The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Gender-Role Attitudes 71

women, including a prosocial orientation to-

ward women (e.g., the desire to help women).

Both hostile sexism and benevolent sexism

are rooted in patriarchy (i.e., justifying the su-

periority of the dominant group), gender dif-

ferentiation (i.e., exaggerating the differences

between men and women), and sexual repro-

duction, as indicated by the items shown in

Table 3.1 (Glick & Fiske, 2001).

Although there are some commonali-

ties that underlie hostile and benevolent sex-

ism, there also are some differences (Sibley,

Wilson, & Duckitt, 2007). 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 (e.g., women

can resist rape if they want to; Chapleau,

Oswald, & Russell, 2007). Thus, men who

score high on hostile sexism view women as

challenging their superiority, which is why

they endorse the negative attitudes toward

today would publicly express such feelings.

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 treat-

ment for women. In short, modern sexism

implies that one is not sympathetic to wom-

en’s issues and indirectly endorses the un-

equal treatment of men and women. The two

sexism scales are positively correlated, mean-

ing that people who score high on one scale

are likely to score high on the other scale.

Modern sexism is associated with un-

derestimating women’s difficulties in obtain-

ing jobs traditionally held by men. Swim and

colleagues (1995) found that modern sexism

was correlated with overestimating the per-

centage of women who hold male-dominated

jobs. Modern sexism is also associated with

the use of sexist language and with the in-

ability (or unwillingness) to detect sexist lan-

guage when asked to do so (Swim, Mallett, &

Stangor, 2004). As shown in Figure 3.2, when

peopleweredividedintothreegroupsonthe

modern sexism scale, those who scored high-

est used the most sexist language and the least

nonsexist language when writing a response

to a moral dilemma.

Hostile Versus Benevolent Sexism

You are probably thinking of sexism as anega-

tivefeeling toward women. But sexism, like any

other affective attitude, can consist of negative

or positive feelings. This is reflected in the dis-

tinction that Glick and Fiske (1996) made be-

tween hostile sexism and benevolent sexism in

their Ambivalent Sexism Inventory.Hostile

sexismis 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

0

Low Middle High

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Pronoun Number

1

1.2

1.4

Sexist

Nonsexist

Modern Sexism

FIGURE 3.2 Students who scored in the upper

third of the modern sexism scale used the most

pronouns reflecting sexist language and the fewest

pronouns reflecting nonsexist language.

Source:Adapted from Swim, Mallett, and Stangor

(2004).

M03_HELG0185_04_SE_C03.indd 71 6/21/11 12:22 PM