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Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
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DOI: 10.1177/1368430215583153
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G
P
I
R
Group Processes &
Intergroup Relations
That man over there says that women
need to be helped into carriages, and lifted
over ditches, and to have the best place
everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into
carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives
me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?
Sojourner Truth
In her extemporaneous speech at the Women’s
Convention (as transcribed by Frances Gage in
Stanton, Anthony, & Gage, 1881), Sojourner
Truth remarked how her dark skin prevented men
from affording her the same treatment as White
women. Unfortunately, both mainstream femi-
nism (hooks, 1981; Hull, Bell Scott, & Smith,
1982) and psychological research have long
neglected how gender and race mutually construct
each other and influence individuals’ experiences
with discrimination (Goff & Kahn, 2013). The
Benevolent racism? The impact
of target race on ambivalent sexism
Jean M. McMahon1 and Kimberly Barsamian Kahn1
Abstract
Two studies investigated whether benevolent sexism is differentially applied based on a woman’s race.
Study 1 demonstrated that participants expressed more benevolent sexism to White females than
Black females when given no other information besides race. Study 2 introduced positive (chaste)
and negative (promiscuous) sexually subtyped behaviors in addition to female race. Under these
conditions, participants directed more benevolent sexism at chaste Black women rather than chaste
White women, consistent with shifting standards theory. Despite receiving more benevolent sexism,
chaste Black women did not receive more positive evaluations overall. Across both studies, expressions
of hostile sexism did not differ by race. Results suggest that race may function as a subtype to elicit
benevolent sexism contingent on behavior. Black women who follow traditional gender norms may be
overcompensated for their conformity with benevolent sexism, but not receive more positive benefits.
Keywords
ambivalent sexism, benevolent sexism, intersectionality, sexual behavior
Paper received 1 October 2014; revised version accepted 22 March 2015.
1Portland State University, USA
Corresponding author:
Jean M. McMahon, Department of Psychology, Portland
State University, PO Box 751, Portland, OR 97207, USA.
Email: mcmah@pdx.edu
583153GPI0010.1177/1368430215583153Group Processes & Intergroup RelationsMcMahon and Kahn
research-article2015
Article
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2 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
result is an androcentric conception of racism and
an ethnocentric understanding of sexism, wherein
the default target of racism is a Black man and the
default target of sexism is a White woman (Goff
& Kahn, 2013). This shortcoming has resulted in
an “intersectional invisibility” that ignores the
unique experiences of those who are not the pro-
totypical members of their already subordinate
groups, such as Black women (Purdie-Vaughns &
Eibach, 2008). In light of this dearth of intersec-
tional research, the current study examines how
race and gender stereotypes intersect within an
ambivalent sexism framework.
Ambivalent Sexism Theory
Ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996)
distinguishes sexism on two complementary and
mutually reinforcing dimensions: hostile and
benevolent. Hostile sexism (HS) characterizes
women as easily offended, unappreciative of and
seeking to gain power over men, and manipulative
with their sexuality. Benevolent sexism (BS) places
women on a pedestal and affirms their inherent
purity, morality, and defenselessness. These atti-
tudes arise from a desire to protect the beloved and
weak (protective paternalism), a need for comple-
mentary gender differentiation, and a drive for het-
erosexual intimacy. Women who reject traditional
gender roles by being feminists or career-oriented
are the targets of hostile sexism, while those who
adhere to the domestic norms for their gender by
being homemakers and mothers are the recipients
of benevolent sexism (Glick, Diebold, Bailey-
Werner, & Zhu, 1997). Women are also subtyped
on the basis of their sexual behavior (Sibley &
Wilson, 2004): HS is expressed towards those who
are promiscuous (the negative sexual subtype) and
BS towards those who are chaste (the positive sex-
ual subtype). The two ideologies thus act as a sys-
tem of rewards and punishments that impede
gender equality (Glick & Fiske, 2001).
Hostile and benevolent sexism are measured
with Glick and Fiske’s (1996) 22-item Ambivalent
Sexism Inventory (ASI). While men consistently
endorse HS more strongly than women do,
women tend to reject HS while still endorsing BS.
High correlations between mean levels of HS
and BS and replicated factor structures across 19
nations on six continents (Glick et al., 2000) indi-
cate that ambivalent sexism is a coherent ideology
at the societal level across cultural contexts.
Though subjectively positive in nature, benev-
olent sexism is a subtle and pernicious form of
bias that shares the same ideological underpin-
nings as more blatantly hostile forms of sexism.
A growing body of work suggests that it pro-
duces a variety of insidious effects. Women
exposed to benevolent sexism in a controlled set-
ting show decreased cognitive performance
(Dardenne, Dumont, & Bollier, 2007), less moti-
vation to engage in social activism that could ben-
efit them (Becker & Wright, 2011), increased
levels of body surveillance and shame (Shepherd
et al., 2011), and greater system justification for
the patriarchal status quo (Jost & Kay, 2005). BS
can even affect women who strongly identify as
feminists, such that they are more likely to report
that they will initiate condom use after exposure
to HS, but not to BS (Fitz & Zucker, 2014).
