Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The DDR in Political Science: Changing Social Definitions of Men and Women and Their Effect on the Gender Gap, 1953-2003

This project develops a theory and empirical measure of social definition of gender to explain changes in partisan attachments of men and women and the resulting partisan gender gap. The concept of social definition of gender, the meaning society ascribes to mean and women at a particular time and place, captures the theoretical work on the social construction of gender. How society conceptualizes gender continually reshapes the social and political factor of the United States. Social, political, and economic events give rise to shifts in the social definition of gender. These shifts produce new policy needs on behalf of women and men, resulting in the reshuffling of partisan attachments along divisions already existing in the parties. Then parties shift to conform to the views of their new constituents. The goal of this project is to integrate work on gender into our understanding of partisan change.

Time series methods are used to answer three questions: What has caused changes in the social definition of gender? How has the social definition of gender affected the gender gap in partisanship? How have men's and women's partisanship responded respectively to change in the social definition of gender? In addition to testing the theory of the social definition of gender developed in this project, we also test competing theories on the formation of the gender gap. This is done through the use of content analysis and public opinion data.

With regards to broader impacts, this project creates a new data set that will be useful to scholars studying political behavior over time. In addition, the focus on women provides a better understanding of an underrepresented group.