RESEARCH INTERESTS:RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Men's dominance of the political, economic, and religious institutions of virtually all societies is hypothesized to create Hostile Sexism -- an ideology by which men justify their social control through derogatory stereotypes of women and the restriction of women to domestic roles.
This hostile form of prejudice is, however, tempered by subjectively positive (for the sexist) feelings toward women that stem from men's dependency on women as romantic partners, wives, and mothers. We label this "Benevolent Sexism": it is sexist because it includes the endorsement of traditional roles for women (and is generally correlated with hostile sexism), but "benevolent" in that it represents a set of subjectively positive attitudes toward women. These "positive" beliefs include the notion that women have many valued traits (such as "purity") that men lack, that women's roles (e.g., wife) complement and enable separate male roles (e.g., provider), and a romanticized view of women as intimate partners (e.g., the belief that men are not "complete" without a female partner).
Hostile and benevolent sexism are related ideologies (both reinforce traditional gender stereotypes and role divisions), but they have opposing implications for attitudes toward individual women. Hostile sexism is the "stick" and benevolent sexism the "carrot" that sexist men use to keep women "in their place." What is particularly strong about this approach is that it offers a more comprehensive theory of sexism based on underlying social and biological factors that should be relevant across many cultures. It is a framework that recognizes the complex nature of sexism as a deeply ambivalent prejudice rather than simple misogyny.
See my short on-line vita for references on ambivalent sexism.
To take the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, our measure of hostile and benevolent sexism, click here.