996 (2000, 57). Jenkins found a similar pattern in the 2002 National Citizen Engagement study: “Across a variety of surveys that include questions designed to gauge a respondent’s political knowledge, young women consistently turn up among the least knowledgeable” (2005, 8)
Aus einer der zitierten Studien:
This paper demonstrates that women are less politically interested, informed, and efficacious than men and that this gender gap in political engagement has consequences for political participation. Only when gender differences in political interest, information, and efficacy are considered along with gender differences in resources can we explain the relatively small disparity between the sexes with respect to political activity. When we searched for the origins of the gender gap in political engagement, we found that it can be explained only partially by gender differences in factors such as education that are associated with political engagement. Furthermore, these gender differences in political orientation seem to be specific to politics—rather than the manifestation of general personal attributes. Investigation of the extent to which the cues received by males and females that politics is a man’s world are responsible for the gender gap in political engagement yielded results that were suggestive, but mixed.
Quelle: Knowing and Caring about Politics: Gender and Political Engagement
Hier habe ich noch etwas zu den Lesegewohnheiten nach Themen gefunden:
Tatsächlich informieren sich 62% der Männer am liebsten rund um den „Sport“. Im Vergleich dazu wollen nur 14% der Frauen gerne etwas über dieses Thema in den Printmedien erfahren. Wenn es um Politik geht, zeigt sich bei den Männern ebenfalls ein deutlich höheres Interesse. Doppelt soviele Männer (29%) wie Frauen (14%) setzen sich beim Lesen regelmäßig mit politischen Angelegenheiten auseinander. Für das Geschehen in der heutigen Finanzwelt interessieren sich 19% der männlichen und 18% der weiblichen Befragten – im Bereich Wirtschaft sind die Geschlechter somit wieder vereint. Geht es jedoch um die Themen „Mode“, „Unterhaltung“ oder „Boulevard“ liegt das männliche Interesse gerade einmal bei 9% – bei den Frauen sind es satte 42%. Das klare Fazit: Manche Vorurteile halten sich hartnäckig – und wie man sieht, einige zu Recht.