By Nomaan Merchant and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

May 24, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are becoming less supportive of punishing Russia for launching its invasion of Ukraine if it comes at the expense of the U.S. economy, a sign of rising anxiety over inflation and other challenges, according to a new poll.

While broad support for U.S. sanctions has not faltered, the balance of opinion on prioritizing sanctions over the economy has shifted, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Now 45% of U.S. adults say the nation’s bigger priority should be sanctioning Russia as effectively as possible, while slightly more — 51% — say it should be limiting damage to the U.S. economy.

In April, those figures were exactly reversed. In March, shortly after Russia attacked Ukraine, a clear majority — 55% — said the bigger priority should be sanctioning Russia as effectively as possible.

The shifts in opinion reflect how rising prices are biting into American households — surging costs for gas, groceries, and other commodities have strained budgets for millions of people — and perhaps limiting their willingness to support Ukraine financially. That may be a troubling sign for President Joe Biden, who on Saturday approved an additional $40 billion in funding to help Ukraine including both weapons and financial assistance. The poll shows low faith in him to handle the situation, and an overall approval rating that hit the lowest point of his presidency.

“We’re killing ourselves,” said Jeanette Ellis-Carter, a retired accountant who lives with her husband in Cincinnati, Ohio. “We can help other people, but in helping other people, we have to know how to help ourselves. And we’re not doing that.”

Ellis-Carter, 70, noted that annual inflation topping 8% would erase any cost-of-living adjustment for retirees, especially with the rising costs of health care and food. She continues to do accounting work but has lost small-business clients who no longer can afford to hire her.

The poll shows wide majorities of U.S. adults continue to favor imposing sanctions on Russia, banning oil imported from Russia and providing weapons to Ukraine. And most U.S. adults continue to say the U.S. should have a role in the war between Russia and Ukraine: 32% say the U.S. should have a major role in the conflict, while 49% say it should have a minor role.

But there’s muted support for sending funds directly to Ukraine. Forty-four percent of Americans say they favor sending funds, while 32% are opposed and 23% are neither in favor nor opposed.

The new poll shows just 21% of Americans say they have “a great deal of confidence” in Biden’s ability to handle the situation in Ukraine; 39% say they have some confidence and 39% say they have hardly any.

“Sometimes we get involved in things that we really shouldn’t, and it’s going to make things worse,” said Angelica Christensen, a 33-year-old from Ithaca, New York. “We need to focus right now on building up our economy.”

The U.S. and European allies have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia, cutting off major banks from global transactions and going directly after Russian President Vladimir Putin, top leaders, and their families. The U.S. also banned the importation of Russian oil.

While Russian oil makes up a small part of America’s total energy imports, the ban comes as gas prices have surged in recent months, hitting $4.71 per gallon, or $1.61 higher than a year ago. Supply chain problems and increased economic demand as COVID-19 restrictions ease have contributed to rising prices. Biden and many Democrats have accused gas companies of price gouging, while Republicans say the White House should support increased domestic oil and natural gas drilling.

Overall, 45% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the U.S. relationship with Russia, while 54% disapprove. That’s held steady each month since the conflict began. Seventy-three percent of Democrats and 15% of Republicans approve.

Shantha Bunyan, a 43-year-old from Loveland, Colorado, said she still supports Biden and believes he’s performed better than former President Donald Trump. She’s heard jokes that the most expensive place to visit in town is the local gas station. But Bunyan, who spent years traveling abroad before the pandemic began and lived for a month in Moscow, said she believes the U.S. has to continue to sacrifice to support Ukraine’s resistance.

“We seem to think that everything that goes on in the world isn’t going to affect us and that we live in some sort of a bubble,” she said. “It seems to me that anything that happens in the rest of the world is going to affect us. Unless we do something proactive, our economy is going to be affected anyway.”

But Jackie Perry, a 62-year-old from Centre, Alabama, said while she sympathized with Ukrainians and believes Russia was unjustified in launching its invasion, the White House needed to focus more on the economy. She has had to cut back on driving because gas is too expensive.

“They don’t have to worry about the price of gas,” she said about the Biden administration. “If they were more interested in the people that they’re supposed to be serving, our gas wouldn’t be that high.”

By Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

June 26, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruling to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is unpopular with a majority of Americans — but did that matter?

The relationship between the public and the judiciary has been studied and debated by legal and political scholars. The short answer: it’s complicated. There’s evidence that the public has an indirect role in the judiciary, but that might be changing.

In the final opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the court “cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work.”

Polls following the leaked draft of the opinion show approval of the Supreme Court — which was already suffering — slumped even further, driven by those who supported keeping Roe.

The court and public opinion have clashed at times, but they’ve entered into a “symbiotic relationship” over the last 60 years, Barry Friedman suggests in his 2009 book “The Will of the People.” The court doesn’t stray too far from popular opinion.

How that happens and whether it remains true are harder to know for certain. “We don’t have a viewfinder that shows us what the justices are doing,” said Maya Sen, political scientist and professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. “It’s a complicated chicken-and-egg situation where we can try to disentangle these forces, but it’s very hard to do.”

IS PUBLIC OPINION ON ABORTION CLEAR?

Public opinion on abortion is nuanced, but polling shows broad support for Roe and for abortion rights. Seventy percent of U.S. adults said in a May AP-NORC poll that the Supreme Court should leave Roe as is, not overturn it.

Roe is one of “a handful of cases” that people recognize, Sen said, and it’s “recognized as important Supreme Court precedent.”

Only 8% in the May poll said abortion should be illegal in all cases, but many Americans support some restrictions. An AP-NORC poll last year showed majorities of adults say abortion in the second and third trimesters should be illegal in all or most cases, and opinions were closely divided over whether a pregnant woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion for any reason.

“I think many Americans believe that there should be some sort of kind of sliding scale where the right is protected and then as the pregnancy continues, then the interests of the potential life become more significant,” Sen said, adding that Roe allowed for that nuanced thinking.

DOES PUBLIC OPINION FACTOR DIRECTLY IN COURT DECISION-MAKING?

Researchers have found — and some of the justices themselves have acknowledged — that court decisions and public opinion are often aligned, but some experts say it’s probably not a direct link.

The most important thing in decision-making is justices’ “set of political and judicial philosophies that give them preferences over the outcomes of the cases,” said Joseph Ura, political science professor at Texas A&M University. “Everything else is kind of marginal around that.”

Justices themselves experience the same things that everyday Americans do, which makes it harder to assess causality.

“It’s really hard to decipher: was it public opinion that’s driving these decisions or is it just that the justices have preferences and they’re exposed to the same thing that most of us are exposed to?” said Elizabeth Lane, assistant professor of political science at Louisiana State University.

DOES PUBLIC OPINION INDIRECTLY INFLUENCE THE COURT?

Scholars point to judicial appointments and court legitimacy as potential ways that the public has indirect influence on the court.

For one, voters elect a president, who nominates justices, and senators, who confirm them.

“Over the longer run, assuming there’s kind of a reasonable rotation of the justices leaving office for whatever reason that aligns with the party’s historical alternation in power, the court can preserve its alignment with public opinion,” said Ura.

That’s been undermined recently, experts say. By chance and by political maneuvering, a larger number of sitting justices — six of them — were appointed by Republican presidents.

In their dissent, the court’s liberal justices wrote: “The Court reverses course today for one reason and one reason only: because the composition of this Court has changed.”

Justices may also consider how the public will receive a ruling, though the new abortion ruling makes clear some on the court don’t believe that’s an important consideration.

While the court can issue its ruling, it has to rely on other actors — the public, politicians and even lower courts — to accept and implement it, said Charles Franklin, professor of law and public policy and director of the Marquette Law School poll.

“I doubt that the justices wake up every morning and check the polls to see if people agree, but over the long haul, the court does need a level of public support as a mechanism for their rulings being enforced,” Franklin said.

The threshold of support that the court needs might be changing. A reaction from the public or elected officials has “less currency” than it used to because of deepening political polarization, Ura said. A controversial or unpopular decision won’t necessarily raise the ire of a bipartisan coalition.

DOES IT MATTER IF THE PUBLIC’S FAITH IN THE COURT IS LOW?

The court has historically enjoyed consistently positive views among the public. But polling showed confidence in and approval of the court began to dip last year, and it has worsened since the leaked draft. Does it matter if the public’s faith in the court is low?

