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Gender, sexism, and the election: did sexism help Trump more than it hurt Clinton?
Abstract
Data from Reuters/Ipsos polls (6116 respondents) conducted shortly before and after the 2016 presidential election (from 4 to 17 November 2016) were used to test whether: (1) women and men differed in favorability toward Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, (2) sexism (either hostile or benevolent) predicted favorability ratings toward each candidate. Overall, men and women rated Clinton similarly, but men favored Trump significantly more than women did. Hostile sexist attitudes were second only to general political orientation in predicting positive attitudes toward Trump; however, hostile sexism predicted disfavoring Clinton only among women and not among men. By contrast, benevolent sexism weakly, but significantly predicted greater favorability toward Clinton but was unrelated to Trump favorability ratings. Thus, hostile sexist attitudes among voters significantly helped Trump, whereas benevolent sexism yielded only a weak protective effect toward Clinton.
... Hostile sexism is a sub-dimension of the broader concept of sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996) and represents the tendency to exclude women from certain activities and roles, such as in organizations and in the political arena. Consistent with previous research (Glick, 2019;Gaweda et al., 2022), we expected to find a positive association between hostile sexism and vote for the center-right parties. However, we also expected that this association would be partially moderated by voters' evaluation of Giorgia Meloni. ...
... Furthermore, hostile sexism correlates with other forms of beliefs and attitudes based on a hierarchical worldview (Christopher & Mull, 2006), such as Social Dominance Orientation (SDO; Sidanius, et al., 1994), which is the tendency to reject members of outgroups deemed inferior or a threat to the ingroup's status. Religiosity has also been shown to correlate positively with hostile sexism, both in Catholic (López-Sáez, et al., 2020) and predominantly Protestant (Glick, 2019) countries. ...
... In addition, hostile sexism was found to be among the most important factors explaining polarization among white voters (Schaffner et al., 2019). Finally, hostile sexism was found to predict lower support for Clinton and greater support for Trump, especially among women (Cassese & Barnes, 2019;Glick, 2019). Consistent with findings in the U.S., a study conducted on U.K. samples during the 2019 U.K. general election found that hostile sexism was associated with voting for the Conservative Party (De Geus et al., 2022). ...
We examined the role of hostile sexism in vote at the 2022 general election in Italy, where the largest among center-right parties was led by a woman, Giorgia Meloni. We analyzed data from a sample of 1635 voters who participated in the 2022 ITANES survey. Hostile sexism was associated with male gender, lower education, higher religiosity, and right-wing orientation. As to vote choice, hostile sexism was positively associated with vote for Brothers of Italy and the other center-right parties. However, such association was significantly moderated by the evaluation of Giorgia Meloni, and disappeared among voters with a positive evaluation of her. Discussion focusses on the interplay between gender-related attitudes and candidate-based heuristics in vote choice.
... The most explicit manifestation of sexist attitudes in political psychology is "hostile sexism" (Glick and Fiske, 2001;Cassese and Barnes, 2019): the "antipathy toward women who are viewed as usurping men's power" (Glick and Fiske, 1996, p. 109). For hostile sexists, women seek advancement at the expense of men, and should therefore be viewed as untrustworthy, powerseeking, and manipulative (Glick and Fiske, 1996;Glick, 2019). Furthermore, women make illegitimate claims on government to advance their position beyond their innate capacities. ...
... Furthermore, women make illegitimate claims on government to advance their position beyond their innate capacities. At the extreme end, hostile sexists believe women do not deserve equal footing in society and that discrimination against them is justifiable (Glick, 2019). ...
... These attitudes can predict a wide range of political behaviors, including perceptions of political scandals (Barnes et al., 2020), responses to electoral campaign strategies (Cassese and Holman, 2018), and vote choice in the 2016 American presidential election (Bock et al., 2017;Frasure-Yokley, 2018;Schaffner et al., 2018;Cassese and Barnes, 2019;Glick, 2019), 2019 Australian election (Beauregard, 2021), and 2019 British general election (de Geus et al., 2021). Additional work has shown that sexism shapes views of explicitly gendered policies like gender quotas (Beauregard and Sheppard, 2021), but also opposition to policies that are perceived to be a threat to the status quo such as climate policy (Benegal and Holman, 2021). ...
Sexist attitudes influence a wide range of political behaviors, including support for explicitly gendered policies like gender quotas. But we know much less about how sexism might broadly shape policy preferences. We argue that some policy domains are implicitly associated with being pro-women or pro-men because of gender socialization, gender segregation in the workforce, and differences in policy preferences in the general population and among political elites. As (hostile) sexists view women as inherently undeserving, making illegitimate claims on government, and getting ahead at the expense of men, we hypothesize that they will oppose policies associated with women, while supporting “male” policies such as defense and law enforcement. We test our hypothesis using the 2019 Australian Election Study and 2018 US Cooperative Congressional Study. We find similar patterns of policy preferences, wherein those holding sexist attitudes (net of other attitudes and demographic characteristics) want to cut funding for pro-women policies like social services, education, and health, while they approve of increased funding for law enforcement and defense.
... Investigations in psychology have applied the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI; Glick & Fiske, 1996) in 19 countries and have found that both hostile and benevolent sexism are prevalent across different cultures (Glick & Fiske, 2001). Recent studies in the United States have linked ambivalent sexism to heterogenous impacts on political behavior-that is, hostile and benevolent sexism have independent and different effects on, for instance, reactions to electoral campaign strategies (Cassese & Holman, 2019), vote choice in the 2016 presidential election (Bock, Byrd-Craven, & Burkley, 2017;Cassese & Barnes, 2019a;Frasure-Yokley, 2018;Glick, 2019;Schaffner, MacWilliams, & Nteta, 2018), and voters' responses to scandals (Barnes et al., 2020). ...
... Hostile sexism views gender relationships through a negative lens: Any gain obtained by women is necessarily achieved at the expense of men (Glick & Fiske, 2001). For hostile sexists, women are in direct competition to men and as such, are untrustworthy, power seeking, and manipulative (Glick, 2019;Glick & Fiske, 1996). Consequently, they are undeserving of men's role in society and should be discriminated against (Glick, 2019). ...
... For hostile sexists, women are in direct competition to men and as such, are untrustworthy, power seeking, and manipulative (Glick, 2019;Glick & Fiske, 1996). Consequently, they are undeserving of men's role in society and should be discriminated against (Glick, 2019). For example, hostile sexism is associated with the hiring of less qualified men over more qualified women (Christopher & Mull, 2006) or with women in managerial positions being viewed negatively (Eagly & Carli, 2007). ...
Previous research on support for gender quotas focuses on attitudes toward gender equality and government intervention as explanations. We argue the role of attitudes toward women in understanding support for policies aiming to increase the presence of women in politics is ambivalent—both hostile and benevolent forms of sexism contribute in understanding support, albeit in different ways. Using original data from a survey conducted on a probability‐based sample of Australian respondents, our findings demonstrate that hostile sexists are more likely to oppose increasing of women's presence in politics through the adoption of gender quotas. Benevolent sexists, on the other hand, are more likely to support these policies than respondents exhibiting low levels of benevolent sexism. We argue this is because benevolent sexism holds that women are pure and need protection; they do not have what it takes to succeed in politics without the assistance of quotas. Finally, we show that while women are more likely to support quotas, ambivalent sexism has the same relationship with support among both women and men. These findings suggest that aggregate levels of public support for gender quotas do not necessarily represent greater acceptance of gender equality generally.
