Research suggests that White women often experience more gender backlash than women of color in response to expressions of agency. We consider whether this differential in backlash is driven by the match or mismatch of the race of both perceivers and targets. Much of the existing work in this space examines the perspective of White perceivers, which might underestimate racial minority women’s susceptibility to backlash if backlash occurs primarily in same-race interactions. We examine how the racial group memberships of targets and perceivers jointly affect backlash against gender-norm violating women. In analyses of Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford’s accusations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh and Anita Hill’s accusations against Clarence Thomas during their respective U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, an archival analysis of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and two experiments, we find that perceivers of different races tend to express more backlash toward racial in-group than out-group women.
AbramsD.VikiG. T.MasserB.BohnerG. (2003). Perceptions of stranger and acquaintance rape: The role of benevolent and hostile sexism in victim blame and rape proclivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(1), 111–125. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.1.111
2.
AkinolaM.MartinA. E.PhillipsK. W. (2018). To delegate or not to delegate: Gender differences in affective associations and behavioral responses to delegation. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1467–1491. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.0662
3.
AllportG. W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Addison-Wesley.
4.
AmanatullahE. T.TinsleyC. H. (2013). Punishing female negotiators for asserting too much . . . or not enough: Exploring why advocacy moderates backlash against assertive female negotiators. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 120, 110–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2012.03.006
5.
American National Election Studies. (1993). American National Election Study, 1992: Pre- and post-election survey [enhanced with 1990 and 1991 data] [Dataset]. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR06067.v3
6.
American National Election Studies. (2017). American National Election Studies 2016 time series study [Dataset]. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36824.v2
BemS. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42(2), 155–162. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036215
9.
BerdahlJ. L.MinJ.-A. (2012). Prescriptive stereotypes and workplace consequences for East Asians in North America. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 18(2), 141–152. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027692
Bonilla-SilvaE.GoarC.EmbrickD. G. (2006). When whites flock together: The social psychology of white habitus. Critical Sociology, 32(2–3), 229–253. https://doi.org/10.1163/156916306777835268
12.
BrescollV. L.OkimotoT. G.VialA. C. (2018). You’ve come a long way . . . maybe: How moral emotions trigger backlash against women leaders. Journal of Social Issues, 74(1), 144–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12261
13.
BrewerM. B. (1979). In-group bias in the minimal intergroup situation: A cognitive-motivational analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 86(2), 307–324. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.86.2.307
ChowR. M.LoweryB. S.HoganC. M. (2013). Appeasement: Whites’ strategic support for affirmative action. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(3), 332–345. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212475224
ChuangR.WilkinsC.TanM.MeadC. (2020). Racial minorities’ attitudes toward interracial couples: An intersection of race and gender. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 24, 453–167. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430219899482
18.
ColesT. (2009). Negotiating the field of masculinity: The production and reproduction of multiple dominant masculinities. Men and Masculinities, 12(1), 30–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X07309502
19.
EaglyA. H.WoodW.DiekmanA. B. (2000). Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal. In EckesT.TrautnerH. M. (Eds.), The developmental social psychology of gender (pp. 123–174). Psychology Press.
20.
GalinskyA. D.HallE. V.CuddyA. J. C. (2013). Gendered races: Implications for interracial marriage, leadership selection, and athletic participation. Psychological Science, 24(4), 498–506. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612457783
21.
GauntR. (2013). Breadwinning moms, caregiving dads: Double standard in social judgments of gender norm violators. Journal of Family Issues, 34(1), 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X12438686
22.
GhavamiN.PeplauL. A. (2012). An intersectional analysis of gender and ethnic stereotypes: Testing three hypotheses. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 37(1), 113–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684312464203
23.
GlennE. N. (2000). The social construction and institutionalization of gender and race. In FerreeM. M.LorberJ.HessB. B. (Eds.), Revisioning gender (pp. 3–43). Rowman & Littlefield.
24.