“The idea of the legitimacy of the court was a way it could sustain itself when it ruled counter to the majority opinion,” Franklin said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently emphasized the need for public faith in the court system. Justice Elena Kagan in 2018 spelled out why: “You know we don’t have an army. We don’t have any money. The only way we can get people to do what we think they should do is because people respect us.”

Michael Salamone, political science professor at Washington State University, explained that “specific support” for the court — what’s measured in polls — can easily fluctuate with reactions to court decisions. But “diffuse support” — faith in the institution’s role in democracy — is historically resilient. It remains to be seen whether that diffuse support will suffer because of the decision to overturn Roe.

“Just based on the amount of rhetoric and the high-profile nature of so many of these decisions,” he said, “I’m wondering if we’ve perhaps reached our limit to that resilience.”

By Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

May 27, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — Majorities of U.S. adults think mass shootings would occur less often if guns were harder to get, and that schools and other public places have become less safe than they were two decades ago, polling shows.

Still, public attitudes on guns and gun policy are complicated, and the issue has seen little by way of federal legislative changes in more than a decade. In the wake of Tuesday’s massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Democratic governors and lawmakers are pleading for gun restrictions. Reforms will meet Republican resistance both in Congress and state legislatures and are unlikely to advance.

While it’s not unusual for polling to show higher support for restrictions among the general public after a mass shooting, attitudes on gun regulation are overall rather stable over time, said John Roman, senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago.

In 2020, about half of voters in the presidential election said U.S. gun laws should be made stricter, according to AP VoteCast, compared with about a third saying they should be left as they are and only about 1 in 10 saying they should be made less strict.

WHAT ELSE DO AMERICANS THINK ABOUT GUN LAWS?

In March 2019, an AP-NORC poll showed a majority of U.S. adults — 58% — saying they thought there would be fewer mass shootings in the U.S. if it were harder for people to legally obtain guns. Many specific measures that would curb access to guns or ammunition also get majority support, according to polls.

There is widespread agreement on one measure in particular: making private gun sales subject to background checks.

Attitudes on other gun policies vary starkly by partisanship. For example, new data from an AP-NORC poll conducted earlier in May shows 51% of U.S. adults favor a nationwide ban on the sale of AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic weapons, while 32% are opposed. An additional 18% say they hold neither opinion. Seventy-five percent of Democrats but just 27% of Republicans were in favor.

Erica Martinez, a 37-year-old in Lincoln, Nebraska, said she was “horrified” and “irate” after Tuesday’s massacre and that there’s obviously a gun problem in this country. Laws need to be stricter, she said, and it should be harder for someone to get a gun.

“These school shootings are becoming more prevalent now, and there’s just too many innocent little lives that are lost because this 18-year-old kid was able to just go and buy a gun,” Martinez said. “I honestly and truly think that it could have been prevented.”

GUN OWNERSHIP IN THE U.S.

In April 2021, a Pew Research Center survey showed gun owners much more likely than those without guns to support expanding concealed carry and shortening waiting periods for legal gun purchases. Gun owners were much less likely to back bans on high-capacity ammunition magazines and assault-type weapons.

Forty-six percent of U.S. adults report living in a household with a gun, according to a March poll from NORC at the University of Chicago. Five percent said they purchased a gun for the first time during the pandemic, and those first time gun owners tend to share policy preferences with long term gun owners, NORC’s Roman said.

Federal data also shows gun sales rose significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The number one reason why somebody buys a firearm is they feel like it puts them at less risk,” said Roman. “When you have an event like COVID, where people feel like the world is very unsafe in general, you see big spikes in people buying one.”

Mike Miller, a 68-year-old conservative in Woodland Park, Colorado, said he owns guns for home defense, along with hunting.

“I think it’s in our constitution, and I think we have the right to have our weapons,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a problem with like the shooting that just happened. I think it’s bigger issues.”

WHO IS MORE MOTIVATED ON THE ISSUE?

Efforts to pass gun restrictions — even background checks — have been futile in Washington, met with opposition from Republican lawmakers.

Roman suggests people who own guns and oppose gun control have a louder voice in the political process because of their personal stake on the issue. Those who want stricter laws have strong opinions about the impact of guns on society, he said, but they often lack that personal connection.

