Gender-Role Attitudes

SADIA AHMAD
 What are gender role attitudes?
• Self-fulfilling prophecies
• Dangers of our expectancies: It is not only that our expectations influence our own behavior,
but they also influence the behavior of others so that they confirm our expectancy.
• We have strong expectancies about the differences between men and women.
• There is clearly an opportunity for those expectations to affect our behavior toward men and
women so that they produce the stereotypes we hold.
Components of Attitudes
 Three components of attitudes toward the category gender:
 Affect (feelings)
 cognition (beliefs)
 Behavior

 People’s feelings toward gender are described by the term sexism

 People’s beliefs about gender are referred to as sex-role or gender-role stereotypes
 People’s behavior toward others based on gender is known as sex discrimination
Attitudes Toward Men’s and Women’s Roles
 Attitudes toward men’s and women’s roles have been referred to as gender ideologies
(Hochschild, 1989).
 Traditional gender ideology maintains that men’s sphere is work and women’s sphere is the
home. The implicit assumption is that men have greater power than women.
 Egalitarian gender ideology maintains that power is distributed equally between women and
men, and women and men identify equally with the same spheres. There could be an equal
emphasis on home, on work, or on some combination of the two.
 Most people’s attitudes toward men’s and women’s roles lie somewhere between traditional
and egalitarian.
Continued . . .
Hochschild identified a third gender ideology, transitional.
A typical transitional attitude toward gender roles is that it is
acceptable for women to devote energy to both work and family domains,
but women should hold proportionally more responsibility for the home,
and men should focus proportionally more of their energy on work.
Attitude towards Women Scale
 The most widely used instrument to measure attitudes toward gender roles is the Attitudes
Toward Women Scale (ATWS; Spence & Helmreich, 1972).
 The ATWS was developed during the women’s movement of the 1960s and assessed beliefs
about the behavior of women and men in domains that have traditionally been divided
between them, such as raising children, education, and paid employment.
 Although the scale’s title specifies attitudes toward women, many of the items really
measure attitudes toward both women’s and men’s roles.
Criticism
ATWS is not a good measure of contemporary gender-role attitudes.
 First, there are demand characteristics in responding to this scale.
 Second, the ATWS fails to capture some of the contemporary concerns about men’s and
women’s roles.
 Cultural context is also important.
Affective Component: Sexism
 Sexism is one’s attitude or feeling toward people based on their sex alone.
 Disliking a doctor because she is female or a nurse because he is male are examples of
sexism.
Traditional Versus Modern Sexism
 Today, there is a more subtle version of sexism.
 Swim and colleagues (1995) distinguished between traditional and modern sexism.
Traditional Sexism Vs Modern Sexism
Traditional sexism includes endorsement of traditional roles for women and men, differential
treatment of women and men, and the belief that women are less competent than men.
Traditional sexism reflects an open disregard for the value of women.

Modern sexism, by contrast, includes the denial of any existing discrimination toward women,
an antagonism to women’s demands, and a resentment of any preferential treatment for
women.
In short, modern sexism implies that one is not sympathetic to women’s issues and indirectly
endorses the unequal treatment of men and women.
Hostile Versus Benevolent Sexism
You are probably thinking of sexism as a negative feeling toward women.
But sexism, like any other affective attitude, can consist of negative or positive feelings. This is
reflected in the distinction that Glick and Fiske (1996) made between hostile sexism and
benevolent sexism in their Ambivalent Sexism Inventory.
Hostile sexism is just as it sounds: feelings of hostility toward women. It is a negative attitude
toward women, in particular those who challenge the traditional female role.
Benevolent sexism, by contrast, reflects positive feelings toward women, including a prosocial
orientation toward women (e.g., the desire to help women).
Continued . . .
Both hostile sexism and benevolent sexism are rooted in (Glick & Fiske, 2001):
 Patriarchy (i.e., justifying the superiority of the dominant group)
 Gender differentiation (i.e., exaggerating the differences between men and women)
RESEARCHES
 Hostile sexism, but not benevolent sexism, is associated with a social dominance
orientation—maintaining a position of dominance and superiority over others.
 Hostile sexism is also associated with the endorsement of rape myths.
 Benevolent sexism is associated with right-wing authoritarianism—preserving social
cohesion and maintaining social order.
Continued . . .
According to Jackman (1994), benevolence is more effective than hostility in exploiting
someone.

