Abstract

The literature has shown the persistence of a gender gap on attitudes about divisive issues that are usually associated with a left-wing agenda: death penalty, human rights for convicted criminals, same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization, and abortion. However, little is known about the attitudes of party leaders on these issues and their relevance beyond advanced industrial democracies. In particular, if the gender gap also holds for conservative women leaders. This paper analyzes the position in favor of these and other divisive issues within conservative party leaders in Chile. The current governing coalition is made up of three main different organizations, the Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI), Renovación Nacional (RN) and the recently created Evolución Política (Evópoli), that with nuances promote values, ideas and interests within the liberal-conservative spectrum, but firmly identify with a center-right ideology. Using original data from a representative survey of party elites at the national, regional and local levels, we estimate by means of a logistic regression with finite-sample correction whether gender plays an important role on five controversial themes depending on individual characteristics such as age, religion, and education as well as party membership. Our findings underline that gender usually matters and conservative women tend to have distinctive stances on divisive issues. In many ways, these differences position women on less extreme positions vis-à-vis their male counterparts and may foster moderation within the center-right coalition. © 2019 Universidad Adolfo Ibanez. All rights reserved.