The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Gender-Role Attitudes 87

who completed the Ambivalence Toward Men

Inventory previously described (Anderson, San-

kis, & Widiger, 2009). Women who proclaimed

that they were feminists (the minority—only

17%) scored lower on the hostility toward men

scale than women who were not feminists.

Another stereotype is that feminists are per-

ceived to have problems in relationships, but

there is no evidence that this is the case either

(Rudman & Phelan, 2007). Having a feminist

partner has been related to healthier relation-

ships and greater relationship stability.

Two other feminist stereotypes are that

feminists are unattractive and are likely to be

lesbian. And, those two stereotypes are related.

When college women were shown four attrac-

tive and four plain high school graduation pic-

tures, the attractive female targets were rated

by both males and females as less likely to be

feminist and less likely to be lesbian than the

plain female targets as shown in Figure 3.8

(Rudman & Fairchild, 2007). The study also

showed that the relation between unattrac-

tiveness and feminism was accounted for by

perceived lesbianism. That is, the reason that

unattractive targets were perceived to be femi-

nists is that they were perceived to be lesbian.

Feminists seem to be aware of the unat-

tractiveness stereotype—and also influenced

by it! One study showed that feminist college

women were more influenced by a woman with

a feminine appearance delivering a profeminist

message than a woman with a masculine ap-

pearance (see Figure 3.9; Bullock & Fernald,

2003). Ironically, the appearance of the speaker

did not affect nonfeminist women. The authors

of the study termed this “feminism lite.”

Effects of Gender-Role Stereotypes

A stereotype is a belief about someone based

on her or his membership in a category.

Categorizing people and objects simplifies

girls fell into three categories: activity/toy, ap-

pearance, and trait (Miller et al., 2009). More

appearance descriptors emerged for female

targets than activity or trait descriptors. By

contrast, more activity and trait descriptors

emerged for male targets than appearance

descriptors. The authors concluded that girls

are viewed in terms of how they look and

boys are viewed in terms of what they do.

Subcategories of Gender-Role Stereotypes

As women’s and men’s roles have changed, we

have created multiple categories for women and

men. That is, there are subcategories of gender-

role stereotypes. For example, our stereotype

of a male businessman is not the same as our

stereotype of a male construction worker; like-

wise, our stereotype of a female homemaker is

not the same as our stereotype of a female doc-

tor. Is having subcategories within one general

stereotype helpful? It may seem that subtyping

is beneficial because it detracts from the power

of the overall stereotype. However, subtyping is

merely a way to create an exception and leave

the overall stereotype intact (Fiske & Stevens,

1993). How many of you know someone who

is prejudiced against African Americans but

manages to adore Michael Jordan or Serena and

Venus Williams? They are viewed as exceptions

to the African American stereotype and mem-

bers of the subtype “successful African American

athlete” or “successful athlete.” Thus, subtyp-

ing does not necessarily reduce the power of

stereotypes.

One subtype of the female stereotype is

that of feminist. One of the reasons that few

women identify themselves as feminists is that

there are a number of negative stereotypes

surrounding this group of women. One such

stereotype is that feminists hate men. This ste-

reotype was refuted in a study of college women

M03_HELG0185_04_SE_C03.indd 87 6/21/11 12:22 PM