“Your own costs and benefits are always more motivating, galvanizing, they create stronger preferences than the sort of conceptual, theoretical preferences,” he said.

The voices of those looking for restrictions tend to get louder after a mass shooting, Roman said, creating a window of opportunity for gun control policy before they recede again.

An AP-NORC poll conducted just after a shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan showed 24% of Americans — including 41% of Democrats — named gun laws in an open-ended question as a priority for the government for 2022, a sharp increase from just 5% for 2021 and 12% for 2020.

“Either there’s going to be a quick movement towards some gun regulation and new gun laws or this moment will pass and next year, we’ll be talking about something else,” he said.

MENTAL HEALTH

Many Republican lawmakers have focused on mental health as a key factor in preventing mass shootings at schools.

The 2019 AP-NORC poll showed bullying, along with the availability of guns, were considered most responsible for shootings in schools. About half of Americans said these were both “a great deal” to blame. In the poll, there was bipartisan agreement on bullying, but Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to blame the availability of guns.

Derek Lavarnway, a 44-year-old political independent in Chaumont, New York, said his main concern is mental health.

“I think there’s a balance between gun control and, you know, figuring out ways to get people feeling better about themselves and their lives,” he said. “We desperately need to somehow find a way for a society that creates individuals that don’t do these sorts of things.”

By David Crary | The Associated Press

June 3, 2022

The hardline stances of many conservative Catholic bishops in the U.S. are not shared by a majority of lay Catholics. Most of them say abortion should be legal, favor greater inclusion of LGBT people, and oppose the denial of Communion for politicians who support abortion rights, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll, conducted in mid-May, shows a clear gap between the prevalent views of American Catholics, and some recent high-profile actions taken by the church’s leaders.

For example, leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently called on Catholics nationwide to pray for the U.S. Supreme Court to end the constitutional right to abortion by reversing its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. According to the new poll, 63% of Catholic adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 68% say Roe should be left as is.

On May 20, the archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, announced that he will no longer allow U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to receive Communion because of her support for abortion rights.

According to the poll, only 31% of lay Catholics agree that politicians supporting abortion rights should be denied Communion, while 66% say they should be allowed access to the sacrament.

An even larger majority – 77% — said that Catholics who identify as LGBT should be allowed to receive Communion. That contrasts sharply with a policy issued by the Diocese of Marquette, which encompasses Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, saying pastors should deny Communion to transgender, gay and nonbinary Catholics “unless the person has repented.”

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, said the rift between rank-and-file Catholics and the bishops “reveals a breakdown in communication and trust — shepherds who are far removed from the sheep.”

“This is a precarious time for the U.S. Catholic church,” she added in an email. “U.S. Catholics are, on the whole, accustomed to living and working in a pluralistic society and this poll reinforces the notion that they want the public square to remain pluralistic, free from coercion, and oriented toward care for the vulnerable populations among us.”

The Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said the poll results didn’t surprise him, and underscored a need for anti-abortion clergy and activists to redouble efforts to change people’s positions.

“For us working on pro-life issues, these kinds of polls are like a summons,” he said. “You’ve got to be doing your work — maybe you’ve got to do it better.”

As for conservative bishops, “their awareness of the gaps that the polling reveals is precisely one of the reasons they feel the need to speak up,″ Pavone said. “They are striving to exercise the role outlined for them in Scripture, namely, to patiently and persistently teach the faith, whether convenient or inconvenient, to clear up confusion.”

Beyond the bishops/laity rift, the poll highlighted other challenges facing the church, which is the largest denomination in the U.S.

For example, 68% of Catholics reported attending religious services once a month or less. Compared to five years ago, 37% said they were now attending less often; 14% said they were attending more often.

Over that five-year span, 26% percent of Catholics said their opinion of the Catholic church had worsened, while 17% said their opinion had improved. Most said their opinion hadn’t changed.

More than two-thirds of U.S. Catholics disagree with church policies that bar women from becoming priests. And 65% say the church should allow openly gay men to be ordained.

The poll was conducted just after the leak of a draft Supreme Court majority opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade. The views of U.S. Catholics, as expressed in the poll, were in line with the overall American public, both in regard to supporting abortion’s legality and preserving Roe.

