Keep the nation [women] pure: Implicitly gendered nativism in American public opinion

Using original survey questions fielded on the 2020 Cooperative Election Study, I explore the relationship between gender traditionalism, gendered nativism, and anti-immigrant attitudes. My analyses demonstrate that gender traditionalists are more likely to express support for implicitly gendered nativist statements, and although this finding applies to gender traditionalists from all political parties, being more gender traditional has the greatest impact among Democrats when compared to Republicans. Furthermore, while gender traditionalism does predict support for anti-immigrant attitudes, gendered nativism significantly mediates this relationship. These findings underline the importance of traditional gender attitudes in the American psyche and demonstrate that gendered nativism is an additional dimension that should be accounted for when assessing public opinion towards immigration.