Psychology of Women Quarterly

This article reports two studies aimed at developing a new scale of attitudes toward women, incorporating six theoretically derived perspectives: conservative; liberal, radical, socialist, and cultural feminist; and women of color (womanist). In Study 1, an initial pool of 306 items was given to 117 respondents. Selection of 10 attitudinal and 3 behavioral items from each perspective for the final scale was based chiefly on item-total correlations. In Study 2, the Feminist Perspectives Scale was administered to 344 respondents and showed reasonable reliability and validity. For Femscore, a composite of five feminist attitudinal subscales, Cronbach's alpha was .91; test–retest correlations were .91 at 2 weeks and .86 at 4 weeks. Empirical data provided generally good support for the six perspectives, and factor analysis produced partial support for the six-perspective structure.

Henley and colleagues' results, obtained in the process of developing a scale to measure the diversity of feminist attitudes, highlight a dilemma for feminist researchers in psychology. On the one hand, we advocate research based on feminist theory. On the other, we believe that research should begin with the lived experiences of women, from which theory should be generated, rather than forcing women's responses into a predetermined theoretical mold. Several aspects of Henley and colleagues' results contradict feminist theory. I argue that researchers should use empirical data to refine feminist theories.

This article presents a new application of cluster analytic methodology to the study of gender role attitudes. We developed a preliminary typology of men's profiles of masculinity ideology in a sample of 217 upper-level undergraduates stratified across all academic divisions at a large, public university in the midwest. Based on cluster analyses of four dimensions of masculinity ideology, five patterns of endorsement were identified: Moderately Traditional, High Status/Low Violence, Nontraditional, High Violence/Moderately Traditional, and Traditional. Preliminary validity of this cluster solution was demonstrated by significant differences by cluster in gender role egalitarianism.

Internalization of sociocultural norms about the body has been theorized to be an important factor in fostering body dissatisfaction in women. Some theorists have suggested that a lesbian identity may buffer or immunize lesbians from the damaging effects of society's pressure to be thin by reducing this internalization. This study was designed to test this claim empirically. Questionnaires were completed by 108 lesbians and 115 heterosexual women recruited through snowball sampling. Lesbians felt more fit, reported less negative attitudes toward their lower bodies, and internalized sociocultural norms less than heterosexual women. For all women, internalization of sociocultural norms significantly predicted body attitudes. Lesbians and heterosexual women appear to be similarly exposed to and aware of society's messages, and as such their body attitudes substantially overlap. However, lesbians are buffered from these views in some specific areas. These differences appear to be primarily the result of differential internalization of sociocultural norms.

This article explores therapists' responses to clients' suspicions that they have repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Each participant was randomly assigned one of two vignettes, varied for gender, each concerning a client who suspects that he/she is a victim of CSA. Following the vignette, a series of questions regarding the client assesses the participants' ratings of diagnoses, treatment goals, treatment plans, appropriate responses, and validity of suspicions. Participants were significantly more likely to endorse a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and endorse treatments focusing on present symptoms over treatments focusing on the client's past. Participants were unlikely to endorse controversial treatments, suggestive statements, or strong opinions regarding the client's suspicions of CSA. The client's gender had a significant effect on diagnoses only. These results do not support reports that many therapists neglect clients' current symptoms and instead focus on memories, use controversial techniques, make suggestive statements regarding abuse, or immediately assume that their clients have repressed memories.

An extensive body of literature has documented the widespread and damaging nature of sexual harassment and assault on college campuses, yet little research has investigated the impact of such victimization on the academic climate. This study examined experiences of sexual harassment and assault among 1,037 female undergraduate and graduate students, with a particular focus on educational outcomes. Multivariate analyses of variance revealed significant negative effects of harassment and assault on perceptions of academic climate. We also investigated the extent and effects of double victimization (i.e., experiences of both harassment and assault), as well as the relationships among sexual harassment types, incidence rates, and frequencies. Issues of sexual orientation and race/ethnicity are explored throughout the article, with membership in different groups affecting victimization incidence rates as well as harassment labeling.