... Hostile sexists justify male superiority and traditional gender roles with derogatory characterisations of women. Women are untrustworthy, power seeking, manipulative, ungrateful, underserving of men's place in society, and should be discriminated against, according to hostile sexists (Glick 2019;Glick and Fiske 1996). Using the 2019 Australian Election Study (AES), I, first, evaluate the determinants of these attitudes in Australia and whether gender and partisan differences occur; and second, I assess whether hostile sexism influences similarly the voting behaviour of Australian women and men. ...
... Sexist attitudes are found to influence reactions to electoral campaign strategies (Cassese and Holman 2019), voters' responses to scandals (Barnes, Beaulieu, and Saxton 2020), and support for gender quotas in politics (Beauregard and Sheppard 2021). One fruitful line of research, however, is to investigate the link between sexist attitudes and vote choice, especially following the 2016 American presidential election (Bracic, Israel-Trummel, and Shortle 2019;Glick 2019;Cassese and Barnes 2019;Frasure-Yokley 2018;Schaffner, MacWilliams, and Nteta 2018;Bock, Byrd-Craven, and Burkley 2017;Simas and Bumgardner 2017). ...
While attitudes toward women and gender equality are increasingly salient in Australian politics, little is known about how sexist attitudes shape political behaviour. Using the Australian Election Study, I assess the extent hostile sexism is present among Australian citizens and influenced vote choice in the 2019 Federal election. First, I find that women are less likely than men to hold hostile sexist attitudes, but gender differences vary by party identification. Second, I show that hostile sexism is not significantly related to the likelihood of voting for the Labor or Liberal parties. Hostile sexist attitudes, however, significantly increase the likelihood of voting for the National party and significantly decrease the likelihood of voting for the Greens. Finally, I find no gender difference in the role of hostile sexism in explaining vote choice.
... 6. As scholars in the tradition of Glick andFiske (1996, 2001) have fully elaborated, sexist attitudes are comprised of multiple, coexisting dimensions which may be either (or simultaneously) "hostile" or "benevolent." They note that sexism can express either antipathy toward women (i.e., hostile sexism) or patriarchal assumptions about the need for women's protection and adherence to traditional roles (i.e., benevolent sexism). ...
... Importantly, we do not argue that sexist attitudes have been eradicated from the electorate, nor that gender egalitarian transformations are yet complete in American society (see England, 2010). Indeed, much scholarship on the 2016 electoral environment suggests that voters remain dispersed along the spectrum of both hostile and benevolent sexist attitudinal measures (Bracic et al., 2019;Cassese & Holman, 2019;Glick, 2019;Schaffner et al., 2018). However, scholars note that multidimensional gender egalitarian attitudes have, on balance, been on the rise in the U.S. (Scarborough et al., 2019), particularly with regard to gendered roles in the public sphere. ...
Scholars have long debated whether and to what extent citizens punish political candidates for explicitly racist rhetoric. However, few studies explore whether a similar dynamic occurs when explicitly sexist messages are conveyed on the campaign trail. Do citizens recoil when exposed to explicitly sexist messages? To investigate this question, we exploit the unique opportunity afforded by the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Using data provided by the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study and employing a variety of analytic approaches, we find consistent evidence that the release of the tape modestly, though significantly, reduced support for Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. Surprisingly, these effects were similar among men and women, but they were noticeably larger among Republicans compared to Democrats.
... Norma kecantikan preskriptif ini merupakan tuntutan bagi perempuan untuk mengejar kecantikan secara intensif. Ini membuat wanita menyakini bahwa nilai mereka lebih ditentukan oleh sudut pandang eksternal (Jha, 2015;Nakray, 2018) sehingga mereka mengobjektifikasi diri (Glick, 2019;Ramati-Ziber et al., 2020). Objektifikasi dipandang sebagai objek, wanita tak ubahnya seperti perangkat/alat atau komoditas yang bisa dimiliki dan bisa dibongkar pasang untuk dipertukarkan dengan yang lain; tidak memiliki subjektivitas dan otonomi yang mampu bersikap dan berperilaku (agensi). ...
Involving down syndrome model, Imperfect Beauty ad is called pro-women's advertising. Reception analysis was carried out by employing critical perspective aimed at not only finding dominant meaning, negotiation and opposition but also trying to build audience’s agency to involve them in forming participatory culture. Through interview, focus group discussions and literature searches methods with informants who have backgrounds as student organization activists and are familiar with the entertainment and fashion development, this research found informants who rejected this pro-women advertisement; feelings of psychological insecurity, low self-esteem since they cannot meet ideal beauty standards which leads to self-oppression. Poor media representation of women which prioritizes their physical bodies over their political power leads to symbolic annihilation. Beautifying oneself has become a national and global political matter involving producers, the state and the media. Media naturalized beauty myths as if it were innocent and natural. Abstrak Dilihat dari tajuk dan pelibatan model penyandang down syndrome, reklame Imperfect Beauty merupakan iklan pemberdayaan perempuan. Analisis resepsi terhadap iklan ini dilakukan dengan menerapkan perspektif kritis yang diarahkan tidak hanya menemukan pemaknaan dominan, negosiasi dan oposisi tapi berusaha membangun agensi khalayak demi melibatkan mereka dalam membentuk budaya popular partisipatif. Lewat metode wawancara, diskusi kelompok terarah serta penelurusan pustaka dengan informan berlatarbelakang pegiat organisasi kemahasiswaan dan akrab dengan dunia entertainment dan fashion model, penelitian ini menemukan informan yang menolak iklan pro-perempuan ini (makna oposisi). Mereka merasakan ketidaknyamanan aman psikologis, harga diri yang rendah karena tidak bisa memenuhi standar kecantikan ideal. Dampaknya, mereka menindas diri. Representasi wanita di media yang lebih mengedepankan tubuh fisik daripada kekuatan sosial politiknya dapat mengarah kepada pemusnahan simbolik. Mempercantik diri menjadi masalah politik nasional dan global yang melibatkan produsen, negara dan media. Mitos kecantikan ciptaan industri oleh media dinaturalisasi; seolah alami dan memang demikian seharusnya.
... However, the unconscious bias of the public has still become a hindrance in promoting equal opportunities for men and women in various aspects of work as well as educational settings. The results from previous studies have stated that discrimination between men and women has been commonly observed in various aspects of life (Glick, 2019). This has impacted the performance of individuals greatly. ...
