Pew broke the issue down into related subjects, where the partisan split was less pronounced. Democrats were about equally likely to say that harassment was too often excused as not a big deal, as to say that it was often taken too seriously. Republicans leaned more heavily to the latter.

On the question of whether it was more important that the Internet feel like a safe space than that people be able to speak their minds freely, there was less of a gulf. A bit more than half of each group leaned toward the importance of the Internet feeling like a safe space for people.

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So that’s one split. But the more dramatic demographic divide Pew found was in gender.

As wide as the gulf was between Democrats and Republicans, the views of Republican women were closer to those of Democratic women than to those of Republican men. The views of Democratic men were about as likely to be closer to Republican men than to Democratic women. On every question, Democratic men were less likely to express concern than were Republican women.

This helps explain part of the partisan gulf noted at the outset. Women are generally more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, a split that shows up in presidential voting.

The data raise an interesting question, though: For all of the focus on “safe spaces” in the conservative media as representing liberal insecurity in society, does the issue also depend significantly on gender? Much of the “safe space” conversation focuses on colleges, where women outnumber men. No group in Pew’s data is more supportive of the idea of safe spaces online than Republican women.