A NEW LOOK AT “MASCULINE PROTEST” VYTAUTAS J. BIELIAUSKAS* Xavier (Ohio) University Adler’s (1956) concept of “masculine protest” has been one of the basic tenets of Individual Psychology. It describes the reaction on the part of men and women to the socially superior position of the male sex. Adler (1927) had observed: The advantages of being man are, under such conditions [as in our society], very alluring. We must not be astonished therefore when we see many girls who main- tain a masculine ideal either as an unfulfillable desire, or as a standard for judg- ment of their behavior; this ideal may evince itself as a pattern for action and appearance Tt would scem that in our culture every woman wanted to be a man p. 108). But not only do many women want to be men; men are concerned with achieving the status of being a “real man” Adler, 1956, (p. 108), that is attaining the power of a real man. This phenomenon in both women and men was the masculine protest. When it reached a certain intensity, it became for Adler the dynamics of the neurosis. It was “ ‘as if’ the patient wished to change from a woman to a man, or wanted to hide his unmanliness. These tendencies . . . give the picture the masculine protest” (p. 250). Adler strongly pointed out the unhealthiness of the inequality of the sexes in our culture. He urged social and legal reforms to enable women to reach equal status with men (Adler, 1927, pp. 121-122). Women themselves have organized movements at different times to enhance their equality, yet little change has been achieved in actual social and cultural practices. During the last decade again, together with various other move- ments dealing with the equalization of human rights, strong activity has been shown by those emphasizing women’s equality, feminism, women’s rights, etc. These movements produced not only a renewed. interest in equality of the sexes, but also influenced some legislative changes in favor of women. With these some observable changes in the behavior of women have also taken place. Since changes in out- ward behavior usually reflect changes in inner behavior, researchers are beginning to study the meaning of these changes in terms of sexual roles and sexual identification in our society. In terms of Adlerian 1Paper presented at the 12th International Congress of Individual Psychology, Milano, July 7 to 9, 1973- : 2¥or reprints write to author, Department of Psychology, Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio 45207. 92New Loox at THE “Mascutine Protest” 93. thinking it appears to be time to take a look at the contemporary situation to see whether we are in the midst of experiencing the de- sirable psychological equality of the sexes, or whether the present movement is merely another masculine protest in disguise. The present paper presents three studies of masculine-feminine identification—the first two, comparing men and women and different categories of women high school and college students, the third, com- paring members of a feminist organization with those who are not. M-F Ipentirication iy CoLtece Men anp WoMEN, AND IN Dirrerent Catecories or Hic Scuoor Srupents The House-Tree-Person projective technique of Buck (1948) was administered to determine whether the earlier established preference for the same sex in drawing a person was still valid today (cf. Bieli- iauskas, 1960). The assumption was that the sex of the first figure drawn will reflect the sex identification of the drawer. Two such studies were conducted at Xavier (Ohio) University. 1. Margrett (1973) collected drawings of a person from 145 female high school students, of whom 83 attended a coeducational and 62 an all-girl high school. The groups consisted of approximately half freshmen and half seniors, and were balanced for social background and intellectual ability. The results showed significant differences in the sex of the person drawn first, between the coeducational and noncoeducational students. Coeducational freshmen and seniors drew a woman first significantly less often than did noncoeducational freshmen and seniors. In addition it was found for upper-middle class students: Among noncoeducational seniors, only 43% drew a woman first, whereas among freshmen it was 90%. Among coeducational students a similar but less dramatic decrease was noted, with only 63% of the seniors drawing a woman figure first, as against 92% of the freshmen, Among lower-middle class students the decrease in drawing a woman first, from the freshman to the senior level was not significant for either coeducational or noncoeducational students. The findings suggest a significant decrease in the drawings of the same sex figures related to increase in educational level and also to the social class. It should be noted that social class as established by the father’s educational level which also implies social success. Since their daughters, once they reached the high school senior level, drew a greater proportion of male figures than the daughters of less educated,94 Vyrauras J. Bretrauskas less successful fathers, we may ask: Does this mean that success is considered as a masculine achievement, ic. if a woman is more educated and successful that she is likely to approach the masculine ideal? 2. Margrett’s study raised some questions concerning the basic assumption about the sexual identification in human figure drawings, since according to previous extensive studies (cf. Bieliauskas, 1960) in all age categories over 50% of the Ss drew same-sex figures. There- fore, an additional study was conducted by this writer to determine whether the trend noticed in Margrett’s study would persist at the college level and also to examine possible changes in the sexual identification of the human figure drawings. The H-T-P was administered to 90 college sophomores: 50 males and 4o females, All students in three psychology classes participated in the project. Inspection of the distribution of the Ss by majors provided support for the assumption of the randomness of our sample: the Ss represented twenty different categories of majors. The results, including Chi-square tests, are shown in Table 1. Taste 1. DistRIsuTION of MALE AND Femaze Fioures Drawn ay Mate and FemAate CoLiecE STUDENTS Sex of figure Men Women Total drawn N= 50 N = 40 N= 90 male 43 86% 24 35% 57 63% female 7 4 26 65 33 37 chi-square 25.95" 3.60 24.87% “significant at .or level. We see from the table that 86% of the male students drew male figures first, while only 65% of the female students drew female figures first. The men’s preference for the male figure is significant at the .o1 level, while the smaller preference of women for the female figure is not significant, There seems to be no support of Margrett’s findings of an above 50% trend for women to draw male figures for the college population. Of course, our study did not include the social class factor, because the sample consisted primarily of the upper-middle class. M-F Ipentirication oF Feminists AnD NonFEMInists It was assumed that members of feminist organizations since they behaved differently than the female stereotype, would