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Gender differences in offline and online expression of opinion about women serving in the Kuwaiti military

Abstract This study adopted the Spiral of Silence theory to examine cross-sectional data on the impact of sources of fear on opinion expression in congruent and incongruent offline and online contexts. The study’s questionnaire asked respondents about their willingness to express opinions about the issue of Kuwaiti women serving in the military. The examined predictor variables were three different sources of fear: institutional, social, and personal. The study also explored the influence of three predictors: respondents’ perceptions of the dominant opinion climates in Kuwaiti society, in the media, and on Twitter. For criterion variables, respondents estimated their likelihood of expressing an opinion about the issue in congruent and incongruent offline and online situations. Multivariate analyses of 503 Kuwaiti University student respondents indicated that men more than women tended to be willing to express their opinions in all situations. Women indicated that they would be more likely to stifle their opinions due to sources of fear while men indicated they were less likely to stifle their opinions due to their perceptions about the issue. In online situations, fear of the law was the predominant factor causing opinion stifling for both genders. The results suggested that online technology could benefit women in opinion expression by overcoming restrictions found in offline situations.