Beyond the Binary: New Ways of Conceptualizing and Measuring Gender in Political Science Research

The social categories “woman” and “man” are the basis of some of the largest, most consistent inequalities in politics and power. Indeed, the centrality of gender to understanding political phenomena is highlighted by the large and interdisciplinary body of research on the topic, but mostly conceptualized in a binary way. In a trenchant review and call to action, Westbrook and Saperstein (2015), point to flaws in this approach, including the need to measure sex and gender as distinct concepts, address the fact that there are more than two sexes and more than two genders; a person’s sex/gender identity may not “match” how other people perceive and classify them; and identities and classifications can change over a person’s life course. Many politics researchers see the utility of non-binary continuous measures of gender, and the body of research in this area is growing rapidly. This makes it an ideal section for inclusion in the 2021 ECPG, where scholars can disseminate the latest work in this area, and a broad, international conversation can help us improve our knowledge and research agenda. In particular, new continuous measures of gender join with the effort to understand political inequalities through an intersectional lens. This ongoing interdisciplinary variance creates an exciting – though challenging – space for new research. Current Approaches to Non-Binary Gender Measurement An established approach to measuring gender as a non-binary concept is based on psychological measures (such as the Bem Sex Role Inventory; Bem 1974). For example, in Australia, Hatemi et al. (2012) found that more ‘feminine’ men and more ‘masculine’ women are more likely to support the left-leaning Labour Party. In the U.S., McDermott (2016) found that gender identity is a better predictor of vote choice than sex: The more masculine an individual is, the more likely s/he is to support and vote for the Republican Party. The more feminine an individual is, the more likely s/he is to support and vote for the Democratic Party. Coffé (2019) demonstrates a significant effect of masculine personality traits, but no effect of feminine personality traits, on support for the Dutch radical right party, PVV. Notably, however, psychological gender identity instruments, such as BSRI, have been criticized for imposing definitions of femininity and masculinity on respondents by relying on gender stereotypes to assign scale scores (see Magliozzi et al., 2016). Moreover, these types of instruments tend to be rather resource demanding. Thus, another current approach uses scales measuring respondents gendered self-perceptions in line with how political scientists measure self-perceived political ideology along graded left–right or liberal–conservative scales. Using such scales, Bittner and Goodyear-Grant (2017) find new political attitudinal differences that would otherwise be missed by binary approaches. For example, the non-binary gender measure moderates previous sex gaps on abortion. Those situating themselves as 100% masculine or 100% feminine are significantly less progressive than almost everyone else, regardless of controls. Based on Swedish data, Wängnerud et al. (2019) find an interaction effect between sex and non-binary gender: The more women hold self-perceived feminine traits, the higher the levels of anxiety about societal risks and threats. In the U.S., Gidengil and Stolle (2020) examined levels of hostile sexism, moral traditionalism and cultural threat. The results reveal that very masculine men and very feminine women show more hostile sexism and moral traditionalism and perceive more cultural threat than men with weaker masculine identities and women with weaker feminine identities. Many other related bodies of research hint at the possibilities for new findings and measures. The growing literature grounded in intersectional perspectives, for example, further highlights the multidimensionality of gender. Research into gender and sexual identities is also important, especially for the political implications of gender and sexual equality. Finally, what is the role of “identity” when measuring gender? Some current research, for example that those identifying as non-binary nevertheless feel compelled to deploy more or less gendered strategies in day to day life (Barbee and Schrock 2019). Therefore, the aim of this section is to discuss current attempts to measure gender heterogeneity in new ways and thereby contribute to further development of concepts and measurements. The section would include four panels: i) Non-binary measures of gender in survey research ii) Qualitative approaches to measuring gender iii) Intersectional measures of gender identity (expanding empirical measures of gender in combination with e.g., sexuality, ethnicity, age and/or religion) iv) Challenging binary gender in political office or public policy (papers analyzing real-world examples of effort to challenge binary gender)