Benevolent sexists react negatively towards
women who violate norms of chastity, be it by
willingly engaging in premarital sex (Sakalh-
Uğurlu & Glick, 2003) or being raped by an
acquaintance (Abrams, Viki, Masser, & Bohner,
2003), and norms of motherhood, by seeking an
abortion (Obsorne & Davies, 2012) or defying
the stereotype of nurturing behavior towards
children (Viki, Massey, & Masser, 2005).
While ambivalent sexism has been studied for
nearly 20 years now, the literature lacks a system-
atic investigation into how hostile or benevolent
attitudes may be shaped by the target woman’s
race. While research has shown that individuals
with sexist attitudes also tend to have racist atti-
tudes (Glick & Fiske, 1996; Sidanius & Pratto,
1999), an examination of the impact of race on
ambivalent sexism, particularly benevolent sex-
ism, is essential to understand the subtle ways
that sexism and racism interact.
Race as a Subtype of Benevolent
Sexism
In the absence of information about a particular
woman’s adherence to traditional gender roles,
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McMahon and Kahn 3
her race may function as a subtype that directs
evaluators’ expression of ambivalent sexism.
That is, the stereotypes and perceptions associ-
ated with a racial group may lead to the differen-
tial application of hostile and benevolent sexism
by perceivers. Though ambivalent sexism theory
makes no direct assumptions about race, we argue
that White women may be the primary recipients
of benevolent sexism.
One key component of BS, protective pater-
nalism, may be expressed more toward White
women than to Black women. The notion that
women are defenseless and require male relatives
and social institutions to safeguard their chastity
and well-being (Young, 2003) has often been used
to justify the mistreatment of racially stigmatized
groups. In the United States, the need to protect
White women from “hypersexual” and “ruthless”
minority men has been used to justify violence
against the Black community (Davis, 1983), both
in the post-Reconstruction South (Hodes, 1993)
and in modern organized racist movements (Blee,
2002). In the criminal justice system, the paternal-
ism hypothesis has been offered to explain why
female offenders are given more lenient sentences
than male offenders (Visher, 1983); however, this
leniency is not extended to minority women
(Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2012; Young, 1986).
This protective bias may also help to explain why
White women who experience domestic violence
are seen as less culpable (Esqueda & Harrison,
2005) and are more likely to experience police
intervention when victimized (Ferraro, 1989)
compared to Black women. Protective paternal-
ism, it appears then, has a history of being more
closely tied to White women rather than Black
women.
Black women and White women are also per-
ceived and stereotyped differently, such that
White women are stereotyped in ways consistent
with BS, while Black female stereotypes stand in
opposition to BS. Although both are stereotyped
as childlike and emotional (Ehrenreich &
English, 1978), White women have historically
been characterized as angelic (Morton, 1991)
while Black women are more often seen as
antagonistic, unmannerly, loud (Niemann,
Jennings, Rozelle, Baxter, & Sullivan, 1994),
aggressive, stubborn, bitchy (Weitz & Gordon,
1993) and hypersexual (Davis & Cross, 1979).
The archetypal promiscuous Black woman, the
Jezebel, can be traced back to the antebellum
South and depicts a seductive temptress who
uses her sexuality to exploit men’s weaknesses
(Jewell, 1993). This characterization of Black
women as innately licentious was used as justifi-
cation for their sexual exploitation at the hands
of White slave owners (Pilgrim, 2002). This and
other negative stereotypes remain pervasive in
modern depictions of Black women in televi-
sion, films, music videos, and social media
(Thompson, 2013). While there do exist more
seemingly positive stereotypes such as the
“strong Black woman,” they remain at odds with
the benevolent ideals of submissiveness and
inherent fragility (Wyatt, 2008). Black women’s
sexuality has never been depicted as moral or
demure (Davis, 1983), in stark contrast to White
women’s. Indeed, the ideal virgin in the public
consciousness and mass media is young and
White—she is never a woman of color (Valenti,
2009).
In addition to the negative stereotypes, it has
been suggested that Black women are often seen as
less “appropriately feminine” (Goff, Eberhardt,
Williams, & Jackson, 2008), whereas femininity is a
central component of BS. In an examination of
how race and gender affect person perception,
Black men and women were both judged as more
masculine than their White counterparts, and the
conflation of “Blackness” with “maleness” resulted
in Black women being rated as less physically attrac-
tive (Goff, Thomas, & Jackson, 2008). Participants
also mistakenly categorized Black women as men
more frequently than they mis-categorized other
groups by gender. These findings reflect a larger
societal context in which femininity is associated
with Whiteness and masculinity is associated with
Blackness (Hull et al., 1982). Due to this association
of femininity with White women, we argue that BS
should be more closely associated with White
females than Black females.
