Gender and support for conventional and unconventional political behaviors of pro-life activists

Previous research suggests women are less tolerant than men of the political expressions of others due to differences in life experiences, political interest, religiosity, and group affect. Controlling for these factors, we still find women to be slightly less tolerant of the conventional political activities of pro-life protesters. We find this difference remains because women judge such activities both under the norms of tolerance and evaluations of the legitimacy of political protest. Men only judge the conventional political activities of pro-life activists under the norm of tolerance. Men and women both reject unconventional political protest by these activists, since both men and women judge such actions under the standards of protest.