Context Matters: Proportion Fundamentalist Effects on Gender Attitudes*

Laura Moore, Ph.D.
Hood College

Reeve Vanneman, Ph.D.
University of Maryland























*Direct correspondence to Laura M. Moore, Department of Sociology and Social Work,
Hood College, 401 Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD 21701

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Context Matters: Proportion Fundamentalist Effects on Gender Attitudes 2


ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown that fundamentalist religious beliefs and affiliations
are associated with more conservative gender attitudes. This study expands upon
previous research by examining both the individual and contextual effects of conservative
Protestantism on gender attitudes. Multi-level analysis of data from the General Social
Surveys (1985-1996) reveals a significant relationship between the proportion of
fundamentalists in a state and more conservative gender attitudes of white individuals
within that state even after controlling for the individuals’ own religious affiliation,
beliefs and practices.

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Context Matters: Proportion Fundamentalist Effects on Gender Attitudes 3


INTRODUCTION
Contextual effects are at the heart of the sociological enterprise. Emile Durkheim
(1952:320) identified the existence of a contextual effect when he argued, "...the group
formed by associated individuals has a reality of a different sort from each individual
considered singly... collective states exist in the group from whose nature they spring."
More recently, Huckfeldt (1986:13) defined contextual effects as "instances in which
individual behavior is affected by the presence of a social property in a population
regardless of whether the individual possesses the property in question." While the
importance of context in examining gender equality has long been recognized, there have
been no previous studies that have examined contextual effects, beyond region, on gender
attitudes across the United States.
Substantial research has shown that for individuals, fundamentalist Protestants
have more conservative attitudes regarding gender roles (Brinkerhoff & MacKie 1984;
Gay, Ellison, and Powers 1996; Hertel and Hughes 1987; Hoffmann and Miller 1997).
However, the effects of religion on gender attitudes may extend beyond the boundaries of
the individuals who are themselves fundamentalist Protestants. After summarizing the
social science literature addressing the relationship between fundamentalism and gender
attitudes, we utilize 1985 - 1996 General Social Survey (GSS) data to test the hypothesis
that white individuals’ conservative gender attitudes are related not only to their own
individual characteristics but also to the proportion of fundamentalists in the state where
they live. We find evidence to support this contextual hypothesis and conclude by
discussing issues regarding causation and future avenues for research.

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INDIVIDUAL- LEVEL FUNDAMENTALISM AND GENDER ATTITUDES
Fundamentalist denominations originated largely out of nineteenth century Holiness and
Pentecostal movements (Ammerman 1987; Woodberry and Smith 1998). Fundamentalists tend
to oppose the growth of secular influence in society (Hawley and Proudfoot 1994). They also
tend to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, personal salvation, the premillenial imminent return
of Christ, and an evangelical need to convert others (Ammerman 1987; Woodberry and Smith
1998). Fundamentalist Protestants endorse traditional gender role attitudes in adherence to
Biblical scriptures that portray men as leaders but women as followers (Ammerman 1987;
Bendroth 1993). The traditional hierarchy taught by Fundamentalist churches is from God to
man and from man to woman, with women’s roles defined as that of helpmate and mother
(Kosmin and Lachman 1993). Accordingly, fundamentalists tend to oppose modern, modified
gender roles whereby women have entered the paid workforce, sought more egalitarian divisions
of household labor and asserted themselves more openly in marital decision-making processes
(Brown 1994; Kosmin and Lachman 1993).
Even the earliest studies of gender attitudes noted the association of religious
denominations and beliefs and their corresponding conservative gender attitudes (Mason and
Bumpass 1975). Utilizing 1972 - 1984 GSS data, Hertel and Hughes (1987) found white
Protestant fundamentalists to retain the most conservative attitudes regarding women's home,
work and political roles. Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians,
Episcopalians, Jews, and those reporting no religious affiliation showed progressively more
liberal gender attitudes. The conservative fundamentalist effect remained strong after controlling
for age, income, education and region. Hoffmann and Miller (1997) report from their across time
analysis of 1972 - 1994 GSS data that while Conservative Protestant (Southern Baptists,

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Context Matters: Proportion Fundamentalist Effects on Gender Attitudes 5