The research on Coping with Hostile Discrimination through Self-Advocacy, Positive Psychology in Higher Education, and Unconscious-Bias Training mainly emphasizes on encountering issues related to hostile Discrimination leads to the development of negative feelings in the minds of female students, such as self-doubt due to which their aspirations related to careers also get negatively impacted. There is a lack of research studies regarding the importance of self-advocacy for dealing with the problem of hostile Discrimination. Moreover, in the previous empirical studies, the concept of unconscious bias training is also lacking, due to which their role in dealing with the pertinent issue is not clear. However, the concept of positive psychology has been referred to in the previous literature for dealing with hostile Discrimination. Hostile Discrimination leads to negative experiences in women's lives, such as the symptoms of depression and anxiety, along with reduced self-esteem in them. To conduct this research, a quantitative based study has been used. The sample size has been set at 345, and a margin for blank questionnaires has also been established. There were 320 fully completed questionnaires submitted by the respondents, which helped with the analysis and production of the results. This study has chosen a conventional sample size, aiding in reliable data. After the data collection and analysis, results indicated a significant relationship between positive psychology in higher education and hostile Discrimination. Whereas unconscious-bias training insignificantly moderates the relationship between self-advocacy and hostile Discrimination. The mediating impact of self-advocacy between positive psychology in higher education and hostile Discrimination was also significant. Apart from increasing the knowledge of the constructs under study, the present research has also been effective in practical implications. The present study has encouraged the management of various universities to take important measures to promote positive psychology in higher education. Fewer resources have forced the present study to focus only on Chinese universities. Future researchers could overcome this by integrating the universities from developed countries in the context of the present study.
... Democratic elections lead to a political shift towards self-expression values (Inglehart et al., 2003). Regime changes in elections can lead to advancements in gender equality, yet also to setbacks, depending on the relative strength of political movements in society (Harnischfeger, 2008;Eksi & Wood, 2019;Glick, 2019). In particular, when democratic elections erode secularist ideas in public policies and social norms, gender norms may regress. ...
Combining a unique dataset from the Gallup World Poll for the period 2009–2018 with Wolfsfeld et al.’s (2013) protest index, we evaluate the impact of the Arab Spring pro-democracy protests on gender equality in eleven Middle Eastern and North African countries. We use a difference-indifferences approach and find a negative impact of mass protests on female access to labor markets and support for women’s rights in the years following the events. In particular, a one standard-deviation increase in the protest intensity lowered female participation rates by 3.7 % points. Likewise, Arab Spring protests significantly lowered support for women’s legal rights, occupational rights, and divorce rights. Findings are robust to different samples, alternative model specifications, omitted variable bias, and an alternative protest measure from Steinert-Threlkeld (2017). Regarding potential mechanisms, we suggest that a shift in the Arab zeitgeist towards a less secular society might help explain our findings.
... One unquestionable fact is that Trump through his discourse, his actions and his overall persona, brought sexual and gender politics to the fore of the American society, but also to Europe and other parts of the world (Burgess, Brettschneider, & Keating, 2018). Concomitantly, critical analytic studies of Donald Trump's discourse (Cohn, 2020;Glick, 2019;Darweesh & Abdullah, 2016) have revealed that before and during his presidency, Trump's discourse conveyed-either covertly or overtly-a "sexist ideology", perpetuating negative representations and underestimations of women (Darweesh & Abdullah, 2016) and ultimately representing "the encoding of reality from a masculine point of view" (Darweesh & Abdullah, 2016, p.94). ...
Gender nonconformity has been conceptualized as a divergence from enforced, hierarchical, standardized, and heteronormative gender norms (Butler 1990; Ward & Schneider 2009) and is used as an umbrella term for those identities, representations, and material, behavioral and social practices that deviate from the gender binary (Connell 1987). Previous research on the effects of standardized role-based beliefs has found that attitudes towards gender non-conformity and related heteronormative beliefs, reproduced
through social institutions such as schools or the media, may increase prejudicial attitudes towards homosexual people (Kane 2006; Paoletti 2012), thus producing discrimination with multiple risks for the nonconforming communities (Hatzenbuehler & Pachankis 2016).
Media and journalistic representations can influence people’s beliefs and behaviors to-
wards gender non-conforming individuals and thus impacts the public conversations around the role of genders in contemporary societies. This paper argues that in today's changing gender landscape, where a shift towards gender non-conforming and non-binary identities is being increasingly represented in the media, public opinion, popular resistance, and political advocacy (Flores 2021; Gosling 2018), it is worth studying how gender-conforming or non-conforming representations are articulated in public discourse. More specifically, this study examines how gender nonconformity is portrayed in journalistic discourse, as the subject gradually shifts from primarily scholarly interpretation to mass media and the public. To explore how gender nonconformity is portrayed in journalistic discourse, a corpus of 61 gender-related articles published in 20
prominent online publications were thematically analyzed. The results identify six major
themes through which the authors portray gender nonconformity: emotion, support, violence, polarization, identity, and mental health. It is also observed that liberal outlets place more emphasis on discussing how to support gender non-conforming individuals, whereas conservative outlets focus on the social and political polarization between liberals and conservatives regarding the topic of gender nonconformity. Interestingly, most articles are written by women who support gender nonconformity and who frame their articles around pop culture trends. Finally, it is noted that only one of every three articles directly gives gender-nonconforming people a voice.
This research aims to empirically contribute to the discussion on the potential for non-con-
forming gender discourses, giving insight into how gender is articulated in journalistic dis-
course.
... With regard to psychological variables, we emphasized the role of "hot" emotional factors, but "cold" cognitive factors like cognitive ability and rigidity have also played a role in recent voting behavior (Choma & Hanoch, 2017;Ganzach, Hanoch, & Choma, 2019;Zmigrod, Rentfrow, & Robbins, 2018). Moreover, there are other personality traits (e.g., the Dark Triad) and measures of group-based dominance (e.g., explicit hostile and benev olent sexism) that we did not examine but which have been linked to Trump support (Glick, 2019;Yalch, 2021). Regarding structural factors, we emphasized the role of fairly enduring structural factors rather than more immediate features of the electoral context, such as media coverage (Reuning & Dietrich, 2019) or the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic (Baccini, Brodeur, & Weymouth, 2021;Clarke, Stewart, & Ho, 2021), which some researchers have argued accounted for Trump's win in 2016 and loss in 2020, respectively. ...
Since Trump was elected U.S. President in 2016, researchers have sought to explain his support, with some focusing on structural factors (e.g., economics) and others focusing on psychological factors (e.g., negative emotions). We integrate these perspectives in a regional analysis of 18+ structural variables capturing economic, demographic, and health factors as well as the aggregated neuroticism scores of 3+ million individuals. Results revealed that regions that voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 had high levels of neuroticism and economic deprivation. Regions that voted for Trump also had high anti-Black implicit bias and low ethnic diversity, though Trump made gains in ethnically diverse regions in 2020. Trump's voter base differed from the voter base of more traditional Republican candidates and Democrat Bernie Sanders. In sum, structural and psychological factors both explain Trump's unique authoritarian appeal. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited.
... Our understanding of women's motivations to act for gender equality would also benefit from an examination of the various macro-level societal structures that may contribute to sexism and other forms of oppression (see Bowleg, 2012). For example, the current data were collected during the 2016 presidential election and the Trump presidency, a time in which sexism and sexist oppression were particularly salient (Glick, 2019). External efficacy, which was measured with items about one's perception that government and elected officials are responsive to gender equality issues, was negatively correlated with study variables, but did not mediate the relationship between CR and CA for women who more strongly endorsed a feminist identity. ...