We designed the present studies to integrate
race into ambivalent sexism theory, with a focus
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4 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
on the differential application of BS based on
female race. Study 1 tested whether a woman’s
race could act as a subtype to impact hostile and
benevolent evaluations of her. Study 2 examined
how sexually subtyped behaviors interact with
race to influence hostile and benevolent evalua-
tions of women.
Study 1
Divergent racial stereotypes regarding behavior
suggest that ambivalent sexism is differentially
directed at Black women and White women. Our
primary hypothesis posits that benevolent sexism
should be directed more at White women, since
they are stereotyped to match benevolent sexism
ideals of purity and defenselessness (Hypothesis
1a). Though hostile sexism is not our primary
outcome of interest, hostile sexism may be
directed more at Black women, whose stereo-
types of aggression and sexual availability contra-
dict these ideals (Hypothesis 1b). Given the more
negative stereotypes of Black women, we
expected that they would also be rated less posi-
tively overall than White women (Hypothesis 1c).
To test these hypotheses, we presented partici-
pants with images of Black or White women and
had them report their hostile and benevolent atti-
tudes about her. Participants also rated the
woman on several positive personality traits,
which allowed for the differentiation between
subjectively positive benevolent sexism and more
positive evaluations overall. In order to better
understand the process by which race impacts
expressions of HS and BS, we examined partici-
pants’ own endorsement of HS and BS, as well as
their racial attitudes, as possible moderators.
Methods
Participants and Design
We recruited 152 participants (87 female, 65 male;
110 White, 17 African American, 10 Asian, 13
Hispanic; mean age 35.7 years) from Amazon
Mechanical Turk and randomly assigned them to
the White or the Black female condition in a one-
way design.
Measures and Procedure
After providing basic demographic information,
participants were given the 22-item Ambivalent
Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996) to assess
their baseline levels of hostile (α = .92) and
benevolent sexism (α = .87). Items are rated on a
6-point Likert scale from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree). This was followed by the six-item
Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, 1986) in
order to evaluate their attitudes about African
Americans (α = .89). Questions such as “Blacks
should not push themselves where they are not
wanted” are rated on a 5-point Likert scale from
1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Next, participants viewed a single randomly
selected photograph of either a Black or White
woman. The photograph featured a headshot of
a woman in her late teens–early twenties with
neutral facial expressions against a white back-
ground, selected from a commonly used database
of photographs (Minear & Park, 2004). There
were a total of four photographs, with two in
each race condition. We paired each photograph
with a racially indicative name: White: Emily
Walsh, Lauren Reilly versus Black: Lakisha
Washington, Shavonn Jefferson (Bertrand &
Mullainathan, 2004; Greenwald, McGhee, &
Schwartz, 1998; U.S. Census Bureau, 2000).
After viewing the photograph, participants
reported their impressions of the woman. Hostile
and benevolent attitudes about the woman were
assessed using shortened six-item versions (Sibley
& Wilson, 2004) of the hostile and benevolent
subscales of the ASI (Glick & Fiske, 1996). As
with the original ASI, these items were rated on a
6-point Likert scale from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree). This 6-point Likert scale is consist-
ent with how the ASI was originally written by
Glick and Fiske (1996) and has been validated in
19 countries (Glick et al., 2000). Expressions of
hostile sexism were measured by rewording the
hostile sexism subscale items of the ASI (α = .86)
to be specifically about the woman in the picture,
for example, “Once a woman like Emily/Lakisha
gets a man to commit to her, she will usually try to
put him on a tight leash.” Expressions of benevo-
lent sexism were assessed by rewording the
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McMahon and Kahn 5
benevolent sexism subscale items of the ASI (α =
.76), for example, “Women like Lauren/Shavonn
have a quality of purity that few men possess.”
Participants then rated the woman on eight
different personality traits designed to assess her
warmth (sincere, good-natured, friendly, warm)
and competence (intelligent, competent, confi-
dent, and capable), which were combined into a
measure of overall positivity (α = .92). Warmth
and competence were selected based on their
inclusion in the stereotype content model (Fiske,
Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002). Participants rated
how appropriate each term was to describe the
woman on a scale from 1 (very inappropriate) to 5
(very appropriate).
In order to isolate the effect of race on expres-
sions of HS and BS, we controlled for the femi-
ninity and attractiveness of the photographs in
the analyses. As previously noted, Black women
are perceived as less feminine and less physically
attractive than White women (Goff, Thomas,
et al., 2008). Physical attractiveness, under certain
conditions, can lead to more positive evaluations
of various attributes (Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani,
& Longo, 1991). Participants rated the femininity
and attractiveness of the woman on a thermom-
eter scale from 0 (not at all) to 100 (extremely).
Finally, participants answered a manipulation
check question about the race of the woman in
the photograph before debriefing.
Results
The responses of participants who failed the
manipulation check (N = 5) were excluded from
further analyses.
