Mother Nature and Menvironmental Politics: How Gendered Frames Affect Support for the Clean Air Act

Student: Grace Montgomery
Major: Political Science
Advisor: Professor Angela Bos
My I.S. examines whether and how gendered frames shape public support for the Clean Air Act. Frames are used to highlight certain considerations over others when discussing political issues. When an individual is exposed to a frame, then that individual will draw upon a relevant schema and apply elements from that schema to understand the issue. I argue gender schemas contain attitudes about gender roles and gendered traits for each sex. I hypothesize that if a gendered frame is compatible with an individual’s gender schema, then that person will be more supportive of the Clean Air Act. On Amazon’s MTurk, I randomly assigned 240 American participants to an article about the Act that contained no gendered notions (control), traditional gender roles and personalities, or gender non-traditional roles and personalities. Although I did not confirm my hypothesis, I argue that gender notions are important to consider in discussions about environmental issues.

Grace will be online to field comments on May 8:
Noon-2pm EDT (PST 9am-11am, Africa/Europe: early evening)

Posted in I.S. Symposium, Independent Study on May 4, 2020.