Nathaniel Bechhofer linked to a tweeted question from Elizabeth Plank about whether white supremacists are more likely to be men. Ideally, for measuring white supremacist beliefs, we would define "white supremacist", develop items to measure white supremacist beliefs or actions, and then conduct a new study, but, for now, let's examine some beliefs that might provide a sense of what we'd find from an ideal survey.
ANES
I was working with the ANES Time Series Cumulative Data file last night, so I'll start there, with a measure of white ethnocentrism, coded 1 for respondents who rated whites higher than blacks, Hispanics, and Asians on feeling thermometers, and 0 for respondents who provided substantive responses to the four racial group feeling thermometers and were not coded 1. Data were available for surveys in 1992, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2008, and 2012. This is not a good measure of white supremacist beliefs, either in terms of face validity or considering the fact that 27 percent of white respondents (N=2,345 of 8,586) were coded 1. Nonetheless, in weighted analyses, 27.5 percent of white men and 28.9 percent of white women were coded 1, with a p-value for the difference of p=0.198.
I then coded a new measure as 1 for respondents who rated whites above 50 and who rated blacks, Hispanics, and Asians below 50 on the four racial group feeling thermometers, and as 0 for respondents who provided substantive responses to the four racial group feeling thermometers and were not coded 1. Data were available for surveys in 1992, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2008, and 2012. Only 1.6 percent of white respondents (N=134 of 8,586) were coded 1, and, as before, weighted analyses did not detect a sex difference: 1.9 percent of white men and 1.6 percent of white women were coded 1, with a p-value for the difference of p=0.429.
GSS
The General Social Survey 1972-2014 file contained an item measuring agreement that "On the average [Negroes/Blacks/African-Americans] have worse jobs, income, and housing than white people....Because most [Negroes/Blacks/African-Americans] have less in-born ability to learn". Data were available for surveys in 1977, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. There was a detected sex difference in weighted analyses, with 13.5 percent of white men and 12.0 percent of white women agreeing with the statement (p=0.002, N=21,911).
The next measure was coded 1 for respondents who favored a close relative marrying a white person and opposed a close relative marrying a black person, a Hispanic American person, and an Asian American person, and coded 0 for white respondents with other responses, including non-substantive responses. Data were available for surveys in 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. There was a detected sex difference in weighted analyses, with 13.1 percent of white men and 10.4 percent of white women coded 1 (p=0.001, N=7,604).
The next measure was coded 1 for respondents coded 1 for the aforementioned marriage item and who selected 9 on a 1-to-9 scale for how close they felt to whites. Data were available for surveys in 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. There was no detected sex difference in weighted analyses, with 5.5 percent of white men and 4.7 percent of white women coded 1 (p=0.344, N=3,952).
In the 1972 GSS, nonblack respondents were asked: "Do you think Negroes should have as good a chance as white people to get any kind of job, or do you think white people should have the first chance at any kind of job?". Of 1,330 white respondents, 20 of 670 (3.0 percent of) white men and 23 of 660 (3.5 percent of) white women reported that white people should have first chance at any kind of job (p=0.607 in an unweighted analysis).
The next measure was based on the item asking: "If you and your friends belonged to a social club that would not let [Negroes/Blacks] join, would you try to change the rules so that [Negroes/Blacks/African-Americans] could join?" (sic for the lack of "African-Americans" in the first set of brackets). Respondents were coded 1 for reporting that they would not try to change the rules. Data were available for surveys in 1977, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1994. There was a detected sex difference in weighted analyses, with 45.5 percent of white men and 37.8 percent of white women coded 1 (p<0.001, N=7,924).
In the 2000 GSS, respondents were given this task:
Now I'd like you to imagine a neighborhood that had an ethnic and racial mix you personally would feel most comfortable in. Here is a blank neighborhood card, which depicts some houses that surround your own. Using the letters A for Asian, B for Black, H for Hispanic or Latin American and W for White, please put a letter in each of these houses to represent your preferred neighborhood where you would most like to live. Please be sure to fill in all of the houses.
Respondents were coded 1 if the respondent marked "white" for all the houses and coded 0 otherwise, with 0 including responses of doesn't matter, no neighbors, mixed race, or non-substantive responses. There was a nontrivial sex difference in weighted point estimates, with 16.9 percent of white men and 13.5 percent of white women coded 1, but the p-value was p=0.110 (N=1,108).
---
The 1972 GSS "white people should have the first chance at any kind of job" item seems like the best measure of white supremacist beliefs among the measures above, but agreement with that belief was low enough that there was not much power to detect a sex difference.
Based on the other data above and absent other data, it appears reasonable to expect at least a slight over-representation of men among whites with white supremacist beliefs, to the extent that white supremacist beliefs positively correlate with the patterns above. Research (1, 2) has found men to score higher than women on social dominance orientation scales, so the magnitude of expected sex differences in white supremacist beliefs among whites should depend on the degree to which white supremacist beliefs are defined to include a preference for political or social dominance.
---
NOTES:
Datasets were anes_timeseries_cdf_stata12.dta and GSS7214_R1.DTA. Code here.