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ABSTRACT
The idea that motherhood primes women to support stronger gun control policy permeates our contemporary politics. Motherhood shapes views on a variety of issues, but the question remains whether mothers hold distinctive views on gun control policies relative to their non-parent peers. We draw on 2017 Pew Research Center data to explore the ways gender, parenthood, and race intersect to shape attitudes on gun policy in the post-Sandy Hook era when gun violence has become prominently linked with schools and children, and during a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has drawn national attention to the relationship of gun violence and racial inequality. Most notably, we find that contemporary depictions of mothers as a distinctively pro-gun control constituency are largely inaccurate. The very real gender gap in gun policy attitudes appears to be falsely attributed to motherhood, rather than gender. We also find very little impact of parenthood for men. Finally, we generally fail to see much relationship between race, parenthood, and gun attitudes. Overall, despite common belief and media reporting to the contrary, the story is very much one where parenthood seems to play little role in gun policy attitudes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The Million Mom March was the largest gun control demonstration in U.S. history, taking place in Washington DC in 2000. Attendance was estimated at 750,000 (Hampson Citation2018).
2 Mothers of the Movement emerged in the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in 2013 and is composed of the mothers of unarmed black sons killed by police (Flynn Citation2019).
3 Moms Demand Action was founded after the 2012 school shooting in Sandy Hook CT and remains one of the largest organizations focused on gun control, with close to 6 million members (Chozick Citation2019).
4 The gender gap in support for gun rights has varied from 7 percent points to 16 percent points over the past three decades (Pew Research Center Citation2017).
5 One exception to this is the 2012/2013 ANES Re-Contact Survey, which included five questions about gun policy including one question about guns in schools.
6 The Pew data does not include a measure of urban/suburban/rural or a measure of whether or not the respondent lives close to a mass shooting incident.
7 Even when restricting the analysis to liberals (not shown), mothers are no more anti-gun than women without children. Thus even among liberal women, we do not find evidence that motherhood is related to distinctive support for gun control measures.
8 For conservative women with children, their predicted value (or margin) on the gun prevalence scale is 2.42 compared to conservative women without children at 2.79 (the variable is continuous from 1–4 with conservative views higher). For liberal women with children, their predicted value is 2.39 compared to liberal women without children at 2.20. Conservative women with children are still more conservative on gun prevalence than liberal women with children, but they are more liberal than conservative women without children.
9 In one other case, the gun prevalence scale, the black-father interaction was significant and positive, indicating that fatherhood is associated with especially pro-gun views for black fathers relative to white fathers.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Steven Greene
Dr. Steven Greene is Professor of Political Science at North Carolina State University. He is co-author, with Laurel Elder, of The Politics of Parenthood: Causes and Consequences of the Politicization and Polarization of the American Family. His research explores the politics of parenthood, the gender gap, partisanship, and public opinion and Covid-19.
Melissa Deckman
Dr. Melissa Deckman is the Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs at Washington College. The author most recently of Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Activists, and the Changing Face of the American Right, she writes about gender, religion, and political behavior.
Laurel Elder
Dr. Laurel Elder is a Professor of Political Science at Hartwick College. The author most recently of the forthcoming, Women in Elective Office: A Tale of Two Parties. Her research explores the politics of parenthood, public opinion towards presidential candidate spouses, and women's representation in elective office.
Mary-Kate Lizotte
Dr. Mary-Kate Lizotte is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Social Sciences at Augusta University. She is the author of Gender Differences in Public Opinion: Values and Political Consequences, which was published with Temple University Press in March 2020. Much of her work focuses on investigating the origins of gender gaps in public opinion, voting, and party identification.