The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

472 Chapter 12

in salaries between lesbians and heterosexual

women should be even larger.

Denial of Discrimination

A 2007 Gallup Poll revealed that 49% of

women and 37% of men said that women and

men do not have equal job opportunities (Saad,

2007b). Women, on average, perceive that

other women are victims of discrimination—

but they are not. Many years ago, Faye Crosby

(1984) asked women the following three ques-

tions in several studies (p. 371):

1. Do you currently receive the ben-
   efits from your job that you deserve
   to receive?


2. Are you at present the victim of sex
   discrimination?


3. Are women discriminated against?

to pursue their careers because they do not

have the constraints of a husband and are less

likely to have children. However, even when

lesbians have children (which is increasingly

common), motherhood does not detract from

perceptions of competence as it does for het-

erosexual women. As shown in Figure 12.15,

heterosexual college students rated a hetero-

sexual woman as less competent and less ca-

reer oriented when she was a parent than a

nonparent, rated a heterosexual man as more

competent and more career oriented when he

was a parent than a nonparent, and rated a les-

bian as equally competent and career oriented

regardless of whether she was a parent or not.

Just because lesbians have higher incomes

than heterosexual women does not mean

that they do not suffer from access or treat-

ment discrimination, however. To the extent

that discrimination does exist, the difference

0

2

3

4

5

6

7

Heterosexual

Female

Heterosexual

Male

Competence

Lesbian

n.s.

(a)

1

0

2

3

4

5

6

7

Heterosexual

Female

Heterosexual

Male

Career Orientation

Lesbian

n.s.

(b)

1

Nonparent Parent Nonparent Parent

FIGURE 12.15 Heterosexual women were rated as less competent and less career oriented when

they were a parent compared to a nonparent; heterosexual men were rated as more competent and

more career oriented when they were a parent compared to a nonparent. Lesbians were rated as equally

competent (a) and equally career oriented (b) regardless of parental status * = difference is significant;

n.s. = difference is not significant.

Source: Adapted from Peplau and Fingerhut (2004).

M12_HELG0185_04_SE_C12.indd 472 6/21/11 9:16 AM