Explaining the gender gap in political tolerance: identity, affective polarization, and emotions

This article documents a gap in Affective Polarization levels and political tolerance between men and women- with women scoring lower in tolerance than men- to subsequently explore the reasons behind these differences. Through a mixed methods approach, leveraging a unique representative polarization survey fielded in Spain (N=2938) and focus groups to explore polarization and tolerance as they unfold in everyday discourses, we explore the causes behind this gap. In so doing, the paper contributes to the debate on gender differences in political tolerance, which has generated mixed evidence (see Eagly, 1987; Sotelo, 1999; Stouffer, 1955; Togeby, 1994). Furthermore, the paper also provides new insights into gender differences in affective polarization and how they relate to political tolerance. Results point to the importance of politicized identities (see Simon et al., 2019) and emotions to explain the degree of positivity and negativity towards political in-groups and out-groups, as well as people’s agreement or disagreement to limit their main out-group’s political expression. The results raise normative concerns about current understandings of affective polarization and political tolerance as well as their consequences. Moreover, the results point to the need to discuss the relevance of considering power relations between political groups when trying to assess inter-group dynamics of negativity and conflict.