What it means to know: gender differences in how white men and women justify their drug-related political beliefs

Existing research has documented a gender gap in political knowledge. The current study uses white women and men’s beliefs about drug abuse and addiction in the USA as a case study to observe how they rationalize about social issues. I introduce a novel typology of political knowledge stemming from proximal contact with social problems. Drawing on a content analysis of 1,292 open-ended survey responses, I found that both white men and women commonly referred to information gathered from media sources and their local community when justifying their beliefs about drug abuse and addiction. However, women nearly as frequently mentioned the experiences of members of their social network when justifying their beliefs. Given these findings, I conclude that broadening our conceptualization of political knowledge offers researchers an opportunity to observe how gender roles and cultural expectations may be informing how men and women express political ideas and information.