We augment the survey-based studies of attitudes toward feminism with comparative, contextual perspectives emphasizing the importance of social structure and culture. In doing so, we are able to assess the relative merits of two very different structural theories. Most researchers implicitly assume a simple linear effect of social context on attitudes. On the other hand, some early works on American conservatism suggest to us that status discontent may be a better explanation. We explicate these two approaches and derive a series of testable hypotheses for each. We then examine the validity of these theories utilizing data from nine European nations.

Current research shows that female legislators serve as role models for women. Understudied is how and the extent to which female ministers inspire women to participate in politics. We argue that with their high visibility and greater ability to influence policy, female ministers also serve as role models, but their influence differs depending on the form of political engagement. Using the World Values Survey and additional national-level variables, we employ multilevel modeling techniques to explore how women in the cabinet influence various forms of women's political engagement. We find that the proportion of women in the cabinet has a stronger effect on participation than the proportion of women in parliament. All else being equal, a higher proportion of women in the cabinet increases women's conventional participation (voting and party membership), petition signing, and engagement in peaceful demonstrations, but it does not influence women's participation in strikes or boycotts. Our findings add to current studies of women's political representation, in which ministerial representation is often underexplored or not differentiated from parliamentary representation, and help distinguish various forms of participation. Future research should consider examining a wider variety of women's political roles in other areas of the political arena.

Although several studies explore the political environments and institutional features of Western European women's movements, few have examined the mass attitudinal bases for feminist politics in Europe. This article extends the study of feminist politics by testing models of feminist attitudes developed in the United States with data collected in the European Community in 1983. We explore the connections between the support of feminist goals and measures of marital status, female employment, socioeconomic level, age, religiosity, place of residence, and political party identification, focusing on differences in the predictors of male and female attitudes. Consistent with studies of the United States, we find that women's labor force participation fosters feminist attitudes among themselves and their husbands. Age, education, religiosity, and partisanship are also found to be predictors of feminist support. In contrast to studies of American women and men, we find that marital status has no effect in Europe. Our conclusions have implications for the future of feminist politics in Europe.

We demonstrate that an important outcome of social movements is public opinion change, particularly in the case of the U.S. women's movement. We argue that contentious events associated with the women's movement provide informational cues that prime the public. This process then leads to changes in attitudes regarding gender. We use quarterly time series data on contentious events of the U.S. women's movement ranging from 1960 to 1992 and public opinion about gender attitudes in the United States to examine whether public opinion moves in response to social movement events. Using an error correction model, we demonstrate that social movement events have a significant effect on gender attitudes. Citizens adopt more liberal gender attitudes as the U.S. women's movement increases its activity. These results suggest that social movement scholars should be paying more attention to public opinion when assessing the outcomes of social movements.

This study explores how the state genders citizens' attitudes toward women by examining differences between East and West Germany in gender role attitudes since unification. Compared to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was a stronger supporter of women's employment, although the two countries did not differ greatly in their policies on women's roles within the family. Using four waves of the German Social Survey, I examine whether East-West differences in gender role attitudes are explained by: 1) institutional learning (socialization under a particular regime) or 2) compositional effects (variation in the distribution of causal factors, specifically women's employment or religious affiliation). Analyses suggest that both types of factors influenced East-West differences in gender role attitudes. Even when other characteristics are included in the model, East and West Germans continue to differ in their gender role attitudes. Women's employment and religiosity-both heavily influenced by GDR policies-continue to play a large role in determining gender role attitudes even 15 years after unification. The results suggest that gendered state policies are reflected in citizens' gender role attitudes both directly and through changes in the social characteristics of the population.