A MANCOVA1 [between-subjects factor: race
(Black, White); covariate: feminine, attractive rat-
ings; outcome: HS, BS, positive evaluations]
revealed a significant main effect of the race condi-
tion, Wilks’ Λ = .90, F(3, 121) = 4.30, p =.006, par-
tial η2 = .10. There was no main effect of femininity,
Wilks’ Λ = 1.00, F(3, 121) = 1.45, p =.23, partial η2
= .04, or attractiveness, Wilks’ Λ = .96, F(3, 121) =
1.83, p =.15, partial η2 = .04, ratings of the photos.
Consistent with Hypothesis 1a, more benevo-
lent sexism was expressed to the White faces, (M =
3.65, SD = 0.67) than the Black faces, (M = 3.42,
SD = 0.68), F(1, 123) = 4.61, p = .03, partial η2 =
.04. However, there was no significant difference
between the hostile sexism directed at the White
(M = 3.18, SD = 0.81) and Black (M = 3.01, SD
= 0.98) faces, F(1, 123) = 0.48, p = .49, partial η2
= .004, suggesting Hypothesis 1b is not sup-
ported. White faces were also assigned more pos-
itive trait evaluations (M = 3.72, SD = 0.56) than
Black faces (M = 3.50, SD = 0.57), F(1, 123) =
11.33, p =.001, partial η2 = .08, indicating support
for Hypothesis 1c (Figure 1).
Moderation
We examined participants’ baseline HS, BS, and
their modern racism score as possible moderators
of the HS, BS, and positive trait evaluations
directed at Black and White women. Only partici-
pants’ levels of modern racism approached sig-
nificance as a moderator, such that individuals
with higher modern racism scores expressed mar-
ginally more hostile sexism to the Black faces than
those with lower modern racism scores, B = .32,
SE = 0.18, t = 1.80, p = .07, adjusted R2 = .21.
Discussion
Consistent with our hypotheses, when only racial
category information was present, more benevo-
lent sexism was expressed toward White females
than Black females. The implicit assumption is
that the White female is more closely aligned with
BS ideals of fragility, purity, and need for protec-
tion, while the Black female violates these ideals.
This finding suggests that subtypes based on gen-
der roles or sexual behaviors are not always nec-
essary for the application of benevolent sexism
toward individual women; in the absence of
information about a woman’s behavior, being
White may be enough to elicit increases in benev-
olent sexism on this measure. While there was a
statistically significant difference between these
two groups, the effect size was relatively small
(Cohen, 1988) and we cannot yet predict how it
would impact behavior toward real women.
White females were also assigned more posi-
tive traits than the Black females, suggesting that
participants perceived the White females more
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6 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
positively overall. In this case, perceptions of BS
and overall impressions were in line with each
other, as “positive” evaluations of BS went along
with more positive impressions of the female tar-
get overall. However, there was no difference
between the amounts of hostile sexism directed
at Black and White women. This is somewhat
unexpected given the stereotypes of Black
women as promiscuous and antagonistic, which
violate traditional gender norms and should
increase HS. Marginally more HS to the Black
females was observed among participants with
higher modern racism scores. It could be that HS,
unlike BS, requires explicit subtyping, such that
women need to be identified as career-oriented or
promiscuous before HS is expressed.
Study 2
Study 1 demonstrated that females’ race alone
could act as a subtype to elicit differential rates of
benevolent sexism. However, it is unclear how
race would impact the HS and BS evaluations of
a woman whose adherence to or rejection of tra-
ditional gender roles is known. That is, how does
race interact with the application of BS when the
target’s behavior conforms or violates BS ideals?
Following a procedure by Sibley and Wilson
(2004), Study 2 tests how manipulating race
influences the hostile and benevolent evaluations
of women who are chaste (positive sexual sub-
type) or promiscuous (negative sexual subtype).
When asking participants to judge the behav-
ior of stereotyped individuals, shifting standards
(Biernat, 2003; Biernat, Manis, & Nelson, 1991)
are likely to occur. According to the shifting
standards model, judgments of members of ste-
reotyped groups are made with reference to
within-category standards. That is, stereotypes of a
group will determine evaluations of individuals
within that group. For instance, given the stereo-
type that men are more naturally skilled at math
than women, one is likely to judge the perfor-
mance of a particular woman in a computational
physics class against the relatively lower standard
for women and the performance of a man against
the relatively higher standard for men. Because
subjective judgments such as “tall,” “athletic,” or
“intelligent” are not anchored to any consistent
objective scale, these labels mean different things
when they are directed at different targets. As a
result, “good at math” does not mean the same
thing for a woman as it does for a man: when
directed at a male student, the phrase indicates an
assessment of skill, but when directed at a female
student, there is a subtextual, implicit comparison
to other members of the stereotyped group, such
that she is only “good at math for a woman.”
Figure 1. Ratings of benevolent sexism, hostile sexism, and positive trait evaluations for Black and White
females.
