Explaining the ‘gender-risk effect’ in risk perception research: a qualitative secondary analysis study / Explicando el ‘efecto género-riesgo’ en la investigación de la percepción del riesgo: un estudio cualitativo de análisis secundario

Quantitative psychometric experiments and surveys have been used extensively in the field of risk research to explore the cognitive and cultural determinants of beliefs about environmental risk. We adopt a conceptually novel approach called effects made by gender and conduct an interpretive, qualitative study involving secondary analysis of a data set comprising 11 reconvened focus groups. The groups were initially designed to compare talk about the meanings for people of six different risk cases: climate change, nuclear power and radioactive waste, genetically modified foods and crops, human genetic testing, mobile phone handsets and transmission masts. In-depth findings and insights are presented concerning the dynamic role played by gender binaries, epistemic subject positions and identity-making within the workings of gender discourses. These serve to define everyday realities and (de)stabilize taken-for-granted ‘truths’ of gender difference in risk perception studies. A deeper regulatory role is identified for hegemonic masculinity; in particular, how concern for risk is downplayed when set alongside the cultural and psychological gains made from technological world-making. Care discourses are also part of the matrix of culture-technology-identity relationships responsible for creating effects made by gender.