earticle

영어

The gender gap in the attitudes toward the use of violence is one of the heavily scrutinized research topics in political science. The claim that women are more peace loving and politically liberal than men is known as the women and peace hypothesis in the study of international relations. One of the most cited theoretical roots of the women and peace hypothesis is the ‘maternal thinking’ argument. According to the ‘maternal thinking’ argument, women’s politically liberal and peace loving attitude is the political representation of women’s child caring experience. In this paper, using multivariate linear regression analyses on the 109th U.S. Congress voting records, I test ‘maternal thinking’ argument and propose an alternative explanation on women's liberal political attitude. I argue that the biological difference between men and women is not a sufficient explanatory variable in explaining women’s political attitude. In fact, it is individual’s political ideology that influences one’s political attitude.