The present study investigated whether critical consciousness (CC) and feminist identity help explain emerging adult women’s participation in actions to reduce gender inequality. CC is an applied tool marginalized and oppressed youth can use to combat inequality. It is conceptualized as three components: Critical reflection, critical efficacy, and critical action. Youth who have reflected on inequality are theorized to act against injustice if they have critical efficacy. However, empirical support for connections among components is mixed and questions remain concerning the contexts in which and people for whom CC serves as a resource. For instance, CC has rarely been examined as a tool to reduce sexism. Furthermore, researchers theorize that social identity is related to CC, yet little empirical evidence exists testing these associations. Finally, CC is typically examined within samples of children and adolescents, although advances in cognitive development and identity suggest emerging adulthood is an ideal time to use CC. To begin to fill these gaps, we investigated whether the components of CC in association with feminist identity could predict when emerging adult women act against sexism. A serial mediation model revealed reflection may lead to action for women who identify as feminist and who report greater internal efficacy. The pathway through external efficacy was not significant. Findings suggest CC together with feminist identity may be tools women can employ to transform unjust social conditions and improve their lives. Applied applications of findings are considered.
... It would be helpful to identify other individual difference variables which affect negative stereotypes. Examples include hegemonic masculinity (Vescio and Schermerhorn 2021) and hostile sexism (Glick 2019;Ratliff et al. 2019), which predicted support for Trump in the 2016 election. Hegemonic masculinity was also related to sexism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and Islamophobia (Vescio and Schermerhorn 2021). ...
This study examined the relations between political attitudes and negative stereotypes in undergraduates by employing 4 measures of stereotypes: modern sexism, modern racism, feelings about 20 social groups, and ratings of the intelligence of these social groups. It was hypothesized that conservatives and Republicans alike would show more evidence of negative stereotypes than liberals and Democrats, especially for disadvantaged social groups. The study revealed that, indeed, Republicans showed stronger evidence of negative stereotypes but that Democrats also harbor some biases. Importantly, the social groups for whom Democrats and Republicans show negative stereotypes differed greatly. Republicans had considerably more negative stereotypes against racial and religious minorities, and particularly against individuals who do not identify with the cis-gender, heterosexual norm. Thus, the targets of Republicans’ stereotypes were groups that have traditionally been subjected to discrimination. Democrats, on the other hand, held stronger negative stereotypes against groups that are more politically powerful, such as Caucasians and Christians.
... Many political pundits expected the Access Hollywood tape incident and its fallout as the event that should have made it impossible for him to win the 2016 election (Hook 2016;Konitzer, Corbett-Davies, and Rothschild 2016). Instead, Trump's success was bolstered by the scandal (Glick 2019;Ratliff et al. 2017). Trump's explicit, hostile sexism appealed to many voters, especially those who relate to him via their own beliefs regarding the status of women in society and how that would hurt men (Begany and Milburn 2002;Carian and Cain Sobotka 2018;Masser, Viki, and Power 2006). ...
In this paper, we explore if Donald Trump's electoral success in 2016 led to heightened levels of stress for sexual harassment survivors. Logistic regression models predicting voter stress using original survey data collected in the weeks following the 2016 election were utilized. We find that women survivors of sexual harassment experienced elevated stres when compared to women who were never harassed. Female survivors of sexual harassment may be concerned that their well‐being was under attack due to the triumph of hostile sexism.
... Individuals' own gender attitudes and beliefs about women in society played a role in elections in 2016 (Godbole et al., 2019) and 2020. Hostile sexism predicted positive attitudes toward Trump and negative attitudes toward Clinton in 2016 (Cassese & Holman, 2019;Glick, 2019;Ratliff et al., 2019). Hegemonic masculinity-an endorsement of a cultural idealized masculinity-predicted support for Trump in 2016 and 2020 (Vescio & Schermerhorn, 2021). ...
This work separately applies two psychology frameworks—the three dimensions along which people are evaluated (competence, morality, and warmth) and individual sociopolitical attitudes (modern sexism [MS], right‐wing authoritarianism [RWA], and social dominance orientation (SDO)—to explore voter evaluations of Donald Trump and Joseph Biden both prior to (Study 1), and in the month following (Study 2), the 2020 U.S. presidential election. At both time points, Democrats and Republicans rated their own party's candidate similarly on the three trait dimensions and overall favorability. They differed, however, in evaluations of the other party's candidate. Republicans viewed Biden more positively both overall and on the trait dimensions than Democrats viewed Trump. Favorability ratings and trait perceptions for one's own party candidate were comparable pre‐ and postelection but were more negative postelection for the opposite party's candidate. RWA predicted favorability toward Trump, above and beyond political affiliation and sociodemographic factors, at both time points in addition to MS preelection and SDO postelection; RWA negatively predicted favorability toward Biden pre‐ but not postelection. Moreover, RWA predicted a vote for Trump versus Biden above and beyond political affiliation, highlighting the importance of considering sociopolitical attitudes in political decision‐making.
... While some studies show that women hold less hostile sexist attitudes than men on average, they are just as likely to subscribe to notions of traditional gender roles and endorse benevolent sexist attitudes (Glick and Fiske 2001). Interestingly, benevolent sexism has been modestly associated with support for Clinton over Trump in some studies (Cassese and Holman 2019;Glick 2019). ...
Scholars increasingly recognize that voters’ attitudes about gender shape their electoral preferences. Yet previous research has not captured important nuances of the relationship between gender attitudes and electoral choice. We argue that the effects of gender attitudes are not unidirectional and interact in complex ways with voters’ perceptions of candidates, depending not only on candidates’ sex but also on their gender-relevant characteristics and values. We draw on an original survey of Americans during the 2016 elections that measured three gender attitudes—hostile sexism, modern sexism, and traditional gender roles—and evaluations of primary and general election candidates. Our study design increases analytical leverage by examining actual and hypothetical candidate matchups. We find that among Democrats, hostile sexists were drawn to Bernie Sanders, but gender traditionalists preferred Hillary Clinton. Our results also suggest that if Sanders had been the Democratic nominee, gender egalitarians would have strongly supported him over Donald Trump, as they did Clinton.
... First, although xenophobia was a strong and consistent predictor of Americans' feelings about Trump and the GOP, data limitations prevented us from simultaneously accounting for inter-related factors. Of particular note is hostile sexism, which has been shown to be a strong predictor of Trump support (Cassese & Barnes, 2019;Cassese & Holman, 2019;Glick, 2019;Ratliff et al., 2019). Without accounting for ideologies about gender and sexuality, we are unable to definitively say that xenophobia is the strongest predictor of Americans' feelings about Trump. ...
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump distinguished himself from other candidates via his hardline stances on issues of immigration. Using data from national surveys conducted between 2014 and 2019, we identify three key findings about views of immigrants among the American public during the Trump era. First, xenophobia was the strongest predictor of Americans’ feelings—anger, fear, pride, and hope—about Donald Trump during his time in office, and the second strongest predictor of feelings about the Republican party (after partisan identification). Second, the influence of Americans’ levels of xenophobia on their feelings about the Republican Party were significantly mediated by their feelings about Trump, especially for negative affect (anger and fear). Third, there has been a backlash against xenophobia, such that political independents and Democrats became significantly more favorable toward immigrants after 2016. As a result, views of immigrants have become more favorable overall, but also more politically polarized. These findings support and extend immigration backlash theory, contribute to research on affective polarization, and document consequential trends in contemporary American politics.