Evangelicals, Fundamentalist, Nazarenes, Pentecostals, Church of Christ) support for egalitarian
gender roles has increased, this group is still among the most conservative. Utilizing 1982-1991
GSS data, Gay, Ellison, and Powers (1996) find that white Southern Baptists and other
fundamentalist and evangelical members report the most conservative gender role attitudes on
“pro-family” issues such as gender roles, abortion, and sexuality. Again, these effects remain
after controlling for an array of individual-level variables. However, Gay, Ellison, and Powers
(1996) document some internal heterogeneity on gender role attitudes within conservative
Protestant denominations forcing researchers to reexamine assumptions of a “monolithic”
fundamentalist/evangelical group. They suggest that issues of female employment and
household decision making are “more nuanced and negotiated than previously recognized (Gay,
Ellison, and Powers 1996:13).” The strong relationship between fundamentalism and
conservative gender attitudes has also been documented by studies utilizing more specific, non-
representative samples (Brinkerhoff & Mackie 1984: Martin, Osmond, Hesselbart and Wood
1980; Thornton, Alwin, and Camburn 1983; Thornton and Freedman 1979; Wilcox 1986), and
by studies measuring fundamentalism as individual beliefs (Brinkerhoff & MacKie 1984: Wilcox
1986).
CONTEXTUAL LEVEL ANALYSES OF GENDER ATTITUDES
In research utilizing U.S. data, region has been the primary contextual level variable used
in analyses of gender attitudes. Several studies have found that conservative gender attitudes are
concentrated in the South (Burris 1983; Hurlbert 1989; Mason, Czajka and Arber 1976; Rice and
Coates 1995). Hurlbert (1989) found white Southerners to be significantly more conservative
on women's issues even after controlling for individuals’ religion, rural/urban residence, income,
education, prestige, age, sex, union membership and year of survey. More recently, Rice and

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Coates (1995) found a similar Southern difference with updated GSS data (1972-1993) and a
broader sample that included blacks and whites.
Because these studies control for a comprehensive set of individual variables, the results
support a subcultural hypothesis versus a simple compositional hypothesis (Johnson and Stokes
1984). The compositional hypothesis would explain the more conservative gender attitudes
found in regions like the U.S. South as merely a consequence of there being more individuals in
the South possessing traits associated with conservative gender attitudes - such as lower
education levels, rural residence, and fundamentalist religious affiliations. In contrast, the
subcultural hypothesis claims that the regional effect is above and beyond the summation of
individual traits; that is, it is a contextual effect. However to date, no studies have gone beyond
identifying the Southern difference and noting its cause as due to a unique regional subculture.
What is it about the South that makes people hold more conservative gender attitudes?
We believe that the South-nonSouth difference found in earlier studies is primarily a
contextual effect resulting from the higher religious fundamentalism in the South. Although the
South is becoming increasingly indistinguishable from the rest of the country on structural
measures such as urbanization, industrialization, occupational distribution, income and
education, its disproportionate population of fundamentalists remains a distinctive Southern
marker (Goldschmidt 1963; Kasarda, Hughes, and Irwin 1991; McKinney & Bourque 1971;
Mayo 1964; Reisman 1965). Kosmin and Lachman (1993:52) note that the Southern "Bible
Belt" is comprised primarily of Baptists - many of them fundamentalist Southern Baptists that
"form a formidable cultural force in shaping the outlook of the populace and social institutions of
the region." Fundamentalist Protestants comprise over 40% of the census South compared to
approximately 19% in the nonSouth (Kosmin and Lachman 1993). We contend that the

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"formidable cultural force" of Bible Belt fundamentalists represents a contextual effect on gender
attitudes that goes well beyond the compositional effects explained by different characteristics of
individual Southerners.
Only one study has investigated a contextual effect of religion on gender attitudes and
that study used European data. Banaszak and Plutzer (1993) measure four distinct aspects of
European social context: 1) religiosity levels; 2) divorce levels; 3) women's education relative to
men; and 4) women's economic participation relative to men. After controlling for individual-
level effects (country, education, marital status, number of children, female work status, age,
Left party support, family income, size of community, and religiosity), they found contextual-
level effects for educational levels among both men and women and contextual-level effects for
women’s labor force rates and divorce rates for women. They did not find any support for the
contextual effects of religiosity for either women or men beyond the individual-level effects they
controlled. However, Europe may lack sufficient variance on religion to produce a significant
contextual effect. In contrast, the United States has continued to display higher levels of church
affiliation and religiosity than most other industrialized nations (Kosmin and Lachman 1993;
Sherkat and Ellison 1999). We believe that American data may reveal stronger contextual
effects than European data.
CONTEXTUAL THEORY
Our goal is to explore an empirical relationship between the proportion of
fundamentalists in a state and the conservative gender attitudes of both fundamentalists and non-
fundamentalists that reside in that state - thus testing the existence of a contextual association
with attitudes. While we do not have the data to investigate exactly how this fundamentalist
context influences individuals' gender attitudes, there are several factors that could explain a

