A recent systematic review published in Public Opinion Quarterly suggests that a voter’s level of sexism is a significant predictor of their political attitudes and voting choices. By analyzing nearly one hundred previous studies, the research provides evidence that different types of prejudice shape everything from support for right-wing candidates to opinions on climate policy. The findings highlight how deeply ingrained beliefs about gender roles continue to influence the modern political landscape.
Michał Gulczyński, a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, conducted the review to understand just how broadly sexism influences political behavior. The 2016 United States presidential election sparked a sudden wave of interest in this topic. Gulczyński noticed that while many studies looked at that specific election, it remained unknown how well the findings applied to other political contexts and policy questions.
“My personal motivation was to understand well the literature in a new field that I wanted to enter,” Gulczyński said. “I am currently developing a research agenda on attitudes toward men as a predictor of political behavior.”
He explained that it was the perfect time to evaluate the existing evidence to see what the scientific community truly knows. “Academically, I observed that many studies on sexism and politics were appearing and I knew that the European Social Survey included a module on sexism that would lead to many studies (comparative or in single European countries),” he said. “This seemed to be the right moment to summarize the literature, make sense of it, and identify gaps. Indeed, I identified 97 studies, which already is quite a large number.”
To grasp the findings, it helps to understand how scientists define and measure sexism. Psychological research tends to divide sexism into a few distinct categories. Gulczyński pointed out that the academic definition of prejudice often differs from how people talk about it in daily life.
“It is vital to understand that scholars have a much more nuanced understanding of ‘sexism’ than what is typically used in everyday language,” he said. He broke down the primary definitions used in academic surveys, noting two major concepts. “Most importantly, we distinguish between Hostile Sexism: negative attitudes, such as the belief that women seek to gain power by controlling men. Benevolent Sexism: Attitudes that may seem positive or ‘chivalrous’, like the idea that women have a ‘superior moral sensibility.'”
A third concept frequently measured by scientists is modern sexism. People with high levels of modern sexism tend to deny that discrimination against women is still a problem in society. They also show antagonism toward women’s demands for equality and oppose policies designed to help women. The researcher examined how these different variations of prejudice interact with a person’s political decisions.
To conduct the review, Gulczyński searched two massive academic databases for studies that included keywords related to sexism and political behavior. He specifically looked for quantitative survey-based studies, meaning research that relies on numerical data collected from questionnaires. One of the primary challenges he faced was the lack of consistency across the existing literature.
“The sheer diversity of approaches,” Gulczyński said, was a major surprise. “One of the most striking findings was that the operationalization of sexism, how we actually define and measure it in surveys, rarely repeats across studies. This lack of standardization makes comparative research difficult and was a primary motivation for providing a comprehensive list of these various measures in our supplementary materials.”
After filtering out duplicate records and papers that did not fit the criteria, he analyzed exactly 97 peer-reviewed studies. The gathered studies included varying sample sizes and focused heavily on the United States. Out of the 97 studies, 75 focused exclusively on American voters, and 39 centered specifically on the 2016 presidential election. A small handful of studies looked at other nations, including three from New Zealand, two from Australia, two from Canada, two from Spain, and two from the United Kingdom. The most frequently measured concept was hostile sexism, which appeared in 61 publications.
The review provides evidence that prejudice plays a major role in modern elections. “The most important takeaway is that sexism is a statistically significant and substantially relevant predictor of political preferences and behavior, often proving to be a stronger predictor of voting patterns and attitudes than a person’s own gender,” Gulczyński said. Voters scoring high in hostile or modern sexism were significantly more likely to support Donald Trump and oppose Hillary Clinton.
This pattern extends well beyond the United States. “While much research has focused on hostile sexism and the 2016 US election, my review shows that sexism is associated with a wide range of political preferences and behaviors, including support for far-right parties in Europe and policy preferences,” Gulczyński added. “Furthermore, the study highlights that ‘sexism’ is not a monolithic concept; different types of sexist attitudes can lead to very different political behaviors. Scholars should be careful and precise when operationalizing sexism in their studies and interpreting results.”
When it comes to female candidates, the effects of prejudice are highly dependent on the type of sexism a voter holds. Hostile and modern sexism consistently predict a lower likelihood of voting for female candidates. Voters with these attitudes tend to view female politicians as less electable and react negatively to women who violate traditional gender expectations. If a female candidate runs for office, hostile sexists are less likely to seek out information about her and more likely to judge her harshly.
Benevolent sexism influences voters differently. The review indicates that benevolent sexism does not reliably predict opposition to female candidates in the same way hostile sexism does. In some cases, female candidates who were attacked aggressively during campaigns actually gained favorability among benevolent sexists. This likely happens because negative attacks trigger a paternalistic instinct to protect women who are perceived as vulnerable.
Sexism also shapes policy preferences, particularly regarding bodily autonomy. The compiled research shows that benevolent sexism is a strong predictor of opposition to abortion, as it reveres women who conform to the traditional role of a self-sacrificing mother. These gender biases also spill over into policy areas that are not obviously related to women’s rights. The review highlights that hostile and modern sexism are associated with opposition to climate change policies and negative attitudes toward immigrants.
While the research is expansive, it comes with specific limitations. It is difficult to completely prove that sexist attitudes directly cause certain voting behaviors, rather than just being correlated with them. “Sexism is often a stronger predictor of political preferences than gender itself,” Gulczyński said. “However, caution is needed whenever we interpret associations between attitudes as it is difficult to disentangle causal relationships.”
Another limitation is the lack of demographic diversity in the analysis and the age of the measurement tools. “In my opinion, the review highlights the need to update the approaches to studying and measuring sexism, as the main measures were developed nearly 30 years ago,” Gulczyński noted. “The social reality has changed significantly since then; some gender gaps have even reversed, such as in educational attainment.”
He also emphasized the need for broader geographic and demographic focus. “We also need to expand our research beyond the US to understand how sexism operates in different cultural and institutional contexts,” he said. “Finally, I found almost no research on how the political relevance of sexism differs across age groups, social classes, or the rural-urban divide.”
Moving forward, the author suggests exploring how similar biases affect men. “We also know that similar attitudes toward men exist, though their relevance in the political sphere has hardly been studied, with only two papers in my entire review addressing it,” Gulczyński said.
He is already taking steps to fill this gap in the literature with upcoming projects. “I have conducted a study on hostile and benevolent sexism toward men and how they are related to political attitudes,” he explained. “For instance, can they explain why many people support unequal military obligations? Do they contribute to polarization between young women and men?”
The study, “Sexism as a Predictor of Political Attitudes and Voting Behaviour: A Systematic Review,” was authored by Michał Gulczyński.
