Explaining the 'gender-risk effect' in risk perception research: a qualitative secondary analysis study / Explicando el 'efecto género-riesgo' en la investigación de la percepción del riesgo: un estudio cualitativo de análisis secundario

• Published in: Psyecology Vol. 5; no. 2-3; pp. 167 - 213
• Main Authors: Henwood, Karen, Pidgeon, Nick, Parkhill, Karen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England Routledge 02.09.2014; SAGE Publications
• Subjects: análisis secundario de datos cualitativos; discursos sobre tecnología y preocupación; epistemic subjectivity; gender; género; percepción de riesgo; qualitative secondary analysis; risk perception; subjetividad epistémica; technology/care discourse; gender; qualitative secondary analysis; análisis secundario de datos cualitativos; percepción de riesgo; epistemic subjectivity; technology/care discourse; género; discursos sobre tecnología y preocupación; subjetividad epistémica; risk perception
• ISSN: 2171-1976; 1989-9386
• DOI: 10.1080/21711976.2014.977532

Quantitative psychometric experiments and surveys have been used extensively in the field of risk research to explore the cognitive and cultural determinants of beliefs about environmental risk. We adopt a conceptually novel approach called effects made by gender and conduct an interpretive, qualitative study involving secondary analysis of a data set comprising 11 reconvened focus groups. The groups were initially designed to compare talk about the meanings for people of six different risk cases: climate change, nuclear power and radioactive waste, genetically modified foods and crops, human genetic testing, mobile phone handsets and transmission masts. In-depth findings and insights are presented concerning the dynamic role played by gender binaries, epistemic subject positions and identity-making within the workings of gender discourses. These serve to define everyday realities and (de)stabilize taken-for-granted 'truths' of gender difference in risk perception studies. A deeper regulatory role is identified for hegemonic masculinity; in particular, how concern for risk is downplayed when set alongside the cultural and psychological gains made from technological world-making. Care discourses are also part of the matrix of culture-technology-identity relationships responsible for creating effects made by gender.