... In particular, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) was one commonly used approach. The ASI was designed and introduced by social psychologists Peter Glick andSusan Fiske in 1996 (Glick andFiske 1996) and has been widely used by social psychologists since then. However, the inventory is mostly new to political science research. ...
Political scientists are paying increasing attention to understanding the role of sexist attitudes on predicting vote choices and opinions on issues. However, the research in this area measures sexist attitudes with a variety of different items and scales. In this paper, I evaluate some of the most prominent contemporary measures of sexism and develop an approach for identifying optimal items based on (1) convergent validity, (2) predictive validity, and (3) distance from politics. I find that a subset of items from the hostile sexism scale exhibit the most desirable measurement properties and I conclude by recommending a simple two- to five-item reduced hostile sexism battery that will allow scholars to efficiently, validly, and consistently measure sexism.
... masculinity | racism | sexism | hegmony | political attitudes D onald J. Trump's history-making ascension from nonpolitician to president of the United States has been explained in terms of an array of factors. Support for President Trump has been found to be associated with the antiestablishment, antielitist, and nativist populism of Trump voters (1), as well as voters' sexism (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9), racism (10,11), homophobia, and xenophobia (2). In addition, many of the factors that predict support of President Trump are confounded with group membership. ...
Significance
Donald J. Trump’s history-making ascension from nonpolitician to president of the United States has been attributed to the antiestablishment, antielitist, and nativist populism of Trump voters, as well as to sexism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia. Based on the findings of seven studies involving 2,007 people, men’s and women’s endorsement of hegemonic masculinity predicted support for Trump over and beyond the aforementioned factors, even when controlling for political party affiliation. Results highlight the importance of looking beyond social identity–based conceptualizations of masculinity to fully consider how men’s and women’s endorsement of cultural ideologies about masculinity legitimate patriarchal forms of dominance and reify gender-, race-, and class-based hierarchies.
... Importantly, sexism is not politically neutral. Research shows that sexism and racism were the best predictorsbetter than authoritarianismof voting for Trump (Valentino, Wayne, & Oceno, 2018) and hostile sexism specifically was the second strongest predictor after general political orientation (Glick, 2019). Crucially, women are socialised to endorse sexism and their sexism is higher in strongly sexist cultural contexts (Zawisza, Luyt, & Zawadzka, 2015). ...
Recent events such as the US presidential campaign have polarised public opinion, particularly in terms of support for ‘populist’ political figures, e.g. Donald Trump, and the seemingly non-egalitarian ideologies that they promote. One might anticipate that disempowered social groups, such as women or sexual minorities, would reject ‘rightwing populism’, as it rarely appears to advocate their interests or facilitate their empowerment. Yet the existence of movements like ‘Gays for Trump’ and ‘#WomenWhoVoteTrump’ indicate more complex patterns of support. How might we understand this from gender and sexualities perspectives? This paper presents the proceedings of a round table discussion. Our contributors, members of a crossinstitutional social psychological Gender and Sexualities Research Group, each presented a brief five-minute interpretation of the phenomenon. They did so from gender and/or sexualities perspectives, drawing upon different social psychological theory. A chaired debate followed. Key themes from the round table are identified which are potentially helpful in understanding the phenomenon. The broader implications of these themes for practice and theory are considered in terms of the concept of ‘safe identities’.
... These attitudes are characteristic of what has been called "hostile sexism" and help to explain why the gender gap is not larger than it appears in our data. See Glick and Fiske (2001), Frasure-Yokley (2018), Cassese and Barnes (2019), Cassese and Holman (2019), Glick (2019), Luks and Schaffner (2019). 12 In this regard, little has changed since Clarence Thomas squared off against Anita Hill in 1991: https ://www.aei.org/polit ...
Two current members of the U.S. Supreme Court took their seats despite allegations of sexual harassment (Clarence Thomas) and sexual assault (Brett Kavanaugh) leveled against them during their confirmation hearings. In each instance, the Senate vote was close and split mainly along party lines: Republicans for and Democrats against. Polls showed that a similar division existed among party supporters in the electorate. There are, however, differences among rank-and-file partisans that help shape their views on the issues raised by these two controversial appointments to the nation’s highest court. Using data from a national survey of registered voters, we examine the factors associated with citizens’ attitudes about the role of women in politics, the extent to which sexism is a problem in society, the recent avalanche of sexual harassment charges made against elected officials and other political (as well as entertainment, business, and academic) figures, and the #MeToo movement. We are particularly interested in whether a strong sense of partisan identity adds significantly to our understanding of people’s attitudes on these matters. In addition, our experimental evidence allows us to determine whether shared partisanship overrides other factors when an elected official from one’s own party is accused of sexual misbehavior.
... While there is some indication that overt sexism toward women in politics is declining (e.g., Teele, Kalla, and Rosenbluth 2018), whether this is true for women who run for the highest office in US politics remains unknown because it is largely unchartedand therefore underanalyzedterritory. Thus far, postmortems of the 2016 election that account for the role of sexism and gender have found direct effects (e.g., Bracic, Israel-Trummel, and Shortle 2019;Cassese and Holman 2018;Glick 2019;Schaffner, Macwilliams, and Nteta 2018;Valentino, Wayne, and Oceno 2018). Here, our effort was to shine more light on whether perceptions of candidates' gender (femininity and masculinity) affected their success. ...
The prevalence of gender stereotypes in US politics is well documented, yet questions remain: do voters think of presidential candidates in gendered terms and, if so, is there a connection to support? To answer these questions, we analyze survey respondent descriptions of 2016 primary and general election presidential candidates. We assess whether descriptions are gendered, if gender slurs are applied more to the female candidate, and whether these descriptions are associated with candidate support. We find that Hillary Clinton is described in more masculine than feminine terms, with a higher frequency of gendered slurs than other candidates. Bernie Sanders is described with more feminine than masculine traits, and Donald Trump is overwhelmingly described as masculine. As expected, Trump’s support is associated with more masculine and less feminine trait attributions. However, masculine descriptions of Clinton are associated with lower levels of support, consistent with role congruity theory and the persistence of the double bind for female candidates.
... These attitudes are characteristic of what has been called "hostile sexism" and help to explain why the gender gap is not larger than it appears in our data. See Glick and Fiske (2001), Frasure-Yokley (2018), Cassese and Barnes (2019), Cassese and Holman (2019), Glick (2019), Luks and Schaffner (2019). 12 In this regard, little has changed since Clarence Thomas squared off against Anita Hill in 1991: https ://www.aei.org/polit ...
It is well established that Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions during his candidacy and presidency endorsed existing group-based social hierarchies, helping to boost his support among white Americans, especially men and those without a college degree. But how did these endorsements shape support for Trump among non-white Americans? Extant theories suggest that these actions should have pushed racial and ethnic minority voter support for the GOP candidate to its lowest observed levels in contemporary political history. Yet Trump outperformed these expectations in 2016 and in 2020 among Black, Latino, and Asian American voters. We propose the same embrace of social hierarchies that motivated white support for Trump also motivated the political preferences and behaviors of a significant number of non-white Americans. Using several national large-N surveys conducted between 2011 and 2021 with large samples of Black, Latino, and Asian Americans, we explore how support for existing status hierarchies—both gender and racial—engendered support for Trump across racial and ethnic groups and discuss implications for the future of electoral politics in a rapidly diversifying United States.
