Gender and support for expert advisers and elected officials in the US public sphere

Abstract

This article uses data from the US General Social Survey to examine the relationship between gender and support for different forms of cultural authority. An analysis of public attitudes about expert advisers and elected officials involved in policy decisions related to science reveals that women assign more influence than men to experts in decisions about global warming and stem cell research but not genetically modified food. In contrast, men assign more influence than women to elected leaders across policy domains. Importantly, gender differences in support for expert advisers and elected leaders are independent of variation in more general attitudes about science and politics. Overall, this article suggests that there are underlying differences in men’s and women’s attitudes about cultural authority and it highlights the importance of gender in understanding the political legitimacy of scientists in the United States.

Keywords

climate change gender and science genetically modified food science attitudes and perceptions science experts science policy stem cells

1. Introduction

Sometimes called government’s “fifth branch” (Jasanoff, 1994), the influence of expert policy advisers is well documented (Hilgartner, 2000; MacLean and Burgess, 2009). So, too, are the dilemmas for democracy posed by this arrangement (Burgess, 2014; Guston and Keniston, 1994; Jasanoff, 2005; Thorpe, 2002). However, despite potential tensions between technocratic authority wielded by elite experts and democratic authority gained through public elections, there is generally popular support for using technical experts to guide public policy decisions (National Science Board, 2014; O’Brien, 2013b). Yet, support for expert advisers is not uniform throughout the public (O’Brien, 2013a), and relatively little is known about group differences in beliefs about the roles technical experts and elected leaders should play in the public sphere. Given that gender is often used to predict and explain variation in attitudes and behaviors related to science and politics, it is surprising that scholars have not yet examined the extent to which gender organizes views of expert advisers and the elected leaders they counsel. Furthermore, a better understanding of how gender relates to beliefs about experts in public life will shed light on the more general problem of how scientists’ political legitimacy is constructed.

This article investigates gender differences in preferences for cultural authority by examining public attitudes about the amount of influence expert advisers and elected officials should have in public policy decisions related to science. Data come from the US General Social Survey (GSS), which in 2006 and 2010 included a unique set of questions designed to examine the reach of science in society. I focus on items that asked respondents about the roles of scientists, medical researchers, and elected officials in policy decisions about global warming, stem cell research, and genetically modified food. The analysis addresses three related questions:

Are there differences in the amount of influence men and women think expert advisers and elected leaders should have over policy decisions related to science?

If so, are the differences issue-specific or do they extend across policy domains?

Finally, if women and men differ in their support for expert advisers or elected officials, can the differences be attributed to variation in more general attitudes about science or politics or to other social characteristics?

In the next section, I review literature on gender, public opinion, and cultural authority in order to theorize why women and men might prefer different forms of authority in public policy decisions. I then describe my data, methods, and results. I find that gender patterns views of expert policy advisers and elected officials in unexpected ways. Despite men’s more favorable attitudes about science, women assign more influence than men to scientific and medical experts in policy decisions related to global warming and stem cell research but not genetically modified food. In contrast, men assign more influence than women to elected leaders in each of these policy areas. Overall, findings highlight differences in the kinds of leaders women and men trust to make technical policy decisions. Findings also point to underlying gender differences in attitudes about cultural authority. I conclude by discussing the implications of these results for social scientific research on gender, public opinion, science, and politics.

2. Background

Gender and attitudes about science and technology

Many studies have found that, on average, men hold more favorable attitudes than women about science and technology. This finding has been replicated over time and cross-nationally (Allum et al., 2008; Bak, 2001; Fox and Firebaugh, 1992; Hayes and Tariq, 2000; Sturgis and Allum, 2004; Von Roten, 2004). There are similar gender differences in attitudes about science in general and about a range of specific technologies (Freudenburg and Davidson, 2007; Moerbeek and Casimir, 2005; Qin and Brown, 2007; Simon, 2010). Traditionally, some scholars assumed that attitudes about science depend on knowledge of science, suggesting that gender differences in science attitudes stem from gender differences in science knowledge (Davidson and Freudenburg, 1996; Miller, 2004). However, many researchers now emphasize that experiences with science have varying consequences for science attitudes (Johnson and Simon, 2012; Simon, 2010). In this view, personal experiences contextualize orientations toward science and technology, indicating women’s less favorable attitudes about science result not from lack of exposure, but from systematically different experiences with science and technology. This position is consistent with sociological research on gender that finds that individuals are socialized from a young age to associate science with masculinity (Xie and Shauman, 2003). The widespread cultural belief that men are better suited than women for scientific and analytical tasks may help to account for men’s more positive orientations toward science (Charles and Bradley, 2009; Correll, 2001). If gender differences in attitudes about science translate into support for scientists in the public sphere, then men may be more likely than women to embrace the use of technical experts to craft public policy.

