Gendered Religiosity

Landon Schnabel* Indiana University, Bloomington

Abstract This study uses measures of cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity from the General Social Survey to examine whether and how they relate to religiosity. I find that religiosity is clearly gendered, but in different ways for women and men. Consistent with the feminine-typing of religion in the Christian-majority context of the United States, gender expression is linked with more religiousness among women but not men. Consistent with religion being a sometimes patriarchal institution, those with more pride in being men are more religious. I conclude that religiosity is gendered, that degendering and secularization processes could go hand-in-hand, and that future research on gender differences in religiosity should further examine variation among women and among men.

Keywords: Gender; Religion

Last Revised: 6-27-2017 Running Head: Gendered Religiosity Word Count: 3,073 Tables: 2

This paper is published as: Schnabel, Landon. “Gendered Religiosity.” Review of Religious Research. Forthcoming.

* I am grateful to the four anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback. Direct correspondence to Landon Schnabel, Department of Sociology, Indiana University, 744 Ballantine Hall, 1020 E. Kirkwood Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405. Email: [email protected].

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Women tend to be more religious than men in the United States and many other Christian- majority countries (Freese 2004; Hackett, Murphy, and McClendon 2016; Lummis 2004; Sullins

2006). Research on this gender difference has focused primarily on how dichotomous gender categories predict religiosity, and much of the literature even argues that women are

“universally” more religious than men (e.g., Miller and Stark 2002). Rather than an essential characteristic that can only be measured as dichotomous categories, gender is a dynamic, multidimensional, and context-specific structure, status, and performance (Avishai, Jafar, and

Rinaldo 2015; Charlton 2015; Cornwall 2009; Schnabel 2016c; West and Zimmerman 1987).

Past research has suggested gendered personality characteristics help explain across-gender differences and more recent studies have begun to explore within-gender differences (e.g.,

Collett and Lizardo 2009; Schnabel 2016c), but we do not yet know whether and how cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity relate to religiosity. This study, therefore, uses new measures from the 2014 General Social Survey to examine whether and how cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity1 relate to religiosity within gender categories.

The gender gaps in religiousness literature focuses largely on dichotomous differences between women and men, but a few studies are now exploring within-gender-category variation across factors such as upbringing (Collett and Lizardo 2009), social status (Schnabel 2016c), sexual orientation (Sherkat 2002, 2017; Sumerau 2012), and even transgender/cisgender identity categories (Sumerau, Cragun, and Mathers 2016). This research suggests that religiosity gaps across categories may be as much or more a result of gender expression and issues of

1 In this study I talk about “gender as a social identity” instead of “gender identity” because I am referring not to whether someone identifies as a man, woman, or non-binary, but instead aspects of gender as a social identity (e.g., the strength of their in-group identity with men or women) (Tajfel 1981).

Gendered Religiosity 3 femininity/masculinity than of dichotomous sex differences. But we still know relatively little about how gradational gender processes relate to religiosity within gender categories apart from a few convenience-sample studies by Thompson (1991; Thompson and Remmes 2002) and

Francis and Wilcox (1996, 1998). In the first of these studies, Thompson (1991) found that feminine personality traits—measured with the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem 1974)—were positively linked to religiosity in a sample of 358 undergraduates (masculine traits were not significantly linked to religiosity). Additional convenience samples later confirmed this relationship between feminine personality traits and religiosity, and found a similar relationship between femininity and positive views of Christianity (Francis and Wilcox 1996, 1998;

Thompson and Remmes 2002).

Rather than examine feminine- and masculine-typed personality characteristics, the present study focuses on within-gender-category variation in religiosity by cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity. More specifically, I examine whether and how gender in-group pride (pride in and identity primacy of one’s gender) and gender expression

(sociobehavioral expression of one’s gender, or how one “does” gender) relate to religiosity, and whether the relationships vary for women and men. Because religion is arguably a gender- polarized and often patriarchal institution (Avishai et al. 2015; Hoffmann and Bartkowski 2008;

Schnabel 2016b), I expect that gender in-group pride will be associated with greater religiosity among men. Gender expression, however, will likely be associated with more religiosity among women but not among men in light of the possible feminine-typing of Christian religion (Levitt

1995; Schnabel 2015) and the link between feminine-typed personality characteristics and religiosity (Thompson 1991).

