The article aims to explain why attitudes toward gender equality and gender relations in society vary between individuals and countries. The hypotheses that are tested stem from two partly conflicting theories of modernization. Wilensky (2002) advocates a ‘structural’ explanation for variation in gender attitudes, while Inglehart (1990, 1997) suggests a ‘values’ explanation. The author conducts a three-part analysis: an individual, a national, and a multilevel analysis. The structural explanation is better able to account for individual level gender attitudes. Values do, to some extent, serve as the mechanism that produces national level variation. Inglehart (1990, 1997) is also right in suggesting that the effect of values on gender attitudes increases with increasing development.