Men’s overrepresentation as producers of science and technology further suggests that they may be more supportive than women of expert policy advisers (National Science Board, 2014). Gender imbalances in many fields of science, technology, and engineering create a relatively smaller pool of women than men available to advise political leaders in these areas. The gender gap in the supply of expert advisers may reinforce a perception that the intersection of science and politics is male-dominated terrain, which may encourage support for expert advisers among men while discouraging support among women. Thus, in addition to gender differences in public attitudes about science, gender disparities in the demographic composition of scientific education and labor suggest that men in the United States are more inclined than women toward technocratic authority in public life.

Yet, despite gender differences in science attitudes, education, and employment, other research suggests that women are more rather than less supportive than men of scientific authority, especially when it is seen as an alternative to historically masculine institutions such as politics. Although some scholars argue that organized science is patriarchal and oppressive, others portray science and technology optimistically and as capable of leveling physical differences that may be sources of social inequality (Lublin, 1998; Thompson, 2005; Wajcman, 1991). These scholars contend that the disembodied nature of the digital age provides new opportunities to disrupt traditional sexist distributions of power and to recast gender roles and relations in more equitable ways (Haraway, 1991; Plant, 1997).

Gender differences in political attitudes further suggest that women may be more supportive than men of cultural authority staked to technical expertise. In the United States, women are more likely than men to express attitudes that reflect a liberal political ideology (Eagly et al., 2004; Shapiro and Mahajan, 1986). Although political ideologies are context specific, in the case of the United States, a liberal ideology often manifests as relatively inclusive social and cultural views and relatively strong support for the welfare state. Moreover, self-identified liberals in the United States report higher levels of trust in organized science (Gauchat, 2012). This suggests that women’s greater likelihood of identifying as liberal may correspond to greater support for scientific authority in public life. Thus, in contrast to studies that find that men are more appreciative than women of science, there is also evidence that indicates women may view technical experts in the political sphere more favorably than men.

Gender and attitudes about government and politics

Attitudes about technocratic authority aside, the patriarchal history of politics and government may lead women to be more skeptical then men of authority associated with political leaders. Although there have been gains made toward equal representation, American women are underrepresented in many elected offices and lag behind men in numerous forms of political participation (Burns, 2007; Paxton et al., 2007; Sanbonmatsu, 2003; Schlozman et al., 1999). Women in Western Europe are also less likely than men to participate in party politics and to engage in certain kinds of activism (Coffé and Bolzendahl, 2010; Dodson, 2015). Women are especially underrepresented as high ranking public officials, such as chief executives and cabinet-level officers (Borelli, 2002; Jalalzai, 2004; Paxton et al., 2007). Given women’s past exclusion and continued underrepresentation in government, women may be less inclined than men to endorse leaders traditionally associated with these institutions, especially when alternative modes of cultural authority are available. Furthermore, the historical features of politics and government that may diminish women’s support for elected officials may stoke support among men. This suggests that men may assign more influence than women to elected leaders both in general and in specific policy decisions related to science.

However, other literature suggests that women are more oriented than men toward authority associated with democratic processes. For example, women report greater trust than men in government (Cook and Gronke, 2005; Patterson, 1999; Perrin and Smolek, 2009) and in elected officials (Lawless, 2004). Additionally, although women are underrepresented in many elected offices, women’s presence in the political field has expanded in many countries in recent decades. As women are increasingly represented in government, there have been corresponding increases in the numbers of women who express interest and participate in politics (Campbell and Wolbrecht, 2006; Lovenduski, 2005; Paxton et al., 2007). Furthermore, although gender parity in voting was slow coming, women in the United States are now more likely than men to vote, which is consistent with broader gains toward gender equity in government and politics (Burrell, 2004; Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), 2006). Overall, the growing visibility, participation, and influence of women in the political realm (Bratton and Haynie, 1999; Jeydel and Taylor, 2003) may signal that women are more supportive than men of cultural authority associated with democratic institutions. When it comes to policy decisions related to science, women may therefore assign more influence than men to leaders chosen through public elections.

