Avoiding the Subject? Gender Gaps in Interpersonal Political Conflict Avoidance and its Consequences for Political and Civic Engagement

Repeated findings demonstrate inequality in men’s and women’s political engagement across a variety of measures, regardless of their equality on a number of socio-demographic characteristics, due to the persistent influence of the social construction of gender. Cultural gender norms and gendered socialization frame political engagement differently for men and for women, and women in particular are socialized to be conflict-avoidant. Given than conflict is a central part of engaging in politics, it is possible that that a lack of tolerance for political conflict systematically reduces women’s levels of political and civic engagement. Our analyses, using data from the “Democratic Disconnect and Political Participation Survey” (Webb 2013) among a representative sample of the British population, confirm that women are significantly more avoidant of interpersonal political conflict than men, even when controlling for differences in political interest and efficacy. This gender gap in political conflict in turn significantly contributes to a gender gap in political and civic participation, but in some surprising ways. As expected, those who are comfortable with political conflict participate more and women participate less, but conflict avoidance partly explains women’s lower levels of engagement. Interaction effects show that women with a high tolerance for conflict still participate less than similar men, while conflict avoidant women actually participate more than similar men. Thus, gender political norms and socialization matter, suppressing women’s tolerance for conflict, but ultimately conflict tolerance matters more for men’s, rather than women’s, political and civic engagement.