While, on the whole, there isn’t a major difference in the sexes’ attitudes toward abortion, there is one when we separate men and women by ideology. If we look at the data since 2000 (to get a more contemporary perspective), on the liberal end of the ideological spectrum men are consistently less supportive of abortion on demand than women. On the conservative end of the spectrum, it’s women who like abortion on demand less than men do.This could explain why the "war on women" meme was such a fail.
In other words, conservative women are the most anti-abortion segment of the population, and liberal women are the most in favor of abortion rights. You might say that the more significant difference here is not between men and women, but among women.
A large number of women didn't buy it!
About ideology:
But this may simply be the reality, that Americans are ideologically polarized and inhabit different and mutually exclusive social worlds
Stereotypes flourish in ignorance. Liberal and conservative perceptions of one another can be ignorant and patronizing because they have so little personal experience of one another. Intriguingly, research by the social psychologists Jesse Graham, Brian A. Nozek and Jonathan Haidt has shown that liberals exhibit the least accurate perception of those with opposing political views.
Liberalism is predominant in most institutions of clout in the Western world: government, academia, and the media.
If you want to know about liberals, all you have to do is turn on your t.v.
If you want to know about conservatives (from conservatives themselves) you have to go online and search them out.
Anybody who has no contact with conservative circles won't know what a conservative is like.
And that's one reason why pro-lifers are so easily stereotyped and demonized.
And it's doubly true in Canada.
And this is excellent advice for abortion supporters:
A greater engagement with the facts would enable those who support abortion rights to consider why so many women do not, rather than dismissing their political opponents as motivated by misogyny or false consciousness.
How many times I've been told I'm a misogynist for supporting fetal rights.
Here's the reality: if women don't feel the misogyny, how misogynistic is it?
It's an academic, theoretical, abstract misogyny. That one only "gets" if one adopts a certain point of view.
The thing about hate is that you don't need a political viewpoint to understand it. You either feel it or your don't. Most women don't, as far as abortion is concerned.