Social location and attitudes about science and politics

In addition to gender, studies have identified numerous other correlates of attitudes about science and politics. If women’s and men’s preferences for scientific and political authority differ, the variation may correspond to differences in other attributes and beliefs. For example, individuals with higher levels of education and knowledge of science often report having more favorable opinions of science and government (Allum et al., 2008; Bak, 2001; Christensen and Lægreid, 2005). Race is also associated with orientations toward science and politics, with non-Whites expressing less trust than Whites of scientific, medical, and political leaders (Howell and Fagan, 1988; Rahn and Rudolph, 2005; Sewell, 2015). In addition, age (Bak, 2001; Christensen and Lægreid, 2005), family status (Alm and Torgler, 2006; Simon, 2010), and religiosity (O’Brien and Noy, 2015) have each been implicated as sources of variation in attitudes about science, government, and public policies. These attributes may therefore also relate to support for technocratic and democratic authority in public life. In other words, if there are gender differences in attitudes about technical experts and elected leaders, the gaps may be eliminated once these other characteristics are taken into account.

Support for expert advisers and elected leaders in the public sphere may also map onto more general attitudes about science and politics. For example, a general appreciation of science may lead to more favorable attitudes about specific applications of scientific expertise. Furthermore, the politicization of science and growing skepticism of science and government among conservatives in the United States suggests that liberal political beliefs may be linked to more positive views of each of these institutions (Christensen and Lægreid, 2005; Gauchat, 2012). Thus, if men and women differ in their opinions about expert advisers and elected officials, the gaps may be eliminated by controlling for more general attitudes about science and politics. If, however, there are gender-specific views of experts and elected leaders net of more general beliefs about science and government, it would point to a decoupling of attitudes about elites and the institutions where they are typically located.

3. Data, measures, and methods

Data

To examine the relationship between gender and preferences for cultural authority, I use data from the 2006 and 2010 waves of the GSS. Conducted biennially, the GSS is a representative survey of United States households. In 2006 and 2010, the survey included a unique set of questions about the roles expert advisers and elected officials should play in public policy decisions related to science. Although these data have been used to study the relationship between science and society (Evans, 2011; O’Brien, 2013a, 2013b), many questions remain about the construction of scientists’ political legitimacy and the extent to which their cultural authority is group specific. GSS data are valuable more generally because they include detailed information about respondent characteristics and attitudes, which allows me to examine how women’s and men’s views of expert advisers and elected leaders relate to other theoretically relevant factors.

Measures

Dependent variables

The first set of dependent variables I analyze measures the amount of influence respondents think that expert advisers should have in policy decisions related to science. These variables come from three survey questions: one about environmental scientists’ role in deciding what to do about global warming, one about medical researchers’ role in deciding what to do about embryonic stem cell research policy, and one about medical researchers’ role in deciding what to do about genetically modified food.¹ Specifically, the items asked, “How much influence should [environmental scientists/medical researchers] have in deciding [what to do about global warming/about government funding for stem cell research/whether to restrict the sale of genetically modified food]?” Responses to each question were coded as 4-point ordinal variables ranging from (1) “none at all” to (4) “a great deal.” The second set of dependent variables come from an analogous set of survey questions that asked about the level of influence elected officials should have in decisions about these policy issues. These variables are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics for dependent variables.

How much influence should [expert advisers/elected officials] have in deciding what to do about …?	Expert advisers		Elected officials
	n	%	n	%
Global warming
None at all	25	3	131	13
A little	82	8	346	35
A fair amount	389	39	357	36
A great deal	491	50	151	15
Total	987	100	985	100
Stem cell research
None at all	31	3	150	16
A little	103	11	336	35
A fair amount	437	46	354	37
A great deal	383	40	112	12
Total	954	100	952	100
Genetically modified food
None at all	27	4	154	21
A little	75	10	280	39
A fair amount	308	43	227	31
A great deal	312	43	61	8
Total	722	100	722	100

Source: 2006 and 2010 US General Social Survey.

Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding.

Independent variables

The independent variable of greatest interest is the gender of the respondent, which is measured using a binary variable. Regression models include several control variables that, based on the literature described earlier, may relate to attitudes about expert policy advisers and elected officials. First, I control for respondents’ social class using a count variable for years of schooling and a continuous variable for household income category midpoints (natural log transformed). I control for race using a binary variable to indicate whether or not respondents identified as non-Latino White. I control for age in years and for marital status using a binary variable to indicate whether or not respondents were married. I control for geographic location using a binary variable to indicate whether or not respondents resided in the South, which is a region associated with a unique cultural opposition to certain aspects of organized science. I control for religiosity using a 9-point ordinal measure of frequency of attendance at religious services.