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McMahon and Kahn 7
Another assumption of the shifting standards
model is that evidentiary standards are lower for
individuals who are members of groups that are
stereotyped as lacking in some domain. When
asked what level of performance was required to
meet minimum standards for a job, women were
held to lower minimum standards than men, and
Black men were held to lower minimum stand-
ards than White men (Biernat & Kobrynowicz,
1997). When expectations for a group are low
(i.e., when stereotypes of the group are negative),
individuals who surpass them are rewarded with
nonzero sum behaviors or outcomes (Biernat,
2003). These include actions that can be bestowed
upon many individuals without resource deple-
tion, such as nonverbal responses or expressions
of praise. That is, they are unlimited in nature and
thus can be applied toward many targets without
restriction. For the woman in the physics class, an
A on an exam would elicit more praise for her
performance compared to a male peer with the
same score. In addition, female softball players
who perform well receive more cheers and verbal
praise than male players (Biernat & Vescio, 2002),
and female supervisors in the workplace are
described as more supportive than male supervi-
sors (Gupta, Jenkins, & Beehr, 1983). However,
these more positive evaluations do not lead to
zero-sum rewards in which behavior toward one
individual restricts options available to another,
such as choice decisions or finite resources.
Though highly praised, women do not receive
better batting positions (Biernat & Vescio, 2002)
or promotions (Gupta et al., 1983). Furthermore,
those wishing to refute accusations of discrimi-
nation in hiring or promotions (or any zero-sum
outcome) can submit the increased praise (non-
zero-sum outcome) for women as evidence of
their impartiality.
In both these cases, the praise (non-zero-sum
outcomes) for the women who succeed in the
workplace or on the field, while subjectively posi-
tive, belies the lower expectations held about their
competence. In the same way that benevolent
sexism is subjectively positive yet predicated on
notions of inferiority, the accolades bestowed
upon women who exceed the lower standards set
for them are the result of patronizing surprise
rather than a sincere judgment of quality.
The expression of benevolent sexism could
be characterized as a non-zero-sum behavior,
because these judgments can be directed at any
number of recipients without resource depletion.
As such, it fits into a shifting standards frame-
work. Given the aforementioned evidence that
the expectations of Black women’s sexual behav-
ior are more negative than those of White
women, Black women exhibiting more positively
subtyped sexual behavior (by being chaste) should
be judged against the relatively lower standard for
Black women and be “rewarded” with benevolent
sexism. Ambivalence amplification (Hass, Katz,
Rizzo, Bailey, & Eisenstadt, 1991), which states
that individuals with ambivalent attitudes about
an out-group will rate out-group members who
succeed at a task more favorably than in-group
members, could also predict this outcome.
Conversely, because the purity expectations for
White women are so entrenched, a White woman
who violates the chastity norms for her gender
and race by being promiscuous may receive more
scorn, in the form of hostile sexism, than a pro-
miscuous Black woman, who would be conform-
ing to the negative stereotypes of sexual
availability for her race.
Study 1 demonstrated that when given no
other information about a woman besides her
race, participants expressed significantly more
benevolent sexism to the White woman than to
the Black woman. Study 2 builds on Study 1 by
manipulating both the target’s race and her sexual
behavior in order to examine how race and sexual
subtype impact HS and BS. In light of these theo-
ries, we predict that more benevolent sexism will
be expressed towards a chaste Black woman than
a chaste White woman (Hypothesis 2a), while
more hostile sexism will be expressed towards a
promiscuous White woman than a promiscuous
Black woman (Hypothesis 2b). Regarding the
measure of overall positivity, the pattern found in
Study 1 may be replicated regardless of BS or
sexual behavior (with more positive evaluations
of White women than Black women), or, oppo-
sitely, chaste Black women may receive more
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8 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
positive evaluations in addition to more BS than
chaste White women. As in Study 1, we tested
whether any of these effects would be moderated
by participants’ baseline HS, BS, and racial
attitudes.
Methods
Participants and Design
One hundred eighty-eight participants (119
female, 68 male; 149 White, 13 African American,
11 Asian, 9 Hispanic; mean age 37.5 years) were
recruited from MTurk and paid for their partici-
pation. The study had a 2 (target race: Black vs.
White) x 2 (female subtype: positive vs. negative)
between-subjects design.
Measures and Procedure
The procedure was similar to Study 1 with the
following changes and additions. We replaced the
photos with a vignette based on those utilized by
Sibley and Wilson (2004) that manipulated sub-
type and race. Participants read a short story
about a man meeting a woman at a bar. In the
negative sexual subtype version, the female target
has a history and enjoyment of casual flings. In
the positive sexual subtype version of the
vignette, the female target is described as having
few, if any, previous sexual partners and not
inclined toward casual flings. The former vignette
characterizes the woman as promiscuous, the lat-
ter as chaste. To manipulate the woman’s race, we
changed her name to be more racially indicative.
The original vignettes feature a woman named
Kate, which we used in the White condition of
the current study. The Black female target’s name
was Tanisha, which both children (Daniel &
Daniel, 1998) and adults (Greenwald et al., 1998)
recognize as more likely to belong to an African
American woman.
