Masculinity and Femininity by Racial Identification: Racialized Differences in Responses to Self-Rated Gender Scales for Cisgender Men and Women

Abstract

Gradational gender scales, which ask respondents to rate their masculinity and femininity, have become increasingly popular on social surveys. Nonetheless, there is little descriptive work to show differences in response to gradational gender scales by other socially relevant identities, such as race and ethnicity. This data visualization uses original survey data (N = 2,483) to display the means and 95 percent confidence intervals of responses to self-rated masculinity and femininity for cisgender men and women. Across all racial groups, there are high levels of masculinity and femininity for the “sex-typical” scales (e.g., femininity for women) and lower levels for the “sex-atypical” scales (e.g., masculinity for women). Nonetheless, there are significant differences between racial groups that align with intersectional theories of gendered racialization (e.g., higher self-rated masculinity for Black women and higher self-rated femininity for Asian men than their White counterparts). The findings encourage further subgroup analysis with gradational gender scales in the future.

Gradational gender scales, which ask respondents to rate their masculinity and femininity on separate scales, are becoming increasingly common on social surveys (Westbrook and Saperstein 2015). The European Social Survey accepted the gradational scales for the upcoming Round 11 (European Social Survey 2020), and the U.S. Trans Survey added the scales on its 2022 wave of data collection (U.S. Trans Survey 2022). Gradational gender scales have revealed important insights into mechanisms driving long-studied gendered disparities, such as in self-rated health (Hart et al. 2019) and feelings of safety (Choi and Merlo 2021). However, little descriptive work has been done to study how these scales interact with other salient socially constructed sociodemographic characteristics, like race and ethnicity.

Gradational Gender Scales

The set of scales outlined by Westbrook and Saperstein (2015) have separate unipolar scales for masculinity and femininity. The self-rated scales ask: “In general, how do you see yourself?” The reflected appraisal scales ask: “In general, how do most people see you?” The scales go from 0 (not at all feminine/masculine) to 6 (very masculine/feminine). Importantly, these scales can be asked in tandem with other measures of identity, such as a two-step gender measure, to study differences in masculinity and femininity by subgroups. Due to the racialization of gender, I evaluate differences in masculinity and femininity by commonly identified racial/ethnic identity groups.

Discussion

I used original survey data (N = 2,483) collected in February 2022 in the United States and UK, and Figure 1 displays means and 95 percent confidence intervals of self-rated and other appraised masculinity and femininity for cisgender men and women by racial/ethnic identity. The data were collected on Lucid using demographic quotas for sex, region, age, education, and, in the United States, race. Respondents were able to check multiple boxes for racial/ethnic identification. Further details and replication files are available in the Supplemental Information.

Figure 1.

Self-rated masculinity and femininity by racial/ethnic category and gender.

Figure 1 displays cisgender men and women’s masculinity and femininity. Across each racial/ethnic grouping, the highest means for masculinity and femininity were in the “sex-typical” scales (i.e., masculinity for men; femininity for women). Between racial groups within the sex-typical scales, there were some notable differences that correspond to other theories of racialization and masculinity. For instance, Black men had significantly higher self-rated and other appraised masculinity than White men, and Asian men had significantly lower self-rated and other appraised masculinity than other men of color, such as Black men and Latino men. There was large within-group variance (and thus larger standard errors) for the sex-atypical scales (i.e., masculinity for women; femininity for men), which resulted in few statistically significant differences between racial/ethnic groups. Men’s self-rated femininity, in particular, had high levels of within-group variation. Further analysis of group differences using Benjamini and Hochberg p value corrections is provided in the Supplemental Information.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-srd-10.1177_23780231231186073 – Supplemental material for Masculinity and Femininity by Racial Identification: Racialized Differences in Responses to Self-Rated Gender Scales for Cisgender Men and Women

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-srd-10.1177_23780231231186073 for Masculinity and Femininity by Racial Identification: Racialized Differences in Responses to Self-Rated Gender Scales for Cisgender Men and Women by Christina Pao in Socius