In addition to socio-demographic characteristics, regression models control for respondents’ knowledge and appreciation of science, their political ideologies, and their attitudes about the policy issues under investigation. Knowledge of science is measured using a standardized additive index of responses to 10 true/false questions about scientific concepts and methods.² Appreciation of science is measured using a 5-point ordinal variable that indicates the extent to which respondents believe that the benefits of science outweigh its costs (higher scores indicate greater appreciation of science). Political ideology is measured with a 7-point ordinal variable ranging from (1) “extremely liberal” to (7) “extremely conservative.” Finally, regressions control for respondents’ policy attitudes. These items come from survey questions that asked respondents about their opinions on requiring fuel economy standards from automakers (from (1) “strongly disagree” to (5) “strongly agree”), the use of public funding for stem cell research (from (1) “strongly oppose” to (4) “strongly support”), and eating genetically modified food (from “will not eat” (1) to (3) “will eat”).³

Table 2 summarizes the independent variables used in the analysis, overall and separately by gender. The table’s final column indicates whether or not the gender differences are statistically significant based on t-tests for continuous and ordinal variables and chi-square tests for nominal variables. As the table shows, women are more religious than men (p < .001) and have lower household income than men (p < .01). Furthermore, men are more knowledgeable (p < .001) and appreciative (p < .05) than women of science and men are more politically conservative (p < .05). These differences are important because social class, religiosity, and science knowledge and attitudes may be correlated with attitudes about technocratic and democratic authority. Thus, if there are gender differences in support for expert advisers and elected leaders, the gaps may be an artifact of differences in these other characteristics.

Table 2.

Descriptive statistics for independent variables.

	n	Mean	SD	Min	Max	Women (n = 550)	Men (n = 437)	p
Female	987	0.56	–	0	1	–	–
White (non-Latino)	987	0.76	–	0	1	0.74	0.80	***
Political ideology (higher is more conservative)	987	4.11	1.44	1	7	4.02	4.24	*
Age (years divided by 10)	987	4.62	1.64	1.80	8.90	4.61	4.64	ns
Education (years)	987	13.90	2.85	2	20	13.79	14.05	ns
Science knowledge (standardized, higher is more knowledge)	987	0.09	0.47	−1.43	0.76	0.01	0.19	***
Married	987	0.48	–	0	1	0.47	0.49	ns
Household income (natural log transformation)	987	10.58	1.09	6.21	12.06	10.48	10.70	**
Resides in South	987	0.23	–	0	1	0.22	0.25	ns
Religious attendance	987	3.40	2.73	0	8	3.70	3.02	***
Appreciation of science (higher is more appreciative)	987	3.20	1.02	0	4	3.14	3.27	*
Policy support (higher is more supportive)
Support requiring fuel economy standards?	987	4.54	0.80	1	5	4.60	4.46	**
Support government funding for stem cell research?	954	2.99	0.90	1	4	2.97	3.02	ns
Will eat genetically modified food?	722	1.86	0.66	1	3	1.76	1.96	***

Source: 2006 and 2010 General Social Survey.

SD: standard deviation; ns: not significant.

p values are from chi-square tests for nominal variables and t-tests for continuous and ordinal variables.

p < .05; **p < .01; and ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

Table 2 also indicates that men report greater willingness than women to eat genetically modified food (p < .001) and that women express more support than men for requiring fuel standards of automakers (p < .01). These differences are consistent with other research that indicates that women hold more favorable attitudes than men about the environment (McCright, 2010) and are more skeptical than men of genetically modified food (Moerbeek and Casimir, 2005). This variation in policy attitudes may also signal that if there are gender differences in support for expert advisers and elected leaders in the public sphere, the differences may be issue-specific.

Analytical technique

I used ordinal logistic regression models to test whether men and women differ in their support for technical experts and elected leaders in policy decisions about global warming, stem cell research, and genetically modified food. Brant tests indicated that ordinal logistic models are preferable to multinomial logistic models.⁴ For each outcome, I estimated two models. To establish whether there are overall gender differences, the first model regressed the outcome only on gender. The second model then added control variables to determine whether gender differences could be reduced or eliminated by accounting for other characteristics and attitudes. To interpret regression results, I computed differences in the predicted probabilities that men and women assigned each level of influence to experts and to elected officials. Statistical analyses were performed using Stata software.

