Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World

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Cambridge University Press, Apr 14, 2003 - Political Science - 226 pages
The twentieth century gave rise to profound changes in traditional sex roles. However, the force of this 'rising tide' has varied among rich and poor societies around the globe, as well as among younger and older generations. Rising Tide sets out to understand how modernization has changed cultural attitudes towards gender equality and to analyze the political consequences of this process. The core argument suggests that women and men's lives have been altered in a two-stage modernization process consisting of (i) the shift from agrarian to industrialized societies and (ii) the move from industrial towards post industrial societies. This book is the first to systematically compare attitudes towards gender equality worldwide, comparing almost 70 nations that run the gamut from rich to poor, agrarian to postindustrial. Rising Tide is essential reading for those interested in understanding issues of comparative politics, public opinion, political behavior, political development, and political sociology.
 

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Contents

Introduction Explaining the Rising Tide of Gender Equality
3
From Traditional Roles toward Gender Equality
29
Religion Secularization and Gender Equality
49
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE RISING TIDE
73
The Gender Gap in Voting and Public Opinion
75
Political Activism
101
Women as Political Leaders
127
CONCLUSIONS
147
Conclusions Gender Equality and Cultural Change
149
Appendix A
165
Appendix B
169
Technical Note on the Major Scales
175
Notes
181
Select Bibliography
203
Index
219
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