I've had a couple of posts on support for free speech among college students. I mentioned that it differs by ideology (more support among conservatives) and selectivity (more support at colleges with lower admission rates). But there's another important factor I haven't mentioned yet: gender. The average rating for eight cases, with higher numbers indicating more support for their right to speak, is 21.0 for men and 18 for women. The average for men is about the same as the average for students at Williams College, which ranks 5th out of 208 colleges and universities surveyed, while the average for women is about the same as for students at UNC-Greensboro, which ranks 193d. (The survey also gave options for non-binary, genderfluid, agender, unsure, and prefer not to say, which I combined into one category--they averaged 19.4, just about halfway in between the values for men and women). In terms of ideology, the average for men is about the same as the average for people who call themselves "very conservative" and the average for women is just a little higher than the average for people who say they "haven't thought about" their political views--the least tolerant group. That is, the gender difference is big.
The General Social Survey questions on whether certain kinds of people should be allowed to speak--support is somewhat lower among women, but the gap is not very large. The GSS questions are yes/no, and the questions in the college student survey (sponsored by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) have four categories: definitely should be allowed to speak, probably should, probably should not, and definitely should not. To make them comparable, I collapse the FIRE questions into definitely or probably should vs. definitely or probably should not. The percent saying that each type should be allowed to speak
Men Women Difference
GSS
homosexual 78% 79% -1
Communist 69% 61% 8
racist 66% 57% 9
militarist 65% 63% 2
anti-religion 76% 70% 6
FIRE
anti-transgender 42% 15% 27
ban abortion 57% 29% 28
anti-BLM 44% 15% 29
stolen election 43% 24% 19
repeal 2A 64% 57% 7
immigrants 76% 76% 0
white racism 65% 67% -2
religion 67% 59% 8
The table shows that the gender gap is a lot larger for the FIRE questions than the GSS questions. The gaps are bigger for the right-wing speakers in the FIRE survey--however, even though are women more liberal than men, they are a bit less likely to support the left-wing speakers. Another point is that levels of support for all speakers are relatively low in the FIRE survey compared to the GSS. Although the questions are different, it's hard to argue that the FIRE examples are more extreme. For example, you would expect support for the right to speak to be higher for someone who wants to work within the Constitution than for someone who wants to overthrow it, but the percent in favor of allowing a speaker who says "the second amendment should be repealed so that all guns can be confiscated" (FIRE) is slightly lower than that for someone who "advocates doing away with elections and letting the military run the country" (GSS).
I think that these two points are connected. The GSS questions ask about someone who "wanted to make a speech in your community," and presumably people interpret "your community" as their town. The FIRE questions ask about someone speaking on their college campus. A town is basically just a collection of people who choose to live in the same place, but colleges decide who gets to be part of the community and also proclaim some official values or mission. As a result, there's a tendency to think of speaking on campus as representing a kind of endorsement--not necessarily coming out in favor a point of view, but at least saying it deserves to be considered. Women tend to be more concerned about giving offense than men, so they are more likely to reject a speaker who might offend a significant part of the community.
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