HallE. V.HallA. V.GalinskyA. D.PhillipsK. W. (2019). MOSAIC: A model of stereotyping through associated and intersectional categories. Academy of Management Review, 44(3), 643–672. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2017.0109
25.
HeilmanM. E.CaleoS. (2018). Combatting gender discrimination: A lack of fit framework. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 21(5), 725–744. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430218761587
26.
HoA. K.SidaniusJ.KteilyN.Sheehy-SkeffingtonJ.PrattoF.HenkelK. E.FoelsR.StewartA. L. (2015). The nature of social dominance orientation: Theorizing and measuring preferences for intergroup inequality using the new SDO 7 Scale. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(6), 1003–1028. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000033
27.
HoA. K.SidaniusJ.LevinD. T.BanajiM. R. (2011). Evidence for hypodescent and racial hierarchy in the categorization and perception of biracial individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(3), 492–506. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021562
28.
HoffmanL. W.KloskaD. D. (1995). Parents’ gender-based attitudes toward marital roles and child rearing: Development and validation of new measures. Sex Roles, 32(5–6), 273–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01544598
29.
JohnsonK. L.FreemanJ. B.PaukerK. (2012). Race is gendered: How covarying phenotypes and stereotypes bias sex categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(1), 116–131. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025335
30.
JuddC. M.ParkB. (1988). Out-group homogeneity: Judgments of variability at the individual and group levels. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(5), 778–788. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.5.778
31.
JunS.LoweryB. S.GuilloryL. (2017). Keeping minorities happy: Hierarchy maintenance and Whites’ decreased support for highly identified White politicians. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(12), 1615–1629. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217722554
32.
KnowlesE. D.PengK. (2005). White selves: Conceptualizing and measuring a dominant-group identity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(2), 223–241. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.2.223
33.
LarsenK. S.LongE. (1988). Attitudes toward sex-roles: Traditional or egalitarian?Sex Roles, 19(1–2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00292459
34.
LinvilleP. W.JonesE. E. (1980). Polarized appraisals of out-group members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38(5), 689–703. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.38.5.689
LivingstonR. W.RosetteA. S.WashingtonE. F. (2012). Can an agentic Black woman get ahead? The impact of race and interpersonal dominance on perceptions of female leaders. Psychological Science, 23(4), 354–358. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611428079
37.
LumleyT. (2017). Survey: Analysis of complex survey samples (R package version 3.32). R Core Team.
38.
MarinA. J.GuadagnoR. E. (1999). Perceptions of sexual harassment victims as a function of labeling and reporting. Sex Roles, 41(11/12), 921–940. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018888614601
39.
MarquesJ. M.PaezD. (1994). The “black sheep effect”: Social categorization, rejection of ingroup deviates, and perception of group variability. European Review of Social Psychology, 5(1), 37–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/14792779543000011
40.
MarquesJ. M.YzerbytV. Y.LeyensJ.-P. (1988). The ‘black sheep effect’: Extremity of judgments towards ingroup members as a function of group identification. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420180102
41.
McMahonJ. M.KahnK. B. (2018). When sexism leads to racism: Threat, protecting women, and racial bias. Sex Roles, 78(9–10), 591–605. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0828-x
42.
McPhersonM.Smith-LovinL.CookJ. M. (2002). Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of Sociology, 27(1), 415–444. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415
43.
MollicaK. A.GrayB.TreviñoL. K. (2003). Racial homophily and its persistence in newcomers’ social networks. Organization Science, 14(2), 123–136. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.14.2.123.14994
OkimotoT. G.BrescollV. L. (2010). The price of power: Power seeking and backlash against female politicians. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(7), 923–936. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167210371949
46.
ParkB.RothbartM. (1982). Perception of out-group homogeneity and levels of social categorization: Memory for the subordinate attributes of in-group and out-group members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(6), 1051–1068. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.42.6.1051
47.
PascoeC. J. (2003). Multiple masculinities? Teenage boys talk about jocks and gender. American Behavioral Scientist, 46(10), 1423–1438. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764203251483
48.
