White Racial Resentment and Gender Attitudes: An Enduring Connection or an Artifact of the 2016 Election?

Several studies have demonstrated the importance of racial resentment and sexism in voting in the 2016 election. While this could be primarily a function of the particular electoral context, this study takes a broader look at a potential link between racist and sexist attitudes. At least since the election of Barack Obama, racial resentment has been found to increasingly correlate with a range of political views. But, we do not yet know whether this connection applies to gendered attitudes as well. Using American National Election Studies (ANES) data spanning five presidential election cycles (2004–2020), we explore whether racial and gendered views are correlated. Specifically, we examine the connection between racial resentment and three distinct gendered attitudes, including traditional gender roles, modern sexism, and beliefs about gender discrimination. We test two possibilities: whether a link between these views emerges as the result of racial priming by elites, consistent with “racial spillover,” or if racist and sexist attitudes are connected as part of the same underlying, system-justifying framework, meaning that this relationship endures over time, predating Obama’s 2008 election. We find strong evidence that, throughout the period under study, racial resentment is associated with all three gendered attitudes and appears to be part of a more comprehensive worldview rather than simply a “spillover” effect. Our analysis suggests that scholars should do more to examine the underlying attitudinal factors that influence both racism and sexism, as well as the enduring nature of this relationship over time.