4. Results

Gender differences in support for expert advisers

Table 3 contains results from ordinal logistic regression models of support for expert policy advisers. Results indicate that women assign higher levels of influence than men to expert advisers in deciding what to do about global warming and stem cell research but not genetically modified food. Specifically, Model 1 indicates that in decisions about global warming policy, the odds of assigning more influence to expert advisers are 1.63 times higher for women than men (e^b = 1.63, p < .001). Model 2 adds control variables to determine whether this difference can be attributed to other relevant characteristics and attitudes. Several controls have significant effects in expected directions, which lend support to the model’s validity.⁵ For example, a conservative political ideology is associated with less support for expert advisers (e^b = .78, p < .001), whereas a general appreciation of science (e^b = .1.19, p < .01) and support for fuel economy standards (e^b = 1.60, p < .001) are each associated with more support for experts, all else equal. Nonetheless, the gender difference is only slightly reduced after controlling for these other factors and the odds of assigning a higher level of influence to expert advisers is 1.57 times greater for women than for men, net of other differences (e^b = 1.57, p < .001).

Table 3.

Odds ratios from ordinal logit regressions of support for expert advisers on gender and controls.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
	Global warming	Global warming	Stem cell research	Stem cell research	Genetically modified food	Genetically modified food
Female	1.63*** (0.20)	1.57*** (0.21)	1.29* (0.16)	1.32* (0.17)	0.91 (0.13)	0.94 (0.14)
White (non-Latino)		1.00 (0.17)		0.88 (0.15)		1.31 (0.24)
Political ideology		0.78*** (0.04)		0.95 (0.05)		0.97 (0.05)
Age (divided by 10)		0.95 (0.04)		1.04 (0.04)		0.93^† (0.04)
Education (years)		1.01 (0.03)		0.98 (0.03)		1.02 (0.03)
Science knowledge		0.98 (0.16)		0.69* (0.12)		0.90 (0.16)
Married		1.16 (0.16)		0.86 (0.12)		1.19 (0.19)
Income		1.05 (0.07)		1.04 (0.07)		1.01 (0.09)
Resides in South		0.97 (0.14)		1.21 (0.18)		0.87 (0.14)
Religious attendance		0.98 (0.02)		0.97 (0.03)		0.97 (0.03)
Appreciation of science		1.19** (0.08)		1.16* (0.08)		1.17* (0.09)
Policy support		1.60*** (0.13)		1.99*** (0.16)		1.15 (0.13)
n	987	987	954	954	722	722
Log-likelihood	−993.07	−947.88	−1024.10	−962.80	−782.50	−772.01
Bayesian information criterion	2013.71	1999.18	2075.65	2028.52	1591.34	1642.75

Source: 2006 and 2010 General Social Surveys.

Standard errors in parentheses; cut-points not reported; reference groups are men, non-Whites, residents of non-Southern states, and unmarried respondents.

†

p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; and ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

Model 3 in Table 3 indicates that there is a similar gender difference in support for medical researchers in decisions about stem cell research policy. Specifically, the odds of assigning more influence to medical experts are 1.29 times higher for women than men (e^b = 1.29, p < .05). Model 4 indicates that several control variables have significant effects, once again in expected directions. For example, a general appreciation of science (e^b = 1.16, p < .05) and support for public funding for stem cell research (e^b = 1.99, p < .001) are each associated with increased support for expert advisers, net of other differences. Interestingly, knowledge of science is negatively correlated with support for experts in this domain (e^b = .69, p < .05). Coupled with the insignificant effect of science knowledge in the global warming model, this suggests that familiarity with science is not necessarily tied to more support for scientific authority, as it is sometimes presumed (Allum et al., 2008; Gaskell et al., 2010). Nevertheless, the addition of control variables in Model 4 slightly amplifies the gender difference, and the odds of assigning expert advisers more influence over stem cell research policy decisions are 1.32 times higher for women than men, all else equal (e^b = 1.32, p < .05). However, while women assign more influence than men to experts in decisions about global warming and stem cell research, Models 5 and 6 indicate that this pattern does not extend to decisions about genetically modified food. This suggests that women’s greater support for expert policy advisers is domain specific.

