‘Men Without Women’: Gender, Sex and the ‘Threat’ of Miscegenation

Abstract

In recent years attitudes towards intimate relations between members of different ethnic groups have changed significantly. An ICM poll, reported in the Observer newspaper in November 2001, found 82 percent of respondents in agreement with the statement: ‘It would not bother me if a member of my family married someone from a different ethnic background’.¹ The previous year an ICM poll for the Guardian had reported that 53 per cent of whites claimed they would not mind if a close relative married a black or Asian person, while 36 per cent said they would mind ‘a little or a lot’. And a similar poll made in 1995 had found only 21 per cent responding that they ‘would not mind’ and 73 per cent that they would mind ‘a little or a lot’.