PrenticeD. A.CarranzaE. (2002). What women and men should be, shouldn’t be, are allowed to be, and don’t have to be: The contents of prescriptive gender stereotypes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26(4), 269–281. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.t01-1-00066
49.
PulerwitzJ.BarkerG. (2008). Measuring attitudes toward gender norms among young men in Brazil: Development and psychometric evaluation of the GEM scale. Men and Masculinities, 10(3), 322–338. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X06298778
50.
Purdie-VaughnsV.EibachR. P. (2008). Intersectional invisibility: The distinctive advantages and disadvantages of multiple subordinate-group identities. Sex Roles, 59(5–6), 377–391. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-008-9424-4
51.
PykeK. D.JohnsonD. L. (2003). Asian American women and racialized femininities: “Doing” gender across cultural worlds. Gender and Society, 17(1), 33–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243202238977
52.
RatliffK. A.RedfordL.ConwayJ.SmithC. T. (2019). Engendering support: Hostile sexism predicts voting for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 22(4), 578–593. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430217741203
53.
RichesonJ. A.SommersS. R. (2016). Toward a social psychology of race and race relations for the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Psychology, 67(1), 439–463. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115115
54.
RidgewayC. L.Kricheli-KatzT. (2013). Intersecting cultural beliefs in social relations: Gender, race, and class binds and freedoms. Gender and Society, 27(3), 294–318. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243213479445
55.
RosetteA. S.KovalC. Z.MaA.LivingstonR. (2016). Race matters for women leaders: Intersectional effects on agentic deficiencies and penalties. Leadership Quarterly, 27(3), 429–445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2016.01.008
56.
RudmanL. A.FairchildK. (2004). Reactions to counterstereotypic behavior: The role of backlash in cultural stereotype maintenance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(2), 157–176. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.2.157
57.
RudmanL. A.Moss-RacusinC. A.GlickP.PhelanJ. E. (2012). Reactions to vanguards: Advances in backlash theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 167–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-394286-9.00004-4
SagarH. A.SchofieldJ. W. (1980). Racial and behavioral cues in Black and White children’s perceptions of ambiguously aggressive acts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(4), 590–598. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.39.4.590
60.
SchugJ.AltN. P.KlauerK. C. (2015). Gendered race prototypes: Evidence for the non-prototypicality of Asian men and Black women. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 56, 121–125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2014.09.012
61.
SchumanH.SteehC.BoboL.KrysanM. (1997). Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations (Rev. ed.). Harvard University Press.
62.
SellersR. M.SheltonJ. N. (2003). The role of racial identity in perceived racial discrimination. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(5), 1079–1092. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.5.1079
63.
SeskoA. K.BiernatM. (2010). Prototypes of race and gender: The invisibility of Black women. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 356–360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2009.10.016
64.
SidaniusJ.PrattoF. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. Cambridge University Press.
65.
SimmonsJ. P.NelsonL. D.SimonsohnU. (2013, January17–19). Life after P-hacking [Conference session]. Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, New Orleans, LA, United States. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2205186
66.
SmithJ. A.McPhersonM.Smith-LovinL. (2014). Social distance in the United States: Sex, race, religion, age, and education homophily among confidants, 1985 to 2004. American Sociological Review, 79(3), 432–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122414531776
67.
StillwellA.LoweryB. S. (2020). Gendered racial boundary maintenance: Social penalties for White women in interracial relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 121, 548–572. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000332
68.
ThomasE. L.DovidioJ. F.WestT. V. (2014). Lost in the categorical shuffle: Evidence for the social non-prototypicality of black women. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 20(3), 370–376. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035096
69.
TinklerJ.ZhaoJ.LiY.RidgewayC. L. (2019). Honorary Whites? Asian American women and the dominance penalty. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 5, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023119836000
YamawakiN. (2007). Rape perception and the function of ambivalent sexism and gender-role traditionality. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 22(4), 406–423. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260506297210
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
