It has been widely found that women are more likely than men to support increasing the presence of women in politics. The general argument stipulates that it is in women’s interest that these policies be adopted and, as such, they are more likely than men to express support. However, this explanation is not sufficient to understand why a large percentage of men supports increasing women’s representation. This paper proposes to deepen our understanding of men’s support for women’s representation in politics by investigating group attachment in Australia. Group attachment is the feeling of connection or closeness one has toward social groups that they are not necessarily a member of. This feeling of closeness toward women should lead men who do not directly benefit from the increase of women’s representation in politics to adopt similar views as women. Using the 2022 Australian component of the Comparative Study of Electoral System (CSES), the paper shows that men who express attachment toward women are significantly more likely than men who do not to agree that the percentage of women in the Australian parliament is too low and agree that we should increase women’s representation. Having higher levels of group attachment toward women is, however, not enough for men to close the gender gap in support with women.

Dr Katrine Beauregard joined the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University in 2015 where she is a Senior Lecturer. She has a MSc from Université de Montréal and PhD in Political Science from the University of Calgary. Her research focuses on gender, political behaviour, and women's representation. She was awarded a Discovery for Early Career Research Award fellowship by the Australian Research Council for 2020-2022 to investigate women's representation by political parties in established democracies. Her previous work has been published in the Australian Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Women, Politics and Policy, Politics, Groups and Identities,Political Research Quarterly, and Political Psychology.