Dr. Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant
Associate Professor, Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University;
Director of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations; and
Director of the Canadian Opinion Research Archive.

Abstract: Researchers tend to treat sex and gender as interchangeable, and regularly use sex to stand in for gender in analyses of political behaviour. In a multi-year SSHRC-funded project, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant and Amanda Bittner critique this practice and the misleading conclusions that have likely resulted. We have piloted new, more genuine measures of gender, and we have conducted a series of national focus groups about how people understand sex and gender and its relationship with politics. In the talk, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant will present the core findings of the project to date. When we separate sex from gender in measurement, we get a clearer picture of the contours of public opinion, revealing interesting patterns that do not always conform with the conventional wisdom that women are to the left of men on political and social issues. Moreover, the strength of gender identity – the extent to which it is a core part of one’s identity, or not — strongly determines whether gender exerts an influence on political attitudes. In short, sex and gender matter, but in different ways and for different reasons, and sometimes in interactive ways. Dubbed “Better than Sex”, this project takes aim at measurement practices that hinder clearer understanding of sex and gender, both “fault line(s) of maximum potential cleavage” in their potential impact on public opinion and voting.