Gendered Religiosity 4

Methods

This study uses nationally-representative data from the General Social Survey (GSS) to consider within-gender-category variation in religiosity by cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity (N=1,216 with 679 women and 537 men).2 The 2014 GSS included measures of gender in-group pride and gender expression suited to this study’s examination of within-gender- category variation.3

Religiosity is the dependent variable and gender in-group pride and gender expression are the key independent variables. Religiosity is measured with a standardized summative scale (a =

.87) of the following measures: strength of religious affiliation, strength of description of self as a religious person, strength of description of self as a spiritual person, religious attendance frequency, and prayer frequency.4 Gender in-group pride and gender expression are measured with the following items, which were fielded on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 10 (completely):

Gender In-Group Pride:  How proud are you to be a [respondent's gender]?  How much is being a [respondent's gender] an important part of how you see yourself?

Gender Expression:  In general, how much do you find that being a [respondent's gender] influences or guides how you behave?  Think about how you see yourself as a [respondent's gender]. How much do you think friends see you this way?

2 Data for this study were downloaded from http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Downloads/GSS2014_DL.asp. I focus on cases with complete information on gender pride and expression—which were fielded to a subsample of GSS respondents—religiosity, and covariates. Only 14 cases, or 1% of cases, were excluded for missing data on covariates. A more substantial amount of data were missing on sexual orientation and religious affiliation, so I created additional categories of “missing” for the sexual orientation and religious affiliation measures. Additional analyses using multiple-imputation indicate that missing data do not bias the results. 3 Although typically described as a measure of sex (i.e., female/ male), the binary “sex” measure in the GSS is interviewer-coded. Therefore, it may be more of a measure of gender (i.e., woman/man), and related gender expression, than is often assumed. 4 I originally conducted a factor analysis and found support for one religiosity factor. Analyses with that factor yield equivalent results to the summative scale analyses presented here.

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I first conducted factor analyses that confirmed the expected distinction between these two concepts related to gender as a social identity. I then created standardized summative scales for gender in-group pride (a = .80) and gender expression (a = .72), which are correlated with one another at .66. These gender in-group pride and gender expression questions were asked in reference to the respondent’s gender category, and the results are presented separately for women and for men. For ease of interpretation the key independent variables and the dependent variable are standardized with means of 0 and standard deviations of 1.

The models also include the following standard covariates selected based on theoretical expectations, past research on gender differences in religion, and fit statistics: sexual orientation

(heterosexual, LGB, or missing), race/ethnicity (non-Latino white, non-Latino Black, non-Latino other race, and Latino), age (in years), marital status (married=1), parental status (parent=1), education (highest degree attained), workforce status (working full-time=1), region (South=1), and religious affiliation (seven categories using the Steensland et al. 2000 schema).5

Results

Table 1 presents OLS regression results for gender in-group pride and gender expression predicting religiosity among women and men. These variables are standardized, so the coefficients represent the proportion of a standard deviation change in religiosity for each standard deviation change in gender in-group pride or gender expression. I first present the pattern without sociodemographic controls, then with sociodemographic controls, and then with religious affiliation categories.6

5 Additional analyses with additional covariates excluded for empirical and/or theoretical reasons—such as mother’s and father’s SES, political views, and gender ideology—yielded similar substantive patterns. 6 Multicollinearity checks demonstrate appropriate VIFs across models. In no model are the VIFs for gender in- group pride or gender expression over 2.

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[Table 1 here]

As shown in Model 1 of Table 1, gender expression is positively and significantly correlated with religiosity among women. The coefficient for gender in-group pride, however, is negative and not significant. When controlling for sociodemographic measures and when controlling for religious affiliation we see a similar but slightly attenuated relationship between gender expression and religiosity among women. Therefore, gender expression is a more important predictor of religiosity than is gender in-group pride among women.7

Among men, however, we see a reversal of this pattern. Men’s in-group pride is positively and significantly linked to religiosity, whereas the coefficient for gender expression is not significant and negative. Again, these variables are standardized, which means that the coefficient of .2 for gender in-group pride means that a standard deviation change in gender pride among men is associated with .2 of a standard deviation higher religiosity. When controlling for sociodemographic characteristics the pattern remains unchanged, but controlling for affiliation does weaken the still-significant link between men’s in-group pride and religiosity. This attenuation is due in large part to the measure of religious affiliation categories controlling for whether affiliated or not (the unaffiliated score much lower on both gender in-group pride and religiosity than the affiliated).8

7 Gender in-group pride does positively and significantly predict religiosity among women when gender expression is not included in the model. Therefore, gender pride does seem to matter, but only as it relates to feminine gender expression. 8 Additional analyses considered whether the patterns varied among those with non-Christian affiliations. There were only 15 women and 32 men affiliated with a religion besides Christianity. Among non-Christian women, the gender expression coefficient reverses from what it is among Christian women. But among non-Christian men the gender pride is in the same direction and actually large (though not significant due to the small sample size). Therefore, these very limited supplemental analyses are suggestive that Christianity may be feminine-typed in a way other religions are not, but that the link between men’s gender in-group pride and religiosity is not limited to Christians.