To provide a visual interpretation of the key findings from Table 3, Figure 1a illustrates differences in women’s and men’s predicted probabilities of assigning each level of influence to expert advisers. Predictions are based on regression results from the full models (i.e. Models 2, 4, and 6) and adjusted to illustrate gender differences when control variables are held at their means. As the graph indicates, the gender gaps are greatest at the high end of the desired influence scale. For example, the probability of assigning expert advisers “a great deal” of influence is 11 points higher for women than men in decisions about global warming and 7 points higher for women than men in decisions about stem cell research. Both of these differences are statistically significant (p < .05).⁶ Instead, men are more likely than women to assign expert advisers “a fair amount” or “a little” influence over decisions concerning global warming and stem cell research. Again, the differences are statistically significant (p < .05). In other words, while there is generally popular support for using experts to guide climate change and stem cell research policy decisions, Figure 1 indicates that women are even more supportive than men. Thus, contrary to greater men’s greater appreciation and knowledge of science (see Table 2), these results suggest that women are more inclined than men toward scientific authority in certain policy domains.⁷

Figure 1.

Adjusted gender differences in predicted probabilities of support for (a) expert advisers and (b) elected officials in the public sphere.

Gender differences in support for elected officials

Table 4 contains results from a similar set of ordinal logistic regression models of support for elected leaders. Overall, the table indicates that gender differentiates public opinion about elected leaders in the opposite direction than it does for expert advisers. Moreover, whereas women’s greater support for expert advisers depends on the policy issues at stake, men assign more influence than women to elected leaders in each of these policy domains. Specifically, Model 1 indicates that in decisions about global warming policy, the odds of assigning less influence to elected leaders are 1.27 times greater for women than for men (e^b = .79, p < .05).⁸ Model 2 indicates that several control variables have significant effects on the model. For example, conservative political beliefs are associated with decreased support for elected officials in this domain (e^b = .85; p < .001), just they were with expert advisers (see Table 3). This suggests that conservatives are more skeptical than liberals of both technocratic and democratic leadership over environmental policy decisions. Yet, while men tend to be more politically conservative than women (see Table 2), Model 2 indicates that the odds of assigning elected leaders less influence over decisions related to global warming are 1.39 times higher for women than men, holding other variables constant (e^b = .72, p < .01).

Table 4.

Odds ratios from ordinal logit regressions of support for elected officials on gender and controls.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
	Global warming	Global warming	Stem cell research	Stem cell research	Genetically modified food	Genetically modified food
Female	0.79* (0.09)	0.72** (0.09)	0.73* (0.09)	0.72** (0.09)	0.73* (0.10)	0.70* (0.10)
White (non-Latino)		0.87 (0.14)		0.74^† (0.12)		0.77 (0.13)
Political ideology		0.85*** (0.04)		0.99 (0.05)		1.02 (0.05)
Age (divided by 10)		0.95 (0.04)		0.91* (0.03)		0.87** (0.04)
Education (years)		1.07** (0.03)		1.08*** (0.03)		1.02 (0.03)
Science knowledge		0.95 (0.15)		1.01 (0.16)		0.78 (0.14)
Married		1.09 (0.14)		1.13 (0.15)		1.15 (0.18)
Income		1.01 (0.07)		0.92 (0.06)		0.97 (0.08)
Resides in South		0.91 (0.13)		0.94 (0.13)		1.01 (0.16)
Religious attendance		1.07** (0.02)		1.06* (0.03)		1.03 (0.03)
Appreciation of science		1.14* (0.07)		1.18** (0.08)		1.14^† (0.08)
Policy support		1.30*** (0.10)		1.07 (0.08)		1.10 (0.12)
n	985	985	952	952	722	722
Log-likelihood	−1269.82	−1241.42	−1213.70	−1191.53	−914.00	−903.19
Bayesian information criterion	2567.20	2586.22	2454.84	2485.94	1854.33	1905.10

Source: 2006 and 2010 General Social Surveys.

Standard errors in parentheses; cut-points not reported; reference groups are men, non-Whites, residents of non-Southern states, and unmarried respondents.