However, there were sharp differences among major religious groupings. While 63% of Catholics said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, that stance was held by 74% of mainline Protestants and only 25% of evangelical Protestants.

Sharon Barnes of Dallas, who converted to Catholicism as a young adult, appreciates the centuries-old consistency of Catholic doctrine. Yet she differs from the church on some major social issues, including abortion.

“It’s a woman’s right to decide,” said Barnes, 65. “It’s something that you have to kind of reconcile yourself, and it’s between you and God.”

Pedro Gomez, a 55-year-old border patrol agent in Rio Rico, Arizona, is a lifelong Catholic who prays every night and attends church regularly. He understands the need for abortion in cases of rape, incest or saving the life of a mother, but he said he considers the procedure to be the killing of a child.

Gomez was surprised that most U.S. Catholics support some degree of abortion rights.

“There’s a lot of gray area now that was never there in my upbringing,” he said. “Maybe they’re watering down Catholicism … Now people are being able to make up their own rules.”

Ed Keeley, a 62-year-old public school teacher in Houston, also was raised Catholic. He described abortion as “a hard subject,” saying he believes in the sanctity of life but that abortion should be allowed in specific cases, including rape or incest.

He finds it “ridiculous” that a priest would deny Communion to someone because of their views on abortion or politics generally.

Last year, some conservative bishops, including Cordileone, argued publicly that President Joe Biden — a lifelong Catholic — should not receive Communion because of his support for abortion rights. However, Pope Francis conveyed his opposition to such a stance, saying Communion “is not a prize for the perfect.”

Cordileone’s recent denial of Communion for Pelosi was supported by several of his clerical colleagues, including the archbishops of Denver, Oklahoma City, Portland, Oregon, and Kansas City, Kansas. However, Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa, issued a statement describing the action as “misguided.”

“As Jesus said, it’s the sick people who need a doctor, not the healthy, and he gave us the Eucharist as a healing remedy,” Jackels said. “Don’t deny the people who need the medicine.”

He also contended that abortion was not the only critical “life issue” facing the church.

“Protecting the earth, our common home, or making food, water, shelter, education and health care accessible, or defense against gun violence… these are life issues too,” he said. “To be consistent, to repair the scandal of Catholics being indifferent or opposed to all those other life issues, they would have to be denied Holy Communion as well.”

John Gehring, Catholic program director at the Washington-based clergy network Faith in Public Life, said some conservative bishops engage in the culture wars “in ways that damage their already diminished relevance and credibility.”

“Most Catholics are fed up with bishops who want to weaponize Communion in a hypocritical, single-issue campaign against pro-choice politicians, especially when we see Pope Francis offering a better road map,” said Gehring

By Collin Binkley | The Associated Press

June 15, 2022

Ask a man about gender equality, and you’re likely to hear the U.S. has made great strides in the 50 years since the landmark anti-discrimination law Title IX was passed. Ask a woman, and the answer probably will be quite different.

According to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the National Women’s History Museum, most U.S. adults believe the country has made at least some progress toward equality for women since 1972. That’s the year Congress passed Title IX, a one-sentence law that forbids discrimination based on sex in education. But there are sharp differences in opinion over just how much headway has been made and in what facets of life.

Some of the widest divisions are, perhaps unsurprisingly, between men and women: 61% of men say the country has made a great deal or a lot of progress toward gender equality, while 37% of women said the same, according to the poll.

Women were more likely to point to only some progress — 50% held that view — while 13% said the country has made just a little or no progress.

“We’ve fought a lot, we’ve gained a little bit, but we haven’t really gained equality,” said Brenda Theiss, 68, a retired optician in Vinemont, Alabama. Progress that started in the ’70s seems to have stalled, she said, with continued wage gaps and battles over women’s reproductive rights.

Passed in the wake of other seminal civil rights laws, Title IX was intended to expand protections for women into the sphere of education. Today it’s often known for its impact on women’s sports and the fight against sexual harassment and assault.

As the nation approaches the law’s 50th anniversary, most Americans have positive views about it. Sixty-three percent said they approve of the law, including majorities of men and women. Only 5% did not approve of it, while the rest said they were neutral or not sure.

But Americans are split along several faults when it comes to assessing advancements.

