Author

Jessica Dulz

Date of Award

4-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Patrick Donnay

Abstract

How Americans select and identify with a political party can have many different sources. One important source has been found to be the effects of gender and perceptions of masculinity and femininity on party identification. I look deeper into this phenomenon to analyze the effects of race on the perception of masculine and feminine traits within Democrats and Republicans. In order to study this, I analyze 2012 American National Election Study (ANES) data. I hypothesize that among whites the results will be similar to previous studies which found Republicans to be much more favorable of masculine traits and Democrats to favor feminine traits. However, given the strong Democratic leanings of African Americans, I anticipate my results to show that African American individuals do not apply gender aspects of masculinity and femininity nearly as much as white individuals. If this is confirmed, it suggests that gendered interpretations of the political parties are also subject to racial filtering.

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