Women support benevolent sexism because:

(1) It does not seem like prejudice because of the “appearance” of positive attributes and
(2) Women receive rewards from benevolent sexism (i.e., male protection).
Continued . . .
 Although the benevolent and hostile sexism scales reflect two very different affective states
in regard to women, the two are positively correlated, meaning that people who endorse
items on one scale also endorse items on the other.
 Perceiving women in both negative and positive terms seems contradictory.
 The ambivalence in attitudes toward women stems from the paradox that women hold a
lower status than men, but that the female stereotype is more positive than the male
stereotype.
 This positive correlation underscores the idea that both hostile sexism and benevolent
sexism are based on a belief that women are inferior to men.
Benevolent Discrimination
A related construct is benevolent discrimination, or men providing more help to women than
men (Glick & Fiske, 1999b). The implicit message is that women need help and protection.
The behavior appears prosocial but really legitimizes women’s inferior position.
It is difficult to reject benevolent discrimination because
(1) the behavior provides a direct benefit to the recipient,
(2) the help provider will be insulted,
(3) social norms dictate that one should accept help graciously,
(4) it is difficult to explain why help is being rejected.
Sexism Toward Men
 Although sexism can be exhibited toward both women and men, it is typically studied
and measured as feelings toward women.
 Jokes about female drivers and “dumb blondes” are regularly perceived as examples of
sexism.
 Jokes about men’s incompetence at being fathers or men not asking for directions are
also examples of sexism.
Cont . . .
 Feelings toward the male sex have been explored in the Ambivalence Toward Men Inventory,
which was developed to distinguish feelings of hostility and benevolence toward men (Glick
& Fiske, 1999a).
 This ambivalence also is rooted in patriarchy, gender differentiation, and sexual
reproduction.
 The hostility toward men scale consists of negative attitudes surrounding the resentment of
patriarchy, a perception of negative attributes in men, and beliefs that men are sexually
aggressive.
 The benevolence scale reflects positive views of men, including the benefits of patriarchy,
the positive attributes of men, and women’s fulfillment through connections with men.
Researches
 Hostile and benevolent sexism toward men were higher among nations with less gender
equality, as assessed by women’s education and the representation of women in
government and high-status occupations.
 Women scored higher than men on hostile sexism toward men in a number of nations.
 The sex difference was larger in nations where men endorsed more hostile sexism toward
women. Thus it appears that women are more hostile toward men in situations where men
are hostile toward women.
Cont . . .
 Men scored higher than women on benevolent sexism toward men in most nations.
 Benevolent sexism toward men portrays a positive view of men while maintaining their
higher status over women.
 This is unlike women’s endorsement of benevolent sexism toward women, which is mixed in
its effects—on the one hand, it reflects a positive view of women, but on the other hand, it
promotes the idea that women have lower status than men.
Attitudes Toward Lesbians, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgendered Persons

 Homophobia is a fear of homosexuals or a fear of associating with homosexuals due to

sexual orientation instead of sex.
 Men are prejudiced against homosexuals because homosexuality is a threat to the norm of
heterosexual relationships in which men are dominant over women (Hamilton, 2007).
Cont . . .
 People who have traditional gender-role attitudes and score high on modern sexism and
benevolent sexism possess the most negative attitudes toward homosexuality.
 Again, this is not surprising because homosexual behavior is a threat to traditional beliefs
about women’s and men’s roles.
 Men also are less tolerant of homosexuality compared to women because the male gender
role is more narrowly defined than the female gender role.
 Violation of the male gender role has more negative consequences because it has a higher
status in our society, so there is more to lose by violating it (Kite & Whitley, 2003).
Cont . . .
 Social dominance orientation reflects the desire or the in-group to dominate and be superior
to the out-group.
 Men are higher than women in social dominance orientation; social dominance orientation
 is related to having more traditional gender-role beliefs; and traditional gender-role beliefs
are associated with negative attitudes toward homosexuals.
Heterosexual hassles
 Homophobic attitudes can manifest themselves in terms of behavior—specifically, what are
known as heterosexual hassles
 —that is, jokes, insults, and antigay comments or behaviors by others.
 This can lead to depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, drug abuse, anger, and anxiety.
Transphobia
 Transphobia is defined as a revulsion and irrational fear of transgendered and transsexual
persons, cross-dressers, and feminine men and masculine women.
 It is a negative attitude toward a broader group of people based on gender concerns rather
than only sexual orientation.
 Men score higher than women on transphobia, and transphobia is associated with
aggression proneness in men.