†

p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; and ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

Models 3 and 4 point to a similar gender gap in support for elected leaders in decisions about stem cell research policy. The bivariate difference in Model 3 indicates that the odds of assigning less influence to elected leaders are 1.37 times higher for women than men (e^b = .73, p < .05). Model 4 adds controls and indicates that several other attitudes and attributes are related to support for elected leaders in this domain. For example, religiosity is associated with more support for elected officials in decisions about stem cell research policy, all else equal (e^b = 1.06; p < .05). However, while women tend to be more religious than men (see Table 2), the odds of assigning less influence to elected leaders over this policy issue are 1.39 times higher for women than men, net of other difference (e^b = .72, p < .01).

Model 5 indicates that gender organizes support for elected leaders in decisions about genetically modified food policy in the same way as it does in the other two policy areas. Once again, women are less supportive than men of elected officials. Specifically, the odds of assigning less influence to elected leaders in this domain are 1.37 times greater for women than men (e^b = .73, p < .05). Model 6 indicates that this gender difference cannot be accounted for by other respondent characteristics or attitudes about science and politics. In fact, the gender gap increases slightly after adding control variables and the odds of assigning less influence to elected officials are 1.43 times greater for women than men, holding other factors constant (e^b = .70, p < .05). Thus, whereas women’s greater support for expert advisers is issue-specific, men’s greater support for elected leaders is consistent across each of these policy areas.

Figure 1b provides a more concrete interpretation of these results by graphing differences in women’s and men’s predicted probabilities of assigning each level of influence to elected leaders. Predictions are based on the full models (i.e. Models 2, 4, and 6) and adjusted to reflect gender gaps in support for elected leaders when other independent variables are at their means. Overall, the figure shows that for each policy issue, men are more likely than women to assign elected officials higher levels of influence and women are more likely than men to assign lower levels of influence. Furthermore, the magnitudes of the differences are nearly mirror images across the range of the desired influence scale. For example, whereas the probability of assigning elected leaders either “a great deal” or “fair amount” of influence in each of these policy contexts is significantly higher for men than women, the probability of assigning either “a little influence” or “none at all” is significantly higher for women than men in each domain. Moreover, unlike attitudes about expert advisers, the similarity of gender differences across policy areas suggests that women’s relatively lower support for elected leaders in technical policy decisions is more generalizable.⁹

To summarize, this analysis finds that men and women have systematically different beliefs about the roles expert advisers and elected officials should play in public policy decisions. Importantly, these patterns contrast against gender differences in overall appreciation of science and are independent of respondents’ policy attitudes and social locations. Thus, in addition to identifying gender gaps in support for different modes of cultural authority, these findings suggest that attitudes about expert advisers and elected leaders in the public sphere reflect a different set of concerns than those underlying broader views of science, politics, and public policies.

5. Conclusion

Given the centrality of experts in modern life (Beck, 1992; Giddens, 1991; Gieryn, 1999; Shapin, 2008), understanding how their political legitimacy is constructed is both practically and theoretically important. This article investigated the role of gender in this process by examining attitudes about technocratic and democratic authority in public policy decisions, a setting traditionally dominated by elected officials but where expert advisers are increasingly common. Contrary to research that finds that men have more favorable attitudes than women about science and technology (Fox and Firebaugh, 1992; Hayes and Tariq, 2000; Simon, 2010), this analysis finds that in the United States, women assign more influence than men to expert policy advisers in decisions related to global warming and stem cell research. Importantly, these differences do not simply reflect differences in men’s and women’s more general attitudes about science, politics, or public policies. This analysis also found, however, that women and men do not differ in their beliefs about the role of experts in decisions about genetically modified food policy. What, then, might explain women’s greater support for scientists and medical researchers in certain contexts and not others?

One possibility is that technical expertise is perceived as an alternative to traditional forms of political authority in some policy areas but not others. The gap in men’s and women’s attitudes about expert advisers in certain domains may therefore reflect a belief that in these instances, technical experts provide a more gender neutral form of authority compared to the patriarchy often associated with the field of politics. If so, expert advisers may seem especially appealing to social groups that have been historically marginalized in the political realm. Women’s greater support for expert advisers in global warming and stem cell research policy decisions may therefore correspond to the gendered nature of environmental and reproductive politics in the United States. In contrast, genetically modified food in the United States is not as explicitly gendered or politically polarized as the other two policy areas. Combined with women’s greater hesitance to consume genetically modified food (see Table 2 as well as Moerbeek and Casimir, 2005), the lower salience of this issue may mean that American women approach this policy topic with greater ambivalence compared to global warming and stem cell research. In other words, despite having less favorable attitudes about science in general (see Table 2), in gendered policy domains, women may be more inclined than men toward scientific authority because it provides an opportunity to counter the masculine hegemony of the political field. At the same time, men may be less apt than women to assign expert advisers policy influence if experts are seen as a threat to male dominance in the political arena. This would be consistent with research that finds that men hold less favorable attitudes about technologies that challenge certain notions of masculinity (Simon, 2011). However, when the gender politics of a particular issue are more ambiguous (e.g. genetically modified food), preferences for technocratic authority do not necessarily cut along gender lines.