A manipulation check occurred after reading
the vignette. Ostensibly as a memory test, partici-
pants were asked, “How was Kate/Tanisha
described in the story?” (Sibley & Wilson, 2004).
To ensure that the race manipulation was effec-
tive, participants provided demographic informa-
tion about the woman, including her age and race,
and summarized the story they had just read in
2–3 sentences.
Results
Of the 238 surveys gathered, 50 failed to cor-
rectly identify the race of the female target and
were excluded from the analyses. While the race
manipulation in Study 1 used pictures of female
faces, this study relied on racially indicative names
in a vignette. We attribute the increase in manipu-
lation check failures to the current study’s more
subtle race manipulation and excluded these par-
ticipants in order to ensure that the reported find-
ings reflect those participants who were more
likely thinking specifically about Black women or
White women when they made their evaluations,
as these ratings correspond to the tested hypoth-
eses. If these 50 were included, the pattern
remained the same for the main variables of
interest.
A 2 (race: Black vs. White) x 2 (sexual subtype:
positive vs. negative) x 2 (outcomes: BS, HS, posi-
tive traits) MANOVA revealed a significant inter-
action of subtype and race, Wilks’ Λ = .94, F(3,
182) = 3.65, p = .014, partial η2 = .06. There was
also a main effect of subtype condition, Wilks’ Λ
= .91, F(3, 182) = 6.21, p < .0001, partial η2 = .09,
but no main effect of race condition, Wilks’ Λ =
.99, F(3, 182) = 0.14, p = .94, partial η2 = .002.
Benevolent Sexism
In order to test Hypothesis 2a, a 2 (race) x 2 (sub-
type) ANOVA on benevolent evaluations of the
target found a significant interaction between
race and sexual subtype, F(1, 184) = 7.133 p =
.008, partial η2 = .04. Breaking down the interac-
tion, when examining the positive subtype, there
was significantly more BS expressed to the chaste
Black woman (M = 3.23, SD = 0.83) than the
chaste White woman (M = 2.88, SD = 0.88), F(1,
96) = 4.11, p = .045, partial η2 = .04, see Figure 2.
Hostile Sexism
A 2 (race) x 2 (subtype) factorial ANOVA on hos-
tile evaluations of the target found an interaction
between subtype and race that neared significance,
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McMahon and Kahn 9
F(1, 184) = 3.75, p = .054, partial η2 = .02. When
restricted to the negative subtype, there was no
difference in the amount of HS directed at the
promiscuous White woman (M = 2.61, SD =
0.79) and the promiscuous Black woman (M =
2.41, SD = 0.76), F(1, 88) = 1.39, p = .24, partial
η2 = 0.02, see Figure 3. Furthermore, there was no
difference between the amounts of hostile sexism
directed at the Black woman when she was chaste
(M = 2.39, SD = 0.65) or promiscuous (M = 2.41,
SD = 0.76), F(1, 91) = 0.03, p = .86, partial η2 <
.001. Instead, there was a significant main effect
of subtype, such that there was more HS to pro-
miscuous women than chaste women, F(1, 184) =
4.75, p = .03, partial η2 = .03. This finding, while
consistent with Sibley and Wilson’s (2004) results,
does not support Hypothesis 2b, which predicted
more hostile sexism directed at the promiscuous
White target than the promiscuous Black target.
Positive Evaluations
Finally, a 2 (race: White vs. Black) x 2 (subtype:
positive vs. negative) factorial ANOVA with over-
all positive evaluations of the female targets as
the outcome did not reveal a significant interac-
tion effect, F(1, 184) = 0.18, p = .67, partial η2 =
.001. Instead, there was a main effect of subtype,
such that chaste women (M = 5.62, SD = 0.64)
were evaluated more positively than promiscuous
women (M = 5.21, SD = 0.79), F(1, 184) = 15.19,
p < .0001, partial η2 = .08. There was no main
effect of race, F(1, 184) = 0.01, p = .92, partial η2
< .0001, suggesting that while participants took
into account both race and subtype of the target
when they made their benevolent evaluations,
they were not significantly influenced by race
when assessing the target on other positive traits.
This finding also indicates that while more BS
was directed at the chaste Black woman, her
behavior did not translate into more positive eval-
uations overall.
Moderators
Participant’s baseline hostile sexism, benevolent
sexism, and modern racism were all tested indi-
vidually as possible moderators of their hostile,
benevolent, and positive trait evaluations of the
female targets.
In regression analyses testing these modera-
tors, only the three-way interaction between par-
ticipant’s HS, target race, and target subtype on
benevolent evaluations of the female target
approached significance, B = .586, SE = 0.32, t =
1.82, p = .07. Despite the marginal three-way
Figure 2. Benevolent evaluations of women as a function of their race and sexual behavior.
