Gender, Views Of Nature And Support For Animal Rights
This study examines the influence of views regarding the relationship of humanity to nature and support for animal rights as it differs by gender, based on General Social Survey data from 1994. The paper purports to explain the gender differences in attitudes toward animal rights and how these differences may actually predict these attitudes.
Research suggests men are more supportive than women for the exploitation and control over the natural world, a Darwinian view, while women consistently express greater affection toward animals and ethical relations with nature, therefore viewing nature with higher levels of Romanticism than men. Therefore, it is theorized that Romantic perspectives will be associated with higher levels of support for animal rights and a Darwinian outlook with lower levels.
This study was asked on the 1994 General Social Survey (GSS) data, which was a probability survey of English speaking adults, age 18 and older in the U.S. Some questions which relating to animal rights were asked of only a portion of the sample, resulting in two samples for animal rights (979) and animal testing (981).
This analysis found that women display higher levels of animal rights advocacy than men, supporting the extension of moral rights to animals and opposing the use of animals in medical research to greater extents.
The mean score of women on the measure of Darwinianism is significantly lower than that of men, but there is no gender difference in the level of Romanticism.
Church attendance did have an influence on willingness to extend moral rights to nonhuman animals.
Men who express more Romantic and less Darwinian attitudes toward nature are more concerned with animal right support. Younger men and those who are more liberal are more likely to be opposed to animal research than their opposing male counterparts.
Church attendance is an important factor for women; women who do not attend church frequently are more likely to advocate moral rights for animals as well as disapprove of medical testing on animals.
For both genders, negative views of science are linked to greater endorsements of moral rights for animals.
In sum, women are greater supporters of animal rights than men. They are less likely than men to see nature as a struggle for survival of the fittest, both genders tend to see nature as being at peace if humans would leave it alone.