Schertzer and Woods have written a timely, rigorous, and thoughtful examination of the rise of ethnic nationalism in the West. The book adeptly anchors the political mobilization of white majorities in the defensive postures that define them while simultaneously explaining the broader historical and cultural contexts that are so often missing from contemporary analyses. This critical analysis fell short, however, in its relative lack of engagement on issues related to gender and the gendered mobilization of nationalist and extremist backlash, including violence. But aside from brief mentions of the case of the 2016 U.S. election and the femonationalism of Marine Le Pen and others like her, the arguments put forth in the book suffer from an inattention to gendered dimensions in ways that hollow out the explanatory power of their claims by leaving out some of the most persuasive evidence about the role that gender, hostile sexism, and misogyny play in mobilizing support for violent extremism, political violence, nationalist movements, and other forms of xenophobic and exclusionary ideas. In this book debate essay, I briefly lay out what I think was missed and why it matters.
While the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the lives of many people worldwide, it is debated whether it led to the defeat of incumbent Donald Trump in the 2020 American presidential election. We argue that the COVID-19 pandemic had a significantly negative impact on Trump’s support due to his conflicting and populist rhetoric, which culminated in contradictory behavior at a time when Americans sought a consistent leader to “rally round the flag.” We use both waves of the ANES 2020 Survey to determine what support for Trump would have looked like if the COVID-19 pandemic had lower influence in citizens’ electoral decision-making compared to real world conditions using regressions and a counterfactual strategy. Our findings suggest that Trump’s electoral defeat depended on multiple factors, with aggregate-level analyzes suggesting that Trump would have received more support had the management of the health crisis mattered less in voting decisions.
According to ambivalent sexism theory (Glick & Fiske, 1996), the coexistence of gendered power differences and mutual interdependence creates two apparently opposing but complementary sexist ideologies: hostile sexism (HS; viewing women as manipulative competitors who seek to gain power over men) coincides with benevolent sexism (BS; a chivalrous view of women as pure and moral, yet weak and passive, deserving men’s protection and admiration, as long as they conform). The research on these ideologies employs the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, used extensively in psychology and allied disciplines, often to understand the roles sexist attitudes play in reinforcing gender inequality. Following contemporary guidelines, this systematic review utilizes a principled approach to synthesize the multidisciplinary empirical literature on ambivalent sexism. After screening 1,870 potentially relevant articles and fully reviewing 654 eligible articles, five main domains emerge in ambivalent sexism research (social ideologies, violence, workplace, stereotypes, intimate relationships). The accumulating evidence across domains offers bottom-up empirical support for ambivalent sexism as a coordinated system to maintain control over women (and sometimes men). Hostile sexism acts through the direct and diverse paths of envious/resentful prejudices, being more sensitive to power and sexuality cues; Benevolent sexism acts through prejudices related to interdependence (primarily gender-based paternalism and gender-role differentiation), enforcing traditional gender relations and being more sensitive to role-related cues. Discussion points to common methodological limitations, suggests guidelines, and finds future avenues for ambivalent sexism research.
Emerging research on antifeminism documents widespread antagonism among young men toward women and marriage. However, no quantitative study has explicitly investigated the connection between men’s antifeminist ideals and marital desire. Using a nationally representative sample of young Korean men ( n = 1,061), the author examines the latent variables of men’s antifeminist sentiments and their association with marital desire. Exploratory factor analysis revealed two dimensions of men’s antifeminist ideals: support for male superiority (e.g., men deserve greater power in society than women) and perceived male victimhood (e.g., male discrimination due to feminism). Support for male superiority predicted more positive attitudes toward marriage. On the contrary, male victimhood predicted substantially less favorable attitudes toward marriage and marital intention. The findings emphasize the multidimensionality of antifeminist sentiments and suggest a new avenue for understanding young men’s marital disinterest in a postindustrial context, that is, perceived male victimhood due to feminism.
This article examines misogynist comments on women politicians as part of the campaign discourse for the 2019 General Elections in India. The objective is to understand and critically examine the broad patterns of misogynist discourse during election times and the socio-cognitive interface that enables such misogyny. Using a Critical-Feminist-Socio-Cognitive-Discourse Analysis, which combines Lazar’s Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and Van Dijk’s Socio-Cognitive Approach, we analyse the explicit stating and implied underpinnings of 22 misogynist comments and identify 4 broad patterns and 8 sub-patterns. We argue that, while sharing similarities with global patterns and stereotypes of misogyny, election misogyny in India originates in socio-cognitive and cultural tropes unique to its patriarchal society. When reproduced in misogynist verbal attacks directed at female politicians, these historically rooted misogynist tropes further reinforce the dominant patriarchal culture and add to the attempts to delegitimize Indian women’s political representation and agency.
Political scientists recognize discriminatory attitudes as key to understanding a range of political preferences. Sexism is associated with both explicitly and non-explicitly gendered attitudes. But why do certain individuals display discriminatory attitudes, while others do not? Drawing from psychology, we examine the potential power of an underexplored set of personality traits— secure versus fragile self-esteem —in explaining gendered attitudes and preferences. With an online sample of ( N = 487) U.S.-based participants, we find that fragile self-esteem is an important trait underlying individuals’ attitudes: individuals who display a discordant view of self—explicitly positive but implicitly negative—are more likely to hold hostile sexist attitudes and prefer men in leadership; these individuals are also more likely to support the Republican Party and former U.S. president Donald Trump. While present in only a fraction of the population, our results suggest that this trait may be important for understanding the development of discriminatory attitudes toward out-groups.
Using data from the 2017 European Values Study, I analyze the link between harboring traditional gender attitudes and supporting radical right-wing parties. I theorize that the intrinsically gendered elements of the radical right's platforms and rhetoric, which mirror traditional masculinity and femininity in both explicit and implicit ways, make the ideology a comfortable home for individuals who hold traditional gender attitudes. My analyses reveal that gender traditionalists are more likely than egalitarians to express support for the radical right, even after controlling for a host of existing explanations. The same impact is not replicated for mainstream conservative parties. In addition, holding more gender-traditional attitudes raises the probability of supporting the radical right among both nativists and non-nativists. These findings provide important evidence that gender attitudes seemingly constitute a significant pathway to support for the radical right across Europe.
Abortion access has been found to have more support when the circumstances are traumatic, i.e., rape, rather than personal choice. The study is an examination of the factors that influence support for Alabama’s anti-abortion House Bill 314 (HB 314) under three different scenarios of traumatic abortion, depicting the bill’s ramifications: a married woman who is raped and denied an abortion, a single woman who is raped and denied an abortion, and a pregnant, unmarried woman allowed an abortion for health reasons. Participants (n=873) were randomly assigned in equivalent numbers to one of three conditions, in which they were exposed to a vignette depicting one of the scenarios and asked afterward whether they supported the ramifications of HB 314. Participants also provided demographic information and completed surveys assessing factors such as religious rigidity, authoritarianism, and moral conviction on abortion. The results of logistic regression indicate that the factors influencing support of the bill differ by scenario. The most consistent predictors of abortion opposition were right-wing authoritarianism and being male. Participants responded differently depending on whether trauma was the cause of (i.e., rape) or the reason for (i.e., endangered health of mother) the abortion: abortion opposition was lower for abortion with traumatic reason, with authoritarians most likely to oppose abortion access in that scenario. Evangelical Christians were over four times as likely as others to oppose single, versus married, women’s access to abortion after rape. Results indicate that future studies of abortion opposition should analyze traumatic causes and reasons separately. Researchers also should consider potential mediators of the correlates of abortion opposition found here. It may be that some other factor such as conventionalism or authoritarian submission, which was significantly higher for Christian participants, is mediating the relationship between evangelical Christianity and strict opposition to abortion access.