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10 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
interaction, when examining the negative sub-
type, there was a significant two-way interaction
between baseline HS and target race, B = −.34,
SE = 0.17, t(81) = −2.01, p = .05. Simple slopes
analyses revealed that higher baseline HS pre-
dicted less BS toward the promiscuous Black tar-
get, B = −.270, SE = 0.13, t(81)= −2.20, p = .031,
but not the promiscuous White target, B = .06,
SE = 0.11, t(81) = 0.53, p = .60. There was no
significant two-way interaction between baseline
HS and target race in the positive subtype, B =
.25, SE = 0.28, t(85) = 0.89, p = .37.
Discussion
Study 2 extended Study 1 by testing how a wom-
an’s race and sexually subtyped behavior impact
expressions of BS, HS, and overall positivity
towards her. Study 1 manipulated only the wom-
an’s race and found a significant main effect, such
that more BS was expressed to the White woman
than the Black woman. In Study 2, we untangle
this effect further by adding in sexually subtyped
behaviors (promiscuous vs. chaste) to test for
interactions. We found that once both race and
sexual subtype were examined, the main effect of
race disappeared and was replaced by a significant
interaction effect.
Consistent with shifting standards theory,
expressions of benevolent sexism were higher for
the chaste Black woman than the chaste White
woman. However, the chaste Black target was not
evaluated any more positively on the trait meas-
ures than the chaste White target, suggesting that
the Black woman may have been “praised” with
benevolent sexism for her stereotype-inconsist-
ent behavior, but this did not translate into more
positive evaluations overall. In this case, percep-
tions of BS and positive impressions were incon-
gruous, as “positive” expressions of BS favored
the chaste Black woman while positive overall
impressions favored chaste women over promis-
cuous women, regardless of their race.
While we had predicted that more HS would
be directed at the promiscuous White target than
the promiscuous Black target (Hypothesis 1b), we
did not find that hostile sexism was differentially
applied based on race. This finding is consistent
with Study 1, which also did not find different
levels of hostile sexism directed at Black faces
and White faces. This suggests that the women
were equally punished for violating the chastity
ideals of their gender, irrespective of race. When
White women violate their expected roles of
purity, they are not punished any more than Black
women are for this behavior. That is, they are
Figure 3. Hostile evaluations of women as a function of their race and sexual behavior.
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McMahon and Kahn 11
“protected” from the overly negative evaluations
that shifting standards would predict for violating
their expected positive sexual behavior. These
results are also contrary to ambivalence amplifi-
cation (Hass et al., 1991), which would have pre-
dicted more extreme evaluations of the Black
targets.
We assessed participants’ endorsement of HS,
BS, and their modern racism as potential modera-
tors of these effects. Unlike Study 1, participants’
modern racism did not alter how they evaluated
the White and Black targets. Only baseline HS
approached conventional levels of significance,
such that participants with higher HS directed
marginally less BS at the promiscuous Black tar-
get, but not promiscuous White target. As previ-
ously stated, HS punishes women who reject
traditional gender roles (Glick & Fiske, 2001).
That in this study higher endorsement of HS led
to marginally less BS for the Black woman who
violated traditional norms but not her White
counterpart further demonstrates how even
White women who reject the purity norms of
their gender may be “protected” by their
Whiteness from “losing” benevolent sexism.
General Discussion
These two studies sought to integrate race into
ambivalent sexism theory by measuring how
benevolent and hostile sexism are differentially
applied to Black women and White women, thus
merging this modern form of sexism with the
comparatively larger racism literature to test for
vital intergroup differences. Previous research
had identified adherence to traditional gender
roles as a predictor of BS (Glick et al., 1997;
Sibley & Wilson, 2004). We found that more BS
was directed at White faces than Black faces
(Study 1), suggesting that race could function as a
subtype in the absence of traditional behavioral
cues. However, when Black and White women
were sexually subtyped, more BS was expressed
to the chaste Black woman than the chaste White
woman (Study 2). Target race is therefore not the
only determinant of benevolent sexism; race and
behavior can interact to produce different
outcomes.
Given that the BS ideals of purity and defense-
lessness are incompatible with stereotypes of
Black women as promiscuous (Jewell, 1993) and
aggressive (Weitz & Gordon, 1993), we maintain
that this finding is indicative of shifting stand-
ards, whereby individuals who exceed the lower
expectations of their stereotyped group receive
more praise (non-zero-sum rewards) for their
stereotype-inconsistent behavior. It is because
expectations for Black women’s behavior were
more negative that participants tended to report
that the Black target should be “cherished and
protected” and “set on a pedestal by her man”
when she surpassed them by being chaste, even
more so than her White counterpart. While sub-
jectively positive, this reveals the impact of nega-
tive stereotypes and only reinforces her
subordinate status relative to men.