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Table A1 in the appendix presents coefficients for all covariates. The patterns are generally consistent with past research. For example, as in Sherkat’s (2002, 2017) research sexual minorities are less religious among women but not among men. This pattern is consistent with the idea that less traditional femininity among women would yield less religiosity.

Moreover, as we might expect based on Schnabel’s (2016c) research on elite women and men, women with graduate degrees are less religious than those with less than a high school education, whereas men with graduate degrees are more religious. Although most of the associations are as expected, a few potentially new patterns present themselves when considering the relationships between covariates and religiosity for women and men separately: (1) age is more closely linked to women’s religiosity than men’s religiosity, (2) marriage matters more for men’s religiosity than for women’s, and (3) evangelical men are notably more religious than other types of

Christian men, but women exhibit generally similar levels of religiosity across Christian affiliations.

In sum, gender expression is significantly linked to more religiosity among women but not among men, and gender in-group pride is significantly linked to more religiosity among men but not among women. In other words, feminine gender expression, but not masculine gender expression, is linked to more religiosity. And, in a similar but inverse pattern, men who are more proud to be men are more religious, but women who are more proud to be women are not more religious.

Discussion

This brief study used the 2014 General Social Survey to examine whether and how religiosity is gendered within gender categories. Consistent with what we might expect based on recent theoretical and qualitative work on religion as a gendered institution (Avishai 2016; Avishai et

Gendered Religiosity 8 al. 2015; Irby 2014; Sumerau et al. 2016), I found that gender as a social identity is linked to religiosity, but in different ways for women and men.

Women whose gender expression is more feminine are more religious, but among men gender pride is a more important predictor of religiosity than is gender expression. The positive relationship between gender in-group pride and religiosity for men suggests a likely mutually- reinforcing link between essentialist gender identity and religion. In other words, men with more in-group pride may be drawn to or more likely to remain in religion, religion may promote in- group pride in being men, or both.9 The link between gender in-group pride and religiosity was stronger among men than among women, for whom gender expression was more closely linked to religiosity in the majority-Christian context of the United States. Religion in this context, therefore, appears to be a gendered institution that appeals to essentialist men and feminine women (Thompson 1991) and may reinforce gender complementarianism (Schnabel 2016a;

Wilcox 2004) and promote inequality (Schnabel 2016b). Not all religion is the same, however, so variation in everyday expressions of gender essentialism and femininity likely play out differently across groups in ways that should be further scrutinized (Bartkowski and Read 2003;

Lummis 1999; Schnabel 2015).

The results demonstrated that gendered identities and religiosity operate in tandem.

Conversely, then, the “degendering” of society—or the elimination of ubiquitous binary gender divisions and deep-seated gender beliefs embedded throughout social structures and institutions

(Lorber 2000)—and secularization processes could go hand-in-hand. Future theoretical work on whether and how it would be possible to “degender” society should pay greater attention to how religion reinforces traditional gender norms and identities. Relatedly, attempts to understand

Gendered Religiosity 9 secularization processes should pay greater attention to gender. And not just gender in the across-group sense of “woman” vs. “man” (as in the gender differences in religiosity literature), or in the sense of “transgender” vs. “cisgender” (though this question certainly deserves greater attention), but also in the sense of spectrums of variation within gender categories. Past research has shown a strong link between femininity and religiosity using the Bem Sex-Role Inventory in small convenience samples made up primarily of Christians (Francis and Wilcox 1996, 1998;

Thompson 1991; Thompson and Remmes 2002). Future research should further examine how femininity and masculinity as psychological characteristics are associated with religiosity among women and among men in national samples and among non-Christians. If femininity and religiosity are associated only among Christians, the feminine-typing of Christianity could explain why gender gaps in religiosity are larger among Christians than among other religious groups.

This brief study used measures of cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity from the General Social Survey to demonstrate that religiosity is gendered, but in different ways for women and men. Women who see themselves as more feminine are more religious, whereas men with more in-group pride are more religious. Going forward, I propose that scholars should further consider within-gender-category variation by factors such as femininity and masculinity in addition to the typical cross-category comparisons.