According to the traditional sexual script, women—but not men—engage in token resistance to sex, refusing when they actually intend to engage in sex. Several studies have found that over a third of the college women sampled reported refusing sexual intercourse when they intended to engage in it. We asked 65 women and 64 men to write narratives describing their experiences conforming to the definition of token resistance used in previous studies. As in previous research, both women and men reported engaging in token resistance. However, most respondents apparently misunderstood the definition because they wrote narratives that did not meet this definition. These results refute the stereotype that most women—and only women—engage in token resistance to sex. Furthermore, these results cast doubt on prevalence data reported in previous studies. Results indicate that the overwhelming majority of women and men who say “no” to sex actually mean no.

This article examines the effects of participant gender, researcher gender, and group gender composition (ratio of women to men) on individual judgments about an ambiguous, hypothetical, sexual harassment grievance. The participants (116 men and 113 women) served on five-person mock hearing boards. A main effect for participant gender was found (p < .01), with significantly more women (58.4%) making affirmative sexual harassment judgments than men (35.3%). A significant three-way interaction (p < .01) revealed that, when led by male researchers, men in groups where they were the numerical minority (3 women/2 men) made significantly lower ratings, indicating less belief that sexual harassment had occurred (M = 2.83), than those men in groups where they were in the majority (2 women/3 men, M = 4.87; 4 men/1 woman, M = 4.88). Ingroup and outgroup behavior observed by Rogers, Hennigan, Bowman, and Miller (1984) is proposed as a possible explanation for these results.

The question of gender associations with moral reasoning and values has received a great deal of attention since Gilligan first published In a Different Voice in 1982. Various authors have argued that women are less hierarchical, more relational, more caring, more empathetic, and more concerned about not harming others than men. Yet, these claims have been questioned by other scholars. Data from a small survey of college students are used to address this question. We found that, in examining students' narrative justifications of their opinion on a particular question of military intervention, gender was related to the type of justification used in a manner consistent with the arguments of Gilligan. We argue that “objective” tests are less likely to detect this difference than content analyses of narratives. The different bases of judgments have implications for political opinions as well as interpersonal interactions.

Surveys of 14 African American and 30 White women firefighters support reliability and validity claims for the Sexist Discrimination in the Workplace subscale of the Schedule of Sexist Events, developed by Klonoff and Landrine (1995). The more sexist events at work these women reported in the past year, the lower the perceived valuation of respondents by coworkers and the greater the job stresses associated with token status, with being a pioneering woman and with being treated differently.

Research has demonstrated links between sexual abuse and disordered eating among women in college student and mental health samples. Little is known about such relationships among women from other samples or the relationship between other forms of childhood abuse as well as disordered eating (vomiting, starvation, laxative abuse). Prevalence of disordered eating was significantly higher among women who indicated a perceived childhood history of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse or who had personally witnessed violence.

This study explored the association between interpersonal factors and depressive symptoms in first-time mothers over the first two years of parenthood. An interpersonal style characterized by dependency, recollections of rejection in childhood, and current relationship characteristics was assessed in a nonclinical sample of 133 women. The final model explained 52% of the variance in depressive symptoms at 24 months. Controlling for initial symptom levels, interpersonal variables explained 24% of the outcome variance. The findings suggest that two interpersonal attributes, peer rejection in childhood and a dependent interpersonal style, are particularly important to our understanding of depressive symptomatology.

To explore the operation of the sexual double standard, 111 men and 143 women evaluated either a male or female target, described in a fictitious interview as involved in either monogamous or multiple heterosexual relationships and depicted as engaged in either above average, average, or below average levels of sexual activity. Targets described as involved in multiple relationships or depicted as engaged in above average levels of sexual activity were evaluated less positively than targets in other conditions. Women presented as more sexually active were seen as more liberal and more assertive than other female targets. In this study the sexual double standard was not operating in the formation of overall evaluations of individuals, but it did exert influence on other judgments that people make about men and women.