From the beginning of his first presidential run in 2015, Donald Trump regularly used nicknames to deride his opponents’ appearances, demeanors, beliefs, or personal histories. Employing such nicknames defied norms of campaigning and captured media attention, but little is known about how these monikers penetrated public awareness, were perceived by the public, and shaped evaluations of those targeted. Examining Trump’s effort to label Joe Biden as “Sleepy Joe” offers a window through which to begin to answer such questions. Findings from an August 2020 survey experiment reveal that those who participate in politics are likely to contemporaneously know the nicknames Trump is using during the campaign. Perceptions of nickname accuracy were shaped by political beliefs. Amongst a random subset of survey participants asked to consider the use and intent of “Sleepy Joe” more deeply, those who knew it going in and also approved of how the President did his job were the only ones to look significantly more negatively upon Biden. Subsequent findings also reveal the extent to which Americans have forgotten Trump’s nicknames of past rivals, calling into question whether such a strategy leaves lasting legacies.
Endorsing Obama in 2008 licensed some Americans to favor Whites over Blacks––an example of moral self-licensing (Effron, Cameron, & Monin, 2009). Could endorsing a female presidential candidate in 2020–21 similarly license Americans to favor men at the expense of women? Two high-powered, pre-registered experiments found no evidence for this possibility. We manipulated whether Democrat participants had an opportunity to endorse a female Democratic candidate if she ran against a male candidate (i.e., Trump in Study 1, N = 2143; an anti-Trump Republican or independent candidate in Study 2, N = 2228). Then, participants read about a stereotypically masculine job and indicated whether they thought a man should fill it. Contrary to predictions, we found that endorsing a female Democrat did not increase participants' tendency to favor men over women for the job. We discuss implications for the robustness and generalizability of moral self-licensing.
Why are women and people of color under-represented in U.S. politics? I offer a new explanation: strategic discrimination. Strategic discrimination occurs when an individual hesitates to support a candidate out of concern that others will object to the candidate’s identity. In a series of three experiments, I find that strategic discrimination exists, it matters for real-world politics, and it can be hard to overcome. The first experiment shows that Americans consider white male candidates more electable than equally qualified Black and white women, and to a lesser extent, Black men. These results are strongly intersectional, with Black women rated less electable than either Black men or white women. The second experiment demonstrates that anti-Trump voters weigh Democratic candidates’ racial and gender identities when deciding who is most capable of beating Donald Trump in 2020. The third experiment finds that while some messages intended to combat strategic discrimination have no effect, diverse candidates can increase their perceived electability by showing that they have a path to victory. I conclude by arguing that strategic discrimination is especially salient in contemporary U.S. politics due to three parallel trends: increasing diversity among candidates, growing awareness of sexism and racism, and high levels of political polarization.
We propose that a key reason why the workplace gender revolution has stalled (England, 2010) is that work remains the site of masculinity contests among men. In this article, we outline a theoretical framework for thinking about work as a masculinity contest, beginning with a brief review of scholarship on masculinity and exploring how the workplace is a context in which men feel particular pressure to prove themselves as “real men.” We identify different dimensions of masculinity along which employees may compete and how the competition may differ by work context. We propose that organizations with Masculinity Contest Cultures (MCCs) represent dysfunctional organizational climates (e.g., rife with toxic leadership, bullying, harassment) associated with poor individual outcomes for men as well as women (e.g., burnout, low organizational dedication, lower well‐being). We discuss how papers in this special issue contribute insight into MCCs and end with a discussion of the contributions made by conceptualizing work as a masculinity contest, and directions for future research.
Elections involving women candidates in the United States can offer unsettling examples of voter gender stereotypes, but research on women candidates provides little in the way of available data that allow us to link stereotypes to voter decision-making. This project reports results from a 2010 survey designed to examine gender stereotypes, candidate evaluations, and voting behavior in U.S. House elections with women candidates running against men. In general, stereotypes are not a central part of candidate evaluations or voting decisions, but the political party of the woman candidate can shape their role in candidate evaluations and vote choice.
To evaluate the impact of actual and perceived similarity on interpersonal attraction, we meta-analyzed 460 effect sizes from 313 laboratory and field investigations. Results indicated that the associations between interpersonal attraction and both actual similarity (r = .47) and perceived similarity (r = .39) were significant and large. The data also indicate that (i) actual similarity was important in no-interaction and short-interaction studies, (ii) there was a significant reduction in the effect size of actual similarity beyond no-interaction studies, and (iii) the effect of actual similarity in existing relationships was not significant. Alternatively, perceived similarity predicted attraction in no-interaction, short-interaction, and existing relationship studies. The implications of perceived similarity, rather than actual similarity, being predictive of attraction in existing relationships are discussed.
Two studies using Peter Glick and Susan Fiske's Ambivalent Sexism Inventory examined sexist men's attitudes toward women. The authors hypothesized that ambivalent sexist (as compared with nonsexist) men would habitually classify women into polarized subgroups (those they put on a "pedestal" and those they place in the "gutter"). Study 1 revealed that ambivalent sexism predicted greater polarization in men's evaluations of spontaneously generated female subtypes. Study 2 demonstrated that the negative component of sexist ambivalence (hostile sexism) predicted less favorable evaluations of women in a nontraditional role (career women), whereas the subjectively positive component of sexist ambivalence (benevolent sexism) predicted favorable feelings toward women in a traditional role (homemakers). Implications for the nature of sexist ambivalence (and other forms of ambivalent prejudice) are discussed.
Attitudes toward female authority and their relationship to gender beliefs were examined using implicit and explicit measures of each. Implicit attitudes covaried with implicit gender authority beliefs (i.e., linking men to high-authority and women to low-authority roles). Explicit attitudes covaried with explicit gender authority beliefs, feminist identification, and hostile sexism. Thus, gender authority beliefs may influence both conscious and unconscious prejudice against female authorities. Although women showed less explicit prejudice than did men, their implicit attitudes were similarly negative. Finally, the relationship found between two different response latency methods (a priming task for attitudes, a categorization task for beliefs) supports the assumption that implicit measures assess similar constructs (i.e., automatic associations in long-term memory).
Unlike womanhood, manhood is widely viewed as a status that is elusive (it must be earned) and tenuous (it must be demonstrated repeatedly through actions). This focus on the structure—rather than the content—of gender roles can shed new light on men’s use of action and physical aggression. Here, we review theory and research connecting manhood, action, and aggression. We interpret men’s aggression and aggressive displays as behaviors that effectively demonstrate manhood and thus quell men’s concerns about their gender status. Moreover, we suggest that situational and cultural factors that heighten the precariousness of manhood also increase the likelihood of male aggression.
