ABSTRACT

Much of what we know about how individuals interact with the political world lies in what we know about their place in society. Where one is situated is often a function of our universal human tendency to categorize. We place ourselves and others into groups based on our religions and nationalities, occupations and social class, the sports teams for which we cheer, and the colleges we attend. We organize people into “us” and “them,” in-group members and out-group members, and we do so perhaps most readily when it comes to categories we generally believe to be immutable, like gender. In this chapter, we focus on the structure of such categorical thinking with respect to gender, and we describe some of the significant ways in which notions about gender factor into political attitudes and behavior.