APPENDIX

[Table A1 here]

9 Given the available data I cannot determine whether it is men’s gender pride reinforcing religiosity, religiosity reinforcing men’s gender pride, or, more likely, both.

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REFERENCES

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Analysis.” Social Indicators Research 129(2):893–907. Schnabel, Landon. 2016c. “The Gender Pray Gap: Wage Labor and the Religiosity of High- Earning Women and Men.” Gender & Society 30(4):643–69. Sherkat, Darren E. 2002. “Sexuality and Religious Commitment in the United States: An Empirical Examination.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41(2):313–23. Sherkat, Darren E. 2017. “Sexuality and Religious Commitment Revisited: Exploring the Religious Commitments of Sexual Minorities from 1991-2014.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Online 1st. Steensland, Brian et al. 2000. “The Measure of American Religion: Toward Improving the State of the Art.” Social Forces 79(1):291–318. Sullins, D.Paul. 2006. “Gender and Religion: Deconstructing Universality, Constructing Complexity.” American Journal of Sociology 112(3):838–80. Sumerau, J. E. 2012. “‘That’s What a Man Is Supposed to Do’: Compensatory Manhood Acts in an LGBT Christian Church.” Gender & Society 26(3):461–87. Sumerau, J. E., Ryan T. Cragun, and Lain A. B. Mathers. 2016. “Contemporary Religion and the Cisgendering of Reality.” Social Currents 3(3):293–311. Tajfel, Henri. 1981. Human Groups and Social Categories. New York: Cambridge University Press. Thompson, Edward H. 1991. “Beneath the Status Characteristic: Gender Variations in Religiousness.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30(4):381–94. Thompson, Edward H. and Kathryn R. Remmes. 2002. “Does Masculinity Thwart Being Religious? An Examination of Older Men’s Religiousness.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41(3):521–32. West, Candace and Don H. Zimmerman. 1987. “Doing Gender.” Gender & Society 1(2):125–51. Wilcox, W.Bradford. 2004. Soft Patriarchs, New Men. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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TABLES

Table 1: OLS Regression of Standardized Gender In-Group Pride and Gender Expression Predicting Standardized Religiosity among Women and among Men Among Among Women Men Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Gender In-Group Pride 0.032 -0.036 -0.058 0.187*** 0.182*** 0.098* (0.054) (0.052) (0.041) (0.052) (0.053) (0.043) Gender Expression 0.120* 0.097* 0.082* -0.003 -0.034 0.010 (0.049) (0.046) (0.037) (0.057) (0.056) (0.045) Sociodemographic Variables No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Religious Affiliation No No Yes No No Yes Constant 0.180 -0.418 -1.300 -0.206 -0.914 -1.481 N 679 679 679 537 537 537 R2 0.022 0.163 0.489 0.040 0.136 0.443 Standard errors in parentheses Source: 2014 General Social Survey Sociodemographic variables: Sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, age, marital status, parental status, education, work status, and region. Affiliations (RELTRAD): No affiliation, evangelical, mainline, Black Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, other. Table A1 presents coefficients for all variables. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001

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Table A1: OLS Regression of Standardized Gender In-Group Pride and Gender Expression Predicting Standardized Religiosity among Women and among Men with Covariate Coefficients Among Among Women Men Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Gender In-Group Pride 0.032 -0.036 -0.058 0.187*** 0.182*** 0.098* (0.054) (0.052) (0.041) (0.052) (0.053) (0.043) Gender Expression 0.120* 0.097* 0.082* -0.003 -0.034 0.010 (0.049) (0.046) (0.037) (0.057) (0.056) (0.045) LGB -0.443** -0.207 -0.003 0.084 (0.169) (0.133) (0.240) (0.196) Race (white reference) Black 0.557*** 0.388*** 0.359** 0.346* (0.099) (0.101) (0.136) (0.140) Latino 0.203 -0.011 0.287 0.040 (0.126) (0.106) (0.150) (0.126) Other Race 0.069 -0.010 -0.028 0.047 (0.222) (0.177) (0.210) (0.173) Age (in years) 0.011*** 0.006*** 0.005 0.001 (0.002) (0.002) (0.003) (0.003) Married 0.066 0.056 0.251** 0.124 (0.073) (0.057) (0.094) (0.077) Parent 0.185 0.070 0.141 0.012 (0.095) (0.075) (0.107) (0.088) Degree (