The authors present a theory of sexism formulated as ambivalence toward women and validate a corresponding measure, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI). The ASI taps 2 positively correlated components of sexism that nevertheless represent opposite evaluative orientations toward women: sexist antipathy or
Hostile Sexism (HS) and a subjectively positive (for sexist men) orientation toward women,
Benevolent Sexism (BS). HS and BS are hypothesized to encompass 3 sources of male ambivalence: Paternalism, Gender Differentiation, and Heterosexuality. Six ASI studies on 2,250 respondents established convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. Overall ASI scores predict ambivalent attitudes toward women, the HS scale correlates with negative attitudes toward and stereotypes about women, and the BS scale (for nonstudent men only) correlates with positive attitudes and stereotypes about women. A copy of the ASI is provided, with scoring instructions, as a tool for further explorations of sexist ambivalence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two experimental studies examined the effect of power-seeking intentions on backlash toward women in political office. It was hypothesized that a female politician's career progress may be hindered by the belief that she seeks power, as this desire may violate prescribed communal expectations for women and thereby elicit interpersonal penalties. Results suggested that voting preferences for female candidates were negatively influenced by her power-seeking intentions (actual or perceived) but that preferences for male candidates were unaffected by power-seeking intentions. These differential reactions were partly explained by the perceived lack of communality implied by women's power-seeking intentions, resulting in lower perceived competence and feelings of moral outrage. The presence of moral-emotional reactions suggests that backlash arises from the violation of communal prescriptions rather than normative deviations more generally. These findings illuminate one potential source of gender bias in politics.
The authors argue that complementary hostile and benevolent components of sexism exist across cultures. Male dominance creates hostile sexism (HS), but men's dependence on women fosters benevolent sexism (BS)--subjectively positive attitudes that put women on a pedestal but reinforce their subordination. Research with 15,000 men and women in 19 nations showed that (a) HS and BS are coherent constructs that correlate positively across nations, but (b) HS predicts the ascription of negative and BS the ascription of positive traits to women, (c) relative to men, women are more likely to reject HS than BS, especially when overall levels of sexism in a culture are high, and (d) national averages on BS and HS predict gender inequality across nations. These results challenge prevailing notions of prejudice as an antipathy in that BS (an affectionate, patronizing ideology) reflects inequality and is a cross-culturally pervasive complement to HS.
The 2016 presidential election was one of the most politically charged and volatile elections in recent history. The election also saw its first female candidate, Hillary Clinton, represent a major political party. Prior research is inconclusive on how biases can affect political outcomes, with some research showing that racism has affected presidential elections, while others have shown that sexism does not affect elections. However, agentic women often face discrimination and backlash when seeking positions of power. The current study sought to extend past work by examining the potential role of sexism in the 2016 election. After controlling for participant sex, time of participation, and political party identification, it was found that individual differences in hostile sexism and traditional attitudes toward women significantly predicted voting for Donald Trump. These results suggest that voter attitudes toward women may have played a role in the election outcome.
The estimated 52% of white female voters who supported Donald Trump for President of the United States in 2016 animates this dialogue on the politics of groups and identities. The Trump majority among white women exists in contrast to strong support of Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton among women of color as well as minority men. While many observers were surprised at the high proportion of white female Trump voters, this pattern of electoral behavior supporting Republican Party candidates is a consistent phenomenon since the 1950s in U.S. Presidential elections. The pattern is both clear and easily visible, and provides an important clue to better understand the dynamics of race and gender in electoral politics. I argue for political scientists to pursue intersectional analytical perspectives by situating voting behavior within the context of a polity beyond the black-white binary of race and ethnicity. I suggest analysts consider the positionality of white women as second in sex to men, but first in race to minorities, and the invocation of white womanhood in political rhetoric and practice as a potential explanation of the Trump majority.
The 2016 election has triggered new interest in and speculation about longstanding questions about the roles of race, gender, and sexuality in American politics. We argue that rather than anomalous and exceptional, the 2016 election represents an extension – and perhaps the beginning of a consolidation – of enduring and intersecting configurations of racialized and gendered power, marginalization, and oppression. We examine some of the ways in which these intersecting configurations structure and are structured by American politics, exploring some of the political consequences of proximity to or distance from the benefits of white heteropatriarchy.
Part I. From There to Here - Theoretical Background: 1. From visiousness to viciousness: theories of intergroup relations 2. Social dominance theory as a new synthesis Part II. Oppression and its Psycho-Ideological Elements: 3. The psychology of group dominance: social dominance orientation 4. Let's both agree that you're really stupid: the power of consensual ideology Part III. The Circle of Oppression - The Myriad Expressions of Institutional Discrimination: 5. You stay in your part of town and I'll stay in mine: discrimination in the housing and retail markets 6. They're just too lazy to work: discrimination in the labor market 7. They're just mentally and physically unfit: discrimination in education and health care 8. The more of 'them' in prison, the better: institutional terror, social control and the dynamics of the criminal justice system Part IV. Oppression as a Cooperative Game: 9. Social hierarchy and asymmetrical group behavior: social hierarchy and group difference in behavior 10. Sex and power: the intersecting political psychologies of patriarchy and empty-set hierarchy 11. Epilogue.
The masculine overcompensation thesis asserts that men react to masculinity threats with extreme demonstrations of masculinity, a proposition tested here across four studies. In study 1, men and women were randomly given feedback suggesting they were either masculine or feminine. Women showed no effects when told they were masculine; however, men given feedback suggesting they were feminine expressed more support for war, homophobic attitudes, and interest in purchasing an SUV. Study 2 found that threatened men expressed greater support for, and desire to advance in, dominance hierarchies. Study 3 showed in a large-scale survey on a diverse sample that men who reported that social changes threatened the status of men also reported more homophopic and prodominance attitudes, support for war, and belief in male superiority. Finally, study 4 found that higher testosterone men showed stronger reactions to masculinity threats than those lower in testosterone. Together, these results support the masculine overcompensation thesis, show how it can shape political and cultural attitudes, and identify a hormonal factor influencing the effect.
Until recently, the study of gender development has focused mainly on sex typing as an attribute of the individual. Although this perspective continues to be enlightening, recent work has focused increasingly on children's tendency to congregate in same-sex groups. This self-segregation of the two sexes implies that much of childhood gender enactment occurs in the context of same-sex dyads or larger groups. There are emergent properties of such groups, so that certain sex-distinctive qualities occur at the level of the group rather than at the level of the individual. There is increasing research interest in the distinctive nature of the group structures, activities, and interactions that typify all-male as compared with all-female groups, and in the socialization that occurs within these groups. Next steps in research will surely call for the integration of the individual and group perspectives.
21 times Trump assured us he respects women
- A Blake
Ambivalent Sexism in the 21st Century.” In Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Prejudice
- R A Connor
- P Glick
- S T Fiske
Finding Gender in Election 2016: Lessons from Presidential Gender Watch
- K Dittmar
Reactions to Vanguards: Advances in Backlash Theory
- L A Rudman
- C A Moss-Racusin
- P Glick
- J E Phelan
Trump Mocked Clinton's “Woman Card.” He Forgets that makes the Election about Masculinity
- K Steiger
Benevolent Sexism and the Status of Women
- P Glick
- L Raberg