Attitudes toward Women in Co-Ed and All Female Drug Treatment Programs

Abstract

This research reports on a comparison between sex role attitudes in co-ed treatment programs and an all female treatment program. Eighty residents, sixty males and twenty females, and thirty-eight staff, twenty-two males and sixteen females, of Marathon House, the largest drug rehabilitation community in New England completed Spence and Helmreich's Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS). The AWS was also administered to four staff and twelve residents at Caritas House, an all female therapeutic community in Rhode Island. The results from the AWS indicate that female staff at Marathon House and Caritas House have significantly more liberal attitudes toward women than the male staff at Marathon House. Female residents of both Houses have significantly more liberal attitudes on the AWS than male residents of Marathon House. Surprisingly, however, the female residents at Marathon House have almost identical scores on the AWS to female residents at Caritas House even though residents at Marathon House are exposed to the attitudes of both male and female staff, whereas residents at Caritas House are exposed only to the attitudes of an all female staff.