Post or protest?: Factors influencing white women’s engagement in activism

ABSTRACT

We investigated how engagement in activism among white women is predicted by their political efficacy, exposure to gendered microaggressions (i.e., verbal and/or nonverbal slights targeting a subordinate gender identity), and color-blind racial attitudes. We recruited 93 white undergraduate women for whom exposure to gendered microaggressions, color-blind racial attitudes, and political efficacy explained a significant proportion of variance in participants’ ratings of political activism on social media, although these predictors did not significantly explain a proportion of the variance in their in-person political activism (e.g., rally attendance). We discuss how these findings relate to the current literature, as well as implications and future directions.

KEYWORDS:

• Microaggressions
• political efficacy
• social media
• color-blind attitudes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).