also showNew Loox ar rus “Mascuzine Prorest” 95 different sex role identifications. To test this assumption Kobayashi (1973) administered two M-F measures (measures of masculinity- femininity) to 29 single female university undergraduates in Cincin- nati who were members of at least one feminist group on their campus. A control group 29 was randomly chosen from female dormitory students who were not members of any feminist movement or political organization and did not strongly favor the feminist movement. The two groups did not differ significantly in age or educational level. The two M-F measures were the Feminity Scale of Gough (1952), a scale of conscious attitudes, and the Drawing Completion Test (DCT) of Franck (1949), a projective technique to measure the subtle, unconscious sexual identification (cf. Bieliauskas & Mikesell, 1972). It was thought these two measure would enable us to evaluate the conscious attitudes toward masculinity-feminity affected by cul- tural stereotyping, as well as the less culturally influenced unconscious identifications. Both tests are scored towards femininity. The results are shown in Table 2. Tasie 2. Means, Sranparp Deviations, anp Tests ror Scores on THE Gouon Femmity Scate ano tHe Drawino Comptetion Test (DCT) py Feminist AnD Nonreminist CoLtece Women Feminist Nonfeminist Test N =29 N =29 2 M sD M sD Gough Stig cg 34:10 4.46 1.48 per 18.83 3.52 20.69 3.34 2.06* “significant at the .os level. It will be seen from the table that on both tests the feminists scored lower in femininity than the nonfeminists. But whereas the difference on the Gough scales was not significant, that on the DCT was sig- nificant at the .os level. Keeping in mind that Gough scale tests the conscious attitudes while the DCT evaluates the unconscious M-F identification, the results can be interpreted to mean: (a) The femin- ists do not differ in the M-F attitudes on the conscious level, sug- gesting that they are quite aware of the cultural M-F stereotypes and able to express themselves within the framework of the stereotypes. (2) On the scale measuring unconscious sexual identification, the feminists are, however, significantly less feminine than their non- feminist peers. These results confirm similar ones by Ellis and Bentle96 Vvtavras J. BreviausKas (1973) who found that females perceiving greater similarity between themselves and males tended to be more liberal. In the case of the feminists, furthermore, a significant negative cor- relation was found between their Gough femininity scores and the father’s education (r = —.37). The feminists were also significantly more agnostic or nonreligious than the nonfeminists who belonged mostly to some organized religion. Discussion A comparison of the three studies reported here suggests that certain changes are taking place in sexual identification. However, these changes do not indicate any significant changes in the “above” and “below” valuation of the sexes. It seems that the “masculine goal” (Dreikurs, 1950) is still considered as the higher goal. There- fore women who are trying to become equal, independent or liberated, develop behaviors fitting primarily the masculine stereotype. Al- though consciously they do not dare to depart significantly from the cultural feminine stereotype they do unconsciously tend to depart from it significantly in the masculine direction. Furthermore, daugh- ters of socially and educationally successful fathers tend to be more masculine in their sexual identification. But why do they prefer this? Obviously because the masculine goal is still a higher goal in our society. It seems our data as well as other research findings (cf. Block, 1973) support the conclusion that the masculine protest is not at all over in our contemporary society. Fowler, Fowler and Van De Riet (1973) found that while many women consider feminism as radicalism in a political sense, they remain in their personal reality true to the cultural female stereotype. Gilder (1973), in analyzing various feminist and gay movements, concluded that “feminists would establish an ideal chiefly practicable for themselves. The rest of womankind would be told, preposterously, that they are inferior to the men unless they make comparable salaries.” The same according to Gilder can be said about the “gay liberation” members who are trying to set up their behavior as a superior goal for everybody. As long as the femin- ists are trying to show their masculine superiority they support the superiority of the masculine sex and thus accentuate the masculine protest. Bicliauskas (1965) presenting a summary of psychological ap- proaches to the masculinity-femininity paradigm suggested thatNew Look avr THe “Mascutine Protest” 97 we depart from our traditional measures of M-F and consider the masculine and feminine features as personality characteristics. Re- cently Block (1973), after an extensive evaluation of various measure- ments of sex role characteristics, came to a similar conclusion: The contemporary scrutiny of conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity is encouraging our society to reflect on the personal costs of adherence to the prevailing norms, the costs to men and women alike. Extant socialization patterns appear to attenuate the human possibilities residing in the individual, whether male or female, and both a redefinition of conventional sex role and revamping of socialization practices are required if our societal goal is to encour- age individuation and personal maturity for our young (p. 526). In joining Block, I would like to call for the dissolution of the competitive masculine protest in a true Adlerian sense of cooperation. Let us consider masculinity and femininity as personality traits and as equal values. As such they complement each other the same way as the sexes do in fulfilling their life roles. But as long as we are unable to give up our cultural stereotype of masculine superiority, the masculine protest will stay with us. REFERENCES Apuer, A. Understanding human nature (1927). New York: Premier Books, Fawcett World Library, 1963. Apuer, A. The Individual psychology of Alfred Adler. Ed. by H. 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Projective test of masculinity-femininity. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1949, 13, 247-256. Gripen, G. Sexual suicide, New York: Quadrangle/N. Y. Times Book, 1973. Govan, H. G. Identifying psychological femininity. Educational and Psycho- logical Measurement, 1962, 12, 424-437. Konayasut, N. Performance of members of feminist groups and their non- member peers on two measures of femininity. Unpublished master’s thesis, Xavier (Ohio) University, 1973. Marorett, Heex P. A comparison of Catholic co-educational students and catholic non-Coeducational students on two measures of M-F, Unpublished master's thesis, Xavier (Ohio) University, 1973.Copyright © 2003 EBSCO PublishingCopyright of Journal of Individual Psychology (00221805) is the property of University of Texas Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. 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