Gender Socialization: How Bargaining Power Shapes Social Norms and Political Attitudes

Date Published:

Abstract:

Most studies of gender socialization start with patriarchy and explore its effects on female social, economic, and political status. In this paper we turn the causal arrow the other way to understand where patriarchal values come from in the first place. We argue that the relationship between the mobility of male economic assets to the mobility of female economic assets goes far in explaining intra-family bargaining power, and by extension, in explaining the norms that become societally dominant. We investigate this proposition empirically by looking at mate choice preferences between agricultural, industrial, and post-industrial societies, and by looking at the gender gap in political attitudes.