Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Countries with Greater Gender Equality Have More Positive Attitudes and Laws Concerning Lesbians and Gay Men

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Sex Roles Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Social scientists have long discussed and empirically demonstrated how attitudes toward lesbians and gay men are determined in part by sexism and endorsement of gender roles, but only at the psychological level of analysis. We present data that considers these relationships at the cross-national level of analysis, using country-level measures of gender equality (the Gender Global Gap Index), aggregate measures of attitudes toward lesbians and gay men in a country, and a newly constructed measure of the progressiveness of sexual orientation laws. We show for the first time to our knowledge that countries that have the greatest gender equality also have (a) the most positive aggregate attitudes toward lesbians and gay men and (b) the strongest legislative protections for lesbians and gay men. These results hold even when controlling for plausible third variables such as a country’s level of religiosity and its economic and political development, each with their own separate effects. We discuss the results within the context of the various forces that contribute to, and work against, ensuring more accepting attitudes of, and equal rights for, lesbians and gay men. In conclusion, to fully understand support for lesbians and gay men and the laws that protect them, one should also consider how women are treated in a country.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to P. J. Henry.

Ethics declarations

The research reported involves exclusively secondary analyses of data that has been made publicly available on the internet.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors of this manuscript have no conflicts of interest.

Human Studies

No new data were collected involving human subjects.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(DOCX 60 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Henry, P.J., Wetherell, G. Countries with Greater Gender Equality Have More Positive Attitudes and Laws Concerning Lesbians and Gay Men. Sex Roles 77, 523–532 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0744-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0744-0

Keywords

Navigation