Is gender on the ‘new agenda’?

This paper examines the politicization of gender inequality through a cross-national analysis of attitudes towards inequality between men and women. The data were obtained from national surveys in the United States, Britain, West Germany, Australia and Italy. In all of these countries, attitudes towards gender inequality were found to be associated with the ‘left-right’ cleavage over economic inequality and redistribution, but they were unrelated to ‘new politics’ issues. It was also found that attitudes towards gender inequality were more closely integrated into the left-right cleavage in those countries where there was greater awareness of gender issues, and that they had very little net impact on partisanship. Thus high levels of awareness of gender inequality are not associated with the emergence of a new cross-cutting political cleavage. It is concluded that inequality of opportunity between men and women does not constitute part of a new politics agenda, nor does it cross-cut other sources of political interests. It is more plausibly seen as a new element of the well-established left-right cleavage. Consequently, it leaves the structure of political divisions relatively intact.