Along with men, Republicans are also more likely to see a great deal or a lot of progress, with 65% holding that view. Among Democrats, 39% said the same.

Among women, those 50 and older are more likely than their younger peers to see a great deal or a lot of progress in specific facets of life, such as in leadership, employment and education opportunities.

Milan Ramsey, 29, said it’s “remarkable how far we have come considering how unequal it still feels.”

She says sexism is hard to avoid in today’s society, whether it’s in unequal access to health care or in everyday slights like getting catcalled. But she knows it has been worse. Once, looking at her mom’s childhood photos, her mom pointed out a pair of pants that she said was her first pair ever.

“She remembers that because they weren’t allowed to wear pants until she was like 7 in public school,” said Ramsey, of Santa Monica, California.

As a young girl growing up in the ’70s, Karen Dunlap says she benefited from Title IX right away. Soccer leagues for girls started springing up for the first time, she said. Her mom rushed to sign her up.

“I really felt the immediate difference as a kid,” said Dunlap, of Vancouver, Washington. “But at the same time, it didn’t stay that way.”

Dunlap went on to compete in swimming and water polo at Pomona College in California, and she credits Title IX for the opportunity. It also ensured the school gave enough money for racing swimsuits and a team van, she said. But in the classroom, some male professors referred to her as a “coed,” and some seemed to look down on female students, she said.

Later, when her daughters went to college, Dunlap was disappointed to see them fighting familiar battles. When one of her daughters applied for a job at a campus dorm, she was told she was too much of a “typical cheery girl” for the position. She ended up leaving the school and graduating elsewhere.

“The push for equality has been around long enough that it should have worked,” Dunlap said. “There should be some difference.”

According to the poll, Americans think the impact of Title IX has been stronger in some areas than others. More than half said it has had a positive impact on female students’ opportunities in sports, and about as many said that about opportunities in education overall.

But just 36% said it had a positive impact on addressing sexual harassment in schools, and 31% said it had a positive impact on protecting LGBTQ students from discrimination.

At the same time, there’s evidence that not all Americans clearly understand the law. About a third said they were unsure whether Title IX has had an impact on them personally, and about a quarter or more were unsure of its impact in other areas.

The law is commonly misunderstood in part because its application is so broad, said Shiwali Patel, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center. In addition to its role in sports, it also has been used to protect against discrimination and harassment in college admissions, financial aid, campus housing and employment, among other areas.

“I don’t think people really understand the full breadth and scope of Title IX,” she said. “It’s only 37 words long, but it’s extremely broad. It covers so much.”

Patel said it’s important to acknowledge Title IX has brought meaningful advancements. More women are getting scholarships, participating in college sports and landing faculty jobs. But there has also been resistance to continued improvement, especially in the fight against sexual harassment and violence, she said.

“We are at a moment of real challenge, and we still haven’t gone far enough,” Patel said.

The law’s anniversary approaches as the Biden administration prepares new rules detailing how schools and colleges must respond to sexual harassment. The regulation, which would serve as an extension of the 1972 law, is expected to roll back a set of Trump-era rules and expand the rights of victims of sexual harassment and assault.

Among other findings, the poll also revealed Americans don’t think all women have felt progress equally. About half of respondents said white women have seen a great deal of progress, but only about a third said the same for women of color or LGBTQ women. Only about a quarter said there’s been great progress for low-income women.

Still, to 67-year-old David Picatti, it feels like the push for gender equality has largely succeeded. When he was an engineering student in college, he remembers his program “clamoring” to recruit women, who are underrepresented in many science fields. More recently, he has had female cousins receive full scholarships to play college sports.

“I think there have been a lot of strides and it’s a fairly equal playing field,” said Picatti, of Yakima, Washington.

Sarah Brown says it’s far from equal. The 70-year-old in New Orleans acknowledged some progress — her daughter earned a master’s in business from Harvard University in the 1980s as the program was recruiting more women — but she still sees discrimination.

A retired accountant, Brown has been discouraged by recent battles over abortion rights, and she has been appalled by sexual assault scandals at Louisiana State University and other colleges across the country. It seems like progress made in the past is being eroded, she said.

Still, Brown isn’t surprised that men see it differently.

“Of course not,” she said. “Women know how it really is to be a woman and men don’t. Men think that women have it better than they truly do.”