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contextual effect.
Books and Prysby (1988) identify three sources of contextual effects: 1) social interaction
with more like-minded others; 2) conformity to prevailing norms; and 3) information flow
patterns. Certainly, the repetitious process of day-to-day interactions could result in
fundamentalists relaying conservative gender attitudes to non-fundamentalists through a variety
of social structures like work, neighborhoods, and voluntary organizations (Huckfeldt and
Sprague 1987). Fundamentalists' imperative to "witness" and bring people into the "flock of
Christ" might even increase exchanges of this nature. Of course, daily information exchanges
would also allow non-fundamentalists the opportunity to influence fundamentalists with more
liberal gender ideologies thereby neutralizing a conservative fundamentalist message. However,
fundamentalists may have a stronger resistance to liberal gender ideologies than non-
fundamentalists have to conservative ones, since messages coming from a “non-saved”
individual would most probably be dismissed as misguided, secular values that were not in
accordance to God’s will (see Ellison and Musick 1993; McFarland and Warren 1992). In any
case, as the proportion of fundamentalists in an area increases so will the odds that both
fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists will interact with other fundamentalists and their
conservative gender ideology.
Fundamentalist conservative messages could also be distributed through major
institutional vehicles such as the media, education, and politics. As the proportion of
fundamentalists increases, so does their probable influence over major social institutions through
their roles as producers, broadcasters, journalists, teachers, principals, school board members,
politicians, policy writers and the like. Moreover, even non-fundamentalists in predominantly
fundamentalist areas may be hesitant to offend local sensibilities. Consequently, residents in

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areas with higher proportions of fundamentalists may have greater exposure to media programs
and advertisements, school curricula, teacher-student interactions, and legal/judicial systems that
emphasize fundamentalist-based conservative gender attitudes. The social norms legitimized by
these institutions would have an effect on both fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists alike.
In addition, individuals wishing to challenge existing conservative ideologies might find
themselves struggling against a fundamentalist constituency that could mobilize quickly and
aggressively through their church congregations or larger Christian Right groups such as the
Moral Majority or the Southern Baptist Convention (Regnerus, Sikkink & Smith 1999). Thus,
the proportion of fundamentalists in a state could affect not only institutional support for
conservative ideologies, but also their continued defense.
Finally, individuals may be influenced by their direct observations of the social structures
surrounding them. Given the restrictive roles for women prescribed by fundamentalist doctrine,
one would expect that in more fundamentalist areas women would occupy fewer prominent,
public, authoritative positions. Employers would be more reluctant to promote women, and
perhaps women would be more reluctant to seek public positions of authority. Thus, the general
state population - both fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist - would be less likely to observe
females as political leaders, CEOs, news broadcasters, journalists, principals, pastors, and the
like. Individuals not informed directly by fundamentalist ideology about appropriate gender
roles could still interpret this absence of women in powerful positions as a "natural" occurrence
and therefore replicate similar conservative gender attitudes.
The theoretical and empirical implications of thoroughly documenting contextual effects
on gender attitudes are expansive for the social sciences. This study represents a first step

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toward a more dimensional understanding of contextual effects and their relationship to gender
attitudes in the United States. We hypothesize that:
1) There will be a significant relationship between the proportion of fundamentalists in an
area and the conservative gender attitudes of individuals within that area.
2) This relationship will remain significant even after controlling for relevant individual-
level variables including fundamentalist affiliation and beliefs and relevant macro-level
variables.
3) The contextual association of proportion fundamentalist will be evident for both
individual fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists alike.
Methods
DATA
Individual data for this multi-level analysis come from the 1985- 1996 General Social
Survey (GSS). The GSS, an annual nationwide survey, is drawn from the population of non-
institutionalized, English-speaking adults in the United States, 18 years or older. Previous
research reveals that the interactions between race, fundamentalism, region, and gender attitudes
are complex and require detailed attention (Kane 1992; Ransford and Miller 1983; Rice and
Coates 1995). Given this study’s focus on the contextual effects of fundamentalism on gender
attitudes, we are not able to give the race interaction issues adequate attention. In addition,
preliminary analysis on the gender attitudes of 935 African Americans reveals neither the
individual-level nor state-level associations with religion found for whites. Accordingly, the
individual-level sample is limited to white respondents. A total of 7,734 non-Hispanic whites
were asked the relevant gender and religious beliefs questions in the seven surveys between 1985
and 1996. Of those, 1,497 have missing data on one or more variables, primarily the gender

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Document Outline

• Abstract
• Inroduction
• Data
• Results
• Discussion
• Endnotes
• References
• App. A: Items
• Figure 1: Gender Map
• App. Figure 1: Fundamentalist map
• Figure 2: Scattergram
• Figure 3:
• Table 1

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