The article’s second main finding, that men assign more influence than women to elected leaders in each of these policy areas, also aligns with this explanation. Men’s greater inclination for elected officials in policy decisions related to science mirrors the traditionally masculine nature of politics in the United States and elsewhere. Moreover, the finding that men assign more influence than women to elected leaders across domains points to a tighter coupling between masculinity and politics compared to women’s issue-specific preferences for technocratic authority. Given men’s overrepresentation in elected office, especially in executive positions (Paxton et al., 2007), the hypothetical elected official described on the survey may conjure a mental image of a man. An assumption of masculinity may serve to remind respondents of the gender hierarchies that characterize American politics, which may lead men to ascribe more and women less influence to elected officials across policy domains.

A third contribution of this article is its finding that the relationships between gender and views of these two modes of cultural authority are independent of other differences in social locations, attitudes about politics, and policy preferences. Moreover, results suggest that support for expert advisers is not a consequence of familiarity with or appreciation of science. In fact, knowledge of science was negatively correlated with support for medical experts in decisions about stem cell research policy. These findings add to mounting evidence that knowledge of science is often decoupled from attitudes about science and technology (Johnson and Simon, 2012; O’Brien, 2013a; Simon, 2010). While this article advanced a theoretical argument for why women’s and men’s views of cultural authority do not depend on their knowledge of science or their more general attitudes about science and politics, additional research is needed to determine whether there are other group differences in preferences for cultural authority, and if so whether the variation is consistent with the explanation offered by this article.

This article suggests that there is a divide in how women and men in the United States think about the role of experts in public life. If, as scholars have argued, collective meanings of expertise simultaneously shape the natural and social orders (Jasanoff, 2005), then assigning influence to technical experts in the political realm has far-reaching consequences for both nature and society. For example, differences in the constituencies served by publically elected officials and appointed expert advisers may lead these elites toward different policy positions. Because elected officials are directly accountable to the public and other interest groups, the contrast in the policies advanced by experts and political leaders may be especially pronounced on contentious issues, such as global warming and stem cell research. The differences between technical experts’ and elected leaders’ policy preferences may therefore be greatest when the stakes for the public are highest. Moreover, the reinforcing nature of public policy and public opinion suggests that current decisions about the roles of expert advisers and political leaders in public life have implications for the roles these elites will play in solving future social problems. By linking public attitudes about cultural authority to the actual influence exercised by different stakeholders in policy decisions, future research could test whether preferences for cultural authority map onto the distribution of influence actually exercised by elites in the public sphere.

An important limitation of this analysis is its focus on three policy areas. Future research should investigate women’s and men’s beliefs about the roles expert advisers and elected leaders should play in other contexts. Additionally, technical experts and elected officials are only two of many possible modes of leadership. Researchers should continue to examine how gender relates to preferences for religious, legal, experiential, and other forms of cultural authority. Furthermore, this article has focused on an explanation of the findings rooted in gendered political institutions and processes although gender differences in ethical views of scientific and technological interventions may also contribute to gender-specific attitudes about experts and elected leaders in the public sphere. Despite these limitations, this investigation has revealed that women’s and men’s views of expert policy advisers and elected officials differ in surprising ways. Although other explanations are possible, if the argument advanced by this article is correct, it suggests that gender differences in preferences for cultural authority may persist as long as gender inequality remains a central feature of science, politics, and public opinion in the United States.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by grant number SRS 0935815 from the National Science Foundation. This article has benefited from helpful comments and suggestions from Brian Powell, Tom Gieryn, Gordon Gauchat, and Shiri Noy, as well as anonymous reviewers at Public Understanding of Science.

Notes

Author biography

Timothy L. O’Brien is an Assistant Professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. His research examines how expertise, credibility, and authority are produced and maintained in science, politics, law, and other arenas. His work has recently appeared in journals such as American Sociological Review, Social Currents, and Sociological Perspectives.

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