Positive impressions of the women differed
across studies, with a main effect of race in Study
1 (favoring White women) and a main effect of
sexual subtype in Study 2 (favoring chaste behav-
ior.) Even though she conformed to traditional
gender norms, the chaste Black woman was not
viewed more positively overall, indicating that
participants only treated her differently on the
one positively valenced sexist measure of benev-
olent sexism. That is, shifting standards occurred
on the measure of BS but not on overall positive
impressions. This result implies that the benefits
for Black women who conform to traditional
gender norms may not extend beyond increased
BS.
Across both studies, hostile sexism was not
differentially applied based on race. Here the
findings both lend support to Sibley and Wilson’s
(2004) conclusions about ambivalent sexism and
sexual subtype and qualify them by race: While
more HS was directed at promiscuous women
than chaste women, there was no difference in
the amounts of HS directed at Black women
when they were promiscuous or chaste. That we
were able to demonstrate that a previously uncon-
tested assumption might not necessarily apply to
women of every race hints at the magnitude of
other studies within this literature that could ben-
efit from a more intersectional paradigm. We sus-
pect that these comparable levels of HS to Black
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12 Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
women, regardless of sexual subtype, reflect the
influence of other negative stereotypes, which
characterize Black women as loud, antagonistic,
unmannerly (Niemann et al., 1994) and less
“appropriately feminine” (Goff, Eberhardt, et al.,
2008). Alternatively, it could be that shifting
standards occur more exclusively with expres-
sions of praise than contempt. Either way, Black
women may continue to experience hostility
regardless of their adherence to traditional norms
of chastity.
Although we observed differences in benev-
olent sexism in these studies, care must be taken
when interpreting the findings. While statisti-
cally significant, the observed mean differences
are close to each other and to the scale midpoint.
While the effect sizes across both studies were
small, it is noteworthy that this effect emerged
following a manipulation as subtle as changing
the female target’s race. Prentice and Miller
(1992) have argued that effects can still be
important even when they are statistically small
when researchers demonstrate how even a mini-
mal manipulation of the independent variable
can account for some variance of the dependent
variable. In Study 2, changing the chaste wom-
an’s name from Kate to Tanisha was enough to
create a significant increase in BS. This finding
has consequences for women in the real world
insofar as it could produce differential treat-
ment, perhaps in the form of racial and gender-
based microaggressions, which are commonplace
verbal or behavioral slights that communicate
negative perceptions of a person or their group
(Sue, 2010). For instance, Black teenagers dress-
ing modestly or delaying sexual intercourse
might receive increased praise for these actions
in ways that communicate to them that they do
so in spite of their racial identity. These micro-
aggressions build on each other over time to
produce negative psychological consequences,
such as higher stress, feelings of powerlessness,
and loss of integrity (Sue, Capodilupo, &
Holder, 2008).
Future studies will want to examine how
ambivalent sexism is differentially applied to
Hispanic and Asian Americans, as well as other
ethnic groups in other settings. As the stereotype
of Black women as sexually available has its roots
in slavery in the American antebellum South
(Jewell, 1993), it is possible that our findings
would not generalize to countries that do not
share this history. Instead, results may be contin-
gent upon the ethnic groups that exist in a par-
ticular country and the stereotypes about those
groups that are specific to that time and location.
As Black males are also stereotyped as hypersex-
ual (Hall, 1995), there may be differences between
perceptions of promiscuous White men and
Black men as well. Further explorations of how
ambivalent sexism is applied to women of differ-
ent races may want to make use of indirect meas-
ures of implicit attitudes, especially given the
social sensitivity of this topic (Greenwald,
Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009).
Though the present study was unable to dem-
onstrate shifting standards of hostile sexism
toward promiscuous White women, this effect
may emerge in a more applied setting. In the
criminal justice domain, White women who vio-
late expectations of their racial group by being
prostitutes may receive more severe punishments
upon arrest than Black prostitutes. Evidence sug-
gests that prostitutes are seen as violating cultural
values (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon,
Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989), but the strength of
this perception and subsequent treatment of this
woman might differ depending on her race. This
could come in the form of a judge recommend-
ing harsher bonds or a police officer using more
force or callous language. These and other experi-
ments would help to clarify if and how reactions
to women who violate traditional gender roles by
being promiscuous are influenced by her race.
The paradigm used here brings a much-needed
intersectional perspective to the ambivalent sex-
ism literature. It calls into question the generaliz-
ability of studies with the ASI that have failed to
broach the subject of race. To the extent that this
proves a fruitful line of inquiry, others may be
encouraged to examine more constructs related
to gender through the lens of race, and theories
of racism in the context of gender. A more
thorough and representative understanding of
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McMahon and Kahn 13
concurrent gender and racial prejudice will elimi-
nate the overwhelming bias in the field that the
primary targets of sexism are White women and
the primary targets of racism are Black men,
resulting in a discipline better able to address dis-
crimination in all its contemporary forms.
Funding
This work was supported by a Clara Mayo grant from
the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
Note
1. When the feminine and attractiveness ratings of
the photographs were not controlled for, the same
pattern of results emerged in the MANOVA with
marginal significance.
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